TWENTY-SIX
The people in the hallway stared at him. Chris pulled the hood on his jacket up to cover his hair and ducked his head. Why didn’t they stop staring?
“He kicked me out,” he said to no one in particular. The hall was the world. He had no idea what to do outside of the safety of the small hospital room.
“I think he wanted to give his family privacy to speak freely.” The woman came up to just a little taller than his shoulders. She was too close, looking up at him with…his own damned eyes…how had he not seen that?
“Speak freely about what? Me? So they can tell him he can’t see me?” He’d spent the last few days going out of his mind in a way he’d never had to deal with before. People died. All the time. They died right in front of him and that was the end of it. Or they went away to the hospital and never came back. He understood death. He didn’t understand Micah’s half death…the waiting for him to wake up. The waiting for him to be with Chris. And now he couldn’t be with Chris because his family wasn’t happy with him.
“I think it’s more about how they’re terrified for him and he’s arguing with them about that. He is such an argumentative person. I think that his coming out to them was a relief, because he was alive.” Kady hooked her arm through his when he tucked his hands into the pockets on the jacket. “Let’s go find a waiting room so we can talk.”
“I have nothing to say to you.” He let her drag him along the hall until they came to a little alcove with a couple of vending machines and a few hard plastic chairs. At least there were no people inside to stare at him.
“Fine. I’ll do the talking.” She all but shoved him into a seat across from the machines. “Do you want something to drink or eat?”
“I don’t have any money. Sam is going to bring me something to eat later.” Chris sat in the chair and pulled his knees up to his chin. He wrapped his arms around his legs and wanted to rock. God, he’d resisted the urge all damned week. Fighting off the habits that he’d had all of his life was exhausting.
“Sam went back to the house to survey the damage. He sent me to keep you company.” Kady didn’t look at him while she studied the selection in the drink machine and put in cash. She brought back two bottles of the same soda. “Here. And don’t argue. I know it’s your favorite.”
He took the maroon bottle and twisted off the lid. She was right. “So you know my favorite soda drink, so what?”
“It’s mine too.” She pulled a long drink from her bottle as she sat beside him in nearly the same pose. Sneakers in the seat, knees up. Except she leaned back while Chris leaned forward.
“Did you know?” He’d sworn to never speak of the lies that man had told that night. He’d sworn to block that whole night out. He was good at blocking out things he didn’t want to remember. He’d had too much time to think this week. Too much time waiting for his life to start or stop.
“Did I know what? There are so many things that could allude to if you think about it long enough.” She didn’t answer. She evaded and sipped her drink.
Chris leaned back in the seat and let his head fall against the wall. “I don’t know.”
She turned in the chair to face him, feet still in the seat and her arms still around her knees. Another sip of the drink. She put the lid back on and swirled the liquid in the half empty bottle. “I don’t remember my mother. My real mother. I’ve never even seen a picture of her. Her name isn’t on my birth certificate. I barely know my father, Kit.”
Chris gave her a look that told her what he thought of that name.
“Okay, I forgot. Just…I don’t even understand why you suddenly hate the name. I don’t understand anything that happened that night.”
“You betrayed me, Kaitlynn. I trusted you with my computers. I let you into my life. I let you get close. And you gave him complete access to my life.” That’s the part of the night he couldn’t forget. The part he couldn’t pretend was a lie. The man had blown up his house. He’d shot Micah. He’d told so many lies. Chris could pretend he was insane and never give his ramblings a second thought. But what Kady did…he couldn’t forgive that. “Micah is in there because you let him into my security and he used it to spy on us.” Chris didn’t want to think about it anymore.
“I know. God. Fuck. I know.” She ducked her head to hide her face behind her knees. “He lied to me too, Chris. You have got to believe me. So yeah, I hacked into your computer and helped myself to some access codes. That’s on me. I am definitely guilty of that. And I’ll end up in jail for my part in all of this.” She dropped the soda bottle and it rolled across the floor. “I was so stupid. I believed everything he said. I knew how the town felt about…well, I guess that’s not really your fault is it? It’s your house. You don’t have to let strangers into if you don’t want them there. And the tourists stopped coming long before the house closed down.”
“But you did it anyway.” He wasn’t ready to forgive anyone. “Sam was attacked in his bedroom. If Micah hadn’t been here, he might have died.”
“I know that, Chris. Do you think I don’t know what I did?” She sobbed the words out. Finally looking at him as she cried. “I went back in and locked him out as soon as I found out. He’d promised he wasn’t going to hurt anyone. He was only getting in and out of the house to take the valuable things in the wing no one ever goes into. He didn’t think anyone would notice. Or miss any of the things he stole.”
“I find it charming that you think that’s acceptable behavior.”
“I grew up poor. Unlike you with the 24 karat gold baby rattles and bullshit. I was poor. My father rarely ever sent home money and my stepmother couldn’t give two shits about me. They all blamed the Auberons. I grew up thinking your family was up there eating cake while we all starved.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it. That’s personal accountability gone off the fucking rails.”
“I didn’t get to go to college. There was no money for me to go to college.”
Chris remembered that she said that she’d barely graduated high school. So was she lying to him now or then? “I was in a mental institution when I was thirteen. They starved me there. And beat me. Because I’m high functioning autistic and I sometimes can’t be normal.”
She looked at him then. There was horror in her eyes. Of course she didn’t know. No one knew that. “No. That can’t be true. Why would you lie to me?”
Chris unzipped his jacket and let the garment fall down his back. He knew what was there. Scars from the razor thin belt they’d used to get his attention. Little pink scars that no one saw because no one looked at him.
“I cut myself. This I admit. I did my arms and my legs. But I can’t reach my back.” He pulled his jacket back on and zipped it up, pulling the hood back up to hide his face from his former friend when she gasped and made to deny his confession. “I spent two years there. And another three locked away in my own home. I couldn’t go outside. I had a small room that was more like a cell and this was what my family did to me. You got to go to high school. You had friends and a life in the sun. I lived in the dark. My only friends were an old man and a computer. And my uncle didn’t even want me to have the computer. So when you start accusing me of having everything… maybe I would have switched lives with you in a heartbeat. Did you ever think of it that way? If what that man said was true. That you’re…”
He shook his head. He wasn’t going to believe that. Not for a moment. “He helped his brother murder my parents. One of them shot my parents in the back of their heads. The other one set the house on fire and burned their bodies. One of those men was your father. I just don’t know which one he was. I can’t tell them apart in my memory right now. And if he is telling the truth and I am his son and you are my twin sister…then your father murdered your mother. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want that truth.”
She stopped crying and stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. She wasn’t the first to look at him like that. Everyone in his life looked at him that way at one time or another. Except Micah. Micah had accepted every piece of crazy that was thrown at him and still hadn’t looked at him like that. One day he would forget about the sexual attraction and then when Chris’s dark came back to swallow him, even Beastly would look at him as if he were insane.
“Kit…I don’t believe that. I don’t want to believe any of that.” She got up to retrieve her dropped soda and walked it to the trash by the vending machines.
“Why are you here?” He didn’t want to have this discussion with her. If the lies were true and the truths were lies then what was the point. She wasn’t his sister. She wasn’t even his friend. Just some girl who used him for her own personal gain. She wasn’t the first to try but she would be the last.
She paced the room, her too long legs moving her through the cramped room in three steps. And then three steps back the other way. She didn’t answer. And he didn’t want to spend his evening watching her trying to absolve her own guilt when the man she helped almost murder was lying in the room down the hall awake and in love with him. Unless his family was telling him that he couldn’t be gay and that he couldn’t love Chris. And then where would Chris be? He had no home anymore. He had no family. He wouldn’t have Micah and that wasn’t something he could bear right now.
“Kit, did you hear me?” She’d stopped in front of him and called him that name to get his attention.
“No. I stopped caring. What did you say?” He had bigger things to think about.
“He wants to see you. Sam refuses to let the police question you. But he has a right to see you.”
“He has no right to make any demands of me. He has no rights at all. He killed my parents. He tried to kill me. Twice. And he shot Micah. I will not ever—” Chris was shouting at her now. He didn’t care if this was a public place. Who the hell did she think she was?
“You’re absolutely right.” Never the voice of reason, his uncle came into the room, carrying a take-out bag of food and being reasonable. Chris didn’t know what to make of that. “Good afternoon, Miss Burke.”
“What are you doing here?” Chris was even less happy to see his uncle than he was his rumored sister. “What happened to Sam?”
“The butler is seeing to the house as he should.” Gideon placed the food on the table not far from Chris. “He sent me to feed you. And try to talk you into going to the hotel to sleep. Maybe get you to understand that your friend may never wake up and that you need to let go.”
Chris seriously doubted Sam would say anything of the sort. “Considering he woke up less than an hour ago…pardon me if I don’t take your advice.”
Gideon looked shocked. Hadn’t he stopped by the room before coming to the waiting area? “The nurses didn’t mention it to me when they told me where to find you. But that’s great, Kit. Just great.”
“Christopher. I’d appreciate it if you addressed me as Christopher from here on.” Chris wasn’t in the mood to deal with his two least favorite people. He wanted to get back to Micah but didn’t want to intrude upon his family reunion.
Gideon sighed and took a seat opposite from him. Kady moved to stand near the window. She didn’t leave. Chris wished she would. “Christopher,” he said in that way that made Chris wonder what he wanted. “I know you think you’re in love, son.”
Chris realized how grating that word really was hearing it from his uncle’s mouth. No wonder Micah hadn’t liked his stepfather calling him that. “I’m not your son. I’m not anything to you but a meal ticket. I suggest you think really hard on our relationship and if I were you, I’d be wondering exactly how much of my memory was jogged the other night.”
“Are you threatening me, Kit?” Gideon sat back in the seat. He unbuttoned his suit jacket and looked as if he were getting comfortable.
“Are you taking it as a threat?” Chris had never made it a secret how much he loathed his uncle. “Because you should.”
“I’m not exactly sure what you think you can threaten me with. I’m not financially dependent upon you and I’ve never caused you bodily harm. So this hatred you’ve always felt for me has me completely baffled.” The big toothy fake grin Chris remembered oh so well made an appearance.
“I am the majority shareholder in my father’s company,” Chris said as he casually glanced into the take-out bags. “Is this poisoned? Maybe I should have Miss Burke be my taste tester.”
“You’re kidding right? Kit, you’re not exactly—” He smiled that smile and laughed that laugh that said Chris was just some stupid kid and should listen to him.
“You tried to kill me before. Why would I trust you now? And before we go on, I am very much aware of my inability to run your company…and I am not interested in following in my father’s footsteps. But I can gut and sell the company out from under you and not feel a moment of remorse.”
“You wouldn’t. There are several thousand employees. You’d tarnish your own name.”
“I’m not a businessman. What do I know?” Chris shrugged. The employees were the least of his concern. “You want to keep Auberon and Gideon a nice little family owned corporation and not have to answer to a corporate board that will most likely end up as a hostile takeover at some point…then, dear Uncle David, I suggest you stop fucking around in my life and stay out of my business. You do that and I’ll be happy to let things carry on as they are.”
“You ruthless little son of a bitch.” Gideon actually laughed. He leaned back in the chair and smiled. Almost happily. “I didn’t think you had a set of balls. Much less big enough to threaten me.”
“My balls work just fine thank you.” Chris felt a spark of unease. He knew the power had shifted back to his uncle, but he wasn’t sure how or what to do to get it back. “And Micah likes my balls right where they are.”
“Spare me the gory details of your newly found sex life.” David took a plate from the take-out bag and handed Chris the other one. “This isn’t going to be warm too much longer and Sam will bust both our balls if you don’t eat something. There’s enough for…” He looked over to the woman standing silently beside the window. “Your sister.”
“She’s not my sister.” Chris wasn’t interested in food. His stomach twisted around in knots trying to sort it all out. He’d been able to ignore it all while Micah was asleep but now he couldn’t.
“She looks a little like my sister. She has the same nose and her eyes are shaped the same. I suspect there’s some truth to his statement, Chris. Dinah was very secretive about her pregnancy. Most of the women I know wear their baby bumps proudly. Baby showers. Baby, baby, baby, baby from the moment they find out. And believe me, Dinah was incredibly happy to finally conceive. They’d tried so hard for nearly ten years of marriage.”
“Dinah?” Kady asked, her voice breaking on the name. “Did you say Chris’s mother was named Dinah?”
David gave her a sympathetic smile. “Yes, sweetheart it was. She was my sister. I loved her so much. And she married my best friend and for a long time it was all the absolute greatest part of my life. Until a couple of months after she announced she was pregnant when she became distant. So much so that she went into seclusion in one of the family country homes. I never even knew which house she’d retreated to. James would visit her, but come back so sad. Why?”
Kady finally crossed back over to sit beside Chris. Her attention on his uncle. “My middle name is Dinah. That’s why they call me Kady. It’s for my initials, KD. My dad…he would never use my given name. Never. He never said why. Never told me anything about my mother. Just that she didn’t want me and that he was stuck with me. I don’t know what to think about…what he said. He wants me to bring Kit…sorry, Chris to see him in the jail.”
“I can’t let Christopher visit that man. I’m sorry. It’s not going to happen.” He pointed to Chris with that finger he used when he was being a demanding asshole. “And don’t even think to argue with me on that. Nothing good will come of it.”
“I was planning to run right over.” Chris rolled his eyes at his uncle. “I enjoy this endless nightmare that is my so called life. All that’s missing is the crazy twin brother of the man I killed when I was eight years old getting in my head and making me believe they were doing it for my own good.”
“That is highly likely. He’s not exactly…” David looked at the woman sitting beside Chris and his expression changed. “I’m sorry, Miss Burke…Kady.”
She shook her head and wiped at her eyes. “Why? He did attack Sam. He did blow up the house. He did try to kidnap Kit…sorry Chris. He did try to kill Micah. I can’t defend him. I’m…just not…he’s my father. I wanted to trust him. I wanted to help him. Instead I let him convince me to do something I knew was wrong. I don’t want to believe any of it. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Chris knows I’m not going to harm him. But he doesn’t believe it. Same thing.” David suggested.
“You tried to slit my throat with a pair of scissors.” Chris could see that day in his mind very clearly.
“I did not. What the hell are you talking about?” David sputtered so much Chris thought he was going to have a heart attack right there. “I never tried to…what the hell?”
Chris closed his eyes as the memory formed. “It was raining. We were in the city. The windows were open and cool air was making the curtains drift like ghosts. I was cold. I was drawing. You were yelling at me to be still. You took my sketch book and threw it across the room. You held my chin…just like that morning…just like he did…just like…he’d tried to.” Chris couldn’t remember after that. He remembered blood. But there was always blood in the memories he didn’t want in his head and he couldn’t tell one from the other sometimes.
“I was giving you a haircut and you wouldn’t sit still,” David whispered, horror on his face. “I never thought a simple haircut would trigger you. I didn’t know…oh God. Is that what happened that day?”
Chris couldn’t remember. He grabbed the end of his hair and pulled, trying to remember. He’d stabbed his uncle because he thought he was back in that field. He didn’t want his hair cut and his uncle wouldn’t listen. He was going to cut off the straggly ponytail Chris wore then. He’d only wanted to draw but his uncle wouldn’t leave him alone. The scissors were shiny and flashed in front of his face and Chris had grabbed them and slammed them into his uncle before he could… “Oh god, oh god, oh god.”
Kady was beside him stroking his arm, but all Chris could do was try not to puke as he leaned over. The memory wouldn’t stop now. His uncle bleeding on the floor. Sam running in from the other room. The maid. Police. People took him away and locked him up. He’d killed his uncle and he was going to prison. And. “Oh god. I remember. I don’t want to remember. You wouldn’t listen to me.”
“I don’t understand sign language. I was trying to trim your hair. I didn’t know. I’m sorry. I didn’t stop to think that…”
“He’d react so badly?” Sam was in the room now. He wasn’t angry. Just…resigned. They’d had so much to deal with in this life. And it was all coming out now. Little bits, like worms, escaping Chris’s mind.
“I don’t want these memories. I don’t want this life. Why can’t any of you understand that? I don’t want the bad things I’ve done to be real. I’m the monster in the castle. I’m the reason the town died. I’m the monster.” The dark clawed at him. And he shoved everyone out of his way. He had to go. He had to before he hurt someone.
There was noise in the hallway that made him want to run. Too many people talking and shouting and arguing and he wanted to…
“Chris?” Micah walked into the room. Chris’s mind cleared and the dark icy fingers stopped scratching at him. “What’s wrong? I could hear you all the way—”
“You shouldn’t be up. You’re not ready to be up. You’ll die.” He shouldn’t be walking at all. Chris could see pain in his eyes. Nurses ran behind him, they tried to drag him back. But he kept coming. And Chris had to get to him. He had to keep him from falling like he had that day in the snow. He needed to touch him to know he was real. And not lying so pale and unmoving in that bed.
“Please don’t die on me.” Chris was in his arms but he wasn’t sure who was holding whom up.
“Don’t run away. I won’t die if you don’t run.” Micah clutched at his jacket as he swayed into Chris. “Promise me.”
“I won’t run. I won’t hide. I’ll be here.” Chris fought down the nightmare that was climbing up from the pit that was his memories. “If you go back to your bed.”
Micah smiled but his smile turned into a grimace of pure pain. “I think that’s probably the best idea. I don’t think I can get me back there.”
Chris wrapped Micah in his arms and held his weight off the floor. He couldn’t pick him up. Micah was too big for him. But he didn’t have to move him far. Just far enough to get him into the wheel chair the nurse pushed up behind him. “Some knight you are Beastly. I had to slay the dragon myself.”
“I was the damsel wasn’t I?” Micah laughed never realizing that Chris had lowered him into the chair.
“I would never think of you as the damsel. Unless you want to wear the pointy pink hat. Do you want a pointy pink damsel hat, Beastly?”
“If it makes you happy. Don’t forget the glass slippers.” Micah laughed again. The people around them looking at the two of them as if they’d lost their minds. But Micah wasn’t in pain anymore. At least not that he noticed and Chris’s mind was calm. “I have just one question.”
“I am not giving up my tiara, so don’t even ask,” Chris said taking Micah’s hand.
“Oh Princess, I don’t want your crown. I want to be the prince you come home too when you get done slaying dragons.” Micah’s family moved to the side as they wheeled him back into his room.
“Was that the question?” Did that sound like a proposal? Was a proposal one hour after waking up from a coma even a valid proposal?
“No. I just want to know…” Micah grabbed his hand and held it tight. He reached up to grasp Chris behind his neck and drag him down until their foreheads touched. Chris’s heart skipped too many beats and then did flip flops in his chest. “I really want to know who taught you to fight like that? I mean, you could fight professional MMA. It was incredible watching you take that guy down.”
“Oh.” Chris felt the air rush out of his lungs. “Oh. That was Sam. He’s pretty good at stuff like that. In between having a giant stick up his ass.”
“That makes absolutely perfect sense.” Micah laughed but he didn’t let Chris go. “Oh hey, something else I wanted to know.”
“Shoot,” Chris said and winced at the choice of words, but Micah didn’t notice he smiled again and pulled Chris closer.
“When I can stand up without scaring the shit out of a hospital full of people, will you maybe want to go get married or something? Because I’m scared to death I’m going to lose you if I don’t make you legally mine.”
Chris’s heart did that flip flop again and he tried not to let the tremble in his own knees send him sprawling in Micah’s lap. “I think that is the best idea you’ve ever had.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty smart like that.” Micah cradled his face in his hands and kissed him, right there in front of the nursing staff and their relatives and complete strangers.