Callum stared at the clock behind the bar as the digital readout flicked over to read 12:01 am. It was officially Monday. He survived the weekend. He was going to marry Jack today and, God willing, Jack would let him finally come. Callum had promised Jack no less than ten times a day that he wouldn’t even look at his cock again without his permission if Jack would just put him out of his misery, but every time Jack just kissed him softly and repeated the same word, Monday.

Sundays at Rapture were always busy, but generally slower than Friday or Saturday so the night dragged on with Callum literally counting the seconds until last call. At quarter to two, Callum flipped the house lights on and caught a glimpse of a familiar looking mop of curly brown hair near the side door.

There was less than two dozen people left in the club who were now reluctantly making their way toward the exit, but Keith wasn’t one of them. He was loitering near the side exit, looking around nervously. Callum ducked out from underneath the bar and ran to the office, pushing the door open.

“Verity, can you watch the bar a minute?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder.

“Sure,” they said, pushing back from Landon’s desk and maneuvering past Callum toward the bar.

Callum jogged toward the door Keith had been in front of in time to see him push it open and slip into the dark. Callum caught the door with his hand, pushing it open and calling out, “Keith!”

The door closed behind him and Callum jogged down the side of the building, calling out a second time. Keith’s steps faltered and he stopped, looking over his shoulder at Callum nervously.

“Yeah?” he questioned, his eyes darting around suspiciously.

“I’m Callum. I’m the bartender?”

Keith nodded. “Alright. And?”

“Uh, well, I just haven’t seen you around, and Justin and Micah, you know, they seem worried about you is all,” Callum explained, closing the space between them.

“Are they here?” he asked, rubbing his throat absentmindedly.

“No. I haven’t seen them tonight.”

In the dim light on the side of the building, Keith looked tired. It could have just been the shadows from the one amber light mounted behind them, but Keith had what looked like dark bags under his eyes and worry lines around his mouth.

“I need to talk to them.”

“You should call them,” Callum suggested.

“I can’t. It’s not safe.” Keith dared another glance over Callum’s shoulder, then behind him again.

“What are you talking about?” Callum asked, confused. He reached for Keith and grabbed his hand, tugging him back toward the door. “Come inside and we can give them a call.”

Under the light more directly now, Callum realized the shadows on Keith’s face weren’t bags, but bruises.

“Keith, what the fuck is going on?” Callum turned away and grabbed the door knob. It was locked. In his distraction over Jack and finding Keith, he’d forgotten to disengage the auto-locking deadbolt on his way out. “Come on, we’ll go in the front.”

Keith let Callum pull him a few steps out of the light before he started to resist.

“It’s not safe,” he protested. “It wasn’t safe for them and I left and I need to warn them that he knows.”

“Who knows?” Callum asked, trying to tug Keith toward the parking lot again.

“I do.” A deep voice carried over the sound of crunching gravel and dirt, stopping Callum and Keith in their tracks.

“Fuck,” Keith mumbled, gripping Callum’s hand tighter.

Callum’s adrenaline spiked, his entire body going on alert as the stranger who blocked their path to the parking lot came closer. Step by step and then there was a second set of footsteps that had Keith shaking his hand free of Callum’s hold.

There were two men blocking their path to the parking lot, both tall and broad, dressed all in black. They stepped into the light and Callum saw that one of the men had a goatee, the other was clean shaven; they both had black ski-hats on, pulled low over their ears.

Callum looked behind him as his and Keith’s fingers disconnected in time to see Keith dart toward the back of the building. The man with the goatee lunged, making a quick chase and slamming Keith down into the dirt. He let out a pained oomph noise and Callum turned back toward the first man. He opened his mouth to call for help, but was stopped short by a beefy fist connecting with his jaw.

He stumbled backward, rubbing his jaw with his hand then he lunged forward with a shout, pummeling a fist into the man’s chest. Callum quickly knew it would be a losing battle, though. The man was easily twice his size, his hands so big they wrapped around Callum’s biceps completely.

“Keith!” Callum shouted, realizing there was still another struggle going on. He was able to look behind him in the direction Keith had taken off and found him on his stomach, his face pressed into the dirt while the man attempted to wrestle him into submission.

Keith squirmed and kicked out, struggling valiantly until Callum recognized a familiar sound of metal on metal that was followed by a sharp scream from Keith’s mouth and a renewed struggle.

Callum managed to shake loose from his assailant and he made it one step toward Keith, but found himself stopped by a rough hand in his hair yanking him backward. The man spun him around and punched him in the jaw again.

“The fight isn’t with you,” the man said. “Let us do what we came to do and you won’t get hurt.” As he spoke, the man loosened his own belt and whipped the leather strap free of his pants before working his zipper down.

Callum took a swing so hard it threw him off balance. He stumbled back, his shoulder blades connecting with the brick wall of the building. The man was on him again, punching his head, his face, even his chest. Callum could feel the man’s erection press against his hip. He renewed his struggle, swatting helplessly in front of him. A heavy punch landed near his throat, and a searing pain vibrated through his body. Callum cried out, agony wrenching through his collarbone to his shoulder and arm. He raised his other arm to try and shield his face, but he felt the bone of his clavicle grind, obviously broken.

“Help!” he cried, as loud as he could through tears he didn’t realize he’d been shedding. His follow-up shout was cut off by a hand around his throat, the grip so strong it forced his entire body up the wall. The movement yanked his collarbone and he sobbed, a watery and gasping plea as the bone in his broken clavicle rubbed against itself.

The pain was so great he wasn’t aware he was struggling to breathe until his vision darkened around the edges. He raised his left arm and scrabbled at the man’s hand, but he was held firm. Callum kicked his legs out, making contact with the man’s thighs and shins, but never the ground.

Callum had the fleeting thought of dying like this—suspended in the air. Is this what Landon meant when he’d talked about feeling so vast? There wasn’t anything anchoring Callum to the earth beyond the fingers curled around his throat and the bricks at his back. It was a peculiar feeling of near weightlessness that danced around a pressing fear of vanishing into oblivion.

His shoulder hurt, he couldn’t open his left eye, and his throat felt like he’d swallowed fire. He whimpered, now afraid he’d never get to see Jack again. The man’s hand tightened and, with a grunt of exertion, he shoved Callum harder against the wall. It knocked the remaining breath from his lungs and he was allowed one fleeting moment to mourn the vows he’d never get to speak, then everything went black.