Chapter 1
Wreckage
He should have been dead. Rune Tooby remembered all of it—the whole-body clench and rush of cold terror before the crash. The light blue Ford truck had cut him off and slammed on its brakes. Rune flew through the air over the front of his bike, landing with impact on the jagged rocks beside the steep road. The glare of headlights had swung over, piercing the inky night. His skin tore away in large patches, but that wasn’t even the bad part. He lay there frozen, unmoving, knowing something was wrong in a bad, piss-your-pants kind of way.
That dread only faded with time rather than being a one-and-done deal.
His clearest memory? The sounds before the crash.
He’d braked hard, wheels screaming as the road chewed rubber, the roar of the wind dull in comparison. The thud of his bike against the back of the pickup had been jarring in mental ways as well as physical.
All of it was chaos, noise, and violence, followed by only eerie stillness and pain.
And silence.
Lots of it.
He’d flown through the air and landed in Hell.
Before the crash, he’d had his own place. It was small but pretty sweet. Total privacy. Manageable rent. A landlord who rarely came around as long as the checks were sent on time. No one had been in his business. He sold product without The Born Soldiers—the motorcycle gang he’d been a member of since he was eighteen—getting mixed up in it. Sometimes the transactions were more of a trade than an exchange of money. He’d been able to afford it.
Now? Not so much.
The phone rested in his hand. His old contacts were all still there. His regulars and less-than-regulars.
He’d had a type.
Gay curious, closeted, tough on the outside while secretly slutty, totally submissive bottoms on the inside.
Some had wives. Others showed up with girlfriends, told them to wait in the car while they handled the deal. The girlfriends never knew what was really going on.
Staring at his phone’s screen, Rune tapped the name of the last guy who’d pulled that trick. Denis Coleman. The dude wore Nautica and American Eagle. He wore seven hundred dollar white sneakers. All of that shit. Had an effortless, just-rolled-out-of-bed beauty that took a solid hour and a half to painstakingly create. Dark blue eyes, chocolate brown hair, solid chest. Rune smiled at the memory of Denis scanning the cluttered room, nervous as a ten-year-old working up the nerve to shoplift a candy bar for the very first time. A peek through the blinds provided Rune with a view of the blonde waiting in the jeep two stories down, playing on her phone.
“Lookin’ for the discount?” Rune had asked, playing dumb, all wide-eyed and relaxed. “No big deal if you can’t handle it, long as you’ve got the full amount.”
Denis looked everywhere—the windows, the doors, the empty pizza boxes, the retro phone on the coffee table Rune had picked out of the trash in front of some McMansion in Berwyn. He stared at the black and gray ink wrapping both of Rune’s arms, starting at his wrists, crawling up his shoulders and hugging his neck. Denis glanced down at Rune’s crotch and bit his lip like he was hungry.
Fuck yeah, he was hungry.
Rune had fought back a cocky grin at the time. He played the game a little longer, just for fun.
“How much did you bring?”
“Fifty,” Denis grunted.
Not enough. Rune was ecstatic, flying on a natural high. He watched that trust-fund-baby bite his lip, his mouth watering for a taste, and it made Rune start to get hard, so he palmed himself, grabbing a good handful. Denis’s gaze went right there, staring at Rune’s inked fingers squeezing his thick bulge.
“If you wanna make up the difference, gonna have to work harder than last time.”
“Mm-hmm.” Denis nodded, jaw clenched, turning slightly to face Rune more directly, like he was a half-second away from getting on his knees. “Whatever.”
No more eye contact. There was only one thing on Denis’s mind. Did he even want the pills, Rune wondered? Or were they just an excuse?
Rune took his time walking over, and it seemed to drive Denis crazy. Denis actually inched closer to hurry it along. Rune stopped when he was invading Denis’s personal space. Denis wouldn’t look up. His gaze was trained downward, on Rune’s body. Rune had been barefoot, wearing a pair of jeans and a black sleeveless tank with The Born Soldiers’ logo sprawled across it like a cheap whore.
Rune grabbed him roughly by the back of the neck and yanked him in for a kiss, but it was Denis who tried to slip Rune his tongue and moaned when Rune allowed it.
Pulling away before Denis seemed ready, Rune growled, “Get on your fucking knees.”
Panting, Denis fell. His hands scrambled at Rune’s fly, yanking it open, pulling him out, rolling on the rubber. There had been another moan when he’d swallowed Rune down to the root, his dark blue eyes closing with peaceful bliss as his lips stretched around the thick column. Holding Denis’s head with both hands, Rune had begun fucking his mouth, not letting Denis tongue him leisurely like last time, slamming into the back of his throat, making him struggle to bear it.
The pace, the whimpers, the hunger and submission drove Rune on hard. It had been perfect.
But Denis had stopped him, pulled away, wiped his mouth with the back of his arm.
“Wait. Just… wait.”
“What d’ya fuckin’ mean, wait?”
Denis kept his gaze down, locked on Rune’s wet, hard dick.
“You just remember you had more cash or what?” Rune demanded, getting angry as Denis got to his feet.
“Just wait,” Denis had babbled. His hands went to his own fly and he turned around, got on the couch on his knees and pushed his pants and underwear down to mid-thigh.
And Rune had laughed, bright and loud, as Denis bent himself over, sticking out his ass.
“Well, okay then,” he’d smiled, grabbing hold of his rigid cock and aiming for a new target.
It took a good five minutes to stretch Denis enough to take two fingers on an easy slide, but Denis had been beating off the whole time, breathing like a runner on their final sprint. When Rune started to make him take cock instead, Denis shot over his fingers, his cry breaking off, his body convulsing with orgasm as Rune held him by his narrow hips and drew his ass back onto the dick impaling it.
He’d breathed easier for the rest, making soft cooing sounds like it was the best thing he’d ever felt. Rune came, filling the condom and they just stayed like that for a minute or two. Denis kept clenching on the dick like he wanted to make sure it was still stuffing his hole.
“Keep the money,” Rune had told him. “We’re square.”
“No, I’m good for it.”
Rune pulled out, watching his dick slide free, staring at the wet, loosened ring of muscle that was Denis’s sphincter. He stayed there, bent over the back of the couch, breathing hard, as if waiting for round two. As the silence drew out, he got the hint, pulled up his pants, dug out the fifty and dropped it on the cushion. After palming his purchase, he ran out of there without another word or backward glance.
That had been over a year ago, and Rune hadn’t gotten laid since.
He looked around the old storage room they’d cleared out for him when he’d gotten evicted. That had been seven months ago. It had a small cot and some boxes full of his stuff. There were a few bright lamps scattered around the space, because seeing clearly had become sickeningly important. There was a small whiteboard and a marker. The side of his hand always seemed smudged with black ink from the marker rather than his tattoos. Luckily it blended in.
It was just so fucking quiet.
He’d loved heavy metal music, kept it cranked to a low roar until his neighbors banged on ceilings or floors. The smooth tenor of his voice had been his charm, his in. It connected him with the guys in his crew. He’d always been chatty. Outgoing. Over-confident.
Now, he never said a single fucking word. His pride wouldn’t allow it. Way back when, he’d said fuck you to speech therapy. Hated that he couldn’t tell what was coming out of his mouth. Lost all of his plentiful confidence. Did an about-face and began keeping to himself, all the time. Stopped using his voice which only made it worse to try starting again. He could see it on their faces, from the first, how they shied away from trying to communicate with him. Maybe he sounded off. He didn’t know and was too afraid to ask. One thing he knew for sure was how uncomfortable he made them, for being so different than he’d been.
Most people that Rune encountered those days acted just like Denis in one respect—they never looked him in the eye. Their gaze slid off like he wasn’t really there, or like they were afraid he’d try to communicate with them and then they’d need to figure out how to do it in return. There was no desire, no hunger. No one wanted him to do anything except go away and stop making things awkward.
He didn’t sell anything anymore. His accounts had long been drained from the medical bills. Sometimes he did odd jobs for pocket money, but he had no steady gig. He didn’t have a place to live, or a bike, or a purpose.
There were no more calls from horny or hard-up guys like Denis. He still had an account on Grindr, but it would have been a joke if he tried to hook up with anyone. He pictured it—some hot, hard-bodied guy showing up at the club, a grizzled senior member like Axe pointing the poor bastard to the storage room, and Rune standing there with his board scribbled with “Hi, I’m Rune,” like the biggest shmuck in the world.
It never would have gotten that far, even if he was desperate. For all that Rune mocked his customers for staying in the closet, he’d never set a foot outside either. None of his friends knew he was gay. None of the crew. None of his family. Not even his therapist, or the people he found through Meetup.com to practice American Sign Language, ASL for short.
The crash should have killed him. He’d fractured small bones in the base of his skull, which had caused ossicular chain discontinuity, which meant he was completely, one hundred percent deaf. There was a slim chance surgery might improve his hearing, but he couldn’t afford it and was too scared of disappointment to try.
The road rash along his arms, legs and back had healed. He’d been slowly, steadily covering the scars with new tattoos. But he’d always be broken.
It had been about six months since the accident. His road rash had disappeared after a few weeks, but it took a lot longer for him to adjust to the other injuries and the many practical and financial consequences. He’d felt instantly distant from everyone and had no idea how to claw his way back to normalcy. What the long months had taught him was that now, no one wanted him. No one needed him. He was only trouble. A hardship. A weight his friends shouldn’t have had to carry.
Part of him needed to do something about the accident and the people who’d caused it, but it was hard to care enough to take the first steps at getting some revenge when he was barely getting through the days. Soon though, he told himself. Once things started to click again, he was going to act. The promise of that helped keep him going.
He hated the fucking quiet. It boiled his blood, brought out his rage. Made him want to smash things or scream or throw himself off the side of another cliff.
He opened his mouth, took the deepest breath he could, filling his lungs to bursting, and yelled as loud as he could, with all of his strength, until his throat ached.
Nothing.
Silence.
The lamp by the door began to blink—on, off, on, off.
It was the crude, light-based doorbell system the guys used for him. Because he was staying in the storage closet, the light switch was on the outside of the door rather than the inside. They flicked the switch a few times to let him know they were there. He sighed, rubbed his hands over his unshaven face, the bristles abrading his palms.
The door opened slowly. Max stuck his head in. He had a full, wild gray beard, a cap on his head and black, hard eyes.
His hands made shapes which meant: Are you okay?
But it was still silent.
The gap between the constant noise in Rune’s head and the rest of the world was a vast chasm. His options to explain what was wrong were so fucking limited. He could use the board, scribble a few words. He could make shapes with his hands, which only three people in his life understood. He could type words on his phone and have the phone read them aloud. He could pull his head out of his ass and say something he could never hear, in softened, rounded words.
And he was so tired of trying, so he just sat there, staring at Max, waiting to see how much might come over in the angry glare alone.
Max deflated a little, came in and shut the door behind him.
Rune decided to try a sign after all. He pointed his index finger up at the underside of his jaw and folded the other fingers in, his thumb stuck out. He mimed taking the shot, his head blowing back.
Max drew up a chair from the dusty corner of the small room and sat heavily in it, leaning forward. With his hands, he said: Go out. See something.
Max was learning how to sign. He was the only one who’d made the effort, but he was an old dog trying to tackle a new trick. His signs were simple, but they were better than nothing, especially since Max’s poor vision made using phones to talk nearly impossible, and the sad fact was that Rune was kind of shitty at lip-reading—especially with mumblers like Max—getting much less than the typical seventy percent of words that most lip-readers did.
Rune flopped back onto the bed.
Max smacked the side of Rune’s leg to get his attention, knowing if Rune wasn’t looking, he wouldn’t know if Max was trying to say something.
Rune understood Max’s frustration. It didn’t have to be this hard. Rune could speak, he just wouldn’t.
Once again, Rune made a gun of his hand and pointed it up at the underside of his head.
Max hit him again, hard enough to hurt.
Rune bit down on his tongue and closed his eyes.
Sometimes he didn’t bother signing his desperation. Sometimes he just pointed the one hundred percent real gun he owned and always carried at the underside of his chin instead, finger on the trigger, safety off, chamber loaded, waiting to see if he’d do it.
He’d been hiding in that closet for almost a year, with the dusty boxes and other forgotten, unneeded things.
His hand was taken up, folded into another, pulled away from where it had been pointed. Max gave it a squeeze with his callused, leathery palm. Rune glanced up at him, saw him mouth something that might have been an apology. It didn’t really matter. The feel of that hand in his meant a lot more, showing him that maybe he wasn’t really as alone as he felt.
Max nodded toward the door, stubborn as a mule. He did it again and again, yanking at Rune’s arm.
Rune stopped fighting and let himself be pulled. There was nothing out there that scared him more than what waited inside anyway.