Chapter Six
In the beginning, in Colombia, Lee had been afraid to die.
That lasted about an hour.
Then he’d been afraid he wouldn’t die, but the shock and the drugs took most of that away. Now, even when his mind was clear, he was rarely afraid. He was numb. Whatever happened would simply be inevitable. He’d been on this path from the moment the chopper landed in Colombia, and maybe even from the moment he’d been born. He just hadn’t known it then.
Most of the time, he was beyond fear, and he knew it wasn’t strength of mind or a philosophical decision he’d made. He was just too tired to fight anymore. He’d learned to shut his own mind down, even without the drug.
But now there was Shaw. Lee didn’t know what to make of Shaw.
He sat on the beach and shivered despite the heat.
Coming down was always the worst. The drugs made him nauseated as his system fought against them. His hands shook, and his mouth tasted sour. But at least this time, he wasn’t in the closet in the house, or anywhere near Vornis or Hanson or the guards. This time when his head had cleared, he was with Shaw. And he knew that was the safest place to be on the island. Shaw’s touch was gentle, solicitous. He was different.
“When I’m off this island I’ll get a message to your people.”
That had shocked Lee. It had shocked him so much it had penetrated beyond the drug. It had stayed with him. He didn’t know if he should trust it, but he held on to it because it was important. It was precious. It was like the painting Vornis had shown him.
“You like that, boy? Ninety-five million dollars. I could buy a thousand boys like you for that price. That’s a thing of fucking beauty, and you will thank Shaw on my behalf. Get on your knees.”
The boy in the red vest looked tired, Lee had thought as he’d obeyed. Tired and unhappy.
Lee shivered at the memory and looked out at the ocean. Shaw had sold Vornis that painting. That made Shaw some sort of art dealer, he guessed. Probably not the sort who owned a gallery and filed tax returns, though. Shaw wasn’t a good guy. There was no such thing on the island. But Shaw was different from the others.
Shaw had told him there were cameras in the bungalow. Shaw had told him he would make a call. And Shaw hadn’t hurt him. Shaw hadn’t hurt him, but he wanted it to look like he had. He denied he was different, but actions spoke louder than words. Lee didn’t understand it, but that was okay. He didn’t want to question his luck.
Lee watched Shaw swim. The sunlight reflected off the water and blinded him. He squinted, and shards of light stabbed his vision. He traced his hand along the edge of Shaw’s beach towel, and his fingers came into contact with the arm of Shaw’s sunglasses. He looked down at them and wished he could use them. But he knew it wouldn’t be worth the trouble if Hanson or his men spotted him.
He closed his eyes.
Shaw, he thought, wouldn’t care if he borrowed the sunglasses, but he didn’t pick them up. He didn’t want to be proved wrong. Hope was a fragile thing, and he needed to nurture it for a while before he put his trust in it.
He was certain Shaw was different, and not just because he didn’t hurt him.
When Shaw looked at the ocean, Lee saw the change that came over him. He relaxed almost imperceptibly, and his hazel eyes let go of their sharpness. He wasn’t Vornis’s guest, then; he wasn’t a criminal; he wasn’t anything except a man looking at the ocean. The slight wistful smile that played on his lips made Lee wish he was seeing the same thing Shaw did whenever his gaze traveled the horizon, whatever it was.
Shaw hadn’t hurt him, and Shaw had said he’d call the authorities once he was off the island—Lee replayed it in his mind just to be sure he hadn’t imagined it. It was unprecedented, and he didn’t understand it, but he wanted to believe it. And both of those things, the kindness and the promise, might have been enough to feed Lee’s hope, but it was more than that. Lee had seen Shaw’s face when he looked at the ocean, and it was the most human face Lee had seen in a long time.
That was that man Lee had gone onto his knees for in the shower the night before. He knew Shaw thought it was just gratitude or a behavior that had been beaten into him, but it was more than that. Shaw was the only man who had looked him in the eye for a long time, and he’d seen past the humiliation and degradation. He’d seen Lee. He’d given Lee his name back.
Lee traced his fingers through the sand.
Maybe some of it was gratitude, but most of it was because Shaw had looked him in the eye. The thrill Lee had felt as he’d gone down onto his knees had made him breathless. His body might have been his only currency on the island, but this was the first time since his capture that he had used it entirely on his own terms. Not bargaining, not begging, and not calculating.
If you go to him before he calls you, he won’t hit you so hard.
If you make it good, he’ll feed you.
If you don’t struggle, maybe they won’t cut you.
There was no shame in taking the path of least resistance, not with Vornis and Hanson and all the others, but with Shaw, it had felt different. It hadn’t felt like a compromise.
If you get him off quickly, it’ll be over sooner.
With Shaw, he had wanted it to last.
The thing with Shaw in the shower had been freely given, and Lee knew that Shaw didn’t get that. His reaction had been confused: first a kiss, and then a harsh reprimand. He was a man used to showing affection to his sexual partners, Lee realized, and he had reasserted his dominance too late. It didn’t matter. The blowjob had been as much for Lee’s benefit as Shaw’s, and he didn’t regret doing it. Shaw had tasted good.
And it helped that he was hot. In his old life, Shaw would have been exactly Lee’s type. There was no harm in acknowledging that, even though acting on the attraction had been frightening at first. Lee had been afraid that it might mean he had become an accomplice in his own torture, and that taking enjoyment in the act meant he had accepted everything that had come before, but Shaw was different. Shaw was someone he might have picked up in a club or at a party, back when he was allowed a choice. And so, in the shower, Lee had made that choice, because when would he be given the chance again?
It was okay to differentiate, wasn’t it? He was in uncharted waters, and it made him nervous. But different had to mean better. It couldn’t mean worse. Shaw wasn’t like the others. His reaction in the shower had demonstrated that.
When you’re with him, you’re okay.
Lee nursed his secret hope anxiously.
He opened his eyes again and trailed his fingers through the warm sand. He found a sand dollar and turned it over in his palm.
Lee collected sand dollars. They were made by some sort of sea urchin, he guessed. They were light, flat, round shells, and whatever creature had once lived in them had left a pattern on each side that reminded Lee of a stylized flower or the first few turns on a Spirograph. He collected them because he liked the pattern, because they were abundant in the shallows, and because it gave him something to do.
It gave him some control.
He would take the sand dollars from the beach and wipe them clean with his thumb. He would slip them into his pockets and kept them until the end of the day. Some were too brittle and were crushed. Most of them ended up on the coral floor of the bungalow bathroom. He used them to while the days away. He used them to keep his focus.
One foot in front of the other. One sand dollar and then another.
In the beginning, he’d wanted to be dead. He’d wanted Vornis to just kill him and get it over with. Because nobody was coming for him. Nobody knew where he was. Shit, he didn’t really know himself, except he knew it wasn’t Colombia anymore. Fiji, Irina had said, and Lee couldn’t even pick out Fiji on a map. It didn’t matter. But now Shaw was here, and something had changed. Shaw was going to get off the island and make that call. For the first time in a long time, Lee allowed himself to think of the future.
It turned out the future looked exactly like the past. It looked like the house he’d grown up in. It looked like his parents’ faces.
No. Don’t think of them. Not yet.
He couldn’t bear it if he never saw them again. Shaw had offered him a slim hope, but even if he was telling the truth, Lee couldn’t trust that it would happen. He couldn’t build himself up like that. He wouldn’t. He could take some solace in his memories, but not too much. Searching his memories was like pulling at a scab and reopening a wound. He had learned to graze the surface, careful not to go too deep. A fine line, but practice had shown him how to walk it.
It was okay to think of places but not people. The memory of places gave him comfort. The memory of people was too raw. He liked to imagine that he was back in the house he’d grown up in, lying in his bed and looking at the ceiling. The walls were decorated with colorful pennants and posters of bands he’d liked growing up. When he’d been home at Christmas, he’d laughed at that. His mom kept the room like he was still a kid. Stepping through the door was like walking into the past. He’d laughed, but now there was nowhere he’d rather be than sleeping in that bed, wearing his old Vikings T-shirt and sweatpants. Home was the safest place in the world.
The next safest place was with Shaw.
Lee looked out at the water again and turned the sand dollar over and over in his palm.
One foot in front of the other, and don’t get ahead of yourself.
* * * *
The stars were very different here. Lee wondered if he would have felt so lost if he could only look at the stars he knew. Or maybe that familiarity would have made it worse.
His dad loved hiking and camping. Lee couldn’t remember the number of times they’d pitched a tent in the middle of nowhere and spent half the night staring up at the stars. He’d known the patterns of the constellations as a child, but he didn’t recognize them half a world away.
Lee pressed his hands on the tiled wall of the shower and looked up at the stars.
Shaw was asleep upstairs.
Now, now was a good time.
Lee closed his eyes.
Mom, Dad, if I don’t make it home I’m sorry it ended up like this.
His throat constricted with the tears he’d expected, and he fought them down.
I’m sorry you’ll always wonder what happened.
Shaw had given him hope, but Lee didn’t know what to do with it. He couldn’t trust it, and he wasn’t sure he even wanted it. It was all very well to want to live, but after this? He couldn’t be the same person. He didn’t know if he could look himself in the eye, let alone his parents and his colleagues, so maybe it would be better if—
No. Hold on to hope. Count the sand dollars, pass the time, wait and see.
Because if Shaw gave him hope, he had to take it. He had to believe in something, didn’t he? Even though it would be easier not to. He wasn’t certain he could believe in himself anymore, so maybe he could believe in Shaw.
Lee ran his fingers down the tiles and frowned.
But who the hell was Shaw anyway? Not a good guy, not if he was friends with a man like Vornis. Shaw felt different, but that was probably just a matter of perspective, and Lee’s perspective had been skewed since Colombia. He couldn’t trust what he felt. Shaw had said it himself: “I’m not a rapist, but I’m a lot of other things.” Shit, what the hell had happened to him that “not a rapist” had become a glowing fucking character reference?
God, he wanted to believe Shaw. He wanted to trust Shaw, and that was stupid. Just because the guy hadn’t hurt him, and just because he’d said he’d make that call once he was off the island. And maybe just because Shaw was young and good-looking and had gazed at the ocean like it meant something to him.
And Shaw had trusted him first.
There were cameras in the bungalow. Why had Shaw warned him about that? Okay, so he wanted Lee to put on a good show at night and to keep his mouth shut. Wouldn’t it have been easier just to hurt him? That was how everyone else got him to comply. So, Shaw wasn’t a rapist, and he wasn’t a sadist either. That only meant he was a good guy in comparison to Vornis, but who the hell wasn’t? Lee couldn’t trust his perspective.
Here on the island, the man he had become wanted to fling himself blindly into faith. But he knew the man he had been before would have been more guarded.
Careful, Lee, careful.
Then again, the man he’d been before the island had a hell of a lot to lose. What was he risking now, except his hope? And how much was hope worth? That was a philosophical question, and Lee didn’t have the luxury of those anymore. Hope was worth nothing in practical terms. And in emotional terms, what did it matter if Shaw crushed his hope and his burgeoning trust? Lee had taken enough hits in the past eight weeks to know he could take more. They were always building him up just to break him again, with the drugs, the ill-treatment, and the unexpected kindnesses that it turned out hurt more than the torture. It was all about the juxtaposition, and Vornis was a fucking expert.
“There now, boy, you’re okay. There now. Have a little drink of water.”
Right before the next white flash of pain.
Shit, there’d been a time when he’d trusted Vornis as well.
“Come on, boy. Almost done. Not long now. Can you be a brave little soldier for me?”
Like they were on the same fucking side. And sometimes he still fell for it because he so desperately wanted it to be true. He wanted to be good, obedient, and compliant, and to believe Vornis would go easy on him for once. And he always ended up hating himself more than he hated Vornis. Vornis was clever like that.
Tears stung Lee’s eyes as he looked up at the stars again. He’d slipped down into the bathroom just to see them. The shower was safe. Safe from the cameras, safe from the guards, and safe from Vornis. It was lonely, though, without Shaw.
Careful, Lee, careful.
Lee frowned.
So what? So what if I like being near him? If it turns out to be a lie, what’s one more humiliation before they kill me? I have nothing to lose.
Just like he told himself when he wanted to believe the kindness in Vornis’s voice. But Shaw was different, wasn’t he?
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
He was going in fucking circles, and he knew he was. He just couldn’t find a way to break free.
His throat ached. He bent down and picked up a sand dollar he’d dropped there earlier. He held it up to the moonlight and traced the pattern with his thumb. Maybe it was just a new delusion, but he wanted to believe in it.
Hold on to hope. Count the sand dollars, pass the time, wait and see.
He dropped the sand dollar and left the shower. His bare feet creaked on the steps.
At first, he thought Shaw was awake. He turned his head on the pillow as Lee watched, but his eyes stayed closed. His fist was clenched around the sheet.
Lee looked at him for a moment.
He could kill him. He could, probably, even if he wasn’t as strong as he had been. How much strength did it take to hold a pillow over a man’s head until he suffocated? If it had been Vornis or Hanson or any of the guards, he would have done it. They’d kill him for it, but he had nothing to lose.
A knot of anxiety formed in his stomach.
That was what a captive should think, wasn’t it? Always plotting, always planning, always looking for a chance to tip the balance of power if only for a moment. He could kill Shaw, and they would kill him, and it would all be over.
Shaw muttered something in his sleep, and a frown crossed his face.
Lee watched him. Shaw was having a bad dream. His conscience was biting back while he slept, and that, Lee realized breathlessly, might just be something big enough to put his faith in.
He didn’t want to kill Shaw. Shaw had never hurt him. Shaw had promised to help him. And maybe there would come a time when he would regret trusting him, but at some point, he had to stop second-guessing himself and make a fucking decision.
His heart raced.
I have nothing left to lose. He is not Vornis.
He crossed the floor and lay down on the bed beside Shaw. He drew the sheet up, pulling it carefully from Shaw’s grip, and ran his hand underneath it. He caught Shaw’s hand in his own gently and held it until Shaw relaxed.
It was probably all bullshit, and he’d probably regret it, but right now, in the middle of the night, in the quiet, it felt like maybe they were in this together. Yeah, he was fucking crazy, but he wanted to believe it.
Careful, Lee, careful.
He closed his eyes.
Wait and see.