Alex (22 page)
Jesus
Christ,
he hated that thing.
He stared at the wall, off-balance, as the beep sounded.
The seconds ticked past.
"I love you," he finally said.
"And the man you love is still here, somewhere.
Just..."
The tears resurged; his whole face pinched trying to hold them back.
"Don't give up on me yet."
The phone hung in his hands while he stared at the carpet and drew long, shuddering breaths.
Alex asked what was wrong, and Ian shook his head.
"It's okay, Daddy," Alex said.
"You can tell me."
Ian looked up at him.
The boy's eyes had gone as dark as the ocean, heavy with concern.
Ian was supposed to say,
Grandma's gone.
"I just really miss your mom," he managed.
"I wish she were here, is all."
"Where did she go?" Alex asked.
"You remember how I told you that some people take the people they love for granted, and they don't treat them very good?
And that actually it should be the other way around - you should treat the people you love better than anyone else?"
"Where did she go?" Alex asked again.
"Well, Daddy didn't do that.
I messed up, and I hurt your mom, and now she's left to stay with her dad."
"And she'll never come back?"
The question bulged with dread.
"I don't know, kiddo.
I hope so, but I just don't know."
The boy's eyes dropped to the floor, disbelieving, and Ian finished the conversation correctly.
"Give me a hug," he said.
Alex came up to him at once.
On the day Alina's mom died, that embrace had flooded Ian with solace.
Alex had given him one of those long, close hugs that had started to grow more and more rare.
His smallness and his heat and his coiled energy and the sheer, pleasant weight of his
dependence
had soaked into Ian like a balm, and the two of them had gotten up together and gone to share their strength with Alina.
He knew that wouldn't happen now, and he closed his eyes, not wanting to see his son disappear again.
He waited several seconds, remembering that hug from the year before, imagining that he could one day grant that same solace again to his wife.
Then he opened his eyes to the empty living room, and turned on the TV to escape its crushing silence.
Alina woke him with kisses.
One on the temple, three slow, gentle ones trailing across his forehead, another on the far temple, another on his ear.
As his eyes opened she lifted her head to smile at him, her hair haloed in the sunlight streaming through the window, her dark eyes heavy and sensual.
"I love you," she said.
His every nerve blazed with need.
He clutched at her hair, pulled her down, kissed her deeply.
"I love you too," he breathed between tastes of her.
"I love you too, oh, God, Alina."
She responded to him slowly, working her leg against his, lapping at his tongue and his lips and his neck.
She was
there,
finally, she was
with him
.
He wanted to bury himself in her hair, drown in her scent.
He grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked her onto her back.
She gasped, but she loved it.
He knew that, because he knew
her,
and he took one of her nipples into his mouth and nibbled at it, and she arched her back and gasped again, and Alex screamed.
Her fingers scraped across Ian's back.
He took her other breast in his hand, massaged it while he kept working with his tongue, and she moaned his name like a plea.
Alex screamed again.
He needed help.
He was
calling,
just as his father had made him promise to do.
Ian pulled back.
"He needs me," he begged.
"Can't you hear him?"
Alina looked away, her face stony and betrayed.
"How can we ignore him?
Can't you
hear
him?"
"Get the fuck away from me," she hissed.
He opened his eyes to a spray of cold morning light across the wall.
From the living room, he heard Alex sobbing.
The sound drove him to the edge of the bed, where he sat up and endured it for just a second; buried his head in his hands and tried to figure out what was real.
Then he heard Eston's voice, and his eyes opened like a pair of knives sliding from their sheaths.
"Fucking disgusting," the rapist said.
Ian threw his bathrobe on and stalked into the living room, hatred smoldering in his chest.
Alex was on the floor there, curled in a ball, facing away from his attacker.
Eston stood over him.
"I put a pot in this room, didn't I?
And you fucking go and piss yourself?"
He was pacing, shaking his head in disbelief.
"You can't even hold your own piss?
What the fuck is wrong with you?"
He spun abruptly, leveled a sharp kick into the boy's back, and Alex screeched.
"I oughtta rub your face in it!" Eston shouted.
"Like a fucking pig!
Is that what you are?
A fucking pig?"
He reached down, grabbed for Alex's hair, and Ian roared, "
Hey, you fucker!"
Alex disappeared at once; again, Eston's head snapped up, this time toward the ceiling, casting about like he'd just heard a sound from upstairs.
Why can he look for me?
What happens if he finds me?
But the thoughts were swept out of Ian's mind on a river of rage.
"You're done with him!
You understand me?
You're
done with him!
"
Eston whipped his head the other way, staring toward the front window.
Ian darted toward him, screamed at the back of his head: "
Hey dumbass!
I'm right fucking here!"
The kidnapper fairly leapt in terror; he fell over, scrambled backwards toward the couch.
"He killed you!
Don't you know that?
You were killed by a fucking five-year-old!
Killed!
"
Eston was staring through Ian's chest, panic dancing in his eyes.
It redoubled Ian's rage, made it burst from his throat like the explosion from a volcano.
He clapped his hands and waved.
"Jesus, you're stupid!
I'm
right!
Fucking!
Here!
"
Eston's gaze snapped upward.
For a single, eternal instant, he met Ian's eyes.
Then he was gone.
Ian grabbed the lamp and hurled it at the couch, where the kidnapper's head had been a second ago.
The shade flew off; the bulb shattered.
The cord popped out of the wall, snapping through the air like a leaping viper.
The lamp's body bounced to the carpet, somehow intact, so he grabbed it again and launched it into the wall, where it exploded.
Ian flinched away, felt a hail of broken glass rain against the back of his neck, and snapped up the end table.
"You hear me now, you fucker?" he shrieked, and smashed it against the floor.
It was metal, with a round base, but the top was glass and it flew out and crashed against the wall.
"Come back here!"
He straightened up and spun around, looking for Eston.
"Come back here!
You'll fuck little boys but you're scared to fuck with me?
Come back here!
"
He stood in the middle of the living room, robe gaping open, the table hanging from one hand like a club.
His eyes darted savagely, finding nothing.
"
COWARD!
"
The scream tore his throat raw.
The end table dropped dully to the carpet, and his fingertips twitched.
God
,
he wanted to kill that man.
His thoughts danced with violence.
But he's already dead.
Listen to your own words.
He is already
dead
.
"Fuck," Ian whimpered.
He stumbled through the bits of shattered glass to sink heavily into a chair.
No.
No, he was here, I saw him.
He was tormenting Alex.
Kicking him.
But when he heard me, Alex escaped.
If he could spare Alex from reliving his torture at the hands of that man, he would intervene every time - no matter the time of day, no matter the consequence.
Maybe it would be cathartic, even if it wasn't real.
Give him some sense that he was helping his son, when obviously he'd done nothing for the boy when he truly needed help.
Ian flinched from that idea.
It stung.
How pathetic, to try and make himself feel better that way.
Everything he was seeing was already finished, over - he wasn't affecting it at all.
Unless Eston is here, torturing Alex again, right under my own roof.
His breath caught.
He hadn't thought of that before.
He'd assumed that Eston's appearance was just Alex trying to show Ian more of his final few weeks, but what if Alex wasn't controlling these new visions?
What if Eston himself was somehow...?
Ian shook his head and lurched back to his feet.
He paced into the dining room while he thought, trying to avoid the ruin of his living room floor.
The cellar pantry.
Alex's rape.
Ian hadn't seen Eston, then; just Alex.
It was the same the night he'd tried to convince his son to go into "the light."
The boy had looked frightened, like he was running from someone, but Ian hadn't seen anyone.
It was different now.
Ian halted.
His jaw clenched.
Good.
GOOD.
He
hoped
that fucker was actually here, somehow.
Ian had been able to scare him.
Eston didn't like being yelled at; he didn't like being seen.
Anything Ian could do to bring him misery was good.
The man deserved to burn in hell.
But his wild bravado leaked away as soon as it came on.
If Eston was really in the house - like Alex was -
Alex is
not
in the house, goddammit, you are
imagining
that!
- Ian wouldn't be able to torment him forever.
It was wonderful to have some power, to actually scare the bastard, but how long would it go on?
Weeks?
Months?
If I can get his attention again, maybe I can make him tell me who Kelly is.
Yes.
That
felt right.
That
felt like a purpose.
Ian swung around, itching to see Eston again.
But besides the shattered glass, the living room was empty.
He took a shower to clear his head.
Before getting in, he had to dig a piece of glass out of his bare foot.
He hadn't even noticed it until he started calming down.
