Bad Influence (2 page)

“So, kid. You want to tell me why I got a hit here that your prints don’t match Gregory Carter’s, formerly of Bookert Drive?”

Silver would have been happy to say anything that would get him out of that chair. Even if it meant going down to wherever they’d taken Zeb. He tried unsticking his dry lips, but since he didn’t have the right answer, nothing came out.

“Kind of a good thing for you, considering this Gregory Carter’s been dead six years. Except that instead of you maybe skipping out of here after you see the judge, you’re now looking at felony fraud and identity theft.”

If he could only sit on his hands. He tried not to grip the edge of the desk, tried not to let the man see how shook he was.

“Let’s try this again. With a real name.”

Silver wasn’t sure he was going to have any better luck prying open his mouth this time. He heard his friend Marco’s frequent complaint,
Where is your happy place,
cuate
?

Silver didn’t have a happy place. He had a cold, dead place. And if he could survive those six weeks at Path to Glory and force himself to open that sealed envelope to read the like-I-didn’t-know-I-was-fucked result, he could live through this. The trembling stopped.

Silver gave the cop the name he’d sworn he’d never use again. “Jordan Samuel Barnett.”

Chapter Two

Silver scoped out the situation as they led him to holding. Zeb had clearly been watching for him, but Zeb wasn’t what worried Silver the most right then. One tweaked-out guy jonesing for candy, someone fucked up enough to be puking steadily. The other three looked like they were no strangers to a holding cell. One took up as much space as possible on one bench—but everything about the way he sat said he wanted to be left alone. The one leaning on the opposite wall looked dangerously bored, the kind of guy who might stir shit up just to amuse himself. The third guy was tough to get a read on, but Silver worried that if bored guy started something, Mr. Mystery might want in on it.

Two points of immediate danger. Plus having to fight the panic that wanted to choke off his breath when he heard the lock on the door. It echoed, heavy and thick, like the one on the Reflection Room. And he didn’t think getting out of here would be as basic as finding someone who’d trade a blow job to leave a door open.

Breathe, act bored and don’t look at anyone
, he reminded himself.
Don’t give them anything to use.

He planted his back on an empty spot on the wall near the quiet guy on the bench and slid down to a half-crouch, keeping an eye on things while pretending not to.

His keep-away glare drove off the tweaker, but didn’t work on Zeb. He only stared back and hunched down as much as the shackles would let him. “What happened?”

“I know your memory isn’t that bad.” Silver peered over Zeb’s shoulder, half to make it clear the conversation wasn’t welcome, half to keep an eye on the potential for trouble. “You grabbed me, the cops showed up and here we are.”

“I mean, why didn’t they bring you down with me?”

Right now was when Zeb decided to take an interest in what happened to Silver? Wrapping himself in anger hadn’t been much of a shield at Path to Glory, but after four years on the street, Silver had built it up to an effortlessly thick second skin. “Fuck. Off.”

“Jordan, after almost four years, don’t you think—”

Silver bolted up straight. Zeb no longer had an extra inch on him, so they were eye to eye. “Don’t you think you’ve fucked me over enough for one lifetime?” Even with his voice low, that got a snicker from the bored leaner.

“You offering someone else a chance at it, pretty meat?”

Acting like a jealous boyfriend, Zeb moved between them. Like that was going to help. The big guy on the bench didn’t open his eyes, but Silver was sure they had everyone’s attention. Even the guy hunched over the can stopped ralphing.

Silver shifted around Zeb and mimed a blow job at bored guy. With an exaggerated purse of lips, Silver blew him a kiss then laughed. “In your wettest dreams, man.”

“No touching.” The guard banged against the bars.

“Jordie.” Zeb lowered his voice to an urgent whisper. “Not the time for attitude.”

“Not the time to be seen as a pussy either. And don’t call me that.”

“What should I call ya?” No-longer-bored guy made his way over to stand right behind Zeb.

For an instant, Silver considered that there had to be a dozen ways to cause serious harm to another human body even in shackles, assuming you were willing to take some pain to do it. He preferred a quick assault and then running away, but right now Silver could use the distraction.

The guard banged his stick against the bars again. “Collins.”

The guy went back to his previous post, and puking guy let loose with something that echoed around the walls.

Zeb moved up to the front of the cell near the guard. He probably thought good manners and a sincere smile meant he’d get special treatment. Silver eavesdropped.

“When can we see the judge and use a phone?” Zeb asked.

“Phone in about an hour, when they finish cleaning in there. Judge’ll be here when he gets here, which might not be until Monday morning.”

Silver glanced at the clock over the guard’s little table in the hall. One thirty on Sunday morning meant seeing the judge was over thirty hours away. Now it wasn’t only about getting bail. Silver had to take his pill in the morning. A few hours was one thing—though the lady at the clinic had been really emphatic about sticking to a schedule. They couldn’t deny him medication when it was life-or-death.

Before the panic could get a good squeeze on his lungs again, Silver felt Zeb’s gaze, intent, hot. What kind of intent? Silver met the stare then lowered his lids partly, let his mouth soften. Zeb swallowed thickly.
Really, Zeb, here?
At least Silver knew that still worked. He rolled his eyes, and Zeb flushed and glanced away.

A jangle of keys and the slap of feet on the stairs brought Silver’s attention back to the hall outside the cell.

“All right.” The new guard unlocked the door. “Blondie and Jesus.” He pointed at Silver and Zeb. “Phone calls. Follow me.”

Silver pinched his lips against a sarcastic laugh. With shoulder-length, wavy brown hair and the stubble filling in around his mouth and chin, Zeb had always gotten some mileage with his Jesus look. The only question was which had come first, the look or Zeb’s martyr complex.

The phones were in a space between two larger cells, a much bigger space than the first cell they’d been in, reeking of wet, moldy mop and industrial disinfectant. Silver wanted Zeb on the phone first, distracted enough so he couldn’t hear Silver’s side of it. Who would Zeb call? Did he have a boyfriend now? Silver watched Zeb fish a scrap of paper out of his jeans and start dialing. Since that was all the privacy Silver was going to get, he took a deep breath and punched in Eli’s number.

His friend might have traded in the night life for a sugar daddy in the suburbs, and it was almost two a.m., but Silver knew Eli would pick up his phone. He had a clinical addiction to drama—and Silver was about to supply one hell of a dose.

Chapter Three

As soon as they were off the phone, the guards put Silver and Zeb into one of the bigger holding cells. There were more benches in this one. Silver could only manage a half-hearted warning glare when Zeb followed him to the bench farthest from the toilet. Zeb might have been the cause of every miserable thing that had happened tonight, but at least he didn’t reek like some of the guys in the other cell.

Silver had always managed to do what he had to to survive. Tolerating Zeb’s ridiculous idea that he was somehow saving them both with his presence was cake compared to breathing the air around that meth addict or the puking drunk.

“Are you ever going to say anything, Jordan?”

Silver tried to put one foot up onto the bench to rest his head on a bent knee, but the chains wouldn’t let him. He braced his feet against the cement floor and stared at the crack between them. “Like what?”

“Like what happened. I don’t mean tonight. How—I mean—what were you doing with those—?”

“Hustlers? Streetwalkers? Prostitutes?” Silver looked over to see Zeb flinch at the words. “Maybe I was doing the Lord’s work. Spreading the gospel to Christ’s favorite professionals.”

Zeb glanced away.

“What do you think I was doing?” Silver prodded. “Exactly what do you think happens to gay kids who have no place else to go?”

Zeb’s cheeks turned patchy red. “Your parents didn’t turn you out.”

“No. They sent me away. Someplace much worse.”

“I’d heard it was a camp.”

“Camps are supposed to have tents and marshmallows and swimming. Not cinderblock cells with bars on the windows and forced labor.” Not to mention the Reflection Room. But Silver wouldn’t. Because now wasn’t the time to let that memory in.

Zeb reared back, like Silver’s spat-out description was something he could escape from. Good.

Silver hadn’t planned to answer Zeb, wanted Zeb to know what it was like to be shut out in the cold, alone, with no explanations. But that wasn’t enough. Anger burned up Silver’s spine. He wanted to slam all that pain and fear into Zeb.

Silver turned toward Zeb as much as the shackles would let him. “You want to know what you were telling me to go back to when you sent me off that night? Did you think conversion camp would fix me too?” Trapped in the dark, no sense of time, no sound but his own shaky breathing, waiting for them to switch on that light. Craving that moment when he knew they were watching him. For his moment to read his Bible verse and tell them he had learned his lesson.

“Conversion?” Zeb’s brow furrowed.

“Yes, to convert me straight. What the fuck do you think they sent me to? Bible Camp to put on an all-new production of
Joseph
?”

“I’d heard”—Zeb placed a lot of emphasis on that word, like it excused him somehow—“that it was a place for teenagers who had made bad choices, to keep them safe.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Silver watched Zeb’s wince with satisfaction. “A bad choice? Is that all it was? You and me, fucking for over a year? Just a bad choice?”

“You lied to me from the day we met.” Zeb had some of his cool back now, the self-righteous idiocy Silver had always been able to chase away, first with a joke, then with his hands and mouth. “I wouldn’t call that good.”

Silver would use a different tactic to throw Zeb off his game now. “You know how fast everything happened when Tina opened her big fucking mouth about you being my boyfriend? Normally, my parents might have kept me under house arrest for a bit, but a spot opened at Path to Glory. Guess how? Kid killed himself. In the dorm room they put me in. Killed himself because of how much fucking fun he was having at the camp to keep him safe from making bad choices.”

Silver drank in the emotions so plain on Zeb’s face. Shock, and then sweet, sweet anger.

“Yeah, from the first day I was there I slept in a dead kid’s bed. The other kids weren’t supposed to talk to me because I was on entry level, but they let me know just the same. Told me how he’d taped plastic over his head and hands. I swore I could still smell puke and shit in that room every night.”

Lines tightened around Zeb’s mouth. Silver didn’t remember them being there before, but he liked being the cause of the emotion that made them surface.

He rammed another point home. “Some of the kids were addicts, but most of us were there because our breeders didn’t like what we were doing. Having sex. With the wrong people, or wrong gender. Couple kids bought into it, really thought Path to Glory would fix them. Make them straight.”

Zeb’s throat worked like he was swallowing around something thick. Silver wished he could imagine it being a cock, but he was too pissed and too sick with reliving this shit to go there.

“Did they have counselors or—?”

“Fuck, didn’t you read that letter I smuggled out?”

Zeb shook his head. “If you sent something to me, I didn’t get it.”

“
If
, right. Because everything Jordan says is a lie. Does thinking that make it easier? Especially knowing what you told me to go back to?”

Score one for Silver. A shot right to the nuts because Zeb dropped his gaze and glanced away. Silver had never managed to make Zeb flinch before, always those changeable hazel eyes focused and earnest on Silver’s face, like everything he said mattered. The flash of triumph didn’t do anything to clear the ache in muscles held tight enough to snap. He pushed harder.

“Would you have bothered to read it if you had?”

That backfired. Zeb looked back at him, all emotion smoothed away, covered with a calm Silver knew was fake. He knew everything about Zeb, had studied every expression, shared his body and his breath until they were living in each other’s skin, they felt so close. If they were ranking lies, Zeb’s was bigger. Because you don’t love someone like that and then walk away because of some stupid rule.

“Jordan,” Zeb began with the same patient affection that used to make everything inside Silver get warm and soft until he had to get them kissing. Had to make it hard and rough because if he let himself give completely into safety and warmth, he’d never drag himself out Zeb’s door and back to the cold house where Silver still had to live for another thirteen months.