In My Arms Tonight (6 page)

IN MY ARMS TONIGHT

Bailey Bradford

35

it’d embedded into his very soul, and that terrified him, not as much as what had happened to him, but…

“Glenn, can you wait in the kitchen?” That, from Xavier, confirmed James’ fear. He knew exactly who Glenn was, hadn’t forgot even though he’d been a fucked up mess in a drug induced stupor when the FBI agent had first introduced himself, which was after Glenn had almost died trying to rescue him the first time around. James pulled on Chase’s shirt so hard he heard seams rip, but he couldn’t help it. He tried to bury his face in his friend’s chest, hoping that Glenn or Shearing or whatever he wanted to be called now, the FBI agent wouldn’t be able to see him. Stupid, he knew, but he couldn’t resist doing it any more than he could stop being afraid every time he saw Shearing.

Because even as fucked up as he was, James knew. He knew Shearing wanted him, and that terrified him right to his core. As Xavier and Chase lifted him up, James tried to figure out why Shearing wanting him scared him so much, but he couldn’t piece it together.

There were parts of his memories missing, things that made no sense, terrible dark things that reached for him and made him cringe and cry and he didn’t want to know what they were.

But he was very much afraid that Glenn Shearing would make him face those things, and James truly didn’t know if he could survive doing so. As he curled up on his side and huddled under the blankets Chase pulled up, James didn’t think he would ever even have the strength to try.

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IN MY ARMS TONIGHT

Bailey Bradford

36

Standing in the kitchen while Chase and Xavier helped James, Glenn thought he had never felt so useless in his life. He ached to be the one comforting James, yet he couldn’t even be in the same room with the man. Glenn paced the small area, the image of James falling apart in the bathroom playing in his mind. He stopped abruptly, stumbling slightly, the remembered sounds of James’ harsh stuttered breaths resounding in his ears.

James needed help. Not just the support of friends, but psychological help—and not the drugged up kind he’d been getting from that bullshit excuse for a clinic. For whatever reason, James had burrowed under his skin, and Glenn couldn’t just walk away. It might be easier for him, but what about James? Would the people around him coddle him and let him hide away from the world? Would they, in their attempts to help him, let the fear and pain that haunted him keep him locked away in a prison of his own making?

Glenn feared they would. If Chase didn’t push him, James might never recover from what he’d been through. Glenn didn’t try fooling himself, he knew James might never be the man he once was, but he could damn sure be more than the product of his experiences. Or, James could be stronger because of his experiences.

But not if he was never encouraged to deal with it.

Glenn nodded to himself then walked to the bedroom door, pushing it open slightly.

He couldn’t quite bury the surge of jealousy when he saw Chase comforting James, murmuring softly to him, touching him. James didn’t shy away from Chase, didn’t look at him with fear-filled eyes.

Glenn wanted that, wanted those green eyes turned on him, willingly and, eventually, sparkling with warmth. He wanted to touch James, feel his creamy skin under his hands, feel James tremble from something stronger than fear. Walking away would never get him that, and Glenn resolved not to give up, not when there was any hope at all that he and James could have a relationship.

Movement from his peripheral vision had Glenn dragging his gaze from James and Chase to Xavier. The man was frowning slightly, his brow furrowed, but he didn’t look www.total-e-bound.com

IN MY ARMS TONIGHT

Bailey Bradford

37

angry, just worried. Glenn glanced at James again, felt his heart trip in his chest as the need to comfort nearly overpowered him. Instead he looked at Xavier and tipped his head towards the kitchen, then turned and walked away.

Xavier joined him in the kitchen a few minutes later. Glenn pulled out a chair and sat, even though he would have preferred to stand. Somehow it seemed like a big testosterone match, though, with both he and Xavier standing and staring at each other. Glenn didn’t want this to become some territorial bullshit; he wanted James to be able to heal, to smile and laugh again—and love, he didn’t forget that part. He wanted James’ love.

“Have a seat,” he finally said when Xavier continued to hover. Once Xavier had taken the chair across from him, Glenn brought his arms up to the table top and folded his hands together in front of him on the cool surface. He looked Xavier in the eye and waited a heartbeat. “I think James needs professional help.”

Xavier sat back and growled as he narrowed his eyes at Glenn. “Professional help didn’t work out so well last time, did it?”

Glenn shook his head. “Not like that, not where he’s basically committed against his will. Out-patient therapy, probably a few times a week. He was having a panic attack, I think, when we came in. Maybe even some PTSD, and I wouldn’t rule out depression and anxiety, either.” He shrugged and tried to keep his voice even, calm, when inside he felt like there was an emotional riot going on. “I’m not a psychiatrist, so I couldn’t say for sure, but I do have some experience with mental illness—”

“He’s not mentally ill,” Xavier snapped, nearly coming over the table as he bent forward, glaring at Glenn. “He’s got some problems, sure but—”

“Just let go of the label,” Glenn snarled back before he took a steadying breath. “Stop thinking about mental illness like so many people do. It isn’t something sinister, brought on by the devil or whatever. It’s an illness, like diabetes or heart disease or cancer, and it needs to be treated. It doesn’t make the sufferer a weak person, or permanently damaged or any of that other crap society seems to encourage us to think. And like many other diseases and illnesses, in many cases it can be treated, managed, sometimes even cured depending on the circumstances and severity.”

Xavier’s shoulders drooped a bit but he still didn’t look any less angry. “So you’re saying there’s a cure for schizophrenia and—”

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IN MY ARMS TONIGHT

Bailey Bradford

38

Glenn wanted to roll his eyes so bad his head hurt. “No,” he said as he slashed a hand through the air. “Stop twisting my words. Lots of people suffer from depression at least once in their life. Many people never have a repeat episode. Does that mean they were cured? Was it a temporary illness? Situational or biological? I don’t know, and I don’t know if anyone has solid answers there. I told you, I’m not a professional here, but I can see that the man I care a great deal for needs help. He’s suffering, and bickering over what he’s suffering from is a fucking waste of time. James needs help. Didn’t Chase say he hadn’t left this apartment for days?”

“Yes, but where would he have gone anyways? To our house? Why, when we come here—”

“Do you know that panic attacks are linked to agoraphobia? They can be the cause for panic attack sufferers refusing to leave their house,” Glenn said, digging out what little information he had on the subject. “They’re so afraid of having a panic attack in public, they just don’t leave. What if,” he couldn’t quit keep his breath from hitching, “what if that’s what’s happening to James? Are you and Chase just going to let him hide away for the rest of his life? Don’t you want to make sure that isn’t what’s going on here?”

“He might be right,” Chase said from behind Glenn. Glenn twisted around in his chair, surprise no doubt widening his eyes since they felt near to popping out of their sockets. Chase looked pale, worried as he entered the room. “I mean, sure, I want to keep James safe, but even I know that ‘safe’ doesn’t mean letting him hide away from the world.

Or from Glenn, who I think has James’ best intentions at heart.”

Glenn fairly glowed from that acknowledgement, and he smiled for the first time in he didn’t know how long. “Thank you, Chase. I really do want to help him. Maybe it’s easier for me to see what might be going on since I’m not as close to him as you and Xavier are.”

Though I want to be. Jesus, I want to be.

Chase plopped down in a chair and rested his head in his hands. “I know,” he mumbled before scrubbing at his face. “I know you do. I
don’t
know why he’s so freaked out by you—” Chase picked his head up so fast Glenn heard his neck pop. “And I’m not saying this…this panic attack or whatever it was, was caused by you. If you’re right about the whole thing, it might have been the thought of leaving the apartment that did it. Did James ever have a panic attack when he was around you?”

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IN MY ARMS TONIGHT

Bailey Bradford

39

“No.” Glenn didn’t feel any hope because of that, though. “He was medicated heavily a lot of the time, except when I interviewed him. Even then he was medicated, kind of loopy from it, and he still looked scared when I was in the room. I don’t know why.”

Chase grunted and shrugged his shoulders. He threaded his fingers through his hair and gave the strands a hard tug before lowering his hands to the table. “It wouldn’t necessarily have to make sense to us, or maybe not at all, considering what’s happened to him and what he may be dealing with mentally. Who knows what he sees or thinks when you appear. It might throw him right back to the night he was rescued, or to things that happened to him before that…” he trailed off, looking dangerously close to being physically ill. Xavier scooted his chair back and was behind Chase in an instant, his big hands rubbing Chase’s shoulders.

“Do you know,” Chase began only to stop and clear his throat. His green eyes were dull and he blinked rapidly, dispensing the moisture gathering there. Glenn’s stomach burned and he wished he could stop the question he knew was coming. “Was he sexually assaulted?” Chase rasped.

Thoughts of privacy flitted through Glenn’s head, but these were the two other people in this world he knew cared for James as much as he did, if not more. And they needed to know, probably, but it felt like a betrayal, sharing James’ secrets. No, Glenn realised, it felt like sharing James’ shame, and there should be none of that. Not from James, who was a victim, and not from Glenn or anyone else who loved James. Still, he hoped James would understand, eventually.

“He said he wasn’t raped,” Glenn gritted out, the words scraping him raw inside.

“There was semen found on him, chest and arms, old and…newer.” Glenn closed his eyes and willed down the nausea that was roiling in his gut. “The doctor at the hospital examined him after James had been tranquilized, and he didn’t find any tearing or swelling—any evidence internally of rape, but he did find scars, from his penis back to his buttocks. Sexual assault, torture, I don’t know what else because James refused to talk about it.” Glenn couldn’t get more specific, he just couldn’t, not without hitting something. “And I am guessing you’ve seen the others, the ones on his chest and back?”

“You fucking bastard!”

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IN MY ARMS TONIGHT

Bailey Bradford

40

Glenn barely had time to turn his head before a fist slammed into his cheek. He hit the floor a second later, his head spinning and his ears ringing. He opened his eyes just in time to see James launch himself at him.

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IN MY ARMS TONIGHT

Bailey Bradford

41

The depth of the fury inside James would have scared him had he been able to think, but he couldn’t. All he saw was a red haze, all he heard was his shame being spilled out to the only people he trusted. Chase and Xavier hadn’t known just how fucked up he was, not really, but now they did, all because Glenn Shearing couldn’t keep his goddamned mouth shut!

The first punch sent a satisfying jolt of pain from James’ fist up to his neck. The pain fuelled the anger churning and boiling over in his mind, and James roared as he leapt, coming down on Shearing, his fists flying, curses and spit flying from his mouth. Tears streaked his cheeks, but those he didn’t notice. All that mattered was making sure Shearing shut up, that he didn’t tell anyone else.

Afterwards, he couldn’t remember anything. One second he’d been full of a rage so intense he’d seen nothing but red, something he’d always thought was an exaggeration when other people mentioned it happening. He had never lost control of himself, not like that, and it scared James more than almost anything else he’d ever experienced.

He slowly became aware of the cool hard surface beneath his ass, and the fact that his eyes were closed. James blinked them open cautiously and found himself looking at Chase, crouched in front of him. Disoriented, James struggled to make sense of where he was and finally realised he was sitting at the kitchen table in one of the battered wooden chairs.

“Are you okay now?” Chase asked, and the hysterical laugh that slipped past James’

lips added another layer of fear to his heart.

“No,” he admitted, Chase’s worried look having shoved back the laughter. James averted his gaze and spotted Xavier at the sink with Glenn, wiping at the man’s face with a damp hand towel. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” James whispered, although that wasn’t entirely true. He knew he was broken, maybe irreparably. The anger he’d felt had morphed into mortification at his actions, and James dropped his gaze to his hands, folded on his lap. His stomach somersaulted when he saw his abraded knuckles. Chase didn’t say anything, and James thought he must be hopelessly screwed up, and he didn’t want to be.

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IN MY ARMS TONIGHT

Bailey Bradford

42

Everything was such a mess in his head, and he hadn’t had the chance to deal with it, not when he’d been doped to the gills until he’d been freed from his second prison.