Whatever the Cost (46 page)

Once he knows Jacen was the one abducted, beaten and sexually assaulted, that he is alive and being treated at a nearby hospital, Clay knows what he needs to do, for Liam’s safety as much as anything.

As Jacen is being taken for a CT scan in order to determine the extent of his head trauma, and Joe is sitting in handcuffs down at the station awaiting questioning, Clay is jumping into his patrol car and speeding over to Liam and Jacen’s apartment building. He doesn’t know if he will find Liam there, if The Company will have sent another team to pick him up by now. Suspecting the worst, he arrives at the building, parking crookedly in front in the street. He turns off the sirens but leaves the lights flashing as he jumps out, his hand on the butt of his gun, just in case. Giving the area a visual scan before approaching the front entrance, he spares a few precious seconds. The door bursts open and he nearly draws his weapon, but he sees with a deep sigh of relief that it’s Liam.

“What?! What’s going on?”

Clay stares at him, registering the question but unsure how to answer at first.

“Dice, what the fuck, man? Why are you here? Why...? What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

He doesn’t know
, Clay realizes, stricken. “Get in the car. Now. I need to get you off the street.”

“No! Not until you tell me what’s wrong!” The blood has drained from Liam’s face and a deep, subtle tremor begins to wrack his body.

Clay moves, still scanning the streets, watching for anyone suspicious or with a weapon. He grabs Liam by the arm and stays close, moving him around the car to the passenger side.

“Get off of me!”

“Avery, get in the goddamned car! You’re not safe here!”

Eyes wide with terror, Liam lets Clay push him into the car. Clay slams the door and runs around to the driver’s side. When he’s behind the wheel again, he reaches for the gear shift but Liam grabs his arm.

“Something’s happened. Jacen,” he gasps, as the earth drops away from beneath him.

Clay sees it happen in his friend’s eyes, the new bloom of certainty that he’s lost another lover to the indiscriminate cruelty of the world. “He was taken from the bistro. His boss followed, but he got there after they’d.... We have them in custody. The people from The Company, the assailant. Two were shot.”

“WHAT HAPPENED TO JACEN?!” Liam screams.

“He’s alive. He’s at the hospital. That’s where I’m taking you. I don’t know the details. But he was beaten. And the report mentions sexual assault.”

Liam’s hand falls away. His eyes glaze over.

Clay turns the sirens back on and shifts into drive.

Almost two hours after the attack, Liam and Clay arrive at the hospital. They run inside and demand from the woman at the front desk to know where Jacen is being treated. She gets on the phone to inquire about him and Liam rages with desperate impatience. Clay pulls him away and tries to get him under control but it’s like Liam isn’t even hearing him. He’s detached and all that matters is finding Jacen. He tries to bolt for the elevators before hearing what floor to try, so Clay grips him tightly and keeps him there, threatening to put him in handcuffs if that’s what it takes to get him to cooperate.

Finally, they find out that Jacen is most likely somewhere on the third floor, not yet admitted but being treated for his injuries.

They take the elevator up, and when they get to the third floor, Liam sprints down the hall with Clay jogging after him. He doesn’t have to go far before he sees Jacen, looking worse for wear but standing by a bed and arguing with a nurse.

The profundity of Liam’s relief drains him of the energy or ability to move. He stands there, remembering, finally, to breathe, his heart resuming beating at a regular pace.

“Jacen,” he gasps. He shouts the name louder when Jacen doesn’t hear him over his dispute with the attendant. “Jacen!”

Jacen looks for the source of the voice and then sees Liam. His eyes close with a prayer of thanks and he deflates, argument forgotten.

“Sir!” the nurse calls, annoyed beyond tolerance, “Mister Timothy, please!”

Jacen pushes past her, going to Liam. With a soft sob of gratitude he folds Liam into his arms.

“Thank God. You’re okay, you’re okay. You’re really okay,” Jacen whispers, his hands moving over Liam’s body to ensure his actuality and health. “I’ve been trying to call but you didn’t pick up and I thought.... Then they wanted to admit me but I had to make sure you were okay.”

“Oh. Fuck, I left the cell in the apartment when Clay showed up.” Liam pries Jacen loose, just enough to get a look at him. His forehead has been stitched closed over his right eyebrow and also up near his hairline. He looks bruised, battered and his skin tone is a horrible lifeless grey. Wearing his jeans and a hospital gown, Jacen is also barefoot. Holding Jacen’s face in his hands, Liam gasps, “Baby, what did they do to you?”

Jacen avoids his gaze, glancing instead at the cops stationed nearby to keep an eye on him. They’re talking to Clay and, lowering his voice, Jacen says, “Come on, I want to get out of here. They said they need to talk to me down at the station, and I was going to try to slip ’em to find you, but since you’re here I guess we should get it over with so we can get the fuck out of here already. I just want to go home.”

“What?” Liam blurts, confused. “No, we need to make sure you’re okay first.”

“Sir,” the nurse interjects, approaching them with a second nurse she’s retrieved to help her get Jacen to cooperate. “We need you to get in the bed and let us admit you so that we can keep an eye on that concussion.”

“You have a concussion?” Liam echoes quietly.

“No. I told you, I’m refusing treatment,” Jacen growls.

“What? Why? No, you have to let them treat you,” Liam argues.

“No. I don’t. I just want to go home.”

Two men in suits emerge from the elevator bay. They approach the officers and Clay, taking something out from their suit pockets that neither Liam nor Jacen can make out.

“Feds,” Liam says.

Jacen starts, looking between Liam and the newcomers. “Shit.”

One of the suited men approaches. He flashes his badge and asks, “Are you Travis Saxon, aka Travis Jacen Timothy?”

Jacen rolls his eyes wearily, looking like he’s barely able to remain on his feet. “Yeah,” he sighs. “That’s me.”

“Sir, please,” the nurse urges, frowning at his pallor.

Surrendering, he lets her usher him back to bed. As she produces an ear thermometer and a blood pressure cuff to check Jacen’s status, the agent consults his notepad, then turns to Liam.

“And are you Avery Williams, aka Liam Timothy?”

“Yeah,” Liam murmurs, folding his arms across his chest and coloring with something akin to guilt, though he’s not sure why or for what.

“Excellent. We’re going to need to talk to both of you, but in the meantime I’m keeping you in protective custody.”

“Why?”

“It’s for your own safety, sir. The assailants, from what we know, have been tracking you both for some time and we want to make sure things are in order.”

As this is the first time Liam has heard such a thing, and at the evidence of the authorities being aware not only of his and Jacen’s aliases but the fact that they’ve been tracked by their former employer, he clams up. The slight strength he’d found at the proof of Jacen being all right evaporates, leaving him lightheaded.

Clay comes over, concerned, “Hey. Pidge, sit down. Come on. I’ll get you something to drink.”

He guides Liam down into a chair that a nurse brings over for him. Jacen stares at his hands, folded in his lap as an IV is prepped for him.

“I just want to know what the hell is going on,” Liam says. Jacen sets his jaw and stays silent.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get you caught up,” the agent tells him.

“Thanks,” Liam murmurs, taking a cup of water and watching his husband, battered and broken, afraid for him, and of his quietness.

“What do you know about an organization known as The Company?”

Joe sips his cup of bitter, weak coffee. He’s seated in an interrogation room across from a female federal agent. He’s forgotten her name as he’s talked to about six different people by now.

“Nothing,” he tells her. “I’ve never heard of ’em.”

“If you haven’t heard of them, what’s your involvement with the incident today?”

“I already told you people, Jacen works for me. He’s a chef at my restaurant. He disappeared during his shift under suspicious circumstances, so I followed him using my phone to track his location. And when I found him, he was... was....” The memory is so potent, it forbids further scrutiny. He rips his thoughts away from the remembered sight of what he saw, because if he doesn’t, he’ll drive himself crazy with worry. He hasn’t been told anything about Jacen’s condition or if he’s even alive.

“So you opened fire?”

Anger rises. They keep prodding him with the same questions over and over, like it’ll change his story. He’s tired of it. He wants them to finish with him so that he can get some answers of his own.

“You didn’t see him!” Joe flounders for the right words, but they don’t exist. “They were surrounding him. One of them pulled his pistol so I shot the bastard. I told ’em to get away from the kid, but another one pulled, so I shot ’im too!”

The agent nods. “Thank you, Mr. Barbara. That’ll be all.”

It takes a few more hours for Joe to be processed and released. Not only do they not charge him with anything, they offer police protection. But he’s not worried about protection. The people he had discovered with Jacen have all been arrested and put in federal custody, and with the sort that they are, Joe doesn’t figure they have many friends looking for vengeance when they could be watching out for their own collective asses.

After checking in with Lily, the first thing Joe does is drive to Jacen’s home. There’s a patrol car parked out front with an officer inside. He asks Joe about his business there, and the officer relays what Joe says to the officer stationed inside the building. A minute later, Joe gets the all-clear to go ahead.

His head buzzing with the new revelations about his employee, Joe climbs up to the third floor and knocks.

The second officer answers the door. Just the fact that Jacen is home is a balm to Joe’s nerves. Trying to peer past the leery-looking cop, Joe distractedly explains why he’s there.

“I, uh... I’m Joe. Jacen’s employer. I was there today, and I need to see that he’s all right.”

With a backward glance, the officer asks someone out of sight, “This all right with you?”

Liam appears in the doorway, and Joe almost doesn’t recognize him, he looks so different compared to the only other time they were face-to-face. Ragged with worry, dressed in a nondescript gray t-shirt and jeans, Liam seems unfocused and frantic as he pushes past the cop and joins Joe in the hall, asking under his breath for a minute of reprieve.

Once the door to the apartment is shut, and they’re alone, Liam, scratching restlessly at his arm, blurts, “What happened?”

“What do you mean, what happened?”

“I mean, Jacen’s not telling me anything,” Liam tells him. “The cops asked us some questions but they weren’t exactly forthcoming with information. I’m kind of going on rumors and hearsay at this point, so I’m asking you, what happened?”