Collision Course, CH24 (Patreon)

You know things have gone to shit when I’m asking where the knives are.

I empty my last clip for cover as I run to the door.

The problem isn’t that I don’t know knives, it’s the opposite.

In the living room, jump over the couch and head to the kitchen. Gramp and Grams are both master knife users and teaching me how to wield them is just about the first thing they taught me once they’d rescued me. Yes, a knife needs you to get in close to be truly effective and yes, a gun has a lot more stopping power. But it’s a lot easier to sneak in a knife into some places than a gun.

Through the door in the kitchen I looked through, and at the back of the workshop. It would have been faster through the door connecting directly outside, but that’s locked. And Tristan isn’t in a condition to unlock it. He didn’t elaborate, just said to go through the house.

After what they rescued me from, they were going to make sure I could defend myself, so six years of intensive training with knives joined that of firearms and hand-to-hand training. If they weren’t busy protecting my asshole of parents, they were teaching me how to survive whatever the monsters of the world might through at me.

Funny how I turned out to be one of those monsters.

Not one time, while they were teaching me to wield a knife, was there a sign of my coming problems with them

There’s the locker.

And it has a lock.

“Really?” I yell and look at the outside door. “You couldn’t have mentioned that before?” I grab a crowbar. “You are so fucking lucky there are people out there trying to kill you, otherwise I’d be doing it for this.”

I discovered the problem at the racetrack.

I wasn’t there looking for trouble; I swear. I’d heard about it somewhere, the mall maybe. I was twenty-two, so I doubt I was being all that productive. I remember it was a girl who mentioned it. She couldn’t be more than sixteen. Not to me. To a friend of hers, she didn’t know I was there and no; I didn’t intentionally overhear her.

She had to go to the racetrack because her dad was forcing her to go even if she didn’t like racing, just like she didn’t like any of the things he was always dragging her to, so his friend could get to meet her. Me telling it doesn’t carry the way her voice shuddered, the way she shrunk in on herself as she said that.

Crowbar in the shackle and apply pressure.

But I didn’t go there looking for trouble. I wasn’t even armed, for fuck’s sake. Six years into my training, and I wasn’t even carrying a knife for protection. That’s how dumb of a kid I was back then. I only followed her to keep an eye on her. To make sure that if her father or anyone forced her to do anything she didn’t want to, I should delay them until the police got there. I had 911 on speed deal and everything.

Of course, I couldn’t just follow them into the building. That would have given me away. So I had to find another door, break in—kind of like I’m doing now, but fuck, is this padlock needing way more strength—and then figure out where they were.

By then, her father was holding her face down on a bench, ignoring her pleas for them to leave. Another guy had his pants and underwear around his knees, positioning himself behind her, forcing her legs apart. The banter between those two guys sounded like they were at some picnic, instead of about to rape a sixteen-year-old girl.

The padlock breaks, finally, and I’m picking myself off the floor because of how sudden that was.

Yeah, the plan went out the window the moment I saw them, heard her cries.

I yelled for them to get away from her, and the next thing I knew, half-naked guy was in my space, pulling me into the room and shoving me against a wall. All that training, and not one desire to use it. Not until he commented on how pretty I was, and if my ass would compare to hers, and her dad laughed and said there now was another piece to pass around.

I wasn’t in his grip anymore. For an instant, I was back in that small room, on the hard floor, trying not to cry out as some guy fucked me and still trying to understand why my own father had given me to him to use.

Now I had plenty of desire to fight. Grams and Gramp did not train me to fight fair. I kneed him in the balls, punched him in the face, and discovered that in my laser focus on what was being done to her and by whom; I’d missed there were more guys in the room.

Yeah, that being passed around comment should have clued me in.

I couldn’t win. I think a part of me knew that before I counted six of them coming at me, but I didn’t care. They were going to rape her. Would have raped me, too. Even if I didn’t end up stopping them, in the end, I was going to make them fucking regret what they were doing.

I pause with my hand on the door’s handle. There is no turning back once I open it.

I was in bad shape by the time my hand closed around the knife’s pommel. I don’t remember if I’d noticed it and had planned on taking it, or if I just needed to grab onto something, anything, in the hopes it would help me. The sheath was one of those with a sharpening stone built into it. Gramp hates them like you can’t believe. He’ll go on for half an hour anytime someone mentions them.

The sound of the blade sliding against the stone as I pulled it out was like music to my ear, and it started the first symphony of edges.

I pull the door open and even braced for it, I’m not ready. The song is loud from all the knives there. When Tristan told me he had knives, I expected a handful of them about the workshop to be used for this or that.

This is a display of sharp death.

Fuck, I’m hard.

Half a dozen K-Bar, not one of them the same design. Two go to my belt as I’m looking at what else is there. A TPUS joins those two. I add three S&W HRT. Those are made for boots, but I’m wearing shoes, to at my belt they go.

Oh my God. He has Rambo’s DAs. I take three. I have no idea if they’re named after the movie, but they are amazing. I add an eleven-inch M-Tech. I take two Boker AF and discover I’m out of space on my belt. Fuck it, I can start with them.

I can barely hear myself think over the song. But there’s still enough there to remember Tristan’s warning. The workshop door can’t be opened, even from the inside. So I’m heading back into the house, my steps light, my spirits high.

The song is promising me one hell of a good time.

I hook the clip of the Boker’s sheath against the door frame as I shoulder it open and the sound of the blade sliding out gives me one beat of pure, anticipatory, silence.

Then the shouts of the surprised men give the song a beat, punctuate by gunfire. The unsheathed Boker flies out on a downbeat, and a melody raises from its trajectory, slicing the air.

The song is a map to where the men are, to the ones approaching along the road, each instrument guiding me to them, the swells and ebbs telling me who to focus on, how to dance around their bullets.

The music knows what they are planning, and it tells me; sings it to me.

Three die before I lose the second Boker, and the M-Tech leaps to my hand as if controlled by the music too. I spin as I pull a K-Bar with the other; the kick cuts the legs out from a man, the M-Tech his throat. The Song warns me of the men trying to take advantage of split focus.

I duck, twist, and the K-Bar slams into the man’s ribs. The itch in the song is enough to let me know not to bother with it anymore. It’s stuck there. I pull out the Rambo and cut the man’s leg. Blood flies everywhere. He’s dead before he hits the ground.

The song crescendos as a number of them come at me at the same time. It warns me I can’t avoid all the coming attacks and I listen to it to pick which to block and what hits to take. Every decision has a consequence. It’s just a question of picking those I know I can endure.

I take a punch to the stomach, but the bullet aimed for my head misses. A kick to the shin, instead of the knees, so I remain standing, and it gives me an opening to gut that man. I twist and take a kick to the shoulder blade, feeling the heat of the bullet grazing my arm instead of punching through my chest.

I throw the Rambo.

Don’t listen to what you’ve heard. They can be thrown.

Well, I can.

A punch to the jaw as my hand closes on the hilt of the HRT helps pull it out of the sheath and give my arm the momentum that let the blade cut a carotid open. A dozen steps away a man is falling, the Rambo planted squarely in his chest.

I told you they could be thrown.

Two more throats cut open before the kick at the back of my knees sends me falling back. The kicker’s head explodes from the bullet that had been destined for mine.

The melody becomes clear as those who are still standing back off in shock. I’m up and going after them. I’m not ready for the music to end just yet. To let go of this clarity of purpose. This is where I belong, where I am the best of who I am.

It will protect me, and I will do its bidding.

It pushed me to kill them, and I welcome it, feed it their cries, their protests, their pleas. Only when the last of them are silent, does the song also end.

I drop to my knees, the silence painful.

I should be sick. I’m covered in blood. Swallowed at least a pint of it in the process of massacring these men.

This is the part that scares me. The reason I need to stay away from knives.

I don’t feel sick.

I want the music to come back. I crave the song of edges.

I want to kill everyone.

That is what is sick.

So I don’t throw up, and eventually, I catch my breath.

The song is now a memory, one that fades no matter how much I try to hold on to it, and with it, so does the craving. When I can think, I pull the empty sheath from my belt. They’re all empty. To keep them is to tempt myself with taking up a knife and carrying it with me.

To invite the song to start again.

You can’t imagine how badly I want that. But there’s only one person still alive. I don’t know why the song ignored him, other than he might as well be dead for how incapacitated he must be.

I get to my feet and walk in his direction. I find him where I left him, but he’s curled into a ball, shaking and crying.

He is a parody of the man who almost killed me. Who fucked me harder than anyone I’ve known. Made me feel pleasure in a way I didn’t know I wanted. Part of me is disgusted at what I’m seeing. Another tells me it’ll pass. It’s because of the sedative they shot him with. Of that drug he took.

He said he isn’t a junkie.

If he lied, I am going to help him get clean whether he wants to or not. Because I am willing to deal with this today, but there is no way I’m making it a regular thing.

He stirs as I pull him up, and I’m amazed he’s still awake. And glad when he carries some of his weight because fuck, all that muscle makes him heavy. I help him in the house, through the living room. Then, as I try to guide him to the hall to one of the rooms there, he pulls me toward the kitchen.

There’s no point in fighting him. He has mass on his side. When he pulls me into the workshop, I pull him back as best as I can, which isn’t much.

“No, you need to sleep this off.”

“No.” The look he gives me is horror. “I can’t sleep.” When he moves, I can’t stop him.

We end up at a small safe with a lock almost as large as it. He paws at it; enters numbers and each time gets a red flash as a response. He whimpers as he places his thumb on a fingerprint reader and when the door doesn’t open, he nearly pulls me down as he sags.

“I need more,” he pleads. “Please, you have to get me more.”

I look at the safe, remembering what he told me of where he keeps it, but I have to ask. “More what?”

“The pills. I have to stay awake. There’s too much to do. If I sleep, I’ll never wake up.” He looks around and lowers his voice. “They made it that way on purpose. Once you take one, you can’t stop, otherwise, you end up sleeping forever.”

“No, you need to sleep. Come on.” I force him toward the door. “Let’s get you to your bed.”

He giggles.

I look at him suspiciously. “What’s funny?”

“My bed isn’t there.”

I start to protest. Of course, it’s there. That’s where the bedrooms are. The empty bedrooms, except for the one with the weight equipment.

“Where is your bed?” I ask. Curious and worried about the answer.

He points to the opposite side of the workroom. I move to the side until I see a bedroll on the floor with a case of water and wrapped bricks next to it.

“You sleep there?” I ask, dismayed. “Why?”

“This is home.” He’s getting heavier. He has to be losing the battle against the sedative.

“What about the rest of the house?”

His shrug nearly sends us both down. “It’s expected. Can’t go too far outside of expectations or they’ll notice you. I need to couch sometimes when people need a monster to help them. They like to sit down when they tell me about it.”

I look at the roll again. It can’t be more than half an inch of foam. “Wouldn’t you rather sleep in a real bed?”

“That’s a real bed. It’s what I want.” He pouts, “That’s where I want to sleep.”

I think about arguing, but that is the only thing resembling a bed in the house short of sleeping on the couch. I lead him there, then help him down.

I’m fortunate that I don’t have experience with withdrawal. The pimp Dear Old Dad gave me to wanted his boys clean. He liked breaking our will with his fists. Oh, did he enjoy inflicting pain.

Hydration had to be key, so I rip the plastic over the case and hand him a bottle. The bricks are nondescript with a list of ingredients. Meat, fat, fruits. That’s it. No idea what that’s supposed to be, but he takes it out of my hand, rips the package, and bites into it as if he hadn’t eaten in days.

Which might be what it is. The last time I saw him eat was before we went shopping for his big ass gun. Something similar to what he’s eating, now that I think about it.

While he eats, I head for the bathroom.

The song’s distant enough now that I feel icky with this dried blood on me. I also have to get the taste out of my mouth.

The water’s heavenly. I can only think of one thing that would make this shower better, but he’d on a thin foam mattress, barely conscious.

Fuck. Have I ever wanted anyone as badly as I do him?

Well, duh. Of course not. But the even crazier thing is that don’t need him to do anything. Oh sure, I’d love for him to fuck me to an inch of death again. But just knowing he exists is comforting.

It won’t stay that way. I know that. He said he doesn’t want me around. Once he’s better, he’ll do what he can to make me leave. Scream, probably, get angry.

Hurt me.

I touch the bite mark on my should and shudder in anticipation.

Am I a masochist?

I don’t think I enjoy pain. I can take it, sure, but I don’t get off on being hurt. I’ve never gotten hard fighting before.

That fight in the office, the way his hand tightened around my throat. Then his hotel room and how he fucked me after that.

No one’s ever treated me this harshly while intimate.

The water still runs red when I turn the shower off. I don’t want to leave him alone any longer. I don’t want to be away from him. I try myself and look at my clothing. I don’t need it. It isn’t like he’s wearing anything.

Well, he is wearing something.

I put the gun belt on. It’s odd feeling the leather against my skin, but it also feels right to be armed with him. Okay, so I’m out of bullets, but it’s the thought that counts.

When I join him, he’s curled into a ball again. There are nearly a dozen empty bottles on the floor and four wrappers worth. He’s going to be sick from all that at some point.

I uncurl him. “Make room for me.”

He looks at me, confused, as I slip against him. I turn so my back is against his chest. I tuck his arm under me and hold it. He drapes his other arm over me, then pulls me against him possessively.

I relax in his arms.

“I’m going to kill you,” he says, sadly, in my hair. “If you stay, eventually, I’m going to kill you.”

“I know.” He is deadly, and the way he holds me isn’t protection against that.

“You have to leave.” He rests his head against the back of mine. “You have to, and never come back. Otherwise, I won’t be able to keep it from happening.”

“I know.”

“Please.” There’s a hint of pleading in his voice. Then the pause is long, and when he speaks again, his voice is much softer. “Please, don’t go.”

“I won’t.”

His breathing slows. His hold on me relaxes, but he doesn’t release me.

Sleep takes a long time to come for me.

I think of how I got here. Just the last few days. I have no desire to think of everything that came before that. Of what led me to be in his arms.

In the arms of a killer. Of a man who will undoubtedly kill me one day.

But even knowing that, when sleep finally comes, for the first time for as long as I can remember, I feel like a normal man.

Bart and Tristan’s story continues in Blind Spot

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