Chapter 2
A reunion and what came after
It was soft and I barely heard it at first. I’d been distracted by the nurse stabbing a lamppost into my arm to draw some blood and had taken my eyes off him for a second, so I hadn’t seen him wake up. I heard it the second time though, I think the whole floor heard it. “LUCA!”
He was off the chair and in my arms before I knew what happened. The nurse was amazing though, as they very often are. When he jumped on me, she managed to pull the needle out in time to avoid damaging me any further. Probably used to this kind of thing, I guess. In his excitement though, I think he had maybe forgotten I was injured. However, the pretty instant and loud pained “Oomph!” that escaped my lips, was a pretty stark reminder, quickly pulling him back to reality. In less than a heartbeat he’d lifted himself off me, like he was doing a push up, then he slithered his small body around to lay beside me, his arm coming to rest gently across my tummy.
“Sorry.” He whispered, with concern.
He was looking deep into my eyes, and I couldn’t help but look straight back into his. Those stunningly beautiful blue eyes I know so well, the ones I told you about earlier. They were like one of those crystal clear blue water pictures you see in beach travel adds. For a second I fell into them and just like I had done a million times before, I felt like I could swim in those eyes forever knowing all was right with the world. My stay this time around was going to be cut short though, because there was a very real and dark storm on the horizon, and it was coming fast.
I could see his love for me, that was always there, sure. But, I could also see tension and fear, and a boat load of worry. Three weeks she’d said, had I really been here for almost a month? It feels like it’s only been a few seconds, but if it’s actually been weeks and Riley was here the whole time? He was a very sensitive and pretty emotional boy at the best of times. The strain of these past weeks must have been torture for him. God only knows how my boy managed those feelings for so long. I didn’t have to wonder for very long when that particular storm was going to break though.
“Oh my god, Luca I thought I lost you, you DIED! … Three ti…times!” he had already started sucking on his bottom lip by then and the tears were building thick and fast in those beautiful eyes. I knew he couldn’t stop them now even if he wanted to and when they finally let go he wailed out. “I’m sooo sssss sooooorrrryyy, it’s all my fault!”
I wrapped my arms around him as best I could in the tight confines of the hospital bed and pulled him into me in as tight of a hug as I could manage. My very thin hospital gown was going to be pretty soaked through by the time he was done, I knew that from past experience, but I felt like he needed to cry it out. He cried a lot, probably enough for the both of us that’s true, but like I said, he was sensitive, and I didn’t think any less of him for it. He was so strong in so many other ways, so much stronger than so many other people I know, so what if he cried? While holding him, I rubbed his back up and down, all the while trying not to rip out any of my IV lines or anything. I figured I would get to that fault business in a few minutes, I was hoping we could be alone for that.
“It’s ok baby, I’m here now.” I said as soothingly as I could with my still hoarse throat, all the while trying my best to keep the volume to a whisper in his ear. “I’m here Riley, I’m here.”
The nurse finished up a few minutes later and after scribbling down a few things on a chart, she patted me on the knee and left. I swear I thought I saw her wipe a tear from her eye as the door closed behind her. Not trying to be rude, but I could only care about my boy right now. He was hurting, but he was right where he needed to be, right where I needed him to be, safe in my arms.
“What’s this crap about it being your fault?” I demanded, as soon as she left.
“I kissed you and everyone saw, and they hurt you because of me!” Tears were spilling out of his eyes again and I used a piece of my gown to wipe them away. “If I’d just kept my hands to myself, if I’d kept control of myself, none of this would have happened!”
“Riley, look at me please.” I said sternly, taking his face in my hands to make sure we maintained eye contact. “It was our first real date, and we were having a great time, the music and that perfect moment and everything in between, if you hadn’t kissed me, then I swear I would’ve kissed you. This was not your fault!”
I let that sink in for a moment then I pulled him back against me and just held my boy. I don’t know if that was what he wanted to hear, but I felt strongly like he needed to hear it. I could feel his body shudder with the occasional sob every now and again as the tension left him, but neither of us said anything. I don’t know how long we stayed like that, ten minutes, twenty, an hour, I really don’t know, and I don’t actually care. I just know it felt real good and I never wanted to let him go. But, as much as I didn’t want to right then, I also knew I had to, for a little while at least. I suddenly had so many questions and they all needed answers.
I Released my grip and edged myself back a bit so I could see his face clearly. His eyes were red and puffy, his cheeks were stained, and his nose was leaking snot, but he was beautiful! I know you’re not supposed to use that word for boys, but I don’t care, to me that was the only word that ever sounded right for him. He was a total mess, but I just couldn’t help but think how beautiful he was in spite of how he looked right then, and I smiled.
“What?” He said, after a few minutes of my staring. “You’re looking at me funny!”
“Just loving you is all.” I replied and I took a second to really see him properly for the first time since I woke up.
He was maybe a little slimmer than usual, and still not very tall, but I knew how ripped he was under all those clothes, he was all muscle from his skating. I knew every ridge and contour on him, like he knew every one of mine. Don’t let him fool you, he was an artist on his board!. He was wearing pretty much his normal clothes, an unzipped hoodie over an unbuttoned checkered shirt, over a t-shirt and jeans, with white socks on his cute little feet. His tan hat was resting on the corner of the chair. I’d seen him dressed like that so many times it was almost like his second skin and by the smell of it, this particular outfit was coming dangerously close to becoming just that! But even that didn’t take away from his beauty, or the love I felt for him.
“Riley?” I asked, grabbing a fistful of the sheet corner this time, feeling I needed something bigger, and started to clean his face as best I could. “I know it’s probably gonna be hard Babe, but I need to know a few things, I need you to rip the band-aid off for me, okay?”
“Okay.” He said, before sucking in his bottom lip again. He always did that when he was nervous, or to give himself time to think, to get his thoughts in order.
“How did I get here, can you tell me what happened please?”
It took him a minute to respond, like he was still trying to sort it all out in his head. I put my hand out upside down on the bed and after a second, his palm met mine and our fingers intertwined. With a sense of new found strength he eventually whispered, “That dickwad stabbed you and you died.”
That part I knew, I could still feel the surprise from when it happened, and the pain. I can still feel the knife as it forced its way into my body. It was like the feeling of an ice cold sliver slide straight through me. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that sensation as long as I live. Closing my eyes to try and block that particular memory out was a mistake, I very quickly realised, because I just saw it clearer and tensed up as the feeling washed over me all over again. At that very moment, I was pretty sure I was going to have some pretty realistic and scary dreams about it for a while, but I couldn’t think about that. Not yet anyway, that was tomorrow’s problem.
“That part I know babe,” I softly sighed out a second later, after I’d gotten myself under control. The smile I tried to give him, the one that said everything was all right, probably wasn’t that convincing but I did try. “What happened after, how did I get here?”
“Oh, um, that, ah, yeah” he replied. “When I saw you fall, I kinda screamed a little bit. I tried to run back to you, to help you, but I couldn’t make my legs move, you know? I just fell to my knees and screamed. I wanted to help you so bad, but I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t have to think about it for long though.”
“What do you mean?” As soon as I uttered this question, I watched something dark fall across his face like a veil.
“Just after I went down someone picked me up and carried me back to the crowd. They even dumped me on the ground near you.” I could see the anguish and the frustration he must have felt in his eyes, while it all unravelled in his mind like a bad movie. “You looked so bad, and I was so scared, there was so much blood everywhere and the knife, fuck Luca it was right there sticking out of you! I tried to get to you, to hold you but you were always just out of reach and every time I tried, someone would pull or push me back.”
I lifted my free hand to caress his face gently and brush a few stray strands of the very blond hair out of his eyes. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. He must have thought so to, because he took hold of my hand after only a few passes and dragged it down to his lips. Kissing my fingers softly, he then gently rubbed them against his cheek. My heart was breaking, I felt so bad asking him to relive it all but the more he told me, the more I needed to know.
“I was being yanked around by someone pretty hard by then, like I was a ragdoll at show and tell or something, and I couldn’t get my legs under me, and you were always so close and always just out of reach!” the words were coming thick and fast now, but he stopped to take another breath. “You started coughing then and I could see you spit blood and I tried to get to you again, I lunged for you, but someone kicked me back and I went flying into someone else, who held me there. All I could do was stand there and… and watch you die.”
The thought of someone hurting my boy made me angry, but this was getting weird. I mean, If I’m honest, most boys are bigger than Riley, but the things he was telling me wasn’t meshing with what I remembered. He couldn’t fight for shit, but he was super strong and even though he was small, he was usually strong enough or slippery enough to get himself away from people. “I don’t understand Babe, who was holding you back?”
“I don’t know who it was, but he was big. The crowd had grown by then, it wasn’t just the guys who started it anymore, there were adults now too. Parents I guess.” Riley’s face tightened in a grimace right then and I knew I wasn’t going to like what came next. “They were all drunk and laughing and throwing empty beer bottles and cans at us and calling us some pretty bad things. Anthony’s dad was the worst though, he was preaching again, and he kicked you each time you stopped moving to see if you were still alive and kept calling us disgusting faggots and yelling that we had to die.”
Anthony’s father, Caine Jacobs, we all knew. He was a local preacher and was, according to Riley, right in the middle of another one of his grand sermons about the sins of homosexuality, he’d been doing that a lot lately. Apparently, he was holding up his bible and shouting out that this was god’s work, or some shit. He was really getting into it and getting the crowd worked up at the same time. Riley then said something that chilled me to my very core. He said that right in front of him right then a couple of the more enthusiastic adults were tying a pair of nooses. Apparently they were planning to lynch the gay boys!
“I don’t know if they would’ve actually hung us, but it totally looked like they were going to and I got really scared.” I could see that fear in his eyes, and I felt him tense up through his hand, which was still firmly in mine. I hated the fact that he’d had to go through this alone, but as it happened, whether they would have hung us or not, he never actually got the chance to find out. “I guess everything I was feeling right then just came out and I screamed again, it must have been pretty loud though this time I guess.”
“Why, what happened this time?” I prodded, the look on his face had taken a weird turn and I wasn’t sure what was going to come next.
“Anakin happened!” He said, like it was a given or something. “Fuck Luca, that guy is terrifying! I’m so glad he’s our friend!”
What Riley went on to tell me was equal parts unreal and totally believable. I’d known Anakin my whole life. I had seen him angry many times, so I had a pretty good idea what lived just under the surface. He’d never gotten angry with any of us boys though, and that included Riley. Sure, he would give us a stern look or word, or a clip around the ear occasionally, if we were being dumb or naughty, but he never got angry with us. Growing up with him around, it felt like we had two dads, because I truly believed that he loved us, in his own way. Okay, maybe just one dad and a really close uncle or something like that. Wranglers and equipment were a different story though, he was well feared on the ranch and for good reason! To be fair though, if they needed it he was always at their back too. He was like a stalking wolf, and we were his pack.
I knew Anakin had been listening to the band as well, he was sitting along with Daddy and the moms, the boys and a bunch of the wranglers were also hanging around. We were probably some of the last of the family to get to the stage and I had seen him not far from where we were before we sat down. I know he saw us, because he nodded our way and I’m pretty damn sure he must have seen us kissing too. We got up not too long afterwards to go the bathroom and I know he saw us leaving, because he winked at me, and I remember blushing. When he didn’t see us come back though, he told Riley later that he felt a darkness come over him and he became worried for us, so got up to go look for us.
The crowd around us had grown pretty quickly by then, apparently, so he probably found that pretty fast and headed that way. As he got closer he must have seen the bible above the crowd and heard the crap that was being said. This made him real angry he said, but he still didn’t really know what was going on. He was about to call Daddy for some back up when he heard Riley’s scream, and that was all it took. It was like a switch flipped in his head and all the years of instinct and training kicked in and the deadly came out.
According to Riley, Anakin was at full speed when he crashed into and through the crowd. He was like a bowling ball on a strike, and no one saw him coming until it was far too late. Except for Anthony it was all adults now, the other boys having been pushed to the sides as mere spectators. Evidently, this was supposed to be a bonding moment between father and son. Riley’s retelling was pretty sketchy on clear details from then on, but from his description, all I could think of was one of those cartoon cloud fights, all dust arms and legs everywhere. He was a little clearer about what happened after though. He said that when that dust settled, Anakin was standing in the middle of the yard and the crowd had either scattered or was just lying on the ground around him not moving, including Caine Jacobs. Anthony was apparently on his knees crying over his daddy.
“It was so scary Luca, it looked like everyone was dead! But, if Anakin hadn’t come, I don’t know what would’ve happened!” Riley said, and I watched an involuntary shudder ripple through his slight frame at the chilling memory. “I mean, I’m glad he did, but I actually don’t know what was scarier, he was like nothing I’ve ever seen. It was so surreal, like a video game or something. Every time he punched kicked or hit something, it connected, and I swear I heard bones breaking. He must have gotten hit too, I mean it was like him versus everyone, but I swear I never saw it, not once!”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
I could see that telling his story was really getting to him now, and I didn’t know if I should push for any more that night. I tried to cuddle him close and just hold him for a minute, but he was determined by then. He was so damn stubborn sometimes, once he set his mind to something, it was join in or get the hell out of way. I loved him for it, but Jesus it got us into so much trouble sometimes!
“It was over so fast, one minute we were surrounded, the next we weren’t,” He continued. Riley said that once he was let go, that he’d crawled over to me and tried to do what he could. He’d pulled his sweater off to make a donut to go around the knife like we learned in first aid, tore his checkered shirt up to make bandages to hold it in place, all the while crying over what he thought was my dead body. I guess he figured that he had to do something, that he still had to try and I’m glad he did.
That was when Anakin joined him, and his years of ranch and tribal medicine and a hefty amount of corpsman training was able to stabilise me. I had no idea that he had that, but thinking back on it, I guess I’m not too surprised either. He’d played doctor for enough cattle, horses, wranglers and us over the years. Apparently he found a pulse, though it was really weak and once I was sort of breathing properly again, Anakin called an ambulance. Then, he called Daddy and according to Riley the shit really hit the fan!
“Je-sus!” I whistled. I could only begin to imagine how Daddy would react, but I wasn’t far off!
He didn’t actually know what Anakin told Daddy, but apparently him and a bunch of the hands arrived not long after the call, and they were fully armed, running like the wind and out for blood. Where the guns came from he never found out, I mean when we were out on the ranges we all carried rifles for protection and some of the wranglers even had pistols as well, but we’d never seen them carry them in town. Maybe they never had to, maybe we just never saw them, I guess they were always there though, right? Thanks to Anakin there wasn’t much fight left for them though, and I was kind of glad about that. I don’t know if I would be okay knowing a bunch of people got shot because of me, even if they were assholes.
The way Riley described it, Daddy took the whole scene in, with just a glance, and then headed straight for me. He checked me over real quick and then looked straight at Anakin, who just nodded at him. A med kit appeared from somewhere and I had fluids going back into me and my pulse was getting stronger. I guess this satisfied him for the moment, because he then took charge and went about shouting orders. He had the wranglers photograph every detail with their phones, especially the nooses. He then had them drag everyone still there into one place to check them over and then tie them up. Even the deputies who showed up afterwards took their orders directly from Daddy. Had they not showed up when they did though, there’s no telling how far he would have taken it. According to Riley, he’d never seen Daddy so intense, so angry, when he barked that night, everyone jumped.
He said that Daddy stood over me the whole time, until the ambulance arrived. Only Riley and Anakin were allowed to even get close to me until then. That must have been the shouting voice I heard, that one that made me feel safe. Apparently, I died the first time just after the ambulance got there, and they had to shock me back before I could be loaded into it. He said the ambulance crew told them only one person could come with me, but both Daddy and Riley stood firm, neither were ready to let me out of their sight. I guess they couldn’t afford to waste any time, so they allowed both to climb in with me, and I was quickly taken to the hospital. I died again in the back of the ambulance on the way there, apparently. Riley wasn’t that sure what happened at the fair after we left, so I guess I would have to find that out later.
“It’s been almost a month Luca, I thought you weren’t ever going to wake up,” he told me, a minute or two later, after he had collected a few thoughts. I could tell he was getting calmer now, and hopefully that meant the worst was behind us. “They kept you asleep for two weeks, because of your lung, but when they took the machines away you stayed asleep, and everyone was really worried, and I didn’t know what to do! I couldn’t lose you again!”
He paused again to look into my eyes, and I could see tears once again form in his, but he took a couple of deep breaths and forged on. “I was really, really scared, they tried to take me away from you, but I wouldn’t let them.”
“You’ve really been here this whole time?” I asked him. Impressed with his love and loyalty.
“Uh huh.” He nodded. “I’d never forgive myself if I left and… you know? Something happened.”
My heart swelled with equal parts love and sadness right then. People are always saying kids don’t know what real love is, but we do, we might not be able to articulate it, but we know it. Right then, I could feel just how much my boy loved me and I couldn’t help but feel the same way. For the first time since waking up I leaned in and pressed my dry and slightly cracked lips, to his super soft and supple ones. His eyes closed a half second before mine, but we didn’t need to see each other for this part. I knew every contour ridge and crease of those lips and knew just the right place to push my tongue against to make them open, so it could worm it’s way in and tickle the tip of his.
Later on, after we came up for air the second time and just before I fell asleep again, Riley facetimed home to tell them I was awake. Everyone was so happy to see me. I could see the relief plain as day on the faces of Daddy and the moms, and I guess even after everything Riley had just told me, the seriousness of my condition finally and fully hit me right then. That my family was so scared, that my boy had felt like he had, had held vigil like this, maybe I was worse off than I thought, and I almost started to cry myself, but I managed to hold it in check.
I couldn’t help but laugh at my little brothers though, when they appeared on screen a few minutes later, they were so excited to see me finally awake. Daddy had gone to wake them up when Riley called, and I was glad that he had. It felt good to laugh after the night we’d just had. They begged to come to the hospital right then and there, but he told them to look at how tired I was and then said he would bring them to see me first thing in the morning. He told me he loved me, then said goodnight. The last thing I heard from him, he was chasing the boys back to bed. The moms stayed with us a bit longer, but as much as I wanted to see them too, I don’t remember much of what they said, by then I was drifting back to sleep.
***
I was waiting for him in one of those inside outside exercise yards. It had walls on three sides and a fence on the short end with a guard tower on top. Not the most convenient of meeting places, but it was private especially once the cameras went off, and it suited my purposes perfectly. Normally Anakin did this kind of thing, which was his choice. He said that he was the expendable one, and I needed to keep my hands clean of whatever it was for the ranch and for the family. Not this time though, this time I needed to do it myself. It was too personal, and I needed the righteous closure this would bring. Besides, Anakin was never expendable, no matter how he thought about himself, not to me and not to my family. He was family dammit! I always hated and regretted the risks he took on our behalf, no matter how much I understood the necessity.
The gate opened and there he was, in his orange jumpsuit. Though he wasn’t in chains, he was still shuffling along like he was. I had no idea if that was psychological or a left over from what Anakin did to him. As I thought about it though, I realised that I didn’t care. I also realised he was just as pathetic now as he was back in high school. Caine Jacobs wasn’t a popular kid back then with few friends, but as the son of a preacher he had always been a loudmouth bigot and a bully. Back then I pitied him, but not anymore. After what he tried to do to my boys, he was dead to me and the world, he just hadn’t stopped breathing yet.
Truth be told, personality wise, he really hadn’t changed that much over the years. He was still the same sanctimonious prick he was back then. I know as a kid he was beaten down pretty thoroughly by his even bigger prick of a father. Caine’s father had also been a pastor in town and was very much the fire and brimstone, screaming hellfire from the pulpit type. Unfortunately for Caine, his father saw the devil in everything and everyone, particularly his own son. The emotional, psychological and physical abuse he suffered from his father must have been terrible, and there was definitely something different about him now so many years later, something a little broken maybe? I wasn’t at all surprised that he had followed in his father’s footsteps though, taking up the mantle of the town’s saviour. That kind of indoctrination was very generational. I can only hope there was a chance for his kid, I was going to deal with Anthony later, but in a very different way.
I wasn’t around much back when Caine was coming up as a preacher, but by all accounts, he was a very ambitious man in his early years. It seemed he was desperate to get out from under his daddy’s shadow and make a name for himself. Not long after he had taken over from his father, he had tried to get all the bars shut down in the county. I was deployed by then, so only heard about it second-hand, but I wouldn’t have given his efforts much credit anyway, even if I had been home. He had a few petitions going though, even had most of his congregation behind him. But the years had not been kind to his flock. It was the twenty first century by then, and even the more religious members of Rainwater Creek, were coming around to the modern day.
As far as I am aware to this day, you can still buy a beer in most places in Archer County. This and several other similar failures just seemed to spur on Pastor Jacobs though. As he saw it, this was further evidence of the unravelling of good God fearing Christian society. He lost even more ground a few years later when he started protesting in front of rodeo arenas and concerts, claiming they were the gateway to sin and the path of the devil or some such shit. His church and most of his message was not popular in a rapidly more moderate and modern northern Texas. I guess this forced him further and further into the more fundamental and fringe elements of his faith.
Knowing all this and caring about it though, are two very different things. Even a child knows right from wrong, and he was an adult. What he did, what he encouraged other supposed rational adults to do was most definitely wrong! I was going to make sure he understood every inch of just how wrong he was. If he had been successful that night, if he had killed the boys, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation right now. I would have just tied him to my horse and dragged his sorry ass right into the centre of Red Rock and left him for the buzzards. As it was, Anakin saved our boys that night and Luca was finally awake.
Mikey and CJ were waiting outside in the truck to go see Luca for the first time since he woke up. For what I was about to do though, I had to push thoughts of the little ones aside, I couldn’t have their sweet faces associated with this human garbage in my mind. It was bad enough that I had to concentrate on my eldest Luca and Riley, but they needed this as much as I did, not that I would ever tell them. Someone once said that a secret is like a callus on the heart, but when you’ve seen and done the things I have, you understand that some secrets need to be and will be taken to the grave.
He wasn’t looking directly at me at first, shuffling towards me as he was. This was his exercise time after all and to him, I was an unexpected visitor. He had been lucky so far to have been kept in isolation since his arraignment, but that changed today and I didn’t even need to call in that big of a favour to make it happen.
Breaking the silence, I slid my hat back and took my sunglasses off as he approached, I said to him. “You went too far this time Caine.”
He must have recognised my voice, because he immediately stopped, looked up at me and the blood drained from his face. I can only imagine all the things that were going through his mind right then. To be honest, I probably wasn’t helping, dressed as I was, head to toe all in black. I must have been quite the sight.
“You! You’re not supposed to be in here!” He stammered.
“I am though, so what does that tell you.” I replied.
I was leaning up against and about halfway down the far wall. Other than the hat and glasses, I hadn’t made a move since he’d come in, and I hadn’t moved at all since we locked eyes on each other. I guess that instilled a sense of confidence in the man. He looked me up and down a few times, as he contemplated what he was going to say. Given the situation he was in, if I’d had a million years, I doubt I ever would have thought I would hear what came out of his mouth next. Looking back on it though, I probably shouldn’t have been surprised.
“Are you here to offer my release?” He asked. “To beg God’s forgiveness for putting me in here in the first place, when all I was doing was His work?”
“And what work would that be?” I inquired, the scorn absolutely impossible to disguise in my voice.
“Excising a cancer of course, the disease that is breaking apart the moral fibre of society today, such perversions and filth must not be tolerated!” He intoned so matter-of-factly, and right then I was actually struck dumb, I truly had no idea what to say to this rubbish. Unfortunately, while I continued to keep quiet, he started to gather some steam. “The bible states your spawn’s perversions are an abomination, and He demands my hand be his instrument in their destruction! Leviticus states quite clearly….”
“What?” I finally blurted out in frustration before he could finish, purposely interrupting his flow. “The bible says no such fucking thing, you sanctimonious prick!”
I had heard this crap my entire life and it was exactly this very narrow-minded and hypocritical ridiculousness, which had kept my family from church for decades. If killing my boys was God’s plan, then I had no use for him, nor his supposed chosen instrument. I have very personal experience that when it all comes down to it, all you have is yourself and if you are very lucky, some very good friends close by, to help you out of a jam. Praying to God does literally nothing when the metal meets the meat.
“It is His will, and I am powerless to stop the inevitable.” He continued. His tired rhetoric was making me sick to my stomach and my rage spiked. Before I could stop myself, I was off the wall and in his face quicker than he could blink. So fast in fact he almost fell as he scrambled backwards in fear, until I grabbed two handfuls of his collar, pulling him close and holding him in place.
“YOU TRIED TO LYNCH MY SONS, YOU FUCKING ANIMAL!” I spat in his face. I was losing my temper, which was something I had promised Anakin and myself that I wouldn’t do. The urge to tear this pathetic excuse for a man in front of me limb from bloody limb was almost too strong, and how I managed to resist that particular urge is anyone’s guess. I managed to take one or two deep calming breathes though and looked into his eyes for a second, before letting him go and flattening out the creases I had made on that collar. I don’t know what I was looking for, but whatever it was, I didn’t find it. Somehow, I managed to maintain that calmness I was struggling to feel and continue. “What’s worse, you tried to use God as an excuse for your actions, and they very much were YOUR actions, not His! Do you really think your God would approve of you killing children?”
“Those sodomites are an abomination against GOD, I would have been welcomed in heaven for their destruction.” He said, not realising the very real danger he was in right then, or maybe he did.
I couldn’t help but laugh right then, this was all far too surreal! I guess no matter where they’re from, a zealot is a zealot it seems and as far as I was concerned, he had just sealed his own fate. “You really think you’re going to get into your heaven because of what you did, or more accurately, what you FAILED to do?”
“It doesn’t matter right now does it?” He replied smugly.
“What?” I questioned with disbelief at his very sudden change of view.
“Sure,” he Replied. “No God Fearing Texan would ever sentence me, not for trying to rid the world of that filth anyway!”
Ah yes, there it is! I’d had enough by this point, glad that he had made it so easy for me. I signalled the guard up in the tower that we were done, so that he could open the door.
“You’ll never see trial you piece of shit, I’ll make sure of that!” I said, while I waited, looking straight at him. “Most of the inmates in here don’t take too kindly to people who hurt kids, even gay ones. The guards don’t either.”
“They can’t get to me in this wing, I think I’m safe.” He sneered, with a wink at me and an assurance he was starting to lose, as I kept staring him down.
“You know what Caine?” I asked, as I looked him up and down. “Karma comes in all shapes and sizes, and I guess today, for you, it’s me and I really hope you enjoy hell.”
“Wh…what are you talking about?” He asked, the concern finally registering in his voice.
“I’ve arranged for your transfer buddy.” I replied, watching the realisation hit and the fear grow. “You’ll be in gen-pop before I’ve even driven out of the gates, and I’ve made sure that EVERYONE in there knows what you did.”
“You… You can’t do that, you don’t have the pull, or the balls!” He spat at me, but the conviction had left his eyes faster than the piss down his leg.
“Tsk Tsk Tsk, now Caine, look what you’ve gone and done. Looks like you’re gonna need a nice long shower after that and all this exercise of course.” I chuckled, waving my arm around the small yard, before narrowing in on his eyes for the last time. “This isn’t gonna be quick motherfucker!”
My face must have shown just how deadly serious I was. I could see it now, the look of a cornered animal was very clear on his, and as far as I was concerned that was all he was, an animal. I realised then that I truly had no pity for him anymore, or mercy, he simply did not deserve it. If he was released, he would just do the same thing again and he might even get lucky next time and succeed. I also knew It was time to leave, so I rearranged the hat on the top of my head and slid my sunglasses back on. I had one more thing to say though.
“You have no idea the pull I have Caine, never did and my balls have always been bigger than yours, it was true in those high school showers back in the day when everyone but me laughed at you and it’s true now.” I gave him a second to let that last bite sink in, before I left him with my final words on the matter. “You’re gonna wish I hung you that night, you son of a bitch! And so are the rest of those assholes, but at least they’ll live through it.”
I purposefully didn’t mention his kid on the way out, I didn’t look back either, I just left him standing there in a pool of his own piss, as I walked out through the now open gate.