Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 71852 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71852 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
“I know. I just…” he broke into a sob again. “Are you fine?”
Even now, after all that had happened, he cared about Drake. This time, to stop tears from flowing, Drake had to bite his cheek until he tasted blood.
“Yes. Let me take care of you. Please,” he whispered before nudging Clover, so the boy would face away from him.
He wanted to offer him a semblance of hope, but what was he to say?
There was no hope.
Clover nodded. He tried to sit, but when that turned out impossible to bear, he lay down on the dirty floor of the storage room that was already marked with his blood. “Who’s Mr. Arnie?” Clover whispered, sending a chill all the way to the tips of Drake’s toes.
It was as if Mr. Arnie wasn’t only a name on Clover’s lips but a real presence in the doorway. Drake’s stomach twisted, and he had to swallow the nausea that rapidly overcame his throat. His insides ached as if he’d been Mr. Arnie’s plaything, not only a witness that still bore scars of what he’d seen.
For a moment, he wasn’t sure if he should tell Clover, but when he looked at the fresh wounds on his lover’s back, it became clear, lies wouldn’t help. “He’s my personal boogeyman,” he whispered with a heavy heart. There was a bottle of water in the first aid kit, and he used it to clean Clover with a piece of gauze, as gently as he could, but the boy still shivered every time the touch became too firm.
“My past owner, the man Apollo had sold me to, Hank, he had other deviant friends, and he sometimes took me to what he called ‘playdates’.” Just thinking back to it made Drake sick, so he focused on Clover’s bleeding flesh, because even that made more sense than what Mr. Arnie did to people. He needed to be a source of strength for Clover the way Tank was. Steady and trustworthy. “One of those people was Mr. Arnie. He liked boys older than I was back then, and what he liked them do was…” Drake had to swallow the nausea and dressed the wounds as best he could with limited resources. Some needed stitches and would end up leaving ugly, elevated scars once they closed, but he had no means of dealing with them properly. “He’d have these young guys attacked by his dogs. Both for violence, and… sexually. Whenever I showed a hint of disobedience, Hank would threaten to sell me to Mr. Arnie. I saw what that man did and I knew the threat wasn’t empty, because the motherfucker showed interest in me several times.”
He remembered this one guy he met on a playdate. A bit older than Drake but even more scared. It was a shock to see him submit to the torture not long after. But then it had gotten even worse. Arnie sicced the dogs on him, treating Hank, Drake, and his other guests to a spectacle of a most brutal death. Arnie had gotten bored with guys once he’d broken them.
Drake drifted off with his gaze. He hated having to confess this, but how else would he explain how scared he was for Clover?
Clover spoke once the silence extended into agony. “He won’t let us go. You heard him. Diana was his sister. This was just the beginning. If he feels like it, I’ll end up in Mr. Arnie’s hands sooner or later. He doesn’t need to keep a promise to you. He could break it just to spite you.”
The terror on Clover’s usually smiley face made Drake look away. He stared at the wall behind the shelving unit and frowned. There was a vent grille close to the ceiling, quite large too, but as hope bloomed in his chest, Drake stifled it immediately. If they attempted to move through the ventilation system, it would end up causing way too much noise. And there were filters, and fans. They’d end up caught, their situation worsened by the escape attempt. No. He couldn’t feed Clover false hope. The only thing they could do was persevere.
“Maybe he’ll change his mind? You’re unique. He might want to sell you to someone who won’t be too bad,” Drake whispered, though he knew that in a normal person his words wouldn’t inspire any hope at all.
“That’s our alternative?” Clover stared at Drake, his shoulders slouched. The constant movement of his eyes, which Drake got so used to he barely even noticed, seemed to intensify.
Guilt was like endless stabbing, leaving deep wounds in Drake’s chest, but what was he to tell Clover? He couldn’t lie to him in a situation like this one. The best he could do for him was convince Apollo that Clover had played no part in Diana’s death, that it was all on him. Maybe then, the boy wouldn’t have to experience the worst of Apollo’s repertoire.