Foster Siblings 3: Brokedown Hearts (39 page)

On instinct, David went to cover his mouth but cried out as tape tore at the hair and skin under his bound wrists. His heart pumping ten times faster than a second ago, he shouted, “But you said if I didn’t scream—”

The doctor smashed a long piece of duct tape across David’s mouth and shut him up. “I know what I said. But I also understand how the temptation might be too great to ignore. Don’t worry.” Dr. Fariday leaned in and brushed a kiss across David’s taped-up lips. This time, even with the barrier, David couldn’t control his shudder of revulsion.
No. No. Don’t freak on him
. Thinking fast, David forced himself to press his lips against Dr. Fariday’s through the tape, hoping the doctor would think David’s tremble had been based in attraction rather than disgust.

When the doctor pulled away, he nodded softly and caressed David’s cheek once more. “There you go. You gay men are fickle, the way you fall so easily in and out of love. I know with just a little bit of your time, I’ll get that complete devotion back in you. Don’t worry. You won’t be in here forever. I’ll be back tonight, and we’ll begin our retraining then.” He suddenly grinned big and added, “I’ll bring pizza.” Then, without another word, he slammed the door.

David lunged, but with his ankles bound together, he fell against the wood and tumbled to the floor.
Oomph
. As his shoulder crashed into the hardwood, he cried out, but his lips wouldn’t move, and he accidentally bit his tongue. The coppery, sharp taste of blood seeped into his mouth. He swallowed and tried to ignore the cut, and instead looked around wildly, attempting to find some small source of light to allow his eyes to adjust and see. At the same time, at his back, on the other side of the door, something scraped against wood. The handle rattled for a heartbeat, and David guessed Dr. Fariday had shoved a chair under the door handle.

Going statue still, David quieted everything inside him and listened. With his ear pressed to the door, he didn’t breathe again until the distinct
click
of the front door and then the gun of a car engine sounded, and he knew the doctor had truly gone and left him alone.

Okay
. Flooded with an avalanche of endorphins, David pushed his back against the wall and wiggled to his feet.
Think
. He might not have a lot of time; he needed to figure this out fast.

Rather than try to see with his eyes, using his hands at his back, David felt along the walls with his whole body, looking for a sharp object he could use to cut his wrists free.
Wood paneling, wood paneling, wood paneling, more wood paneling. Damn it
. He shuffled his feet too, hoping he might feel something useful through his socks. He figured his sneakers were back at the motel next to the bed where he’d taken them off.

Oh God, Elsa
. The kitten’s sweet little tan-colored face and pink nose filled David’s thoughts and gutted him through the middle. He hadn’t seen her in the bathroom before the doctor had drugged him, so he had no idea what had happened to her.
Please be okay.

Love for Elsa brought tears to David’s eyes, but he blinked them away as best he could and continued on his short trek. He went around one side of the small closet to the other and eventually landed back next to the doorknob. No loose nails, nothing hanging on the walls. David couldn’t find one thing to slice the tape binding his arms and legs. He couldn’t lift his hands enough to feel along the coatrack, so he used his face instead, but not a single hanger rested on the bar, let alone a wire one. He pressed his head against the metal bar, but it didn’t budge, and he did not have a way to maneuver his bound legs high enough to kick it and try to bring it down.

There’s nothing here
. David slumped against the wall. Then again, if the doctor had kidnapped other people, he would know better than to leave behind something that could be used as a weapon.

As David mentally watched his options spiral down the drain, leaving him with nothing to use as an escape, he began to breathe faster and harder, hyperventilating, and his throat seized with terrible tightness, choking him. He saw Ben and Elsa and Brittany and Sam and Erin and all the animals and people at the shelter fall into that spiraling abyss, each sucked out of his reach. A sob wrenched through him, tearing into his soul.

No
. Another voice in David, this one his own, screamed inside him even louder than Ben’s had moments ago.
This isn’t the end. Not by a long shot
. David would not give up and throw away all those wonderful gifts the world had given him. He wouldn’t let Ben, the only person who’d ever seen the whole David, ugliness and insecurities and all, and loved him anyway, slip through his fingers forever just because he hadn’t succeeded in finding an escape on his first attempt. He wouldn’t give up. Not now.

Reassessing, David discarded the closet itself and took stock of himself.
What do I have on me? What’s in my pockets?
Able to pat his buttocks awkwardly, David didn’t feel any ridges in his back pockets, which wasn’t unusual; he didn’t normally put anything in them. He had to check the front ones.
I have to get my hands in front.

Oh God. Can I?
Something he’d seen in a movie once came to him; in his head he could see a woman working her bound hands under her rear end, down her legs, and over her feet to move them from back to front, where she then untied ropes with her teeth to get free. David’s legs were a lot longer, though.
What does it matter?
Without giving himself another second, David folded his legs as tightly to his body as he could and began wiggling to get his arms to stretch under his ass and thighs.
I don’t have any other options.

With every push, wiggle, and maneuver David made, his arm and shoulder muscles stretched unbearably, pulling enough to rip a cry from him, muffled against the tape over his mouth. Ignoring the white-hot pain tearing through his deltoid muscles, David pushed his bound hands farther under his body, one crushingly painful inch at a time, and forced his wrists past his buttocks and upper legs. Not a victory yet, David gritted his teeth, pushed his tied hands under his feet, got his hands in front of him, and reached partial freedom.

Exhausted, his upper body fatigued, David barreled through the pain and felt along his front pockets but found only the shape of a tube of lip balm inside.
Damn it.

On the floor, David fell back against the door, spent, and dropped his clasped hands in his lap. His pinkie knuckle hit the snap on his jeans, and once again hope lit through David like a wildfire.
Yes. The zipper on my jeans
. When David had been a kid, his brother Travis had caught his prick in his zipper, and he’d cut the skin so bad when undoing the metal teeth that he’d had to go to the ER. If those teeth could rip through flesh, maybe with some work they could cut through duct tape too.

Yes. This will work. It has to
. No idea how much time he’d wasted already, David worked his fingers to unsnap his jeans, pull the zipper down, and try to position it to where the teeth were split apart the most. When successful, he started sawing fast and furious over the zipper with the tape, desperate to get free. Dr. Fariday hadn’t said what he wanted with David after he retrained him, but David’s gut told him his life depended on getting away. Fast.

Repositioning the zipper, David got back to rubbing the tape against the teeth, all the while silently assuring Ben he would get free and back to him soon.

* * * *

Halfway through Ben and Mikael’s flight home, Ben swiped his credit card through the slot on the airplane phone and punched in numbers he’d once had seared into his brain, hoping he’d be using them for the rest of his life. Even though things hadn’t worked out, thank God for that little blip of optimism Ben had found in his relationship with Braden Crenshaw that had prompted him to memorize his cell number for life.

On the third ring, Braden answered his phone. “Hello. Detective Crenshaw speaking.”

“Braden.”
Thank you, Jesus
. New life bled into Ben, and emotion-drenched fears spilled out of him without a filter. “I need a favor. I need you to go to the motel and check on David. Bang on the door for as long as you need to, and don’t just walk away if he doesn’t answer. Or, damn it”—Ben looked at his watch, but his days and hours had gotten mixed up, and he couldn’t think clearly—“David might be at work right now. Try the shelter too. See if you can track him down. Something is wrong; I know it, but I don’t know what. You need to find him and figure it out.”

“Wait. What? Slow down.” Braden’s response, his voice filled with annoying, police-officer-mode calm, irritated the hell out of Ben’s sensitized feelings. “What are you talking about? What did David do now?”

Ben glanced at the passengers less than a dozen feet away, and with volatile emotions swirling all through him, he lowered his voice to a furious hiss. “Listen, I’m on a fucking plane over I don’t even know where right now, so I can’t do a damned thing, but I haven’t been able to reach David for hours. I know you don’t like him and definitely don’t trust him, but I do, and we’re clicking like we’re meant to be together, so I know when he doesn’t answer my texts and voice mails that something is wrong. He wouldn’t make me worry like that. I know it.”

“Ben.” More of that stabworthy, insulting rationale coated Braden’s voice. “You know David has been known to manipulate people in the past. Did you have another fight? Could he be trying to rile you up?”

“Goddamn it, he isn’t!” Fiery passion lit Ben’s voice and tore up his throat on the way out. Two women glared at him, but Ben spun around and gave them his back. Shoulder braced against the wall of the plane, Ben said with furious quiet, “Listen to me. Listen to what I’m saying. I know. I know in a way I cannot explain. I know something has happened to him. David knows a lack of response from him would hurt me and anger me, on top of which I know he was worried about my safety while I was overseas, so I know he wouldn’t ignore me just to get a reaction out of me.”

Breathing heavily, too much helplessness and unspeakably deep love pushing its way out of him in every which way it could, Ben revealed, “David is mine, Braden. He’s mine. He’s mine in that way I wanted you to be, but you couldn’t, and I understood, so I let you go. He’s mine in that deeper way you and I couldn’t reach with each other. Do you understand? And whether that’s sick or wrong or perverse, it is real, and I need him, and in my gut I know right now he is not okay. Go check on him for me. And if you can’t get in touch with him, don’t let it go. Understand that his silence means something is wrong, and start a search for him.” Worked up, nearly hyperventilating, Ben scratched out his plea through a sore throat. “Please. For everything we once meant to each other, do this for me. Please.”

Braden immediately replied, “Okay. All right. Yes. I hear how worried you are, and you know I trust your gut. I’ll go over to the motel, and on the way there I’ll call the shelter and see if anyone has seen or heard from him. I’ll find him. When are you going to be back?” Through the phone, Ben heard the scrape of wheels across tile and the clink of keys. A second later, Braden asked, “Where are you anyway?”

Over the lines of seats, Ben spotted the top of a blond head, and his voice caught as he answered, “I went to get my brother.”

“Brother?” Braden’s tone ramped up comically high. “Since when do you have a brother?”

Unbidden, a small smile cracked through the tension coursing within Ben. “I found him when I tracked down my father five years ago. I never told anyone.” A wave of peace and contentment washed over Ben, and his chest banded with the sweetest pain. “I told David about him,” he confessed to Braden. “And about my father too. David is that important to me. I showed him some of the stuff I hinted at to you but never let you see. He saw those parts of me, because I let him all the way in.”

“Shit.” Awe, shock, and new respect for the level of emotion Ben had for David came through loud and clear from Braden in that one curse word. “I’m on this.” A car door slammed, and an engine revved up. “I’ll keep you updated with texts and voice mails. Check your phone when you can.”

“I’m halfway home. I’ll get to Coleman as soon as I can.”

“I’ll have something for you by then,” Braden promised. “Bye.”

Even though Braden had already hung up, Ben whispered, “Thank you,” and clutched the phone tightly to him for another heartbeat before hanging up.

As Ben made his way down the narrow aisle back to his seat, he breathed easier knowing Braden had taken up his cause. Ben knew Braden’s many tones well enough to understand that by the end of their conversation, the guy had accepted not only the seriousness of Ben’s feelings for David but also his bone-deep sense that something had happened to the man. If there was critical evidence to find, Braden would discover it quickly and get the ball rolling toward locating David. Ben had always trusted Braden, and God knew right now Ben had put his very heart and life completely in the man’s hands.
He’ll come through for me. He will.

The moment Ben reached his seat and sat down, Mikael took Ben’s hand and threaded their fingers together. His brother had held on to him in some way or another since finding him in the rave. Ben understood the boy’s need to cling to the one thing he knew in a world that had spun off its axis, and he wouldn’t have fought it even if he could.

“Is everything okay?” Mikael asked.

Ben had told his brother a few things about David and about the man’s importance in Ben’s life, but had kept his worry that he hadn’t been able to reach David to simple concern rather than outright fear. The kid didn’t need another terror to add to the list of things that would likely give him nightmares for months to come.

“I think so, Mika.” Ben focused on the optimistic, on Braden being on the task. “Keep good thoughts for David.”

Mikael nodded, squeezed Ben’s hand, and went back to resting.

Ben slipped back to worrying about his man.

Whatever is going on with you, David, keep holding on. I’ll get back to you soon. I promise.