Hunt and Pray (14 page)

“I saw what you did. I saw you beat her bloody, time after time.” Chance’s voice was getting louder and louder. “I was there when you strangled her. I watched your hands around her neck, and it gave me fucking nightmares for years!”

Drew felt the colonel flinch at the rage in Chance’s voice.

“I was three years old when she hid me in the goddamned closet so you couldn’t find me—”

The colonel cut him off with a whisper. “I’d never touched you then….”

Chance snorted derisively. “No, not yet you hadn’t. That waited another couple of years, until you got bored of not having someone to be your punching bag!”

The colonel took a step back, pulling Drew with him.

“I was five the first time you backhanded me across the face. I don’t even know why you did it. Some imaginary fucking crime made you decide that a five-year-old deserved a black eye and a dislocated shoulder.”

Chance looked up and met the colonel’s gaze, shaking like a leaf. Drew wasn’t sure if it was fear or rage causing it, but the gun he held never wavered.

“What did I ever do to deserve a father like you?” The bitterness in those words broke Drew’s heart, and he wanted nothing more than to take Chance into his arms and never let him go, but for the colonel it was the sign of weakness he’d been looking for.

“You were useless, just like your mother. I knew there was something wrong with you when you were a kid, and it was my duty to beat it out of you.” He pushed Drew forward, taking back the step he’d given. “And I was right.” He pulled back a little on the knife, slicing it further into Drew’s skin as Drew tried to pry the colonel’s arm free from his neck. “Here you are, choosing this fucking freak over me. How can you do it, son? He’s nothing to you!”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Colonel. You’re the one who’s nothing to me. Drew has been kinder to me in the last few days than you have in your whole life. And he has a reason to hate me… but he doesn’t.”

Chance looked to Drew for confirmation, and Drew shook his head minutely. “I don’t… I promise.”

Drew expected a blow to the back of his head, and he wasn’t disappointed. “Shut the fuck up, faggot. You aren’t going to come between us much longer.”

Drew was amazed at how the colonel could go from hating Chance one second to wanting to keep him for himself the next. It really made no sense. Then again, none of this did.

“Let him go, Colonel. I mean it. Let him go, and I’ll let you walk away. If you hurt him anymore, you’re a dead man.” Chance shifted his stance a little, and Drew knew he was going to take the shot. He thought about closing his eyes but didn’t want Chance to think he didn’t have faith in him… even though he was terrified.

“You won’t shoot me, Chance! You haven’t got the guts. If you were going to do anything, you would have done it a long time ago, but you never did.” The colonel was on a roll, and the knife was starting to slide. Drew knew this needed to be over now.

“Do it, Chance!” Drew saw the words register on Chance’s face, but he still hesitated, so Drew smiled at him softly and let everything he felt for Chance show in his eyes. Chance smiled back and then looked at his father.

“You’re such a fucking pussy, Chance. I knew you’d never amount to anything….”

The next few seconds seemed to take forever. Chance squeezed the trigger, and Drew faintly registered the slight breeze the bullet made as it sped past his cheek. The colonel’s voice cut off abruptly, and there was a slight jerk, then the knife fell away.

He felt the spray of warm blood up the back of his neck, and then he was falling forward to his knees, unable to hold himself up anymore.

He caught his breath for a second and reached up to feel his throat. There was a shallow cut there, but nothing serious. Then he looked up at Chance.

He stood there, gun still held out in front of him and not a trace of regret on his face. Then their eyes met.

Chance staggered toward Drew and dropped to his knees in front of him. He put the gun down on the ground and leaned forward. Drew moved in to gather Chance into his arms and hold him against his chest as Chance slowly fell apart.

“Shhh, I know, baby, but it’s all over now.” Drew stroked Chance’s head as he cried. He knew Chance wasn’t sorry he had killed his father. There had been no choice, but it was one he never should have had to make. It was just one more failure of fatherhood on a long list of fuckups in the life of Colonel Kevin Collins.

Drew held him, letting him grieve for the things he’d lost and the things he’d never had.

When Chance could breathe again, Drew used a knife to cut the hood off his jacket, rinsed the blood out of it with the water in one of the bottles, and used it to tenderly wash Chance’s face clean of snot and tears. Then Chance rinsed it again and used it to wipe the colonel’s blood off the back of Drew’s neck as best he could.

Drew was at a loss for what to do next. He wasn’t sure either of them was in any shape to keep walking, especially as far as they would have to go to find help. Drew was exhausted and Chance almost catatonic with grief, and more time exposed to the elements wasn’t going to help anything.

“Chance, do you have any idea how far from anywhere we are?” Drew trailed off for a moment, at a loss for words. “I mean, I’m not sure how much more hiking I’ve got in me.”

Chance wrapped his arms around Drew and held him tightly before he spoke. “I’m not sure, honestly. I’m kind of turned around at the moment.” He took a deep breath. “I’m gonna have to search his body. If he was running true to form, he might have something we could use.”

Drew could feel Chance tremble against him and pressed himself as close as he could. “Do you want me to do it?” God, it was the last thing Drew wanted to do, but if it helped Chance….

Chance shook his head. “No, I’ll do it. Just give me a second.”

Drew wrapped his arms tighter around Chance’s waist and let him snuggle into his neck for a moment. He smiled when he felt a gentle kiss to the cut the colonel had given him.

He lifted one hand to card his fingers through Chance’s hair, feeling Chance hum his approval against his skin.

After a couple of minutes, Chance stood resolutely and took several deep breaths before walking over to his father’s body. Thankfully, the colonel had landed on his side, facing away from them, so they were spared seeing the worst of the damage to his face from the bullet.

Chance grabbed the knife his father had been using on Drew and cut the straps of the pack the colonel had been wearing.

Once he had it pulled free, he brought it over to where Drew was standing. Crouching, he set it on the ground and unzipped it, trying desperately to avoid touching the blood and bits of gore Drew was trying not to think of as bone and brain matter, because the thought had him wanting to throw up.

Chance finally just grabbed it by the bottom and dumped it on the ground. There were a couple of handguns and some foils packages Drew thought might be vacuum-packed food like the army used. He didn’t see anything that looked particularly useful, but Chance pawed through it for several seconds before crying out in triumph.

He looked up at Drew. “It’s his satellite phone. We can call for someone to come and get us.”

Drew looked at it, hoping it was true. He really wanted to go home. “So, who do we call?”

Chance considered it for a moment before replying. “State police, I think. They’ll be able to find us quickly and will know where to go from there. I don’t want to deal with the military until we have to. They aren’t going to be pleased to find out that one of their colonels was behind the abduction and murder of three men. They probably won’t be very happy with me either, for bringing it to light.” He sighed. “I never wanted to be a soldier anyway.”

He looked at Drew and smiled softly. “What do you think? Time for a career change?”

Drew nodded and brushed his fingers over the stubble on Chance’s cheek. “Does this mean you’re not going to run away?”

Chance reached up and caught Drew’s hand against his cheek, turning his head to press a kiss to the other man’s palm before shaking his head. “Nope, no more running. It’s time to face the past and move on to the future.” Chance closed his eyes, obviously trying to steady himself. “Are you gonna….” He trailed off, swallowing hard. “I know I don’t have any right to ask, but do you think you might have room for me in your life in the future?”

Drew smiled and put the phone on the ground so he could bring his other hand up to frame Chance’s face. He leaned in and kissed him, sweet and tender and full of affection, before pulling back to look into the other man’s eyes. “I have promises to keep, remember?”

Chance’s eyes went a little glassy, but he managed to smile in relief. “Okay.” He stood, pulling Drew up with him. “Let’s make a call.”

Chapter Twelve

B
Y
THE
time the state police rescue unit had arrived, they had made sure their stories were straight. There were details no one besides them needed to know, and those details were the ones that would cause Chance problems. Drew didn’t want anyone to find them out.

He totally understood Chance’s reasoning for taking a couple of days to come to the right decision and help him. Anyone who’d met the Colonel Collins that Drew had met would understand.

But the police and military probably wouldn’t, so he’d insisted that Chance go along with him. The other man had suffered enough at the hands of his father, and Drew wouldn’t allow the dead man to cause Chance any more pain.

They’d been separated almost as soon as the cops had made their way up the mountain and not allowed to see each other for two days while everything was straightened out.

When Drew had arrived back in Colorado Springs by helicopter, the first thing he’d done was call his family, and it wasn’t long before they had rushed to his side. He’d cried for hours in the safe haven of his family’s arms, but not before insisting the family lawyer make sure Chance was being represented.

He’d told his parents everything, starting with the tale of Chance’s mother’s murder and ending with Chance killing his father to save Drew. They’d agreed Chance was a remarkable young man who deserved all the help they could give him, and Drew wasn’t surprised to see his mother stalk out of the room with a pat on his arm and reassurances that she would take care of everything. The woman had the heart of a mother bear when one of her children was hurt, and Chance had achieved the status of honorary Edwards for her already.

Drew found out later that the military had arrived soon after he’d been whisked away, and that Chance had refused to go to the hospital for any kind of treatment until he’d shown them the cabin.

There they’d discovered a terrifying hidden cache of trophies the colonel had kept from his hunts… wallets and jewelry items that had belonged to the other victims and horrific pictures of the colonel and Ezra with the men. In one picture, the colonel posed proudly with the body of one of the men as it hung upside down from a tree branch, the dead man’s throat cut like a deer that had been hung to bleed out.

Drew had held Chance as he cried when he described the things he’d seen in the secret compartment that had been found under the colonel’s bedroom.

The story they’d told the police was that Chance had come back from his last tour and had been invited out to his father’s hunting cabin. According to the story, Chance had met up with his father and Ezra and the driver who’d been murdered.

They’d decided that was where they would start to diverge a little from the truth.

Chance told the police his father had long suspected his son was gay and had begun to take his anger at the possibility out on the young gay men of Colorado Springs.

When Chance returned from his tour in Iraq, his father decided to scare his son straight, and so after picking him up, he and the other men had held Chance at gunpoint while they’d driven around and spotted Drew. The men had seen him earlier in the day, when they had gone for lunch and he’d been kissing his boyfriend.

The colonel had decided Drew would be the perfect lesson for his son, and Chance had been forced to watch, horrified, while Drew was snatched off the street and drugged.

Chance had told them about the murder of the driver and eventually led them to the RV that still contained his now-rotting body.

They told the authorities they’d been held at the cabin for a couple of days before Drew was sent off into the woods.

From there they told the truth, only leaving out how attached to each other they’d become, because that was theirs, and they didn’t want to share that with anyone else.

No one had pushed them too much; the trophies at the cabin had totally destroyed any loyalty or respect the colonel had garnered from his military career. The general agreement was that the colonel’s death had been necessary, although some privately thought he’d gotten off far too easy for his crimes.

Drew had been waiting outside the police station when Chance had been released, and the two had been quietly spirited away by Drew’s parents to Bloomington to recuperate at the family farm.

The young men had spent two weeks surrounded by love and gratitude, and it was enough to overwhelm Chance on occasion. It was everything he’d ever wanted out of life, and he was grateful for it, but Drew knew sometimes it made Chance sad that it was something he’d never gotten from his own family.

They’d spent their time getting to know each other better, keeping their physical relationship to kissing and snuggling while they were staying with Drew’s family.

The two men had discovered a mutual love of coffee and classics. Chance loved old movies, and Drew loved old books, and they’d laughed about how often those two passions collided. They’d gone for walks around the farm, spent long hours cuddled up on the porch swing, and played aggressive games of Monopoly and Trouble with Drew’s younger sisters and brother.

After two weeks, however, it was time to go. Drew was itching to get back to his job. His editor was chomping at the bit for the article about the kidnapping Drew had agreed to write, and Chance had loads of paperwork the military needed him to finish so he could muster out.