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Thomas’s back bent as the flush that had never quite left his cheeks spread to the rest of his face. He shook his head quickly. “I’m too stupid to do something like that.”
The bit of Snake’s face that Issac could see set in anger. “Says who? Who said you’re stupid?”
“I-I- it’s just the truth,” Thomas stammered, his fingers curling around his sleeves to cover his hands more. “I’d- I’d just make a mess of it.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Thomas,” Snake said, “and don’t listen to people who tell you you’re only good for one thing.” He pulled a card out of his pocket and held it out. “I’m not teaching anyone how to do what I do,” he went on as Thomas slowly took the card. “But if you want to talk about legit computer careers and what they have to offer, you can reach out to me. I have contacts with the local colleges and I dabble in just about everything.”
“S-Se-”
“Seong,” Snake provided, pulling his mask down to smile at him. “That would be me, legally. Just don’t go spreading it around, alright? I’m trusting you with that.”
“I-I won’t,” Thomas said quickly, his face going redder. “I-I can keep secrets.”
“I know you can,” Snake said, a bit of sadness in his voice. “Kind of wish you were a little less good at it, but…” he sighed and smiled. “Reach out whenever you’re ready. I got a meeting with a pretty lady.” He put a hand on Thomas’s shoulder as he moved around him. “See ya around, kiddo.”
“S-See ya,” Thomas said, turning slowly around to watch Snake leave, the flush reaching his ears.
Felinus and Issac glanced at one another and Felinus sighed, unfolding his arms. “I’m going to pop downstairs and get a coffee,” he said, also walking to the door. “Do you two want anything?”
“Surprise me,” Issac said while Thomas just quickly shook his head, moving out of the way of the door as Felinus approached. “You know that’s the first time he’s left without someone dragging him out of here,” Issac said once the door closed, waving Thomas to sit down in the seat next to the bed for visitors. “He must trust you.”
“M-more likely he doesn’t think I could do anything,” Thomas said, sinking into the chair and looking up at Issac as he hunched forward. “Your boyfriend seems like the protective type.”
“He’s not my-” Issac started then stopped, not sure how he felt about the way his heart fluttered suddenly enough to make the machine beep. He sighed, reminding himself that he was talking to a high schooler, despite all the shit Thomas had seen and been dragged into. “It’s complicated. How are you holding up?”
Thomas opened his mouth to say something, a mask of content happiness trying to fix itself onto his face only to fall off as Issac met his green eyes and held them. He swallowed and tears welled up without falling. “I miss Jake,” he said, miserable and broken. “I know I shouldn’t, that he was using me and dragged me into things I shouldn’t have been around but… I miss him still. He wasn’t that bad.”
“Jake was your big brother,” Issac asked, then nodded towards the door when Thomas started, one tear rolling down his face. “I overheard Snake telling Cat about it when they thought I was asleep last night. He was responsible for keeping you out of trouble, right?”
“Right,” Thomas breathed, rubbing at his arms without pulling his sleeves back then continued after a pause, his eyes down. “I-I went a little crazy after my dad died. Got into some trouble. The DA… The DA wanted to put me in juvie for the maximum sentence, but my lawyer, O’Hare, and Finnegan got them down to parole and making me do the mentor program. The day after I signed the deal is when I met Jake.” A smile tugged on his lips. “It was great. He picked me up and we went out to eat to just get to know each other. For a while, it was just the two of us whenever he’d pick me up. Then one day we went to a dinner where I met some of the other guys in the program, other guys my age.” His face suddenly fell. “Then… Then he started taking me to the pub. It wasn’t every day or every time at first. Sometimes we’d go there to eat instead, or he said he needed to pop in then we’d leave again, but I started thinking about it the other day and it got more and more frequent and the other things, the fun things, started fading off until I was there every day after school and at least half the day on the weekends. Then I just kept having to stay later and later and Jake wasn’t always around while I was there.” His fingers tightened and he looked up. “Not that we didn’t still do fun things sometimes,” he said quickly, “or that he just abandoned me there. He’d always come back and get me and he was usually the one who-” his jaw snapped closed and Issac saw him tug at the cuffs of his sleeves quickly.
“I know what they do to green men,” Issac said softly.
“Y-you-” Thomas’s eyes darting down to Issac’s exposed arms.
A weary smile formed on Issac’s lips. “They didn’t do it to me,” he said, still soft and gentle. “My dad would have killed them if they touched me like that. Finn… He was already going behind my dad’s back, interfering with my ability to do homework when Dad wasn’t there or had fallen asleep, showing me different skills he wanted me to know by either teaching me himself or having the other men do it. If they used the punishments on me… I got a glimpse of what might have happened and it wasn’t pretty, but I did see them use it, on the young men Finnegan ‘helped’ by bringing them into the Clovers.” He paused, studying Thomas and remembering the faces that he vaguely recalled from years ago. Had they all looked like him? No, he decided. Thomas’s stammer never seemed to appear in any of the others. Then again, maybe Issac had just been too young to notice the signs. “Who told you that Finnegan worked with the DA to get you off with parole?”
“I- Um- I-it was Jake, I think?” Thomas stammered. “Wh-when he finally introduced me to Finnegan, he said I owed him because I’d be in jail otherwise.”
“He lied,” Issac told him, a simple statement that he saw cut Thomas just as deep as any of the knives that left the scars he was trying to hide on his forearms. “Or maybe stretched the truth so far it might as well have been a lie would be the way to phrase it,” he suggested, seeing that it didn’t help the wound his bluntness had caused. Fine, he thought, sighing softly, no helping it then. “Snake has been working with Fergus O’Hare to find out exactly where things went so wrong,” he told Thomas, “to flush out any more people like Finnegan and put an end to it. One of the things that he discovered was a long list of people on Finnegan’s payroll. People who would give him a steady supply of young men who felt like they had no place else to turn. Cops placed too perfectly to catch a bag of candy going into a pocket. A juvenile district attorney who insists on extreme punishments for first or second offenses that don’t merit the reaction. Social workers who pressure the courts to remove children from one home to place them in another with adults that make things harder for the kids.”
Thomas’s eyes widened and Issac knew he understood, the same way Issac understood as soon as he had heard some of the names on that list.
“Finnegan had been playing this game of his for a long time,” Issac told him. “He was careful. He covered his tracks. He was a master of manipulation and gaslighting people into thinking that they had no choice but to do things his way or they would be nothing. Scared kids from broken homes are just easier targets than grown men. He had a crew of men who had all been scared kids, who still believed what Finnegan said was the truth.” He sighed, seeing the argument before Thomas could find the words for it. “I don’t think Jake wanted to do the things that were done to you, Thomas,” he said, trying to ease the pain he could see. “He was the one who bandaged your arm, right? The one who told you to stay in the office with me before I woke up and sent you back there again before the song ended?”
Thomas swallowed and nodded.
“He wanted to get you out of there,” Issac told him. “When Snake told them every one with a clover was going to die, he started to ask Finnegan about you. He didn’t want you in the crossfire but he also didn’t have the ability to go against Finnegan’s orders. Unfortunately, that’s pretty normal for people who have been abused like Finnegan abused the boys who would become his men. Even when they know something is wrong, they can’t go against a direct order.” He paused for a moment, letting his words sink in, seeing the uncertainty that replaced hurt. “He sent you back to the office because he knew he was a fish in a barrel, and the door to the pub was going to be filled with a shotgun blast. He probably reasoned that the safest place for you to be was wherever I was because the hunting party wouldn’t open fire and risk hitting me. He did it to protect you the best way he could without going against Finnegan’s orders.”
Thomas’s eyes dropped back to the floor and he was shaking. Not for the first time, Issac wished he wasn’t hooked up to so many cords and tubes that made getting out of bed without help nearly impossible, but it was a first that he wished he could do it so he could hug the crying young man sitting too far for him to reach. “I-I don’t know what to do anymore,” he whispered, wiping at his face with his sleeves. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do without them.”
“I know,” Issac said softly. “I’m… I’m not the person to give advice on that sort of thing, I’m afraid. My response to everything getting taken away from me was to never let another person get close and throw myself into academics to chase a dream that wasn’t really mine. I have been one step away from self-destructive implosion for the last fifteen years.” He paused again. “But it sounds like you’ve got good people looking after you. Fergus isn’t going to let anyone near you that would take advantage of you again. Seong was serious about offering to show you computers and career options that are all legal and can support you. I guarantee you that Cat is downstairs talking to your aunt right now to see if there is any way he can help get you in a good position since he’d never drink a latte from that cafe otherwise.”
Thomas swallowed, peeking up at Issac. “A-and you?”
Issac smiled. “You can reach out to me anytime, Thomas,” he told him. “I’m… I’m not a very good friend, I’m afraid. I never had a cell phone until recently, so I’m absolute trash at responding to texts, according to multiple people. Once they let me out of here, I’ll be back to studying. Not to mention I don’t drive. But if you need anything, particularly in regards to college, I know all the tricks on getting grants and scholarships that have the best payouts for minimal effort. Or if you just need to talk about the things that you don’t feel like you can tell your aunts… I’m pretty good at keeping secrets, too.” He paused as a tight, uncertain smile formed on Thomas’s lips. “You aren’t alone, Thomas. There are people out there who are ready to listen to you and want you to be the best version of yourself. You just have to be brave enough to open yourself up to them.”
Thomas nodded slowly. “I-I’ll… I’ll try,” he said finally.
“Trying is all that guys like you and me can do,” he said, letting himself smile a little wider. “Then try a little better the next day.”
