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Why was Scotty looking at him?
If he was seeking comfort or understanding then Vince was the one for that. Not Zander. He didn’t know softness. Didn’t know kindness. Wouldn’t know what to do with it even if he did.
“Don grabbed her head in both hands and slammed it down onto the edge of the kitchen counter. I still hear the crack of her skull when I close my eyes.” Scotty spoke those words while staring into Zander’s eyes, and Zander wanted to yell at him to look away, look at Vince.
There’s nothing for you here.
No sympathy. He hoped Scotty heard his unspoken words, but his chest felt tight the longer he stared at Scotty and the despair that filled his eyes. The sight made Zander’s skin feel as if it didn’t belong to him.
Scotty turned to Vince then and it was like a thread snapping. Zander took a deep breath, hands fisting at his sides with the urge to touch his chest.
“He tossed her to the ground and there was so much blood. I ran to her.” Scotty’s voice wobbled. “But she didn’t move. I kept sliding in the blood.” He cut off, staring past Vince’s head. “I remember the warmth of the blood and calling for her. She never moved. She never woke up.” He spoke all that with dry eyes.
Vince stroked between Scotty’s shoulder blades, pain creasing his features, offering comfort. He was the type. Zander had pegged him right. They each had their roles; Vince was the soft and nurturing type. Zander was all violence—lead and copper. He wished he hadn’t heard any of what Scotty just shared. And as he stood there, watching Vince comfort Scotty, something he’d never felt before washed over him.
Awkwardness.
As if he was intruding. As if he shouldn’t be witnessing any of it.
He tightened his jaw.
“He told everyone that my mom had been high and stumbled in her heels, knocking her head. Nobody questioned it. He took me to live with him that night. Got a doctor to keep me drugged up, said it was because I was distraught over the loss, but I realized later it was because he didn’t want me to tell anyone what he’d done. He started feeding me coke, kept me close while putting me down to anyone who would listen, discrediting me as the junkie, the thief.”
He was a thief, wasn’t he? He’d broken into Zander’s fucking place.
“That way, if you said anything, no one would believe you,” Vince finished softly. Scotty nodded and Vince caught his face in his hands. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that."
“He’s the mayor,” Scotty mumbled. “I knew nobody would believe me if I told.” His voice cracked. “He didn’t have to do what he did to me.” He sounded so young then, so fucked up.
Zander had seen Mayor Don on TV. He was a man who believed in his own self-importance. Who liked to think he mattered more than he actually did. He had a hawk nose and rapidly receding hairline, and a face wide enough to catch several bullets.
Not that Zander would do anything. He scoffed to himself at the thought.
He didn’t care what Scotty had gone through. Sucked, but everyone had a story. Hell, Zander had his own story. One he wouldn’t be sharing with those two huddled over there.
He should leave. They didn’t even look his way, probably forgot he was in the room with them.
Why wasn’t he leaving?
Vince hugged Scotty to his chest, stroking his back, expression turned inward. “When I was fourteen, I got put into a new foster home. This one was so warm and inviting, a husband and wife who smiled and didn’t come into our bedrooms at night. Way better than what I’d been used to. There were three other foster kids there, two boys and a little girl. One of the boys, David, was around my age and we became fast friends. Then one day, he kissed me.” His expression softened the tiniest bit. “I was happy because I’d wanted to kiss him but was too scared to make the first move.”
He paused and took a deep breath. “Our foster father caught us making out in my bed sometime later. David was on top of me and our foster father pulled him off and just started beating him. It was as if a switch had been flipped in that man.” His gaze lifted to Zander’s then, bleak and filled with self-loathing before Vince glanced away. “He kept saying it was against nature, that David had the devil inside him, and accused him of trying to force himself on me. Said he needed to beat the evilness out of him and I just…” He blew out a ragged breath as Zander cursed himself for hanging on to his every word, gut twisted up.
Scotty had pulled away from Vince’s embrace as he talked and he stared at Vince with a haunted expression, mouth agape as if knowing that story wasn’t about to have any kind of happy ending.
“I just sat there,” Vince continued. “Too scared to defend David, to say that I wasn’t being taken advantage of. I choked the words back because I didn’t want to be beaten. I didn’t want to leave, not when I had a warm bed and three meals a day. So I kept my mouth shut, even when the ambulance came and took David away. Even when he died a week later from all the injuries, I didn’t speak up.” He snorted in obvious self-loathing. “It was all for nothing. The authorities took me away from there anyway. And it was back to stealing food and being afraid to sleep at night. I stayed away from boys for a long time after that,” he finished quietly. Brokenly.
“I’m sorry,” Scotty told him.
Vince shook his head, rejecting the words. “I was a coward.”
“You were a child,” Scotty told him.
Vince’s lips curved into a little sad smile. “Old enough to know better. Actions, even non-actions, have consequences.”
What were the consequences for fourteen-year-old Vince not telling the truth in order to protect himself? Zander had never wanted anything as badly as he wanted the answer to that question.
9
