Page 74 of Never To Suffer

I’ve gone over what I can remember as many times as I’ve traced the tattoo on my hand. Bits and pieces coming back, but nothing I can grab and hold, nothing I can make stick. I want to scream. I’ve worked myself into at least three panic attacks since I’ve been stuck here in this hospital room, and I’m not even sure how long I’ve been in here. Ten minutes? An hour? Most of the day? I’m fighting my own mind, trying to remember and not sure I want to remember.

The handle on the door jiggles, and I watch my aunt and one of her buff as hell security dudes walk into the room, locking the door behind them. Melody drops a plastic bag on the table before walking around the bed and cupping my face to stare into my eyes.

“How are you, Bug?” She wipes the tear streaks from my cheek. “I’m working on getting a hold of Dani, but I also want you to get checked out by a doctor I trust, okay? Oh, and I brought some food. Nothing too crazy, some rice and steamed vegetables until you’re sure you can stomach more.”

I nod and glance over at the guy still guarding the door. It takes me a minute to register that he’s holding a bag. My bag.

“You found it!” I take a closer look. “What the hell happened to it?”

“We found it about a block from the hotel where you were. At the edge of a pond. Your phone and a few other things were inside, they’re getting cleaned up now, but I’ve brought a temporary phone in case we can’t get yours working again. No laptop, though, and no passport.” She takes the bag from the guard and walks it over to me. She pulls out my glasses andslides them on me. The world coming back into focus makes me a little nauseous for a minute since it’s been out of focus for too long.

“I need to call Dani.”

“You do. I spoke to her earlier while you were resting, and I’ve told her what happened. Well, some of it. I offered to fly her out here?—”

“No! No, she… she can’t. I don’t want her to see me. Not like this. She needs to stay there, she’s on tour.”

She nods, holding my hand. “Do you remember anything else? Has anyone threatened you recently?”

“Seriously? Damn, Melody, I’m a gay sex worker. I get threats almost daily. Someone has threatened me my whole stupid life, and take a guess who most of the threats come from? Your people! They tell me I better keep my mouth shut about what they did to me. A week later, they’re telling me when and where to meet them next so they can do it again.” I grab the bag and fling it across the room, watching it slosh against a wall and fall with a sick, wet sound.

It started in high school out of something I could loosely call necessity. I needed to get the hell out of that private school, away from their cult. The fastest way for that to happen involved getting caught with my mouth around a star athlete’s cock. I’d already done that plenty of times. Of course, I wanted the guarantee that I’d have some leverage after getting caught, so I made sure the coach joined us, too. Nothing like the school’s biggest donors walking in and catching my cute self getting spit roasted in the locker room. Funny how they walked in right when I needed them to.

When the kids' family, the school, and the coach paid my family off to keep everything covered up, I learned I could use sex as both a weapon and a suit of armor. I learned secrets are both dangerous and expensive when they involve the rightpeople. I should have also seen that my parents allowed that cover up to happen rather than believing me, finding me help, or standing up for me. Theo had it right, and I chose not to see it until now.

“You need to tell me everything, Xander. It’s been difficult for you since you were young?—”

“Difficult? I’ve been stripped naked and shoved in lockers, beaten, spat on, and forced to do shit to stay alive because of rich assholes! And this time? They drugged me and Oliver let them…he let them ra—” I stop, unable to say the word. “Melody, I’m not one of them, and they can tell. They smell it on me. I’m not one of their cult members, so I’m expendable. I’m trash.” My fists ball up. I want to find Oliver and end him with my bare hands.

“I’m so sorry, Xander. I should have noticed.”

The laughter takes a moment to build, but then I can’t stop it. “Someone knew. But that doesn’t matter because I embraced it. I have so much dirt on every one of those bastards. I hope everything on that laptop gets out. Every shred of it. Every video of some multi-billion-dollar CEO with their cock inmymouth.” Tears stream down my face and my voice wavers, but I can’t stop. I need to get this out. “Every picture of them on top ofmeinstead of their wives. Every single god damn image of what they did to me when they were done. Every bruise and busted lip Dani cleaned for me. I didn’t give two shits about the money. That’s why I never told Dani. Revenge, Aunt Melody. Revenge against every pompous prick hiding behind their stacks of cash and lawyers. That’s why I did it, and I’d do it all again.”

My nostrils flair as I stare down at her, showing her the dark side of me I’ve never let her see before. The side Theo uncovered after one night, hell, after less than five damn minutes. No one in my family understands. How could they? They don’t see me. They’re just like the boys at school, I’m nothing to them. Disposable. Replaceable.

A man comes into the room and whispers something to Melody, handing her a tablet. She turns it around so I can see a still frame of the video she showed me earlier. “What is this?” She asks, pointing to something in the upper corner.

“I don’t know.” I cross my arms dismissively, done with this shit.

“Xander, stop being like that. This isn’t the hotel room.”

I grab the tablet and stare at the screen. When I zoom out to see the full frame, my head cocks to the side. “What the shit?” I switch over to a browser, and Melody watches as I open the subscription site I’m part of. I flip through thumbnail after thumbnail of videos in search of a specific one.

“Did any of them ever threaten you?”

“Melody,” my voice barely whispers now as I concentrate. “I’m thirty years old, and I’ve been doing this shit since I was sixteen. Twice in fourteen years I’ve been with a man who didn’t attack me—physically, verbally, or legally—after we were done.Twice. If you don’t believe me, ask Dani. She’s covered and uncovered enough of the injuries to help me hide them from my parents. They all threaten me eventually.”

“She didn’t stop you?”

I stop scrolling, glancing down at my hand. Theo’s words. “I thought I deserved it. That's all I knew, Melody,” I explain as my eyes and fingers get to work again. “You saw how cold my entire childhood was. You tried to warm it up, but that wasn’t enough. My screwing around and getting smacked around caused about ninety percent of the breakups between Dani and I and—FOUND IT!” I play the video, scrubbing through it until I find what I’m looking for. It’s the exact background from the still Melody showed me. “He edited it. He found the videos that would work and edited his own sick shit into it. That’s part of why he needed my computer, to get to the unedited video.”

“But—”

“He doesn’t care who else I have evidence of, Melody, he wants Dad. It’s some revenge plot of his own, he called him the goose that lays golden eggs or whatever. He kept telling me I’d gone after the wrong people.”

There’s a knock at the door and the security detail escorts a middle-aged man with a bag into the room.

“Dr. Hayashi, thank you for coming,” my aunt greets him before pulling him to the other side of the room to talk in whispers. While they talk, the security guy comes over next to me and hands me a phone. It’s not my phone, so I don’t take it right away, but he pushes it into my hand.

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