Page 117 of Enemy
“Clyde, please,” I say in the softest voice I can manage and stroke his cheeks with my fingers. He’s shaking like a leaf during a heavy storm, but I won’t let him fall. “I will believe you.”
He looks down, as if there were iron cuffs pulling his neck and arms to the floor. “I was just seventeen, trying to work out if I was gay, if I should leave the town behind, start a life somewhere else with a clean slate. I was curious, too horny for my own good.” His voice is quiet, but as he speaks, the thudding of blood in my ears intensifies, because this takes me back to the conversation I had with Isaac today. My stomach clenches hard, fighting the sinking feeling. I think I know where this is going, and I already hate Isaacmore than anyone alive. “I just wanted an anonymous fuck. Toknow. I found out about a cruising spot and when I went there one night, I met a guy. No names, faces pretty much covered. I was cocky, wanted to get right to it, but as soon as he went for it, started touching me, I freaked out. I bit off more than I could chew, and it pissed him off. It’s all a blur, but when I told him to back off, he punched me out of nowhere, and then I was on the ground, and he… he wasinsideme, and I told him to stop, I fought back, but he ended up holding my hands down, and that’s… that’s all I saw. The spiderweb tattoos on his hands,” Clyde finishes in a monotone voice, as if trying to convince me he recognized the ink was somehow more important than what he’s told me.
“Fuck,” I utter in a choked voice, because my whole body feels rigid, as if ice has grown around it, preventing me from breathing freely. This is bad, so much worse than I expected when I first saw Clyde packing, and I pull him close again, to confirm he is here, and that nothing happened to himtonight. A part of me is angry at myself, because maybe I should have seen the signs. Clyde was weirdly careful about sex at times, and he did tell me about that time in his teens, when he got beat up and decided to join the Butchers, so he can learn to keep himself safe.
“That story you told me… when someone beat you up,” I mumble, holding him tightly, because the tension in his limbs means he might shove me away any second now, not wanting my touch either. “Is that what really happened?”
He takes a shivery breath through his nose and nods. “What was I gonna do? Tell my dad about it? I know better, but… back then… I kinda thought I deserved it. For what I wanted.” I sense his voice against my neck, and it’s like he’s speaking right into me, burrowing his soul inside me.
I want to keep it safe.
I want to keephimsafe. For him to know that nothing bad can touch him here.
My hands twist in the clothes on his back, but no matter how much it makes me ache inside, there’s nothing I can offer him but my presence. There is no changing the past. I can’t keep him from going cruising at seventeen, nor keep that perverted creep Isaac away from him. It makes my blood boil, and all my insides stew with helpless fury.
It eventually becomes too much, but I can’t cry, or shout, so I squeeze him tighter, rocking us by the bed. Of course Clyde didn’t deserve this bullshit. For what? For being curious? For wanting to find out the truth about himself? For wanting to live his life the wayhewanted to?
Grief dulls, but its power feeds the anger at the pit of my stomach. The bastard who did this has lived here for years, beloved, hiding his real self behind smiles and great mechanic skills. It makes me feel dirty that I let him work on my bike, that the same hands that forced Clyde down touched my ride and kept me safe.
Isaac is like the fuckers who saw a fourteen-year-old on the run and demanded sexual favors for rides, sandwiches, a blanket to sleep under. Actually, no, he is way fucking worse.
I try not to think what could have happened to me had I not fought off the guy who tried to force himself on me, and who then left me at the side of the road, knocked out, because this hits unsettlingly close to home.
“I can’t believe you ever thought you deserved what happened.” I swallow as the smoke from the fire raging inside me makes my eyes itch. “Clyde, I love you, okay?That’swhat you deserve. For someone to fucking follow you into the line of fire and keep you safe.”
I let out a deep sigh when Clyde’s hands move over my back in tender strokes. “I don’t want to tell anyone else. But I can’t stay around him. I’d kill him, and ruin your whole life here.”
A low chuckle escapes my lips.
As if I’d let that vermin stay here, now that I know what happened.
We won’t be the ones fleeing from home while this bastard enjoys the privilege of a good life at Vulture Hollow. I’m craving blood.
“I’ll handle this,” I say, leaning back to meet Clyde’s damp gaze as I brush his tears away with my fingers. “Do you want to come with me or stay here?”
He watches me with new lucidity, and I’m so glad to hear his breath evening out. “I’ll go with you. What about your club?”
I pull my fingers through a strand of his hair, and then twist it. “They’ll complain, maybe tell me to oust him. But that’s not enough.”
I don’t think any punishment would ever be enough for what that bastard has done. My family home was hardly an example of good values, but despite growing up there, I would never ever imagine attacking someone like that. Hell, Clyde started out as an enemy, and I would still never fucking hurt him in bed. He was stilla person, something Isaac did not see in him. Just thinking about it has me in a state of unstoppable rage.
Clyde leans in for a gentle kiss. A peck on the lips. He’s lived with this secret for ten years, not daring to approach another man, sure he’d never find the fucker who hurt him. No wonder he was such a ticking time bomb.
“I’ll follow your lead.”
I cup his face, and my heart flutters when he leans into the touch. Like a feral cat finally trusting I will never hurt it.
But now’s the time to deal with the fucker who broke him, so I pull him with me. “I know talk is cheap, but I’m on your side. I will always fight for you.”
Clyde takes my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles, but then we go.
I don’t need a gun. I’ll rip the fucker apart with my bare hands.
Chapter 44
Road
Thecompulsioninsidemegrows more unforgiving with each stride down the hill. Clyde’s presence makes me feel like we’re a two man army, but while I can hear each of his steps, every single sound is muted, as if my ears were full of wax. Someone waves at me in passing, but while they open their mouth, saying something, all my thoughts are on the man poisoning this entire community with his presence. The unsettled feeling I had after that conversation earlier today? I could have letthatgo, but not everything else I just found out. I need to see this bastard suffer, and so does Clyde.
