Page 3 of Aftermath #1

3

C am was in purgatory when someone woke him up. Disoriented and ready to fight for his life, he flew out of his chair and pounced on the fucker touching his arm. Vision blurry, he gripped Psycho by the throat and they ended up on the floor—

"Cam!"

What the fuck?

The sound of Austin's voice made Cam slow down his movements.

"Jesus Christ, Cam," Austin growled. And with a force Cam couldn’t compete against, he ended up on his back, his shoulder blades digging into the wooden boards of the patio. Shit. Patio. He was back home. Not hell. Not that metal cage. Austin was here. They were safe.

Cam released a choked breath and tried to relax under Austin's body.

Austin must have noticed. He loosened his grip on Cam but didn’t move away. Now Austin wasn’t holding him down to defend himself, it seemed. It was to comfort. He leaned down and cupped Cam's cheek and rested their foreheads together. It was a contact that had worked for them before.

The next time Austin spoke, it was gentler. "Talk to me, Cam. You're a mess." He brushed his thumb over the shadows under Cam's eyes.

"I'm sorry," he muttered in a strangled voice. "Fuck. I don’t—" I don’t know what's wrong with me .

Well, he had a guess, but he refused to go there. His shrink had told all of them about PTSD, and Cam didn’t want to add another issue to his already-long list. PTSD was a condition that felt so permanent—the last thing he needed in his life. But it had been like this whenever someone startled him awake, so he knew he needed to address the problem.

At the hospital, it had been his brother. Then, a few days after he'd been released, he'd hooked up with one of the chicks who never stopped calling him. He had fallen asleep at her apartment after a mediocre fuck, and when she'd woken him up, she had been on the receiving end of a fist.

He'd felt beyond shitty. Savannah had been understanding—had even tried to comfort Cam while he took her to the emergency room for her split lip, and she'd offered to drive him to his shrink's office afterward. Cam had passed on the offer, apologized a hundred times, and then ended their casual relationship.

He wasn’t gonna take a chance with Kim or Brian, the other two he'd hooked up with from time to time. He'd ended things with them, too. Kim had cried, reminding Cam of how women could get— so much for casual fucking —and Brian had been oddly quiet.

There was also another reason Cam had already planned on never seeing Brian again, and that reason was currently lying on top of him. Being with a guy would cause Cam to think about things other than being friends with Austin, a man he needed in his life.

"Have you spoken to Gale about this?" Austin asked as he slowly removed himself from Cam. They went to the same psychologist—all the surviving guys did. "You should. It could be PTSD."

"Yeah, yeah," Cam grumbled and pulled himself up. Giving Austin a hand, he helped him up, too. "Sorry I attacked." He adjusted the towel on his hips.

"I can take it."

The two men stood before each other, close enough to touch, and maintained eye contact. It made Cam wonder if Austin found their relationship odd. 'Cause closeness was as easy as breathing to them. So was touching. Personal space was usually so fucking important to Cam, but with Austin…

Austin broke the spell, clearing his throat, and plopped down in his chair again. Then he pulled out a bottle of painkillers from a side pocket of his shorts, and Cam gave him a cocked eyebrow.

"Headache," Austin answered. "These glasses are taking some getting used to. Plus, the sun…" He shook his head and sighed. "You know how it is."

"They look good on you," Cam commented before thinking. Fuck . He sat his ass back down in the chair and rolled his eyes at himself. "Only thing missing is the suit, Mr. MBA."

Nice save, jackass .

"And you're a dick," Austin said, removing his glasses to rub his eyes.

"You wanna go inside instead?" Cam was already standing up. While he'd had issues adjusting to the sun, too, it wasn’t as bad as the man next to him. "Come on—bet there's a game on or something. You hungry?"

"Not really, but a game sounds good." Austin followed him inside. "So, mind telling me why there's a bed in here?" He waved a hand at the living room.

"My bedroom's fucking tiny," Cam lied. His bedroom was just fine, but he still felt like he was locked in. "There's a chair over there if you prefer that. I'm just gonna get some snacks." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the kitchen. "You want anything other than beer? Coke, water—think there's some decaf iced tea that Jules left, too."

"Coke, thanks." Austin nodded and moved toward the entertainment center while Cam headed to the kitchen. "Jules is your sister-in-law, right?"

"Yeah." Cam opened his fridge, having not gotten over his newfound greed for choosing his own meal. Just looking at food felt nice. "Annoying as fuck, but you gotta love her, I guess. They're having twins in a few months." He pulled out some fixings to make a few sandwiches.

His brother Landon was pale with dark features, same gray eyes as Cam, and Jules took after her Mexican mother. She was also fucking tiny, so it was a little amusing to see her walking around with a big bump on her belly. And she wasn’t even close to term yet.

He'd been shocked to see the baby bump on Jules when he'd been reunited with his family after the kidnapping. He knew about the IVF trials, obviously, but not that Landon and Jules had gone through another round in…what, January? Anyway, that shock had quickly morphed into excitement for his brother and sister-in-law.

Austin hummed, then went quiet for a beat before he chuckled. "Well, your porn stash wasn’t hard to find."

Cam laughed and figured Austin had taken a guess on the one cabinet in the entertainment center that came with a lock. "Wouldn’t wanna freak out my mom. Dad and Landon advised me to lock it up." His father's exact words had been, "Let's not give your mother any ideas."

"You don’t think Lily's ever seen porn?" Austin snorted.

Cam was impressed. After having only met his parents briefly at the hospital, Austin had evidently formed a fairly accurate view of Lily and Jonathan Nash. Well, at least Lily, who was very free-spirited and carefree. She'd been the Irish hippie from San Francisco who'd fallen for a more conservative architect. Not that there was anything conservative left in Cam's dad. Now he was the mellowed-out voice of reason who kept Lily grounded. And in return, Lily made sure Jonathan never forgot how to spell "fun."

Grinning to himself, Cam took the food and drinks and returned to the living room. "Not porn with dudes doing each other." He set down Coke, beer, chips, and the sandwiches. "All right. Let's see what's on." He sat on the edge of his bed and grabbed the remote. The large flat screen flickered to life; meanwhile, Austin sat down next to Cam, and he appeared to be confused.

"Dudes?"

Cam gave him a sideways glance. "Yeah." He left it at that, not wanting to elaborate, and faced the TV, quickly finding one of the sports channels. "You mind if I…?" He pointed to the smokes and the ashtray on the coffee table. All the windows and the patio door were still open, but he didn’t know if Austin was okay with it.

"Go ahead." Austin shrugged.

It looked like he was somewhere else. Miles away, in fact. That worried Cam, 'cause he knew firsthand where he involuntarily ended up when his mind wandered.

"What the fuck?" Cam scratched his scruffy chin and scowled at the paper. "It says here that I'm a deadbeat punk hiding behind a smile."

This was just a nightmare, right?

"It's not a schedule." Austin was scanning his own paper, absently spinning the wedding band on his finger. Like in old prison movies, there was a hatch in the door. That was where their kidnapper had slipped in the papers. "It's a script." In the faint fluorescent light, they saw what were obviously instructions for characters. Nothing "schedule" about it. There were traits, hobbies, and vague descriptions.

"He's gotta be certifiable." Cam looked around himself warily.

In the small cell, they were surrounded by metal. Only the back wall was different; it was drywall strengthened with metal panels. Even the dirt floor was enhanced with a metal net—to prevent digging, he supposed.

Nothing around them could be used as a weapon.

Between the unyielding cots they'd never call beds was a bucket of water, a washcloth, and a bar of soap. They each had a blanket. Next to the solid, steel door there was a chrome-like toilet attached to the wall. The toilet paper was of the cheapest industrial kind.

For utensils, they'd been given plastic spoons and a tin cup.

That was it. And now the scripts.

"Has anyone tried to overpower him?" Austin whispered.

Cam shrugged, craving a cigarette. "How? I've never even seen him. He doesn’t open the doors, as far as I know. Only when someone new comes, and…" He swallowed, glared, and averted his eyes. "He aimed a gun at me when you were thrown in here. I-I froze." He chuckled without humor. "Thirty-three years old and I froze like a fuckin' kid."

Austin frowned and took in his surroundings for the umpteenth time. "What about food delivery? Change of water?"

Cam jerked his chin, gesturing to the wall they shared with the neighboring cell. "Those two guys next to us are refusing to send out or accept anything. So, Psycho doesn’t bother to knock. At least that’s how it's been for the past two days."

"Psycho." Austin snorted. "Fitting. And original."

Cam scowled. "You got a better name for him? 'Cause that’s what we should focus on here, right? His fucking name."

Austin quieted and looked down at his papers again.

Cam did the same, and what he could conclude was that they all had roles to play, and for the sake of keeping his sanity, he chose to see the silver lining. With a task assigned to him, it wasn’t likely the kidnapper had plans to kill him, right? Yet. Or whatever.

They needed to stall until they either found a way out or until the police tracked them down.

After several days in captivity, it became clear just how unstable their kidnapper was. Not only did he wish everyone a merry Christmas when he delivered their meals one day, but he also told them to relax and take a few days off work to be with family.

For the record, it was February.

Another thing: Mr. Stone now wanted to be called Mr. Cold.

During the "holidays," he only came down to the basement to deliver food and change the water in the buckets. Well, he did it for those who weren’t on strike. Those who poured the old water from the bucket down the toilet and then held it up under the hatch so "Psycho" could stick in a garden hose and fill it up again were treated slightly better. They accepted the food and got the usual chicken soup, stale bread, and a tin cup of lukewarm milk. The bowls for the soup were made of hard paper.

The game Austin wasn’t following had been on for almost thirty minutes when he checked the time. He had to leave within the hour if he wanted to be home for dinner, and it wasn’t really an option. Riley would be upset if he broke his promise.

He wasn’t ready to drive home just yet, though. His mind kept going back to Cam's casual words about his, uh, movie collection. Gay porn? Was that what he meant? Austin had never really given it any thought, but he'd figured Cam was straight. He knew there were a couple women Cam met up with now and then; he'd found out about that at the hospital.

To go even further, Austin never really thought about sexual orientation at all. His parents had raised him that way after a cousin of his on his dad's side had come out as gay and Austin's aunt and uncle hadn't reacted well. Instead, Griffin and Maggie Huntley had swooped in.

Austin's cousin, Derek, was a few years older, and he'd come out right before he took off for college on the East Coast. So, it wasn’t like Derek had moved in with Austin's family, but his parents had still intervened. They'd become surrogate parents to Derek, the ones who called and asked how everything was, sent care packages to his dorm, and invited him home for all the holidays.

Maggie had said, "They're not gay people. They're people. It's pretty darn simple."

She had been so furious at Griffin's brother for basically shunning his own son, and who could blame her? Austin didn’t understand why it was a big deal, period. But now? He couldn’t help but wonder about Cam and his preferences.

The thought of Cam getting off to gay porn shot tingles of something unidentifiable through Austin.

The closest Austin had gotten was the threesome he'd drunkenly had with a girl and another guy when he was at USC. He didn’t really remember a whole lot of that night, though. It was one of the rare times his roommate had managed to pull the stick out of Austin's ass and dragged him away from his studies to go out.

"The Bruins are really killing it," he heard Cam say.

"Huh?" Austin snapped back to the present. "Oh, yeah. They're good."

"Wow, you're really out there." Cam studied him, a smile on his face but concern in his eyes. "The hockey season hasn’t even started yet. And unless you're secretly from Boston, I can't allow Bruins fans in my home."

Austin frowned and zeroed in on the game—which was obviously a rerun, and it was basketball. His frown morphed into a scowl, and he felt a flare of anger surging up. Jesus, he had to get a grip. At any hour of the day, he could get irrationally angry for no reason.

"This was actually one of the reasons I wanted you to come over today," Cam said and lit up a smoke. "Something's up. Do you notice that you shut down and space out?"

Austin knew, but this hadn't been one of those times. Now…Cam was worried about him, but all he'd been thinking about was whether or not Cam liked cock.

He made a face and adjusted in his seat. "I have it under control," he lied. "I have a session with Gale tomorrow. We talk…about it."

"About what?"

"About, you know." Austin's shoulder tensed up, and he got defensive, more anger spiking. "What about your own damn issues, huh?" He shook his head and stood up. "Never mind. I have to go."

Austin didn’t give Cam a chance to react before he left.

He knew he was being a coward, running away like that, but he couldn’t deal with it right now. In captivity, both men had tackled their problems whether they wanted to or not. It had gotten to the point where nothing intimidated them—not even weapons. They'd been desperate for freedom, for the chance of healing.

Four words had become their motto: "Gun or no gun." Regardless of obstacles, they'd fight for their lives. But now they were hiding. They couldn’t even be truthful with each other.