Page 48 of Bend Him, Break Him

The buzz of blacklights woke Colton, who blinked away some of his delirium.

The low lighting and odd angle made it difficult for him to make sense of his surroundings.

Colton struggled to breathe, hunched forward with his face sinking into the mattress.

The weight of his body came with a strange numb sensation.

It was hard for him to grasp, but Colton knew he wasn’t just lying out on the bed but positioned.

Only, he didn’t realize the work Leon had put in angling Colton at the edge of the bed, ready for an evening of carnal savagery.

A gurgle of slurred words bubbled at the tip of Colton’s tongue, but he couldn’t muster more than confused noises. Leon turned back, his wicked smirk in Colton’s peripheral as he tinkered with something on the nearby dresser.

“Just trying to find your best angle, Colt.” Leon chuckled. “Wanna make sure everyone gets a full view of your desperate ass going ten rounds.”

Leon adjusted the phone he’d propped between books and random knickknacks before he waltzed toward the bed and plopped down beside Colton.

“Well, hopefully, ten rounds. Might try to squeeze a few more in for you.”

Colton groaned, garbled mumbles escaping his lips and forming such intangible words, even he wasn’t sure what he meant to say.

“Damn, William wasn’t fucking around.” Leon clicked his tongue with this satisfied sadistic approval. “He might’ve given you a double dose or some shit. Whatever, it’ll wear off enough soon. Not like anyone’s gonna mind or notice. That’s what matters.”

Leon reached for Colton’s pants, doing his best to unfasten them without knocking Colton’s slumped body over.

At this, Colton screamed or tried to with his weighed-down mind and body lost to a fog of confusion.

This couldn’t be happening. This wouldn’t be happening.

But he didn’t know what to do, so he screamed and shouted and listened to the bizarre noises that came.

He was a dying animal deep in a well, echoing strange sounds.

It gave Leon pause. Not of concern. The annoyance plastered on his face grew the more Colton groaned.

“Shut the fuck up.” Leon smacked Colton’s head. “I’m just getting you ready. Goddamn.”

With that, he went back to work and prepared to yank Colton’s pants down. When Colton trembled, desperately attempting to wriggle loose and call for help, Leon stopped and reached into his pocket.

“If you keep moving, I’m gonna give you a real reason to whine and cry, you little bitch.” He pressed the tip of a blade underneath Colton’s eye. So sharp and cold it roused the muddled senses in Colton’s head just long enough to strike fear of the pocketknife Leon wielded. “Is that what you want?”

Colton took shallow breaths, trying and failing to calm himself, to will his obedience for fear Leon might take an eye just for a fucking laugh.

“Guessing you’re thinking I’m gonna have a go at you?

” Leon cringed, utter disgust on his face as he put his knife away.

“That’s what I hate about you fags. You think everyone’s gay.

Oh, if you hate queers, you must be one.

No. No, that is dumb as fuck. I mean, I hate spiders.

That doesn’t secretly make me one. At least spiders are natural.

You lot, though.” Leon let out a full-body shudder.

“Seriously, when I’m done with you, everyone is gonna see just how disgusting you are and the lengths you’ll go to get off with your perverted desires. ”

Colton quaked, eyes glossy, and head tilted just enough he could see the fuming rage and smug arrogance mixed together on Leon’s face.

“I thought the last video would be enough to get you tossed off the team, but hey, they wanna make excuses, then I’ll just show ‘em it’s a pattern.

” Leon retrieved his phone, not the one currently positioned to record Colton, but another.

Neither phone looked like Leon’s. No, they were cheap and bulky outdated smartphones.

“Turns out there are a lot of perverts in the area, and none of them really have questions about the quick in and out I’ve got planned for ya. ”

Leon turned the phone to face Colton, revealing a profile with Colton’s image looking for anonymous fucks. No strings. No games. No conversation.

“See? Fucking disgusting. The lot of you.”

Colton wheezed, desperately trying to wrap his fogged-over mind around what Leon was going to do, going to orchestrate. There wasn’t an escape, a way he could find to stop this.

“They’re gonna be lined up out the fucking door, running a train on you, and then it won’t be a question on whether or not you filmed and posted this.” Leon gestured around the room. “It’ll be a pattern, coaches will see what a homo slut you are for dick, and I’ll be starting pitcher.”

All this for his position. All this for Colton’s spotlight. All this because he hated Colton’s lifestyle.

“All you gotta do is lay there and look easy.” Leon grinned. “No one’s gonna be asking questions because no one really cares.”

“I’ve actually got a few questions,” the familiar gruffness in Isaac’s voice sparked hope in Colton.

His body rattled, attempting to move, to call out, to turn and see Isaac’s entrance. From this angle, he could hear Isaac approach from behind, but his gaze was still facing Leon, whose expression had dropped to utter shock.

“Now, I’ve been told not to start shit with you,” Isaac said, his feet shuffling inside. “Conflict is never the way to resolution—blah, blah, blah—but something tells me that this right here has just given me a free pass to bash in your fucking face.”

“Not another step, you freak fag!”

“Sticks and stones, buddy boy.”

Leon backstepped, lost from Colton’s sight, only to reappear seconds later with an aluminum bat in hand.

“Oh, sweetie.” Isaac took a deep breath, his teeth chattering with anticipation. “You’re gonna have to do so much better than that.”

Isaac swooped across the room so swiftly, the breeze of his fluid steps tickled Colton’s exposed lower back.

His shirt had rolled up some, but his pants were still on; he wasn’t exposed here despite feeling completely vulnerable and raw.

It was a harrowing feeling, a sinking pit that sickened him to dwell on.

Instead, he focused on Isaac’s manic rage, his calm expression, and his confident body language.

Isaac’s sharp inhale seemed to swallow all the violence in the air, and his exhale unleashed war.

The cockiness in Isaac’s voice soothed Colton, but when Leon swung the bat without hesitation, he gurgled a shout of a warning.

Issac raised an arm, bracing for the impact.

He held his position, perhaps stunned by the pain surging through his body from the strike, but he didn’t falter.

After a deep, seething breath, Isaac stepped forward, arm still raised and shielding against the second swing of Leon’s bat.

And the third. And the fourth. That was when a feral sound of fury and anguish escaped Isaac.

With it came a deranged laughter as Isaac wrapped his arm around the bat and yanked it from Leon’s grasp.

“Well, well, well. Looks like I’m joining the team.” Isaac cracked his neck, arm trembling—most likely from the throbbing pain pulsing through his muscles and bone from the bat’s multiple strikes.

“Get the fuck away from me.” Leon raised his hands like he might try to catch the bat if Isaac swung it. But the way his arms shook, there was no way he’d manage such a feat.

“Oh, you think I’m some pussy jock gay basher who needs to hide behind a bat to beat off my foes?” Isaac stared at his confiscated weapon, eyeing the bat before chucking it behind his head and out of view. “Honey, no.”

Colton wanted to scream, to demand Isaac retrieve it, to warn him that Leon had another weapon.

As expected and feared, Leon pulled out his knife and began swinging chaotically at Isaac, who darted back, avoiding the erratic swipes.

Isaac didn’t remain on the defensive very long.

No, his feet moved to strengthen his stance, and his arms weaved in a way that drew Leon into an unsuspecting trap.

Colton had seen this movement before, but only in a flash of a few seconds.

This was the same technique Isaac had used when Colton foolishly attempted to attack him and ended up flipped over and knocked onto the ground.

But Isaac didn’t snatch Leon up and hurl him away. Instead, he pivoted to break Leon’s grip on his knife and twisted their bodies around in such a way that, even from the outside, Colton had difficulty tracking Isaac’s movements.

One moment, they were swirling, the glint of the blade shining under the blacklights of the room. A blink later, Leon was screaming, and blood was everywhere.

“You motherfucker!” Leon shouted.

“Can we normalize fatherfucker?” Isaac asked, aloof and wearing a twisted smirk. “Because I’d never bang your mom, but I’d one hundred percent bend your daddy over.”

“Aaaaahhhh!” Leon shouted, grabbing ahold of his forearm as he stared at the blade protruding from his wrist. His throwing arm. Colton suspected Isaac knew that, too. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s the crazy homophobe swinging a knife at me and hurling slurs.” Isaac shrugged. “Not sure why you’re screaming at me. You’re the one who came at me. I just returned the weapon to sender. I didn’t even charge you postage. Very friendly on my part.”

“Stop making jokes!” Leon screamed. “This is serious, you fucking psychopath!”

“Yeah, very serious.” Isaac eyed Leon, his injury, the room and the situation. “But I’m not the psycho here.”

“You fucking stabbed me.”

“Once again, I defended myself against your assault. First with the bat, then the knife. You’ve already drugged someone.

Who knows what other weapons you have on your person?

” Isaac’s eyes flitted over to the phone propped on the dresser, the one recording everything, the one Leon had at the ready for an awful assault.

“Your attack. An attack on me because I interrupted your attempted sexual assault on my boyfriend. Not cool.”

Isaac framed his words in such a way that it carefully laid out all of Leon’s culpability.

Colton found himself awed by Isaac’s strategic mind, but he knew Leon had already confessed to his part in tonight and everything else he’d arranged.

That phone held all the evidence they needed.

Now, he just needed to pray that Isaac didn’t do something impulsive like murder Leon on camera.

“I wasn’t—” The pain must’ve hit Leon’s nerves hard because he stopped mid-sentence and winced.

“Yeah, you might want to go get that checked out. Like, stat. Before it becomes permanent.” Isaac nodded, then held up a hand to count off. “Next thing you know, you won’t be able to use that hand to write, to jerk off, to wipe your ass, to throw things at unsuspecting gays, to play baseball, to—”

At that, Leon’s eyes went wide, the realization finally sinking in that this pain might leave lasting damage, that it might be a career-ending blow. He bolted past Isaac, his feet stumbling as he ran out of the room.

“Rude.” Isaac brushed imaginary dust off his shirt. “Didn’t even say excuse me.”

Colton gurgled, attempting to say ‘excuse me’ in a sarcastic snarky way. An utter failure since he couldn’t even form the words, let alone the attitude.

Isaac’s demeanor completely shifted when his gaze fully landed on Colton.

It was as if he’d avoided directly staring at him when he entered the room, and for good reason.

Colton saw the calm in Isaac’s piercing blue eyes gloss over; he watched Isaac’s body become rigid as he fought off a nervous tremble.

Soon, he collected himself and swooped over beside Colton, examining him to the best of his abilities.

“You’re okay,” he said, repeating the words again and again more to himself than to Colton who he repositioned, gently rolling him onto his side. “I’m gonna call help, all right?”

Colton moved his jaw, ignoring the tingling pain, but he still couldn’t form words.