Page 24 of Ignited In The Present (The Ties That Bind Us Book 2)

“You look like shit.”

“Thanks.’’ I slump in my chair at the kitchen table, the morning sun streaming through the window but a cold chill shoots through me making me wrap my arms around my middle. “I think you need to work on your greetings.”

“You look like death warmed up?” Gale hedges, glancing at me over his shoulder as he flicks the kettle on. “Wanna talk about it now?”

I sigh, dropping my head to the table wishing the ground would open up and swallow me whole. “Not really… it’s fucked up.”

“Rhys.” Gale’s hand lands on my shoulder giving it a reassuring squeeze before he kicks out the chair next to me and sits down. He turns to face me weariness swirling in his eyes, leans his elbow on the table and rests his head on his hand. “What has that little shit done to you now?”

We’ve always been open with each other, been there for each other in a way we’ve never connected with the rest of our friendship group and as it turned out we didn’t really know two of them at all. That betrayal cut us deeply, it left invisible scars that ache whenever I think about opening myself up again. The only person I feel truly comfortable with is K, but with every step forward we take together I can feel him pulling back and shutting himself off. My life’s a fucking mess right now and I don’t know if I can keep holding my head above water or if it’s better to sink

“N-nothing,” I sob. “I-it’s not him… not really.” I lick my dry lips as the back of my eyes burn like they’re being pricked with a million poisoned needles. I try to speak but a shuddering breath racks through me shaking me to my core as vivid images of last night flash through my mind assaulting me like artillery fire.

“Fuck, Rhys, you’re shaking,” Gale screeches, hysteria rising in his voice with each word as he envelopes me in his arms, his hands coasting up and down my back trying to ground me. “What the fuck happened last night?”

“I don’t think you’ll believe me even if I tell you.” Despair washes over me, my gut sinking like a lead weight. “It’s so fucked up.”

The noise of the kettle boiling makes us jump apart, the sound grating against my brain like grinding steel in a car crash. “Just sit tight while I make us a cup of tea, yeah?” I nod mutely as I watch him busy himself being all domesticated, while I try to disassociate myself from what’s happened over the last twenty four hours.

“You’ll make someone a good house husband one day, you know?” I try for levity but my tone flat, my words as brittle as the hope I’ve been clinging to.

Gale snorts, “Not you though—” I glare at his back as he keeps talking. “—no, for some reason you want to attach yourself to a fucking little psycho who jacks off all over cars.”

“He might be a little psycho but he’s mine,” I hiccup a cry trying to sniff back the tears welling in my eyes when I think about holding his catatonic body in the rain last night. I could feel his ribs through his saturated clothes. I’ve never been able to work out if he has an eating disorder or if his weight is just an adverse effect of the drugs he’d been taking to manage his pain. At least I know at the moment he’s clean since he’s been at Horizon House, well other than the medications Jenna has put him on.

I need to get back to him, waiting till my shift starts at two o’clock is beyond the limits of what I can take after yesterday. I’m crawling out of my skin as it is and it’s only ten a.m. No one knows who we are to each other and I don’t know what would happen if Jenna found out. Would I lose my position? Would Kayden be kicked out? If he was, where would he go? What would happen if Neil found out he was still around here?

“Here you go.” Gale pushes a steaming mug of tea in front of me. I wrap my hands around it, relaxing a tiny bit as the heat seeps into my numb fingers. “Are you ready to start talking?”

“No,” my voice wavers, a look of concern washes over Gale’s face. Dark brows furrow, those little lines grow at the corners of his eyes as his lips twist with the effort it takes to bite his tongue. The level of concern radiating off him is visceral, and what he learns here today is going to have a profound effect on him no matter how much he tries to hide it. I just wish he had someone out there who could help him, be there for him in the way he needs.

“Rhys, you need to get this out if it’s affecting you this much.” Gale scrubs a hand over his face, practically ageing before my eyes. “Are you still having therapy sessions with Jenna?”

“Yeah.”

“Are they helping you?” I nod and shrug simultaneously because yes and no. Maybe? The hot cup burns my lips as I take a sip of scolding tea relishing the feel of the liquid searing down my throat. “Is it working there with Kayden that’s messing with you?”

“No, not at all.” I run my hand through my hair, desperately needing something to ground me before my mind starts wondering what will happen if Thom’s still there today. But that twisted fuck has a silver tongue and can charm his way out of almost anything. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s pulled the wool over Jenna’s eyes and is sitting there with a front row seat to me starting my shift today.

“Then what is it?” Gale rests his hand over mine on the table but goes to snatch it back as soon as he realises what he’s done. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have…”

I grab his hand lacing our fingers. “I think we’re both going to need this once I tell you.” I swallow around the lump of emotion wrapped in barbed wire in my throat wincing at the pain. Gale offers me a weak fleeting smile and tilts his head as if to say ‘go on.’ I take a deep inhale trying to steel myself as I count to four in my head allowing the oxygen to permeate my blood before releasing it and some of the tension knotting up my shoulders eases. “There is a new resident who arrived yesterday.”

“Oh,” Gale says on an exhale slumping back into his seat then tension melting out of him prematurely. “That’s not so bad?”

“Normally, no.” I try to smile but it’s more of a grimace as my lip curls back baring my teeth. “I mean that’s what happens the residents rotate as they come to the end of their scheduled stay—one in one out kinda thing—but this person has and will cause major problems.” The colour drains from my face, my breaths shallow as iron bars band around my lungs and I fight wither everything in me to push the fucking words out and release an avalanche of pain on my best friend.

“Oookay, gotta say it Rhys, you’re scaring me here.”

“Fuck!” I slam my head into the table trying to block out Kayden’s screams as they echo on a conscious loop in my head. “Alright, I can do this,” I mutter, coaching myself. Sitting back in my chair I rub the sore patch on my forehead, growling at Gale as he smirks at my stupidity. “I was in a review meeting with Jenna when we heard screaming. So we stopped what we were doing and legged it in the direction of the noise, our pagers were buzzing so we knew it was bad. We just didn’t know how bad… that kind of behaviour is normally reserved for the patients in the psych unit.” I take a sip of tea as I feel the bite of the barbed wire sink into my throat then tuck my shaky hands under my legs.

“What happened? W-what caused it?” Gale seems so invested in this that I hate myself for shattering an illusion of normalcy we’ve been living in.

“Thom was in reception.” Gale gasps in shock, horror and dread coiling like black smoke in his honeyed hazel eyes. His mouth falls open, his hand wraps around his throat like a knee jerk reaction. “Yep,” I squeak.

“Shit.. t-that wasn’t what I had anticipated you to say.”

“That wasn’t what I was expecting to see when I heard the screams.”

He leans forwards, bracing his arms on his thighs and whispers, “I’m almost too afraid to ask… who was…?”

“Screaming?” Gale nods, looking kind of sheepish. “I’m sure you can guess.”

“Kayden?” He enquires although judging by the look on his face he knew without saying but sometimes we need confirmation of the most obvious things to make them real enough for us to believe.

“Yup.”

“I guess that explains why you looked like a drowned rat when I picked you up?”

I sigh, tracing the grain in the wood table with my fingers. Gale lets go of my hand to drink his now cooled cup of tea. “Yeah. I had to get him out of there. By the time I could get my hands on him he’d shut down. His eyes were open but there was no one home. He didn’t even acknowledge me when I picked him up and carried him outside into the woods.”

“The woods?”

A brittle smile lifts my lips and I can feel the relentless onslaught of the rain pounding against my skin as I’m transported back to last night.. “Yeah, K has an affinity for nature, it soothes him. So I carried him in my arms to this little clearing we discovered in the woods out the back of the house when we um…” My cheeks heat, flushing red as I remember him chasing me and fucking me into the ground.

Covering my mouth with his hand Gale says, “Fuck! I don’t wanna know, do I?” He snarks, the corners of his mouth twitching.

“Probably not, no,” I chuckle. “Anyway back to last night, as I sat with him on my lap in this clearing and talked about anything and everything to him till he came back to me. Then the damn thunderstorm hit and we both got absolutely soaked. Jenna was pissed when I carried him back to his room. He was barely coherent then and dripping wet but at least he wasn’t on the verge of a breakdown.”

“I bet you need to get back to him to make sure he’s alright, huh?”

“You could say. Need a shower first, I swear I’ve got dirt where it doesn’t belong and I was clothed this ti–”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence. I don’t wanna hear about your kinky shit.” I smirk at him feeling lighter than I have since I got back here last night.

I mime zipping my lips and shrug. “Have you heard back from Giles, yet?” Gale shifts in his seat, fingers picking at a loose thread in his jeans.

“I have buuut, I’m not sure it gives us the answers we’re after.”

“What do you mean?” I lean back in my chair, rest my ankle on my opposite knee and clasp my hands. I tilt my head, raising a brow to get him to continue.

“Fine, fine,” Gale huffs. “I told him to follow the money going in and out of Horizon House.” he pauses and finishes his drink. “So the money going into the Horizon House accounts matches up with the residents, outreach programmes they offer and the two other facilities they run. There are no over payments, no random donations or billables. It’s all about board.”

“Well that’s no help whatsoever,” I grind out feeling frustration bubbling inside me like a toxic potion.

“Calm down. I do have some goodish news. Giles then went through Jenna’s personal accounts and it turned up a few interesting things.” I raise my brow again ‘get the fuck on with it.’ “One of Jenna’s residents is her sister, she adopted her about 10 years ago because her parents tried to have her institutionalised?—”

“Shit!”

“Yup, but that’s not all. Her parents run in the same circles as Neil.” My eyes widen in shock, fuck does she know who I am? No she can’t, she’d have let it slip by now surely. “Don’t look so panicked she hasn’t had anything to do with them since she basically committed a jailbreak to get her sister out and into her care. I think she’s a good one.”

“That’s a relief.” I think, maybe Jenna doesn’t know anything about who I am and who Kayden is to me, she could be completely oblivious but then again she could know everything and be playing a role for Neil who’s just waiting for the opportune moment to strike?

“Giles did discover that Jenna is receiving large monthly sums into her account that covers the treatments costs of Horizon House but the money is coming from an untraceable account so he was unable to tell us who is bankrolling his stay.”

My chair screeches as it grinds against the floor as I push it back from the table. My hand lands on Gale’s shoulder,“Thanks for doing that. Let me know how much I owe Giles and I’ll ping it over to you.”

Placing his hand over mine Gale gives a small smile that’s clearly meant to be reassuring but I can see the trepidation swirling in his eyes. “You don’t owe a thing, Rhys. You’ve got enough shit to be dealing with at the moment.” Ain’t that the fucking truth. “I’ve got this handled.”

“You’re a good friend, Gale, I’d be lost without you.” He sighs, a look of resignation flashing across his face before he schools his features and gives me one of those dude bro up nods.

I almost make it to the bottom step of the stairs when I hear his quiet voice, “I just wish you’d fight for me the way you do him. Love me the way you do for him.” His words land like a sucker punch to my chest, my heart breaking for him all over again, maybe in another life if things had been different.

I swallow down my immediate retort, that’s on the tip of my tongue and suck in a deep inhale. It’s never been him. It’s always been Kayden, even when I tried to lock my feelings up in Pandora’s box and bury it in the back of my mind. My heart has always belonged to him, from that first moment he comforted me over my mum’s death when we were huddled in that shitty toilet in Pizza Hut. My heart remembered him when I tried to run from him and my feelings. When I used girls to get over what was so deeply entrenched in me it was only a matter of time until I realised how futile my efforts had been.

In less than twenty minutes I’m showered and changed and ready to go, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge when Gale saunters in head buried in his phone. “Hey, do you think we could go now?”

He jumps back a step at the sound of my voice hand on his chest. “Fuck you scared me.”

A chuckle slips from my lips, “If you weren’t so distracted by your phone you might have heard me.”

“Yeah,” he sighs, his shoulders sagging like the weight of the world is resting on them and quickly shoves his phone in his back pocket. Gale sucks in a sharp breath like he’s about to speak but chews his bottom lip instead.

“Hey,” I say, stepping closer to him. “Who was that? Your Father?”

“Uh huh. He’s ordered me home, and if I don’t go he’ll cancel the payments for the final term of my course.” visibly shaken, tears pooling in his eyes make my heart go out to him. I know enough about the vile way his father treats him and his mother that I wrap him up in my arms. A quiet sob rips out of him rocking through his entire body as his arms bracket around my waist.

“I’ll do whatever I can to help you, you know that. No matter what’s going on with me. I’ve got your back just like you have mine.” I run my hands up and down his back as he finally breaks, his walls crumbling to rubble at our feet. “I’ll get you out of this one way or another.” Gale looks up at me with red rimmed glassy eyes, the depth of pain in them echoes Kayden’s.

Dropping his arms Gale steps back wiping his eyes with the cuff of his hoodie. “Thanks,” he gives me a watery smile. “I’ll just clean up and then we’ll go.” He snatches the keys off the worktop and heads upstairs, the floorboards creaking above my head.

The drive to Horizon House blurs into a surreal haze, a gnawing sense of foreboding growing with every mile closer. It’s a feeling I can’t shake, as if something deep within me has fractured irreparably, setting off a cascade of events from which there’s no return.

As we approach the entrance gates, time seems to stretch into eternity, each second dragging on like a lifetime until the gates slowly creak open, allowing Gale to drive through. My temples throb relentlessly, like the incessant beat of a war drum, intensifying with each passing moment. Black spots dance across my vision, and I rub my eyes in a futile attempt to alleviate the pain, only to be met with waves of nausea that churn in the pit of my stomach.

“Hey, you okay?” Gale’s voice cuts through the haze, his concern palpable as he glances at me while manoeuvring up the sprawling driveway.

“I, uh...” My words catch in my throat, abruptly stolen as a searing pain grips my chest, doubling me over. I clutch at my chest, gasping for air, but it feels like I’m suffocating, trapped in the vise-like grip of my own body. Every cell screams with agony, my heart hammering so violently I fear my ribs might splinter beneath the force.

Gale slams on the brakes, his hands reaching out to pat me down in a frantic search for the source of my distress. “Are you having a heart attack or something?”

“No,” I manage to grit out, tears streaming down my face as I struggle to regain control. “Somethings...w-wrong...with K-Kayden.” I fumble with my seatbelt, desperation clawing at me as I attempt to free myself from the confines of the car. “Fuck! Fuck!” I chant, feeling as though the walls are closing in around me, each second ticking away like a countdown to disaster.

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

The door wrenches open with such force that it almost tears me from my seat. Before I can fully register what’s happening, Gale has unclipped my seatbelt and is pulling me out of the car. “I don’t know what the fuck’s going on, but you’re scaring me, Rhys,” he says, his voice filled with concern as he cups my face. But I’m not really seeing him; something inside me is screaming to run—to run to him, to run to Kayden.

I lick my lips, tasting the salt of tears, as I try to form words. “I... I don’t know what’s happening, but something is wr—“ My sentence is cut short by a wave of pain so intense that it crashes over me like a devastating tsunami, causing my legs to buckle beneath me and sending me crashing to my knees.

“I’ve got you,” Gale murmurs softly, his arms wrapping around me just in time to prevent me from hitting the ground. “What can I do?” His bloodshot eyes plead with me to let him in, to let help, but I know he can’t—because he’s not allowed on the premises.

Ragged breaths escape my chest as I struggle to regain control, the pain gradually easing. My eyes dart around us, ensuring we’re alone and this isn’t some twisted conspiracy. “You can do one thing?—“

“Anything,” Gale interjects, his response swift and eager, warming the hollow cavity in my chest where my heart used to reside.

“When you go to town, can you look for a place for us to rent? So we can get out from under Neil’s control? I want to get Kayden out of here, but I can’t take him back to Barton Grange. It would be a death sentence for him and us.”

Gale’s eyes widen, his lips twisting as he processes my request. “I can do that. How soon do you want to be out?”

“I’d get him out of here tomorrow if I could,” I gasp, clutching at my chest.

“Cool, leave it with me. See you at ten,” Gale replies briskly, and briefly wraps his arms around me. His words rebounding off me as he jumps in the car, spins around and speeds back down the driveway kicking up dirt and gravel in his wake.