Page 60 of The Haunting of William Thorn

Time stood still as if the universe took a breath in and refused to let it out.

William threw himself to the ground, knees cracking against the harsh stone slabs. Before his hands could touch Edward, he paused. Besides the wound on the back of his head, there was no saying what other issues affected him. William had to be careful.

Time resumed when Edward slowly lifted his head and met William’s panicked, tired gaze.

“Oh, my God, Edward. You’re alive.”

Out of all the things he expected him to reply, what came out of his cracked lips was not one of them. “You need to. Get out. Of here.”

“Fuck that,” William snapped, gathering Edward up, helping him turn his body until his cracked head was laid out on his lap. “We need to call an ambulance… what the hell happened, Edward?”

“ Hell … exactly.” He expelled a groan just from the slightest of movements. “I didn’t see them. I was attacked. Run, Will. Leave – ah. Go. Hanbury will–”

“Shh. Just slow down,” William begged, hyper aware of how slow Edward’s heartbeat felt as he clutched his hand to his chest. “You’re not making much sense.”

William had to stop Edward from lifting trembling fingers to his head. From the angle William had him at, there was no ignoring the nest of blood and tangled hair. He couldn’t see through the mess to know just how bad the wound was.

“I told you – go.”

“What do you mean you were attacked?”

“There’s no time to explain… they’re going to come back,” Edward said, drawing William out of the trance the wound had put him under. “Please, go. Go. Go…”

Edward broke down with every word spoken, his tongue filling his mouth until he sounded drunk.

The car – the one he watched drive away. “Who? Who’s coming back?”

Edward’s face screwed up, the shadows beneath his eyes so prominent they looked like fresh bruises. No, they were bruises. His face was covered in them, the perfectly lined crack over his bottom lip as anger as the mark on his skull.

“I didn’t see. I don’t… I don’t know. But I heard them talking about you . I thought they’d…” Frantic hands reached up and grasped at William, fingers pinching into flesh, just to prove how panicked Edward was.

“Thought they’d what?”

Edward blinked, wincing against even the minimal light. He likely had a concussion and some damage to the brain, which had turned him into this paranoid mess. “I thought they’d gone inside of the manor looking for you. They said they did… but. Where… where did you hide?”

Surely, this proved Edward had lost his mind. That his sanity had snapped. Perhaps he’d just fallen off the chair, knocked his head and released his grip on reality. But then William saw it in his eyes, a fear rooted so deep that it was almost tangible.

“Edward, I haven’t hid from anyone.” William shook his head, confused by everything coming from Edward’s mouth. “No one has been inside Hanbury except me. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was in the manor alone.”

A thought sprung to mind. “Was it the two men? I saw them too. Did they… did they do this?”

“Yes, a man.” Edward’s eyes rolled back into his skull. “They’re coming back for you.”

“I need to get you help,” William announced, wondering which pocket he’d put the shopkeeper’s number in. Maybe Barbara could help. If alerted she could call the police, or an ambulance.

“No, you’re not listening to me,” Edward snapped, wriggling like a worm on a hook, just enough for him to lean up and turn to face William.

The sheer fear in his face shocked William into silence.

“They’re coming back. Whoever… did this.

I was half pretending to be knocked out, but I heard them outside on the phone.

They said they couldn’t find you – something about needing more boots on the ground. ”

“But why would they want me ?” William gasped.

“Because you own the manor.” A single tear fell down Edward’s cheek, carving a path through the dried blood and grime on his face. “Because they know what you are going to find.”

“Find what?”

“The truth. And they’re going to kill you before you do. Like the others, they said. Like before.”

Edward wasn’t making much sense, but William recoiled as though physically struck by a force anyways.

He wanted nothing more than to laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

For Edward to say this surely had to be some sort of big joke, another way of playing with him.

Reality was clearer than that. Whatever these people had done to Edward was to hurt him.

Here was proof, right before William, that whatever was happening had to be somewhat real.

The blood was evidence of that.

“We need to call the police,” William stammered, patting his pockets to find them empty. Fuck . He’d left his phone back in the manor. Before he could ask Edward to use his, he gestured for William to look at something on the floor across the small dwelling.

“They broke it.”

A roaring filled William’s ears, a ferocious clash of waves against his skull.

He scanned the room, looking for something, not knowing what that something was exactly.

A weapon, perhaps. But time couldn’t be wasted.

Not from dwelling on the truth that if he’d not kicked Edward out last night, none of this would’ve happened.

But unlike the decision which killed Archie, Edward was still alive yet – William had a chance to change the fate that followed him and cursed those he got close to.

“Your car,” William said as the idea barrelled into him. Breathless from the anxiety gripping at his lungs, it took effort to keep speaking. “I’ve left the keys in it. If I get you inside, I’ll run back to the manor, get my phone and we will be on the road before… before they return.”

William expected Edward to refuse him, but instead, they locked eyes. The muscles in Edward’s jaw tensed as he gritted his teeth, brow furrowing above his darkened eyes. But his hard resolve shattered in seconds, revealing the frightened man beneath. “I don’t want them to hurt you too.”

The admission broke William to the bones. Edward suffered, evident from his wounds and the ones that hid beneath his flesh, the script of a story that William couldn’t even begin to unpack.

“Nothing is going to happen to me. Nor you, okay?”

His lower lip quivered as he reached a hand and laid it upon William’s cheek. The moment of the touch was so debilitating, so tender, that William could barely form words. He just leaned into it, struggling to fight back his tears.

“I’m so sorry,” Edward whispered. “I really am.”

Edward didn’t need to explain what he was sorry for.

William already knew. And in truth, he didn’t think he was strong enough to hear it.

There wasn’t much room for thinking in the seconds that followed.

Instead, William leaned forward until his lips found Edward’s mouth.

There was mutual hesitation, but that was fleeting.

It took seconds for their defences to drop and their kiss to deepen.

William whimpered into Edward’s mouth as his strong hand found the back of his head and held him in place.

Fingers tangled desperately in hair. William was careful not to hurt Edward, considering his lip was busted.

He tasted blood on the kiss, but that didn’t dissuade him.

Because it was real, and it spoke of all the things William wished he was brave enough to say.

Drawing back, they pressed their forehands to one another, panting for breath, lips swollen from the kiss.

“Shall I take… that kiss as confirmation that you’ll be accepting my… apology?” Edward asked, his hand slowly drawing out of William’s hair and falling to rest on his shoulder.

“How about we talk all about our regrets when we get the fuck out of here?” William replied, offering him a smile that already answered Edward’s concerns. “Sound like a deal?”

“Yes.” Edward’s face hardened in resolve, his skin so pale against the bruises and cuts yet still handsome. “I like that idea.”

“Come on then,” William said, threading his arms beneath Edward’s limp body. “Time to get a move on.”

He helped Edward off the floor. Edward swayed a little, pinching his eyes closed as he steadied himself against William’s body.

Although William was far shorter and less built up with muscle, he still did his best to carry as much of Edward’s weight as possible.

Taking Edward’s arm, William lifted it and wrapped it around his neck.

Using his own body as leverage, he sunk fingers into Edward’s T-shirt, clasping the material, making sure nothing would break them apart.

It took focus, more than William thought himself capable of.

As they made it out of the door into the glare of the midday sun, William’s mind was captured by the idea that someone had been inside his home, all without him knowing.

The discomfort started as an itch but quickly became a feeling that tortured him.

Had they watched him sleep, hugging a glistening red coat to his chest?

Between the fact they’d hurt Edward, he also felt an underlying rage that wasn’t something he was used to.

“Did you see them… this person that hurt you?” William asked as they slowly navigated around the gatehouse’s exterior, towards the direction of the car.

“Not their face,” Edward confirmed. “But whoever it was… they’ve seen us for a while now. I think they’ve been watching the manor for days.”

William wondered if Edward was right, and whoever he’d seen outside his windows at times had been someone real. But then he remembered those two, sorrowful men with grey skin and mouths without tongues.

He couldn’t help but think it had been them… the missing boys…watching.

“Are you sure they were… real?”

Edward’s mouth drew into a tight line. “I don’t know what to be sure of anymore.”