“Tough shit.” He jerked all the way around to face me. “Icky was in stir two years before he got transferred to my cell. So he asks for my help one day. Seems he was having problems with three inmates. They were ass raping him. Butt fucking. Fudge packing. You know what that is, don’t you?”
My mouth fell open. He was being deliberately base and crude. He wanted to shock and upset me. “Stop it!”
“Naw, you asked for it, now sit there and listen!” he barked. “They raped a bunch of other cons too, but Icky had it ten times worse. They lent him out to people. Made him suck cock. Take it up the ass. Pissed on him. Some of the shit they did, I can’t even name.” A muscle in his jaw pumped hard and fast. “I had to do somethin’, so I went to talk to Nyle and his boys, but we had…words.” He looked away. “A week later, Nyle pulled a shank on me—in the shower, of course. Said he wanted me to dance for him before he made my ass bleed.”
My stomach hit the seat as the frost in his eyes chilled me to the bone. “So I decided to make him bleed instead.” When he spoke next, his words were ice cold. “I wrestled the shiv away from him. Then I cut his dick off and shoved it in his mouth. He bled out in the shower.”
I struggled to breathe, but he kept talking.
“I did it as a warning for the ass-raping animals who hung with him. Had I not gone through with it, had I not been as vicious as I was, they’d’ve thought me weak. They’d’ve come for me again, and the next time, they’d’ve killed me. That’s just the way it is. You gotta hit back hard to send a message. Let ‘em know you’re willing to take things to the next level.” He stared forward. “We were on lockdown for days after that. Everybody’s cell was searched, but my…friend got rid of the shank for me, and any DNA evidence went down the shower drain.”
I listened in rapt silence, my heart hanging on his every word. When he looked at me again his eyes were filled with unshed tears and a flood of emotions. Pain, defiance, remorse, grief, anger. They were all there.
“From that day on, Icky was under my protection,” he said matter-of-factly. “And they never bothered either of us again. So yeah, I killed Nyle. Not by choice. I did it to survive.” He sniffed and looked away. “Wasn’t nobody goin’ backdoor on me.”
I moved to touch him, but he dodged my hand. His rejection hurt even more than his words had. “Why is Patrick so bitter toward you?”
“He resents me, but he’ll never admit it.”
“Why?”
“The baby Bev aborted, it reaffirmed his sexuality. I was there. I’m the only one who knows what really happened to him. Nyle and his boys turned Icky out—took his manhood. Then Bev gave it back with that baby, but now she’s barren.”
I tried to make sense of the bombshell he’d just dumped on me. “But aren’t you afraid the others will tell?”
“What others? One was killed in an attempted robbery two days after he got paroled. The other guy’s in a coma. Cancer. They don’t expect him to ever come out of it. Icky and my friend are the only ones who know the truth.” He paused to stab a look at me. “And you of course.”
Trace had killed a man with the same hands he’d used to caress me tonight. I should’ve been terrified of him, but instead I was ashamed—of myself.
He’d lied because he didn’t trust me. Surprisingly, I couldn’t blame him.
He cracked the door, bathing us in light. “Meet me at Rascal’s at two on Wednesday.”
I blinked away the daze. “Rascal’s? Isn’t that a bar?”
“Hole-in-the-wall would be more accurate. It’s at the seediest side of town. I know you don’t want me showing up at your office.”
“Trace—”
“Naw, this way’s better. The garage and the club aren’t options either. Neither is my house. And Briar is out of the question. So Rascal’s is the safest place. We won’t be alone and the regulars are discreet.”
“I have no interest in drinking with you at a bar.”
“We won’t be drinking.”
Curiosity burned hot. “What then?”
“We’re meeting to ride to Wyatt together. Mrs. Campbell’s house is an hour’s drive. I don’t trust my bike for a trip like that.”
TRACE
____________________________
I let myself in the house just as the answering machine cut on. It was Amber.
“Hey, shug. Yeah, I’m drunk dialing.” She laughed. “Okay, but seriously, I didn’t mean to hang up on you like that. I’m just a little down about us. Maybe I was rash. I dunno. I’m going to be busy for the next week or so. We’re training some new hires. Soon as I get them squared away, I’ll try and come by for my stuff. We can talk then.”
I fell back on the sofa. Now she wanted to talk? Unfriggenbelievable. Naw, I wouldn’t waste another brain cell on Amber or any of the other insane women in my life.
Not tonight. I’d had my fill of crazy.
From the kitchen, a sleepy ballad on the radio drifted through the shadows like a ghost, filling the darkness. Diana Ross crooned slow and lazy. She sang a sad hello to a faithful, but gloomy companion—some specter named ‘Heartache.’
Speaking of heartaches, my mind gravitated to the basement door and down the stairs to the place I’d avoided since I got out, to the demon roused by Bev and Icky’s lies.
Hey, ya little shit. Do ya miss me?
Icky had shamed me tonight. Called me a coward. Right now, I couldn’t argue the point to save my life, but I was tired of being afraid.
I needed my freedom.
I shoved off the sofa, stalked down the hallway, and stood by the door. Leaned my forehead against it. I told myself it was just a piece of wood, and this basement was just the place where my parents had breathed their last, nothing more. Fear almost did me in once I unhooked the chain. The rusty metal scraped pendulously against the wood as it fell. I threw the deadbolt back and gave the knob a turn. The thunderous groan of ancient hinges reverberated when I tugged the door open, and musty dampness smacked my face and crept into my throat. I could taste the smell. My stomach heaved, then settled.
Don’t be a pussy, echoed Gary’s rusty voice, a voice scarred by a lifetime of whiskey, cigarettes, and meanness. Come on, you little shit. I’m waitin’ on you.
I started to back away, but Doc’s soothing voice stopped me: We destroy fear by facing it, son. Instead of letting it remain a chamber of horrors, take control of the basement. Create positive memories in that room and embrace the negative ones. Stare the monster down and it’ll lose its power.
Taking a strengthening breath, I flipped the wall switch and descended into hell. Light stung my eyes. I squinted and kept a tight grip on the wooden handrail. The dusty old steps screeched beneath my weight. I could almost hear Daddy’s cruel laughter. The same laughter that had trailed me when I, bloody, bruised, and blinded by tears, had stumbled up these same stairs as fast as my young feet could carry me after one of Gary’s vicious beatings.
Once I reached the bottom, I looked around. The harsh fluorescent bulb, naked and bright, exaggerated every crack and dust ball. As basements went, it wasn’t anything spectacular. Just twelve years older than the last time I’d seen it, smelling of earth and dampness, secrets and misery. I turned in a slow circle and found nothing but empty space. Eight large boxes labeled‘Cole’s books’ were stacked in a corner. A crate filled with Bev’s Barbie collection topped them. My old, urine-stained mattress was propped against the back wall. And Cole’s first Yamaha keyboard lay strewn under the stairs—right below the buckshot holes.
Throat working, I gravitated there, my attention glued to the spot where my father had died. A dark splatter covered the wall, remnants of blood and brains, long gone, but not forgotten. Remnants of a man who claimed he loved me with every stroke of the belt, or extension cord, or whatever weapon happened to be within grabbing distance. It all went down in this basement.