Heart (20 page)

“Home?”

Seb rolled his eyes. “Okay, my place, the flat, whatever. I put a spare key in your locker upstairs. Think you can remember the code?”

Sneaky git.
“Four-three-eight-zero.”

“That’s it.” Seb winked and turned away to rescue a crème brûlée from under the grill. “Just don’t fall asleep, okay? I’ve got something to tell you.”

Dex was curious, but Seb was too busy to elaborate, so he left him to it, pulled his new hat over his head, and walked…
home
alone. On the way, he braved the corner shop and bought Seb some beer and bacon for breakfast the next morning. He was still getting used to pottering around Seb’s kitchen. Most times, he found himself waiting for the bogeyman to jump out behind him, to wake him up and prove that his happy bubble with Seb was indeed a dream, but it hadn’t happened yet.

A warm glow buzzed through his veins as he walked along. The day had started with the best sex he’d ever had—apart from the day before, and the day before that—and would likely end the same way. The bit in between hadn’t been half-bad either. The grill was terrifying, but as Dex drifted along the pavement, lost in his thoughts, he couldn’t help but feel excited. For the first time in his life, he felt constructive… productive, like his existence had purpose, and, aside from the sensation of Seb’s arms sliding around his waist, it was the best feeling in the world.

The streets of Dalston faded to a lively roar. A car slowed to a crawl beside him, but he didn’t look up. The Turkish youths in the area had a habit of cruising the curbs and shouting into the brightly lit barbershops.

Dex didn’t take much notice until the passenger door opened in his face and sent him sprawling to his knees.

“
Grāltʹa
, boyo. Missed me?”

Twenty-Two

D
EX
LAY
still and listened to the noises. Some sounds were scary—like the rumble of a vehicle or the slam of a door—but others were soothing. His head throbbed and he could taste dried blood on his lips, but the call of a kestrel somewhere high in the sky was nice. Male kestrels had blue wings. Dex liked blue things.

He opened his eyes and looked around. His “cell” was pitch-black and windowless. He figured he was tied up in the back of Mikey’s van somewhere on a site or a disused piece of farmland. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Grāltʹa, boyo.”

The innocuous greeting echoed in his aching head, and the rough Shelta chilled his blood even now… long after rough hands had pulled him from the pavement and banged his head against the door of Mikey’s van until he no longer cared if they killed him right there on the street. He’d lost the hat Seb gave him too, and despite the pain in his battered body, he felt the loss like a knife to his chest.

Seb
. It felt like a lifetime since Dex had said good-bye to him, but he had no real idea how long it had really been. In the darkness of wherever he was confined, he couldn’t tell if it was night or day, let alone how much time had lapsed since he’d lost consciousness and come to. It could’ve been hours, or even days. How long would Seb wait for him before he gave up and went back to a life uncomplicated by an illiterate whore in his bed?

The thought tortured Dex as he drifted in that cold, barren place between wakefulness and oblivion, and it was only the jangly rumble of an approaching vehicle that roused him sometime later. Voices came next. They seemed magnified by the time they reached him, and fear stabbed at his heart, but simmering beneath was the paradoxical comfort that he wasn’t alone. Dex didn’t like being alone, not anymore.

The van door cranked open and flooded the inside with a flash of painful white light.
So it’s daylight, then
. Dex screwed his eyes shut and tried to turn away, but the chains binding him held him in place.

A rough hand grasped his chin.
Mikey
. “Come on, kid. Time to face the music.”

Dex swallowed thickly and tried to detach his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “Are we going back to the site?”

Mikey snorted and spat onto the muddy ground. “There is no site. The gorjers shut it down. This is it… all Braden’s got left, and you’re his only entertainment. Be quiet and do as you’re told, and maybe he’ll kill you quickly.”

It was a phrase Dex had heard before, and in the past it had had little effect on him.
Kill me. I don’t care
. But he cared now… cared so much that the threat of his inevitable execution made his empty stomach lurch. He’d already been sick, several times over, but he retched anyway.

Mikey unchained him and hurled him from the van like a sack of flour. Dex hit the frosted ground with a bone-jarring thump. Mikey kicked him. “Walk.”

Dex walked, head down, and stumbled along the icy dirt until they reached an outbuilding. Mikey shoved him inside and chained him to a low-hanging wooden beam. Then he tapped Dex’s face with his fist and left him alone to await his fate.

He didn’t have to wait long. Braden appeared just as he lost the last remnants of sensation in his tightly bound hands.

“Well, well, well. Not so quick on your feet now, eh?”

Braden yanked Dex’s head up and forced him to meet his bloodshot stare. Dex blinked and slipped into his well-versed role of a muted, submissive idiot. He knew better than to react.

He watched through clouded eyes as Braden paced in front of him. He knew Braden’s face and form almost better than he knew his own—the hulking frame that disguised a subtle limp, the ruddy skin, calloused fingers, and huge, powerful hands. Hands that had used and abused Dex for years. He wondered how he’d found him. Of all places, Dalston wasn’t the most obvious to look.

On cue, Braden came to a stop in front of him. “We saw you with your boy toy in the city. Don’t think I won’t find out who he is. Is that why you stayed away so long? Busy fucking your gorjer lover, eh?”

“He’s not mine.” Dex thought quickly. “He was a john.”

Braden’s expression hardened and morphed from one of petty revenge to fury. Denting Braden’s pride was one thing, but earning money without giving him his cut? There was no worse crime, and Dex knew he would be punished.

He expected the blow to his face. He lurched sideways with the force of it and felt the blood burst through his already cracked lips. It hurt like hell, but he felt detached from it, like he was floating above and looking down upon himself. Like a dream? No, and not even a nightmare. It just… was.

Braden hit him again and again, punched and backhanded him. Dex ignored it all until Braden’s knee came up and pounded him in the stomach.

Dex groaned a choking, inhuman groan. His breath left his body. His bones rattled and his teeth shook. He coughed and spluttered and ripped his throat raw.

Braden laughed. “Yeah. Now you feel me, boyo. Think you can hide from me? After all I’ve done for you? Let’s see if you remember how to behave.” Dex abruptly found himself facing the wall behind him, his face mashed into the cold stone. Braden ripped his T-shirt away and whistled. “Someone’s been feeding you up. Not sure I like you as much without the bones. Let’s see what the others think.”

Braden called out, and heavy footsteps answered him. Behind Dex, the outbuilding filled with voices—some he recognized and some he didn’t. Or maybe he didn’t recognize any of them. Maybe the voices of animals about to go feral all sounded the same.

Someone pulled on his hair, clipped his ear, and thumped his ribs. Dex closed his eyes, sure he felt the bones crack, and then the rest of the blows washed over him, merging together and becoming nothing more than an undefined haze of bruising pain. The accompanying, muttered words stood out more.

“Whore.”

“Slag.”

“Bitch.”

“You little bag of shit.”

Something inside Dex snapped. Anger and resentment raced through him, swelling his veins and filling his soul with a self-respect he’d never known before. He wasn’t a bag of shit, and he didn’t belong to anyone, not Seb, not Braden and his motley gang of thugs.

Fuck. You.

Rebellion surged through him, and for a moment, it felt wonderful. He fought his chains and relished the bite of them against his tender flesh. He kicked out with his legs, catching someone… maybe Braden… with his foot. Pride surged through him. He wasn’t a bag of shit, or if he was, he was his own bag of shit.

Kill me if you want, but you’ll never own me again.

D
EX
SPAT
blood from the corner of his mouth. He ran his tongue over his teeth. Somehow, they were all still there. Hysterical laughter bubbled in his chest. It was the fourth day he’d been strung up in the barn—maybe the fifth; he’d lost the will to count—and it seemed his value as communal entertainment had finally waned. Only Braden remained, and he regarded Dex now through beady eyes. He’d yet to use the crowbar swinging at his side, but the threat was clear. Braden stopped in front of him. He was sweating, which struck Dex as odd. Stripped to his waist, his jeans so stained with blood and mud they looked like biker leathers, Dex was cold to the bone, and through the cracked window of the deserted outbuilding, he could see a thin layer of snow dusted the ground.

“Who did you tell?”

Dex jerked his head up, unaware he’d slumped forward and closed his eyes. “Tell what?”

“What you saw.” Braden stepped closer and jammed the metal bar into Dex’s ribs. “You’ve never run from me before. Who told you to run?”

“No one.”

“Liar.” Braden twisted the bar, gouging a hole in Dex’s skin to match the other cuts and scrapes. “Police are looking for me. They know what I did. Who told them, boyo, eh? Who told them?”

“I… don’t know.”

Braden hit him. The world went black for a while, and he was alone when he came round. At least he thought he was, until someone unchained him and he fell to the ground in a heap.

Mikey hauled him to his feet. “Get up.”

“Why?” Arguing was futile and dangerous, but after hours bound with his arms above his head, curling up on the ground felt like heaven.

Mikey glanced at him, eyebrow raised. “Because I said so. Now get the fuck up.”

Dex got up and took a quick inventory of his battered body. His legs were bruised but sound. His arms too. His torso hurt the most—his chest and his ribs. It hurt to breathe. He wished he could stop.

He stumbled. Mikey took his arm and led him out of the barn. The daylight hurt his eyes, but he wasn’t in it for long. Mikey towed him across a yard and shoved him inside the deserted farmhouse. A fire burned in a dilapidated room that had once been a kitchen.

To Dex’s surprise, Mikey pushed him to the floor close enough so he could feel its precious heat. “Sit there and shut up.”

Dex hugged his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around himself. He felt dazed and detached, but a part of him was vaguely aware Mikey’s behavior was more than a little odd.

The feeling increased when Mikey tossed a Mars bar his way. Hunger overcame him. He tore the wrapper and inhaled the chocolate in two choking bites. Mikey knelt in front of him and held a bottle of water to his mouth. He tapped a finger to his lips as he pulled away, then drew an imaginary blade across his throat.

A word about this and I’ll kill you.

Dex gulped at the water, knowing it could be days before he got any more. His greed proved his undoing. He choked and it came out of his nose. Mikey took the water away, like he’d come to his senses, and cuffed him. The blow was halfhearted. Seemed more for show than anything else, but Dex felt it like a bat to the head.

“We’ve been looking for you for months.” Dex opened his watery eyes. Mikey stood by the open door, blowing cigarette smoke into the chilly air. “We thought another gang had picked you up, put you to work. Didn’t think you had it in you to go it alone.”

Dex considered his words. Braden had swallowed his assertion that Seb was a nameless john. He wanted to keep it that way, so Seb could forget he ever existed. “How did you find me?”

“By accident. Wasn’t even looking for you. Me and Shane was scoutin’ a job, and there you were, snoggin’ your trick by that jock-off clock.”

Big Ben
. Seb had kissed Dex under the stars and stared at him like he was the most precious thing in the world. The knowledge that Mikey and his mates had unwittingly intruded on that made Dex want to puke again.

“The job was a crock of shite too.” Mikey leaned on the doorpost and looked up at the sky. “Way out of Braden’s league, and that’s his bloody problem. Bastard’s going to take us all down with him.”

Dex laid his cheek on his bent knees. Mikey’s voice was far away, and he felt sleepy. He didn’t care about Mikey, or Braden, or their failed attempt to become big-time gangsters. He just wanted to sleep.

“Someone’s talking to the coppers.” Suddenly, Mikey was beside him again. “Braden thinks it’s you, but I know it’s not. You’re just a kid. You don’t know enough to stir up the shite that’s gone down. You don’t know the bloody half of it, and I’ll tell you one thing for nothing, kid. I’m not going down for no one, least of all that cunt.”