Microsoft Word - Talkers_Redemption_Lane.docx

was the blond guy, but
    his voice was almost gentle.
    “Don’t like cops, don’t like hospitals, don’t like seeing my
    boyfriend beaten up.” Some attitude crept in there, and Talker gave
    many thanks to an absent God. His vision cleared for a second, and
    he pushed off the wall with his hands. The stucco was smooth and
    cold against his palms, and it was not, was not the beveled wood of
    Trevor’s front door, and there wasn’t a lock or a sneer or a bobbing,
    veiny cock anywhere in sight.
    Oh, Jesus, where had that thought come from?
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    Talker swallowed again and tried so very very hard to keep it
    all together.
    Lyndie came up next to him and fumbled for his hand again.
    When he finally managed to grab hers in return, she muttered, “Oh
    Christ. Tate, your hands are like ice. You look really shocky—I think
    we should get a nurse.”
    “I’m fine,” he lied. He’d never felt so trapped in his whole life,
    except for that one time when….

    “SO TREV stands up, right? And he says I’m not going to leave, and
    I try to laugh it off. I tell him—” swallow “I tell him that I was worried
    about Brian, and I’m going to go home and make sure he’s all right.”
    “Were you?” Dr. Sutherland asked, and Tate nodded, relieved
    to answer.
    “Yeah.” Talker swallowed and looked at Brian, who was
    clenching his hand. Brian’s lips twitched up in reassurance, but
    Talker wanted to reassure him back. Yeah, I was blind, but I saw
    something was wrong, baby. I didn’t just wander out with another
    guy and not think of you twice, I swear. “Yeah, I was worried. You…
    even if you’re not sleeping together, you can’t just take someone like
    Brian for granted.”

    “SO, YOU saw your boyfriend get beat up?” The dark-haired guy
    pounced, and Talker was backed up against the motherfucking wall.
    “We walked outside, and they were all coming with chains and
    shit, and…” Oh Christ… oh motherfucking Christ, this was true,
    “and I froze, cause I’m not strong, and…” twitch “and I spaz out so
    fucking easily, and I just… just fucking froze. And Brian shoved me
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    away and told me to go get Jed, and I did. I did and, we weren’t
    gone more than a minute, but it was… there were three of them,
    and Trev had a chain….”
    The cops suddenly went so still, it was like the hospital turned
    into a museum.
    “Who had a chain?”
    Lyndie’s hand tightened on Talker’s, and suddenly he was back
    to the last time he was back against a wall.

    “TREV grabbed my shoulders, you see. He threw me against the
    door, and I was reaching for the handle, and he grabbed my
    shoulders again and threw me so I was bent over the couch.”
    “Did you say anything?”
    Brian’s hands were cutting off the circulation in his fingers, and
    they weren’t tight enough. Dr. Sutherland’s voice was almost
    welcome, because it kept him focused, focused, ah, gods, it was so
    hard for Tate to keep focused.
    “I said I wanted to go home,” he whispered. “I said I wanted to
    go home, that Brian was waiting for me, and Trev said I should just
    take it like the sweet little bitch I was. And then his hands were… I
    was wearing this bizarre belt, you know, with spikes and shit, and
    he had a hard time with it, and I kept trying to get away but… Jesus,
    Trev’s strong. He finally had to twist my arm around my back and pin
    it there with his chest so he could pull down my pants.”
    “Did you say anything then?”
    “I said ‘Please Trev, let me go. I want to go home to Brian.’”

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    “DID I say a name?” he asked, just to keep himself in the now. Dr.
    Sutherland’s voice, his own voice, the terrible moment he was
    recounting, it was all pulling at him, twisting his brain around into a
    knot, and he was having a hell of a time keeping it straight.
    “You said ‘Trev’,” the blond cop with the wrinkles and lines
    around his eyes said. Tate was going to have to learn their names—
    hell, he might even have to look them in the eyes eventually—but
    right now, it was hair color and age, and he couldn’t make himself
    care about details. “Would that be the same Trevor Gaines who was
    beaten up at your bar about five months back? Because we dealt
    with that case, too, and Mr. Gaines refused to give us a name as
    well. But he did make a lot of threats about revenge. You wouldn’t
    know