laylafic | NANOWRIMO STORY CHAPTER 13

**~~NANOWRIMO STORY CHAPTER 13~~**

Entry word count: 6919

For Story Notes, click here.

First a note about the previous chapter: After posting Chapter 12/Entry 13, I noticed a few logical errors in the police arrival and investigation timeline. Those errors had to be corrected for the plot to continue in a believable manner (not to mention for my peace of mind). So a few changes were made in para 4 of scene 26 and para 3 of scene 28. That is all. ;)

Now on to Entry 14:

PITTSBURGH POLICE DEPARTMENT

AGGRAVATED ASSAULT, 11/01/2010, 1200 Steubenville Pike. Crafton Theme Park. Investigations are underway after reports of a masked man purporting to attack two individuals, one male, Caucasian, blond, age 27, and one female, Caucasian, brown hair, age 40, with an axe, at the Crafton Theme Park on Steubenville Pike on Halloween Eve. The two individuals, although physically unharmed after the attack, were trapped inside three isolated tunnels at the theme park along with another friend, male, Caucasian, brown hair, age 39, who was later rushed to Allegheny General Hospital in critical condition, unrelated to wounds inflicted by a sharp weapon. The three tunnels revealed sections that appeared to have blood splattered on the floors and walls of several rooms but no one, with the exception of the one victim, was found harmed. The area was secured and blood samples from the tunnels were sent to the PPD forensic lab. Authorities are questioning all related personnel at the Crafton Theme Park, while the Theme Park management is insisting on a charge of vandalism. Police is on the lookout for a male, approximately 5’9" tall, of unknown race and age, who could be involved in the attacks.

33.

Jennifer Taylor knew trouble when she saw it.

She hadn’t always been that cognizant.

As a wife, she’d tried to be supportive and sensitive towards her husband’s needs. She’d put his career before hers, and done everything to make him happy. She was smart and educated and could hold her own in any company and situation, so there was no reason why her efforts wouldn’t culminate in perfect harmony, was there? But in the end, even being the perfect wife hadn’t been enough. The first time she’d caught Craig in an affair, it had been just after Molly’s birth. She remembered being shocked and devastated and heartbroken, but he’d apologized and vowed never to stray again, so she’d tried to put it all behind her. She’d gone back to the painstaking task of making her home life stable and happy. It was years later, far too late in her life, that she realized it had all been in vain. At the first sign of trouble, Craig had turned on her and Justin and left their family in a lurch. Despite all her efforts, she hadn’t been able to save her family, hadn’t been enough for Craig.

The same was true for her children. She’d strived to be the perfect mother all her life; taking the kids to piano lessons, dropping them off to art class, basketball practice, summer camp. She’d tried to be friends to them, been attentive to all their needs and wants. But when crunch time had come, she hadn’t been able to stop their lives from spiraling out of control. Justin’s coming out, his facing problems at school as a result of his coming out, and then his getting bashed because of his coming out—all of it seemed like a bad nightmare. But she knew it had been real. His two weeks in a coma had been real. His one-month in rehab was not a dream. It had been a reality she hadn’t been able to prevent, a reality she wasn’t really sure she’d faced either. She’d thought everything would be all right once Justin was home and she could take care of him herself, but she had been powerless to prevent his nightmares, the tremors caused by his injury, his anger and tears and fits.

The only option she’d seen had been no option at all. She’d opted not to do anything herself and taken her child to the man whom she’d initially blamed for having caused all the problems in the first place. Brian Kinney. Not really a man but a boy, who’d been hurt and damaged by the experience himself. Who, despite his own wounds, had taken her son off her hands and promised to do everything in his power to help him.

She’d thought Brian was trouble and she’d been wrong. She’d thought she could help Justin on her own and she’d been mistaken. She’d thought she could save her marriage and she’d been wide of the mark. She’d been blind and she’d failed on all counts.

And this time there was no Brian to come to the rescue. This time Brian needed help himself. This time---

Jennifer felt her teeth digging into her lower lip as she watched her son sitting on the chair across from her, speaking to Carl. How calm and collected he sounded, she thought, as he relayed some detail of the story for clarification. She’d seen him speak to the detectives a couple of times today and she knew they weren’t finished yet. She knew how it went every time there was an incident that involved the police. The questions just kept coming and coming. But how impassive he seemed, she frowned, how unemotional. His rendering almost mechanical—as if being attacked by a psychopath bearing an axe and then being dragged through blood-filled rooms was something normal.

Trouble. That’s what it was. Jennifer had erred too many times in the past to not recognize it. To not know that Justin was not telling them everything. Oh sure, he was telling them about the man who’d attacked them, about the room he was locked in, about the loudspeaker perched high up on the ceiling through which he’d listened to the proceedings of the night. He was telling them about all the technical stuff. But he was telling it all as if it had happened not to him but to somebody else. As if he was reading it off a page from a story in his head. She’d seen him this morning before Brian had woken up, seen how lost he’d looked. And she could tell something was missing now. There were no screaming rages to counter this time, no temper tantrums to face, but she could feel the tension pulsating under his skin. Could feel it under her own skin.

And there was no Brian to take Justin off her hands. Brian was in no condition to help him. Brian was out for the count himself.

She felt powerless. The last time she’d felt this way was when Justin had come back from the hospital after being bashed. That desperation, that feeling of watching him from the sidelines, unable to help, had been so overwhelming, so mind-numbing. She didn’t know how she was going to cope with this now.

"Jen..." She looked up to watch Deb slide into the seat next to her. "Honey, how’re you doing?"

She swallowed hard. "I am just so worried about him, Deb," she whispered, her eyes on Justin.

"I know you are." Deb put her hand on top of hers. "But Sunshine’s a strong kid. They’re both strong kids and they’re going to be all right." Deb wrapped her fingers around hers. "And remember, we’re all in this together. You’re not alone. The police is looking for whoever that fucker is and they’re going to catch him. You’ll see."

Jennifer looked at the small crowd around the room. It was nine o’clock in the night now and aside from Tucker, most of the ‘family’ had left for their homes. But she remembered how at no point during the day had they been left by themselves. Throughout the day, someone or the other had been present here, coming in and going out in rotations, making sure they didn’t need anything. These were people who loved her son and Brian and who cared for her like a family. Deb was right about one thing at least. She was not alone in this. She had Tucker and they all had Debbie’s entire brood to support her. She smiled gratefully at Deb. "Thank you, Debbie. I can’t tell you how much this means to me."

She only hoped Deb was right about the other thing as well. That the police really did catch the person who was behind all this. She didn’t feel any of them would be safe until he was behind bars.

34.

"One thing’s for sure. The wiring was very meticulously rearranged," said the Detective. "All the controls for the doorways were compromised, not to mention the controls for all the cameras in the three tunnels that were rerouted. If a feed was recorded, we haven’t found a trace of yet."

The man’s name was Ed Stanley and he was one of Joey Monroe’s most trusted officers. At least that’s what Carl had been told. And if Monroe recommended him then Carl was ready to take his word.

Carl looked at him. "But the feed was recorded. I have witnesses who saw its transmission."

"Well, if it was, and I don’t doubt that it was, considering how painstakingly detailed everything else was set up, then no trace was left of it," the Detective said. "It must’ve been controlled from a remote location."

"You found traces of human blood?" Carl asked.

"Only on the piece of clothing," the Detective replied. "The rest of it is too messed up to be hundred percent sure at this time. The forensic lab is still running tests, but the initial consensus is that most of it was animal blood, even though a lot of it was bad."

Carl frowned. "Bad?"

"Yes, bad." The Detective nodded. "The samples were dirty. It was as if someone did a crappy job of preserving that blood. However, we ran checks against any break-ins reported at the labs around the state and hit the jackpot."

"Where?"

"The Anderson Help Center, an animal blood bank in Philadelphia," the Detective said. "They’d reported a break-in exactly a week ago. It appears someone swapped more than 20 quarts of blood from their repository."

Carl cursed. Twenty quarts was a whole lot of blood. "That could be it. The quantity was definitely telling."

"Yes," the Detective said. "Finding a match for the stolen blood might be difficult, though, because of the bad state of the samples. But the one on the shirt, that one was definitely human." He looked at Carl. "Better preserved too. No recent reports of break-ins for human blood from any local places but we’ll know if they find a match for that."

"What about the people who work there?" Carl asked.

"We’ve questioned most of the personnel and aside from two we couldn’t locate yesterday, the rest were all accounted for," the Detective said. "All the major ‘characters’ who were present that night were accounted for." He counted off the name from the list in his hand. "The three witches, the Pumpkin woman, the clown, the banshee, they were all questioned. Most of them finished their shifts and left as scheduled."

Carl looked at the list. "And the ones you couldn’t locate?"

"One is on vacation, presumably gone out of city. He wasn’t there at all on that day but we’ve contacted him and he will be questioned upon his return," said the Detective. "There’s a woman who was present that night who hasn’t been located as yet. But we’re not really looking for a woman, are we?"

"No, we’re not," Carl shrugged. "But it was someone who was intimately familiar with the place so someone who works there will be high on the suspect list."

Because it had to be someone who’d been there that night. That was the only thing he’d ascertained from Justin’s account. That the man who’d attacked him had seemed familiar to him for some reason, but that he couldn’t be sure how. Carl had a feeling Justin was possibly, unconsciously blocking some details of the episode with his attacker but that could be the aftermath of the trauma. That meant the cops had to scrounge for every little detail they could get out of the kids. Every unspecified fact could be the missing link that would lead them to the attacker.

"That’s why we’re keeping a close eye on all the males," the Detective was saying. "The place has been locked up and we’re questioning everyone who’s been in that place during the last three months. The only problem is... no one has any record of the departure of the people who ended their shifts there early that night. For a place that had more than two hundred and fifty cameras fixed in the eighteen tunnels, they never had any on the back exits. That was where the personnel came and left from but we don’t have it on tape because there were no cameras there."

"How convenient." Carl scowled. "What about the other rooms at the back? The ones used by the personnel. You could find something there."

"There are more than a dozen utility rooms in that place, on all three levels and behind each tunnel. They’re filled with practically hundreds of prints and marks left behind, some as old as three to four years going back." The Detective frowned. "That’s a shit load of prints to process. We’ve got all the personnel’s prints on file now and we’re running matches against them. But it’s very easy to go off track in a search like this. We have to stay focused."

Carl sighed. "I understand."

"We’d like to question your people again."

Carl knew they were not going to be happy about it but that’s how a police investigation went. It was long and tedious and very, very repetitive. But Stanley had a point. Sometimes you missed clues during the first couple of rounds of questioning. It was coming on thirty-six hours now and they still didn’t have a clue who was behind it. As a cop, Carl knew they couldn’t let the trail get cold without knowing what was going on. It looked like they had no choice but to keep on answering the police’s questions, over and over again. "Okay," he said.

"Including Kinney," the Detective added. "He’s up now, I believe. He may be able to tell us something we don’t know yet."

Right again. Justin had told the cops Brian had seen something that had prompted him to change his path and get into the room where they’d gotten trapped. The room where the two had gotten separated. The cops had to find out what Brian had seen from that point onwards. "You’re probably right." Carl nodded. "But they’re keeping him sedated right now. I’ll let you know when he’s ready to talk." Carl got up. "In the meanwhile you have free reign with the rest of them. Talk to the girl and the kid again."

The Detective nodded as he opened the door. "I think we’ll do just that."

35.

It was the sound of Mel talking to someone that woke up Lindsay.

She opened her eyes to find Mel standing against the wall, talking on the phone. She blinked in an attempt to force the sleep out of her eyes and looked at the clock on the wall in front. It was after eleven in the morning but she had been so exhausted sitting up all night that she must’ve dozed off waiting for Mel to come out of the waiting room. The detective had asked her wife to step in about an hour ago but as Lindsay looked around now, she saw no sign of him now. Then she looked at Mel and noticed a frown on her face. "What’s wrong?" she asked, straightening up on her seat.

But Mel was busy on the phone. "Hunter!" she said. "I understand that, and I trust you but you have to keep an eye on them, please!" Lindsay listened to one side of the conversation. "No, that’s okay. Keep them there. Yeah, tell them we’ll be there in a couple of hours. Just--- just make sure, they stay inside at all times, okay? No, you are not to let them out of the house at any time." Lindsay felt her brow furrowing. "For any reason whatsoever. Not unless we’re there, okay? And keep them in sight, please. Yes, I mean it. Bye." Mel clicked off the phone and looked at her.

Lindsay asked, "Mel, what’s going on?"

Mel took a deep breath. "They have to stay inside."

Lindsay shifted on the seat. She knew whom she meant but she asked anyway. "Who?"

Mel pressed her lips together. "The kids."

Lindsay stared into her eyes. "They’re with Hunter."

"It doesn’t matter." Mel blinked at her. "They have to stay inside."

"Mel."

"He knew about Gus, Lindz."

There was something hard in Mel’s eyes and it made Lindsay pause. "What?"

"That man--- who did this to Brian." She saw Mel’s throat convulsing. "He knew about Gus and me and Brian."

Lindsay suddenly knew what the look was. It was fear. And she didn’t like seeing it in Mel’s eyes. "You told me that before. That it was someone who knew Brian. Someone who did this on purpose."

"Not just Brian. Us too." Mel looked into her eyes. "He knew us, Lindz. He knew me. He knew exactly how I felt about Brian, and he meant to use it against us."

And all at once Lindsay understood. The constant phone calls to Hunter and Debbie, telling them not to let the kids out. The insistence that when Lindsay was home, she should keep them in her sights at all times. Mel had been acting paranoid since they came back from that damned place. But it wasn’t until now that Lindsay knew why she was acting that way. Mel was scared. That realization was like icy fingers running down her spine. Lindsay felt herself shiver. "But how?" she asked.

"I don’t know," Mel said. "That’s why we have to keep them inside." Her eyes were big. "We have to keep them safe."

36.

A man’s mind was a strange thing.

Sometimes you knew thoughts inside your head but you didn’t know how to verbalize them. They were like memories that had gotten locked inside the cage of your mind and now refused to come out. Sometimes they got so lost inside your brain that you didn’t even know they existed. Not until you got a hard shove that shocked your mind into releasing those thoughts. Those jagged little pieces of the puzzle locked up inside your head.

And sometimes all they needed was a nudge to be free.

It was Tuesday afternoon and they were on their lunch break. Well, Michael owned his own comic book store and Emmett ran his own catering service so it wasn’t like they needed anyone’s permission to take time off. But after the horror of the last twenty-four hours, they’d gone back to check on their businesses this morning, if for nothing else then simply to go through the motions of doing so. So a break was in order. Ben was on a light schedule because of the midterms coming up so he’d joined them as well. None of them really had much of an appetite so they’d decided to just stop by the diner for some takeaway. They figured they could take something to the hospital and force-feed something into Justin or Mel.

"Isn’t it weird," It was Emmett who started, his tone somber, "that just two days ago we were all here having breakfast and everything was fine in the world."

"Just shows you how things can change in a blink of an eye," Ben said, as a waitress came to take their order.

"And to think how well planned everything was," Michael said. "They’d arranged it all so well, Brian and Justin. Everything for that weekend had been planned from weeks ago."

"From the trick-and-treating at the House the night before..." Ben reminisced.

"To the Ghoul night theme at Babylon..." Michael added.

"To the dinner on Halloween night..." Ben said.

Emmett interrupted. "Except for that little glitch at the restaurant."

Ben nodded. "Craig Taylor."

Emmett sighed, "Yeah." He took out his wallet as their order was placed in front of them. He paid the girl and then turned to his friends and paused at the strange look on Michael’s face.

"Michael?"

Ben looked at his husband and felt a frown form between his brows. Michael looked as if he’d seen a ghost. "What is it?"

"Um." Michael bit his lip. "Did I tell you guys we saw Craig Taylor’s family at the theme place?"

"What?" Emmett stared at him.

"Yeah, Lindsay and I--- we saw them." He looked up and swallowed. "Shit."

Ben asked him. "Did you tell that to Carl?"

"Umm."

Emmett gripped his shoulder and shook him, his voice sharp. "Did you tell that to the police?"

Michael looked at them and shook his head. "Fuck."

37.

"Craig Taylor was there?" Carl stared at them.

They were standing in the middle of the living room at Debbie and Carl’s place. After their revelation at the Diner, the three of them had come straight here, looking for Carl.

"Well," Michael said. "We didn’t exactly see him but we saw his wife and kid."

"When was this?"

"At about ten, ten-thirty that night," Michael replied.

Carl looked straight into his eyes. "Are you absolutely sure it was them?"

"Yes. Lindsay saw them first and at first she didn’t recognize the wife. But then I saw her and we both knew for sure. I mean, how could we not know?" Michael shrugged. "We’d only seen them a few hours earlier."

"Can Lindsay verify this?" Carl asked.

"Absolutely."

"And where was Craig Taylor?"

"I never saw him," Michael said. "And then Brian and Justin and Mel went missing and I simply forgot all about him."

"What about Lindsay?" Carl asked. "Could she have seen him?"

"I don’t know." Michael shook his head. "But I am pretty sure I remember hearing his kid asking his mom for him and she said something about--- daddy being gone on the adult’s tour."

Carl looked at him closely. "You mean the tour Brian and the rest of you went on?"

Ben nodded. "That was the only adult tour going around."

But Carl’s eyes were on Michael. "So you think he went on the adult tour."

"I don’t know. Like I said, we never saw Craig Taylor that night at the theme place." Michael looked at Carl. "But his wife and kid seemed to think he was on that tour."

Carl turned to Ben and Emmett. "Did any of you see Craig Taylor on the adult tour?"

"Nope." They shook their heads.

Carl sighed. "Could Mel or Justin have?"

They all stared at each other. "Why don’t we find out?"

38.

They converged in the hospital cafeteria and everyone present was called. Which meant everyone with the exception of Teddy, who had gone to the office to check on things, and Jennifer who had a meeting at Molly’s school. Mel had gotten Justin out of Brian’s room and they asked him the same question the moment he sat down.

"My dad?" He looked at them with wide eyes, looking as surprised as the rest of them. "No, I never saw him there." His gaze flit from one person to the next. "What the hell would he be doing there?"

Lindsay shrugged. "Apparently the same thing we all went there to do."

"But---" Justin seemed lost at words.

"First the restaurant, where he had a very public brawl with you, Brian and your mom." Michael looked at Justin. "Then he shows up at the haunted house? The same restaurant and the same haunted house? In the same night?"

They all stared at each other, not saying anything. And then Emmett gasped. "Oh my God. Are you guys thinking what I am thinking?"

Justin looked up at him. "No way." He shook his head. "No fucking way."

Mel frowned. "I know it seems like too much of a coincidence."

But obviously for some people, even that implication was enough to indict. "Well, I’ll be damned!" Debbie exclaimed, her voice shrill. "Craig Fucking Taylor."

"We don’t know anything yet, Deb," Ben said.

"What’s there to know?" she huffed. "The guy hates Brian’s guts."

Well that much was true, Emmett thought.

"Remember that time he attacked Brian outside Babylon?" Michael said.

Carl looked at him. "When was this?"

"Almost ten years ago," Michael replied. "This was just at the beginning---Brian had just started seeing Justin. Craig saw him outside Babylon and punched him so hard, Brian fell down and then he kicked him four, five times. He almost broke his fucking ribs."

"And you guys saw this?" Ben asked, his brow furrowed. Apparently, he hadn’t heard the whole story either.

"Honey, two dozen fags saw this with their own eyes," Emmett said. And then he paused as he remembered something else. Something about a stray piece of conversation that had taken place a few days before the Babylon incident. He remembers something about them meeting at Brian’s loft to fuss over him while he acted like a drama queen because he had a concussion or something. Emmett turned to the gang. "You guys remember Brian’s jeep that got rammed?"

Michael squinted his eyes. "You mean by that loser at Babylon?"

"It wasn’t some loser at Babylon," Justin looked at them. "I am pretty sure that was my dad too."

"What?" Michael stared at him.

"How come I’ve never heard this before?" Debbie looked affronted at the implication of being left out of any experience occurring in their lives.

"Brian never told me that." Michael scowled. He was Debbie’s son, after all. "He said it was some guy he rejected at Babylon."

"That’s because Brian never believed it was my dad," Justin said. "But I saw my dad’s car smashed up in the garage and the description Brian gave of the car that rammed his jeep was the same."

"Did he report this to the police?" Carl asked.

"I remember he reported his jeep getting rammed because of the insurance thing," Michael said. "But of course, nothing about Craig Taylor."

Carl sighed. "Then all we have is hearsay and no proof."

"What about the attack outside Babylon?" Emmett asked.

Carl looked at them. "Did he report that to the police?"

"No, he didn’t." Debbie sucked in a breath, and then pressed her lips together. "Because I told him not to."

Carl frowned. "Why did you do that?"

"Because I thought---" Debbie swallowed. "I thought he was the one causing all the trouble. Wasn’t Brian always the one causing trouble in those days?" She suddenly looked contrite. "It was so easy to blame him. I never even gave one thought on how he must’ve been feeling. Or if the poor kid was hurting." She sniffled. "You said that fucker kicked him five times?"

"Deb, he wouldn’t have gone to the police anyways," Emmett said. "That’s just not how Brian is."

And wasn’t that the truth? For a supposedly selfish, narcissistic asshole, Brian Kinney never really defended himself when he was attacked. Emmett found his gaze shift to Justin and thought he looked shaken. As if the wind had once again been knocked out of him. Poor baby, thought Emmett. It must be so hard rehashing all this ancient history, and that too of the utterly unpleasant kind, at a time like this.

"We still have no proof Craig Taylor was involved in what happened on Halloween night," Carl said.

"Sometimes all we need is motive," Mel said. "And we have three-dozen people at The Melting Pot who saw him threaten Brian only hours before what happened at the theme place."

"That’s true." Carl shrugged. "But still nothing that links the two incidents together."

Mel looked at him. "Except for Craig Taylor’s presence at both places."

There was silence for a moment as the words sunk in. Then Carl said, "Well, that’s definitely something worth looking into."

39.

To Justin, the world hadn’t stopped spinning off its axis since that night.

He wished things would slow down now that they were supposedly out of the danger zone. Brian had woken up. The doctor had said he was going to be all right. They were moving him out of the ICU tomorrow morning. Everything was going to be all right. Or it will be if only things would fucking loosen up a bit. Ever since that night, he felt like his life was spinning out of control and he wished he could grab a free end of the fucking reins. It was too much. Everything was too fucking much.

So his father had been present at that horrible place that night. So what? It was a public theme park running a Halloween special. Anyone with a ticket could come attend the so-called festivities of the night. But everything had gone to hell the moment his father had walked into the scene at the restaurant. That’s where it had all begun. Where the threads had begun to unravel. His mood, Brian’s mood, everything had been shot to hell because his father had shown up and ruined everything for them. He had sensed the change in Brian’s demeanor right at that point and even though they had decided not to let Craig ruin the night for them and to continue on with their plans, something had been misplaced from the equation. It was as if something was missing and no matter how hard they’d tried to put the ‘fun’ back into the night, it was gone for good. And their night had been ruined on a grand scale. The last two days were a testament to that fact.

But his father could not be responsible for this. No matter how much he hated Brian, no matter how much he hated what Justin had become, Craig Taylor could not be responsible for this. His father was not that vehement, that angry, that---

Justin paused, breathed heavily as he stared down the corridor. But he wrong. Craig Taylor really was that vehement. He just had never taken out that kind of anger on him, that was all. But Justin could not forget the force of his hatred for Brian. He was there the night he’d attacked Brian outside Babylon. He may have been a stupid naïve kid back then but he could recognize hatred as easily as he could recognize love. And during those few weeks, he’d seen his father –who’d never raised his voice to him– raise not only his hand on him but also attack Brian physically. Not once but twice.

But were those attacks executed with deadly force? Certainly the one outside Babylon could not be termed as deadly. Brian had just been taken by surprise, that was all. Otherwise, with his size, he should’ve been able to take out Craig in an equal setting. Whether he would have chosen to do so or not was another question. Justin had never really known Brian to be violent to anyone in his life. For an abused child, he’d certainly succeeded in making a clean break in the Kinney cycle of domestic abuse.

But the jeep incident could’ve been termed as serious because Brian had gotten concussion in that attack. Justin remembered seeing the smashed car and then the bruises on Brian’s face and his taped ribs and feeling disbelieving anger mingled with another feeling he hadn’t been able to recognize at first. He knew what that feeling was now. Fear. Fear that his father had hated Brian enough to want to kill him. But Brian had never believed Craig was involved and had never gone to the police—so it was moot.

All that had been almost a decade ago. Justin used to think things had changed so much during that time. But it was suddenly dawning on him that while he may have changed and Brian may have changed, things weren’t necessarily that much different with his father. Their sojourn at the restaurant had proved that much.

Justin took a deep breath, and then with quick steps walked to Brian’s ICU enclosure, opened the door and stepped inside. A nurse was finishing up checking his IV drip and she smiled at Justin as she quietly left the room. He sat down on the chair beside the bed and watched his lover sleep. They were still giving him oxygen intermittently but he was no longer on the ventilator. The doctor had said he was off the critical list now, but that he needed complete stress-free recovery, which was the reason why they were keeping him sedated. Since waking up yesterday, Brian had been in and out of consciousness and the doctor had said it was normal. He had said Brian needed to relax completely and that meant no worries at all. That was why Justin refused to leave the hospital. He didn’t want Brian to wake up and suddenly not see Justin around. He knew Brian could not afford to go through any kind of strain whatsoever.

That was another reason why Justin wished things would fucking settle down already. They’d gone through a horrible episode, but it was over now. Brian had survived. He was alive. He knew Justin was alive. That was all that mattered now, right?

He reached out and touched a finger to Brian’s temple and sighed. Brian’s skin was not cold anymore. Justin could feel his pulse throbbing under his skin. Alive. He gently ran his hand through Brian’s hair and marveled at how soft and clean they felt. Brian would certainly bitch if he were up, though. He would say they hadn’t been washed and treated with his imported French conditioner in two fucking days, so how the hell could they still be soft and clean? Justin felt a ghost of a smile form at the corner of his lips.

It was true what Deb had said. It always had been easy to blame Brian for all the faults in their lives. At least it was true for members of their so-called ‘family’. Justin had seen it happen non-stop for ten long years. He himself had been guilty of the same offense a few times in those years, though he hoped he was getting better now. But it was ironic that it had taken Brian almost getting killed for Deb to finally realize he had deserved at least a modicum of concern for being beaten and kicked by another man ten fucking years ago.

Justin was taken out of his thoughts when the door opened and he turned to see Ted pause in the doorway.

"Hey," Justin said. "Come on in."

"I don’t mean to disturb him," Ted whispered.

"You’re not," Justin said. "You can sit for a while. He’s sleeping deeply."

Ted hesitated for a moment and then slipped the door shut behind him. Justin started to get up from the only chair in the room but Ted waved it off. "Keep sitting. I’ll only stay a moment." He stood on the other side of Brian’s bed and quietly watched him for a moment. And then he asked, "How’s he doing?"

"Better," Justin replied. "They said they’ll move him to a regular room tomorrow."

"Good." Ted looked relieved at the news.

Justin really had no words for the appreciation he felt for what Ted had done that night. He’d proven to be a good friend to Brian years ago, but he had literally saved Brian’s life that night. Justin couldn’t imagine what would’ve happened if Ted hadn’t been there that night to give Brian CPR.

"How was work?" he asked. He knew Ted had gone to check things at Kinnetik this morning.

"Fine," Ted said. "Everyone’s kind of shell-shocked right now." He shook his head. "If it weren’t for this, things would probably be termed as fabulous, however." Justin suddenly became aware of the envelope in Ted’s hand when he pointed to it. "Our first copy of the ad for the threefold campaign we’ve been working on with a new client just came out today." Ted gave a sad smile. "So I brought it with me. Thought Brian would be happy to see it."

Justin sat up on the chair and looked at the envelope. "What is it about?" He was always curious about the campaigns Brian worked on. There was always something edgy and caustic and brilliant in each of his designs and that always appealed to Justin’s artistic nature.

"Here, let me show you." Ted took out the magazine and flipped through the pages to the one that had the ad. "It’s for Baron Automotives Hot Wheels series," he said, handing Justin the opened magazine.

Justin looked at the open ad and felt himself freeze. At the back of his mind, he was aware of the sleek lines of the ad copy, of the color coordination, of the font and the graphics used—but his eyes were stuck on the wordings of the title. No. His eyes stared disbelievingly at the words: OF KINGS AND BARONS and he felt his mouth turn dry. No. It couldn’t be.

"Justin?" Ted asked him. "What is it?"

"Of Kings---" Justin stammered. "Of Kings and Barons?"

"Yes, that was the slogan we came up with." Ted said, a scowl on his face. "Jacob Baron loved it and he said everything was going to be---"

Justin interrupted him. "That was on the sign, Ted."

Ted frowned. "What sign?"

"The sign we saw in the tunnels!" Justin replied, his voice sounding hollow to his own ears. "The sign Brian saw in the tunnels! This was the sign that made us walk in that room in the first place—the room where the two of us got locked."

"Oh shit," said Ted.

And Justin couldn’t agree more.

40.

"So now we know where the breach occurred," Carl said. "It was at Kinnetik."

They were back in the cafeteria again—those who were still hanging around, that is. Michael and Emmett standing. Justin sitting. And Carl watching Ted pace around the room.

"Are you suggesting it was someone who works at Kinnetik who is behind all this?" Ted sounded exasperated. "Because that is utterly ridiculous."

"No, just that it was someone who knew about the ad campaign," Carl said. "Now, who could have information about contents of an unreleased ad?"

"Any insider from either side of the table," Ted shrugged. "The creative department at Kinnetik, the marketing team at the client, it could be anyone."

"Anyone with a personal vendetta against Brian or Kinnetik in recent times?" Carl asked. "Any competitors taking things personally?"

"Yeah, only about a dozen different agencies we’ve lured clients away from," Ted huffed. "Look, Kinnetik has had an astounding amount of successful campaigns in the last six years and a majority of them have come at a cost to other agencies. There are many people who hate Brian’s guts because of that. But all that is healthy competition." He shrugged. "It’s a cut-throat business. That’s just how things works in advertising."

"Are you aware of any threats made against Brian or Kinnetik, aside from the healthy competition thing?" Carl asked. "Anything that possibly crossed the line of professionalism?"

Ted rolled his eyes. "Yeah, we pissed off our courier company just two days back because they’d lost the new Baron contract in mail and one of their agents threatened to cut off my account executive’s balls because I contacted their manager who was vacationing in Sri Lanka to make their riders come out of exile to deliver it for us." Carl stared at Ted stonily but he was obviously on a roll. "Or who knows, it could be the hacker who’s been bugging us for the last fucking year!"

Carl stared at Ted. "Hacker?"

"Yeah, we’ve had a few security issues at the office," Ted said. "But nothing we couldn’t handle, our IT department has been absolutely vigilant in fighting off the---"

"HACKER?" Carl repeated, staring incredulously at Ted.

"Um, yeah---" Ted stammered.

"Did you ever report this to the police?" Carl asked.

"No," Ted frowned. "It wasn’t anything malicious. We always thought it was some neighborhood kids playing around with some gadgets and---"

Carl growled. "Do you realize this could be the breach?"

Ted stared silently at him and then closed his eyes. "Oh fuck."

"When did this start?"

Ted rubbed a hand over his face. "About six months ago." Shit.

Carl muttered under his breath about things being unbelievable, as Ted stared at everyone around the room, his eyes resting on Justin, who looked white as a ghost sitting there. Shit. It was a six months long breach? Fuck. What the hell is going on?---he thought, as Carl’s phone rang.

They listened to him speak to someone for a minute and then he turned to face them.

"They’ve found a match," he said, his eyes bright as he looked at each one of them. "For one of the fingerprints they’d found in that utility room at the back."

41.

He heard the commotion outside in the office and looked up from the documents he’d been trying to focus on for the last half hour.

Two men wearing suits appeared in his office’s doorway. They showed him their police badges and he felt his breathing slow.

"Craig Taylor?" one of them asked.

"Yes," he forced his voice to sound normal even though he could feel his heart hammering in his chest.

"We’d like to have a word with you about your whereabouts on the night of Sunday, October thirty-first," the second cop said.

Craig slowly got up from his seat and nodded at them. "Please come in."

********

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NANOWRIMO STORY CHAPTER 13

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