Preacher nodded and gave Knox a smile. “I’ll be right back, little man. Okay?”
Knox seemed relieved to have the tall man’s presence. Once in the hallway, Memphis turned on the man, jamming his hands in his pockets. “Who are you? What the fuck happened to my brother? Who did this to him?”
The man leaned against the wall. “Listen, I’m not your enemy. I’m just keeping the kid calm because, when we brought him in here, his vital signs were a mess. He’s been on fluids since he got in here. We found a bunch of malnourished and abused animals on your brother’s property. We also found your little brother shackled to a wall in the back room. The sun porch, he called it.”
“Shackled?” Memphis repeated, his head spinning, like he was on a tilt-a-whirl.
“Yeah, shackled. By his ankle.”
Nash had chained their brother to a wall. Memphis was selling flowers to cheating husbands and plotting floral arrangements for overpriced weddings and Knox was being beaten and starved. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe. He slid down the wall, putting his elbows on his knees, holding his head as he fought to drag breaths into his spasming lungs. He’d let this happen.
Suddenly, Preacher was hunkered down beside him, close enough for Memphis to smell the woodsy fragrance of his cologne. “Hey, stay with me. Breathe. In through your nose, out through your mouth. I think you’re having a panic attack. Do you want me to get the nurse?”
Memphis wanted to answer, but he couldn’t make the words come. When Preacher went to stand, Memphis’s hand darted out, snagging his shirt. “Don’t. Please.”
Memphis wasn’t even sure what he was asking for. Don’t get the nurse? Don’t leave him? Don’t judge him for falling apart after three minutes of being in the same room as his brother? How was he going to protect Knox from anything? He couldn’t protect himself from his own past, his own psyche.
Rough hands clutched his cheeks, lifting his head to make eye contact. The warmth of Preacher’s skin bled into Memphis. “Hey. Just look at me and breathe. Can you do that?”
Every instinct was telling him to run, telling him he wasn’t safe, that he couldn’t keep himself alive let alone Knox, and that the whole world was going to know that soon enough. He could hear Preacher talking, his voice deep and warm, comforting in a way no stranger’s voice had a right to be. He blinked the sweat from his eyes and did his best to focus on that greenish gold gaze, and that rich, soothing tone, and the heat burning into his skin.
“Can you inhale while I count?” Preacher asked. Memphis nodded jerkily, sucking in a pained breath as he counted to five. “Hold it for five. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. And out for one. Two. Three. Four. Five. Good, again.”
It felt like an hour passed with him sitting on the floor of the busy pediatrics ward, but, in reality, it was likely only a few minutes. When he could breathe again and the world stopped spinning, he gently pushed Preacher’s hands away. “Sorry.”
When he dropped his hands to his knees, Preacher gripped them, looking at the small circular burn scars that covered the tops. “Did your father do that?”
Memphis yanked his hands back, glaring at Preacher. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know. I imagine if your older brother was willing to chain your younger brother to a fucking wall then he had to learn it from somebody, and since you thought I worked for your father, I figure your older brother learned a few tricks from him.”
“My brother’s not safe here. I need to get him back to Los Angeles. Even if Tennessee is locked up like you say, there’s still plenty of his fucking crew willing to take out both me and Knox to protect their interests. The best thing I can do is get him as far from here as possible until they catch Nash.”
“That’s the thing of it. Knox refuses to admit your brother did anything wrong. He still hasn’t even named Nash as the one who abused him. He just keeps saying ‘he.’ If we can tie him to the dogs, we can get him on animal cruelty charges. That’s a felony here in California. We could get him put away for three to five years, maybe even consecutively. But the deed’s in your father’s name and those morons we busted in the house aren’t talking. Without your brother, we’ve got nothing.”
“Dog fighting?” Memphis muttered. “My brother was fighting animals? Christ. If he’s running my father’s crew, keep digging. You’ll find all kinds of bodies, not just animals. But I should warn you. Anything that happened in Rexford won’t fall on anybody in my father’s club. Never has, never will. He’s got reach.”
“He’s not omnipotent. Arizona clearly doesn’t give a fuck who he is,” Preacher said.
Memphis shook his head. “Just wait. He’ll walk. They all will. No matter how many bodies you uncover, no matter how many crimes you pin on him, he’ll find a way to wiggle out of those cuffs, he always does. You’ll see. He’ll get free, and if we talk, he’ll come for me and Knox. Nobody can outrun Tennessee.”
Preacher wasn’t sure what he’d expected of Memphis Camden, but it wasn’t this beautiful man with his tawny skin, golden blond hair peeking out from under his black hood, and unnaturally blue eyes. He was taller than Preacher first thought. He just walked with his head down and his shoulders rounded, pulled in on himself, as if doing so could make him invisible to the world at large.
Preacher knew the look well. He’d seen it when inmates had been pushed too hard, gone too far. When they’d been prey for so long they began to believe nobody was trustworthy, that there was nothing good in the world. It was the last stage of prison life, what separated the survivors from the statistics. Memphis Camden appeared one step away from snapping and going truly feral or ending up on a coroner’s table from a self-inflicted injury.
There was no doubt in Preacher’s mind that whatever Knox had been through, Memphis had been through worse. He talked about Tennessee Camden like most people talked about the Boogeyman. In Memphis’s mind, his father was lurking in every shadow, waiting to finally make his worst fears come to life. Preacher remembered that feeling well, and it made him ache for the two boys in front of him.
“The doctor says Knox needs a few more days to get some of his labs back in line. So, he can’t leave the hospital just yet,” Preacher said once they were both back in Knox’s room.
Knox was playing Mario Kart on the wall-mounted television, no longer paying any mind to the two strangers beside him. Kids Knox’s age were resilient. He’d bounce back once he was permanently removed from the dangerous life he was born into. The same couldn’t be said for Memphis. Whatever trauma he’d been through had reshaped whoever he could have been into somebody who was hardwired to believe the worst was all that was left for him.
Memphis shook his head, once more delving his hands into his pockets as he paced beside Preacher. “We can’t stay. We’re not safe here.”
Preacher lowered his voice. “You are safe here. I’ve been with the boy for the last twenty-four hours. I’ll stay until he’s released, if that’s what you need.”
Memphis cut his eyes to him. “No offense, mister, but I don’t even know you. For all I know, you’re just as bad as they are, rescue work or not.”
That was fair. Preacher wasn’t sure knowing him would somehow make Memphis trust him anymore than any other person on this planet, but he decided to give it a shot anyways. “My name is Isaac Graves, but most people call me Preacher. I don’t know why. It started years ago, and it just stuck. I’m forty-two years old. I’m an Aquarius, if that shit matters to you. Blue is my favorite color. I have two rescue dogs, one named Bo and one named Luke. I spent twenty-three years of a twenty-five year sentence behind bars. I was paroled for good behavior last year. I make my living restoring furniture and, sometimes, taking on bodyguard jobs for shady rich people who think having an ex-con as a bodyguard makes them safer. What else would you like to know? I’m an open book.”
