A blast, but Duncan was behind him. Spencer fell with that weight ramming into his back. Struggling under that warm body, he felt the blood in his neck before he realized it was Duncan on top of him.No! No, no, no!Pushing at him, he flipped on his back, just to see Duncan roll on his back, ash white.
A large blood stain near his shoulder on top of his right chest.Shit!Spencer scrambled to sit, watching Duncan’s chest rise.Alive.That relief killed by a man stepping out from between the trees with a pistol.
“Give the fuck up, rich boy. Now that your dog is dead.”
Spencer’s eyes, wide on that man, on his gun. On what he had to do. He grabbed the gun from Duncan’s limp hand and aimed it at the man, his arms trembling.
A smirk as he walked closer. “You won’t kill me, you little useless shit…” A blast. His eyes wide as he staggered back.
Spencer scrambled to his feet, emptying the gun into that man on the ground. Squeezing the trigger until the gun clicked empty, over and over again. Going to his knees then to throw up, over and over again. Howling.
He flung the gun away, dead scared that Duncan had died.
Scrambling to him on all fours, he shook him as best as he could, slapping his face. “Wake up! Wake the fuck up!” Terror.That others would show. He grabbed Duncan’s shirt, hauling him up, shouting in his face as he sobbed. “Wake up! Please, please….”
Duncan blinked, sucking in air. He opened his eyes, straight into Spencer’s. Wild eyes, on the brink of losing it. He managed a few words. “It’s ok… let me go…”
Spencer laid him back down.
Duncan moaned at the pain in his shoulder.Shit.His lips trembling. “Take my shirt off, and lace it around the wound… tie it hard…”
Spencer obeyed, and Duncan whined softly as Spencer tied his shirt around his shoulder and arm, pulling hard. Duncan helped as Spencer’s strength wasn’t enough and sat up, trying to clear that nausea and reeling head.
“You… nobody came?” Blinking at Spencer’s face, his trembling lips, he looked around and spotted the corpse. Sitting up straighter, but Spencer grabbed his shoulder.
“He’s dead, that guy…”
Duncan looked at him, into those eyes haunted with a light he knew too well. Not Spencer’s cocky, mocking one filled with that insolent light. The one he had seen once when he had killed for the first time.Fuck…
He pulled Spencer close, hearing him break down crying. “You did great, ok? You saved our life…” Stroking his back, worried that they were wasting time, he pushed at him after a while. “We have to leave. Now.”
Spencer nodded, in a daze, and pulled him to his feet. Wobbling, holding on to each other, they could hear cars on a road invisible from the trees. Keeping that direction, they could climb up to a road.
Spencer made Duncan sit and started waving his hands around. Bloodied, in his torn clothes, nobody stopped, the cars speeding past them in that waking morning traffic. Until a largertruck took that climbing road, hauling logs. A honk as the driver saw Spencer, his turning light blinking as he took the side of the road to stop the truck.
Spencer had started crying, but he pulled Duncan to his feet, limping to the truck. The driver had jumped out, hurrying to them. A large man in a lumberjack shirt and a large greying moustache.
“Hey… you’re hurt?”
Duncan grimaced, on the verge of fainting. “Call 911… and if you could ask them to pick us up. Is there… a kidnapping in the news?”
“Yeah, man,, it’s all over…” Looking at Spencer. “Oh! This is the young guy they’re looking for!”
Duncan smiled, bitter. “Alright… just make the call and drive us where they can pick us up.”
Spencer held him tight. “My family will be grateful… to you…”
“No need, young man. I’m happy to help.” He helped them climb up, driving away then.
Duncan leant against Spencer, closing his eyes, the adrenaline rush gone, that will to survive too as the pain flooded his body. Feeling Spencer hold his hand tight, he wished he could comfort him, but his mouth had turned to ash, and he was drifting. Clinging to his hand, still, to his breathing. To his scent, his face buried in that soft hair.
Chapter 18
Spencer lost it when the truck pulled into a gas station and the ambulances and patrol cars flooded the parking lot. He lost it when they helped him out of the truck and he got separated from Duncan. Howling, he had started thrashing, wild. Any self-restraint bathed in that shock gone when he felt hands on him, holding him tight. Arching against the restraints on a gurney he could barely feel, but he had been strapped down, needles pushed in whilst he screamed. His senses numbing as something got pushed on his face.No… no… no…his voice gone, his eyelids fluttered, his vision blurring, all those blurred figures leaning over him. Struggling to breathe, to stay awake whilst he couldn’t get any of those nonsense words. Darkness.
Waking to blue sky framed in a metallic window, a mask on his face. Weak, his hands trembling, he pulled the mask off, feeling that soft padded cuff on his bandaged wrists, he almost went into a fit of rage again.No… focus…His mouth dry. He turned to his mother’s voice, his father’s, blocking that lush light as they leant over him. She crashed on his chest, sobbing.
“My son! Thank God! Spencer!” Stroking his matted hair back, her eyes filled with pity. “Your hair… they cut your hair off on the right… How will you look?”
