Chapter 24

Josh had been gone for about two weeks, yet it may as well had been two months—hell, two years—from the looks of him. His long, shiny hair that kept falling over his eyes was gone, replaced by a shoddy buzz cut that made him look more like a cancer patient who’d given up on treatment. His already pale face was now pallid and covered in dirt. It reminded me of a friend who’d spent his entire winter during freshmen year not going outside once and had instead traveled in the connected paths that led from his residence building to his classes and the meal hall; except in this case, there was nothing hilariously sad about the whole thing.

Even his eyes, so bright and blue when I’d last see them, were dulled, and not just by the lack of light. Dark circles hung under them, and as I looked at him he refused to make contact with me.

And then there was his body. His army fatigues, dirty and disheveled, hung off of him like they were designed for a guy twenty pounds heavier. He looked skinnier, which was not good for a guy who’d been lean as hell to start. Worse than that were the bruises I could see on his exposed forearm and neck. Christ, what HAD they done to him?

“It's me,” I said, reaching out for him. He flinched. Maybe he thought he was hallucinating. Maybe he’d done it before. I mean, how likely was it that your boyfriend would storm through a small army and rescue you from your solitary confinement in the middle of nowhere? “I've been looking for you for the last two weeks. And I promised myself that I would find you, and I would get you out of here.”

My throat began to tighten. I’d done it. Here he was, beaten and emancipated, but still here. I’d found him and I’d rescued him. I reached out again, opening my arms to grasp him in a tight hug that I didn’t want to ever end. As I did, however, he raised his own arms and pushed against my chest. “No. Get away from me.”

I took a step back. Was he unable to process what was going on? Or maybe it was the fact that I was wearing the same outfit as the staff. “Josh, it’s me,” I said again. “It’s Trent. We—”

“I know who you are.” In the dim light I could see his eyes coming back to life, but not with joy. Anger. “You’re the reason I got put here in the first place.”

“I—you—” I stumbled on my words. “What did they do to you?”

“They wouldn’t have done anything, if it weren’t for you.” There was a venom in his voice that I’d never heard before. “I told you never to text me. I gave you one rule, because not everyone has had as easy a time with their families as you. And what did you do? You went off and sent me a message I couldn’t explain to my parents!”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “What text?”

He shook his head and looked down. For a second all I heard were his heavy breaths. Then he looked back up, past, but not at, me. “’You look so cute, especially with your clothes off,’” he recited, spitting the words out at me like they were poison. “’Can't wait to see you again.’”

Of everything I'd taken this day—all the punches, kicks, and pistol whips—those words were the hardest. Fuck. Of course. The texts I'd sent him after we'd spent a few hours in my bed. In all of the time I spent trying to figure out where he'd gone and why he'd disappeared, how could I have missed that?

“Your parents…” I said.

“They saw them.” He brought his head down and talked directly to the floor. “When I got home so late they were all over my case about it. I said I'd been studying, and they didn't believe me. They asked if I had a girlfriend.” He laughed harshly. “Yeah mom and dad, I have a girlfriend. But then my phone started beeping with your texts and they demanded to see who was texting me at one in the morning. I did everything I could to get them to not look, but then they saw your texts and your name and there was nothing I could do.” His head snapped back up. “I told you not to text me anything sexual. Didn't I tell you that?”

I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. “You did.”

“So, this is all on you, then. But you know what? Maybe it's all for the better. You're no good for me, Trent. You're kind of an asshole, actually. Maybe it's good that I was sent here, because if most guys are even a tenth as much of a dick as you, I'd rather just date girls.”

“You can't…” I didn't know what to think. This really wasn't how I expected things to go. “Look, I know I’m not perfect—hell, you’re not the first person to point it out today. But you can't be serious. This can't be you talking. I don't know who it is, but the Josh I've come to know would never say those things.”

He snorted. “Then maybe that Josh isn't the real Josh after all.”

My hands once again clenched into fists. “No. They've done something to you. You were forced to come here, and damn it if I'm not going to force you to leave with me.”

“Well, that sure is bold.” A deep voice came from behind me. I spun around and felt my blood run cold. An older man, probably pushing the top of his fifties, stood in the hallway, right under one of the bare bulbs. He too was dressed in military fatigues but had what appeared to be a cape of some sort hanging over his shoulders and the left side of his body. Despite his age, his hair was thick and dark, and his face gave me the most intense gaze I’ve ever seen. The guy radiated power, to the point where I was pretty sure if he appeared on TV and told me to fight for my country, I’d be looking for the nearest place to sign up. And half the population would be alongside me.

“So, you must be Trent,” he said. His voice was low, but very smooth.

“And you’re the Major,” I said, hoping my own tone matched his, but instead cracking by the third syllable.

“You’ve caused quite a lot of damage to my camp.” He spoke it as a matter of fact, like he was talking about the weather or a non-playoff sports game. “This is an issue for me, obviously. I can’t let you get away with it.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Your employees seemed to feel the same way, and yet I’m standing here and a handful of them are going to need an ambulance.” My confidence was coming back. Maybe this guy was intimidating, but I had fucked up a whole lot of his staff. Who said I couldn't do the same to him?

“Again, so very bold.” If he had a weapon on him, I couldn’t see it. His arms remained stiff at his sides. “I guess what must make this so difficult for you is to come all this way and go to all this trouble only to realize that your, ahem, ‘friend’ doesn’t even want you here.” His eyes drifted behind me. I looked back at Josh. He was turned away, his head fixated on the ground.

“He’s better off with me than he is with you,” I said. “And I mean that in every possible way.” His tongue briefly flicked out against his bottom lip. “But of course, you want me to go—I’m the only one standing, quite literally, between you and your latest victim. And I have to say, given your own manliness and appreciation for all things military, it’s kind of a surprise that you’re so into twinks.” He snorted but said nothing. “I’m not wrong, am I? All those stories I read online, from survivors of your camp, they’re not wrong either?” Still no response. I kept going. “No, of course I’m not. Your own staff members didn’t even deny it. You take in troubled youth, promise their parents a rigorous program that will straighten them out, so to speak, and then do whatever the hell you want to them.” Now my voice was rising. “You’re the absolute worst kind of person, Major. These are people who’ve been rejected by their friends and family, and instead of doing the right thing and helping them, you break them in fucking two. How the hell are you able to sleep at night? How do those memories of your victims not keep you awake every goddamn minute?”

“That’s enough!” It was a ferocious roar that made me nearly jump in fright. “I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, boy, but if you think you are going to come into the camp that I have spent years, decades, building and blow it all to smithereens while telling me that I’m not the one doing his job, well you’ve got another thing coming. This camp changes lives. It not only changes them, but it also saves them. You do not know how many kids have come through these fields on the brink of death, just one more bad decision away from ending up in a gutter and then a morgue, who we save from themselves. Who we save from drug overdoses, or gang violence, or getting fucking AIDS from their thousandth sexual partner. We stop that from happening. We’ve saved hundreds of kids!”

His voice resonated through the basement. Behind him, the fallen guard moaned. I took a few breaths to calm myself down and kept my eyes fixed on the Major. “You abuse them.”

“I show them what awaits their lives if they continue down a path that strays from God’s design. You think I enjoy it?”

“I think you’re delusional.” The fear was gone. He wasn’t as big as the chef I’d taken down, or as crazy as the staff member who’d tried to kill me, and he sure as hell was older than the other soldiers I’d fought this morning. No, he was now one more target for me, a hockey player standing in the open ice, just waiting for me to plow right off his feet in front of a roaring crowd. “I’m going to be leaving with Josh now. If that’s a problem for you, try to stop me, and then I will not leave until every building within these barbed wire fences has been burned to nothing but rubble.”

The right side of his mouth slowly curved upwards. Then the Major chuckled. “You know, it sometimes gets boring beating these kids, knowing that they can’t fight back. You’re going to be a challenge. I know I’m going to enjoy it.”

He reached to the back of his belt and pulled out a whip made of multiple leather straps, all tethered together. The bruises on Josh’s arm and neck suddenly made sense. Shit.

He took two steps towards me. I raised the gun in my hand and tried to fire, but his arm was already out and hitting my hand with the lashes, knocking the gun clear and sending waves of pain through my fingers. Before I could ever think he whacked me upside the chin with the straps. My entire face felt like it was on fire. I stumbled back, clasping my jaw and praying that the pain would cease.

Then my stomach took a hard hit, and my body gave up, collapsing face first on the floor in the most agony I’d ever felt in my life. Everything I'd taken in the past hour had finally caught up to me. I could hear a little voice in my head telling me to get up, to rise and fight this guy, but my body was having none of it. I was done. I rolled over and looked up at Josh. Our eyes finally met, and I saw a look of concern in his. My own vision became cloudy, and I dropped my head back down.

Amid the pain, I half-heard footsteps, first moving away from me and then coming toward. Something cold and metal pressed against the back of my neck. “I really wish we could keep doing this, but I have to put out the fires you’ve created here, and with the way you’ve shown yourself today I don’t think I can just leave you here alive. If it’s any consolation, you would have been a fantastic soldier. I like a guy who never gives up.”

The barrel pushed further into my skin, and I braced myself for whatever came next. Would I feel it? Or would it kill me instantly, sending me into the oblivion of death? At that moment, I wasn’t scared—I’d resigned to the fact that this was it, that I’d lost, I’d failed, and it didn’t even matter, as Josh had given up on me already—but I was curious. Would there be life after death? Would God greet me? I’d definitely have a bit of explaining to do.

Click.

Click. Click. Click.

“Are you kidding me?” I mumbled into the dirty floor. Had I managed to use every bullet in the pistol and not realize it? How many shots had I even fired in the first place?

“You know what? I’m deeming this good.” His two hands grasped either side of my head. “Now I can really enjoy your death.”

He began to twist my neck. I once again braced for death, but it once again didn’t come. Instead, I heard a shout, and the hands came off my head. I fell back to the floor and looked up. Josh was grappling with the Major, his frail hands throwing punches that were easily getting pushed away, but fighting nonetheless. And he was doing it for me. He was trying to save my life.

Despite every inch of my body aching, I pushed myself back onto my knees, and then climbed up onto my feet. My legs felt like they were wearing sneakers on freshly flooded ice. I wanted to help Josh, but every step felt like a knife had been jammed into five different joints.

In the corner of my eye, I saw the empty gun lying against the wall. It may not have had any bullets in it, but I knew from experience that it could still cause a lot of pain. I limped over and picked it up, just as the Major turned away from me and knocked Josh down with a hard blow to his left temple.

No. He’d done enough to my boyfriend. It was time to make him pay.