Page 35 of Lay It Bare

Rei

A sense of wrong filled Rei as soon as he and Sevastyan stepped into the condo. Lisa’s shoes weren’t in the shoe box. It looked like they’d been thrown across the room and hit the wall. There was a dent in the wallpaper and the shoes were on the floor several feet away.

Sevastyan held up his hand, signaling Rei to stop. Rei crouched, holding the handles of the two bags of hot food, making himself a smaller target. His head was clear and empty, all attention focused on his master. Sevastyan clicked the safety off his gun and spun around the dividing wall to see into the living room. No sound. Then Sevastyan’s footsteps. Rei stayed where he was.

“Rei,” Sevastyan called.

Rei left the food on the floor and came around the corner.

There were things strewn everywhere. Couch cushions had been pulled up and thrown. The coffee table was closer to the back wall than the couch. The two single-person seats were overturned. In the middle of it all, leaning against the couch, that had been moved several feet from its original position, was Lisa. Left leg was sprawled out in front of him, right leg was drawn up. One of Sevastyan’s handguns dangled from his fingers. There was blood on his face and his hand. He had a thousand-yard stare, as if he didn’t know Sevastyan or Rei were there.

Sevastyan gave Rei a hard look and cut his eyes towards Lisa. He jerked his head towards the rest of the rooms and signaled that he was going to make a sweep. Rei gave a quick nod. He dropped to his knees and crawled to Lisa. The other slave didn’t move. Rei knelt in front of him and reached out, lifting the gun from Lisa’s hand. Lisa blinked once, his eyes slowly focusing. He watched Rei take the gun, check the safety, and set it on one of the overturned chairs. The safety had still been on. At least there was that.

Lisa might not fade so much as go out in a blaze. Rei swallowed back tears. It was Lisa’s right, just as Rei’s plans were his own.

Sevastyan stalked past, gun no longer visible, and returned to the front door. Lisa’s eyes widened. He tracked Sevastyan until he disappeared and then watched the corner until he returned sans his coat and boots and with the hot food Rei had abandoned. The food he put on the coffee table where it had been moved.

Rei stood up, getting his own shoes and coat off. Everything was a minefield except for Sevastyan. There was something so wrong with Lisa, so beyond what he or Sevastyan could touch. There was no trying harder for this. No being kinder, or more there for him.

It was just wrong. And it was killing all of them. Lisa was just going first.

Sevastyan started to open the containers of food. He spoke softly without looking up. “I can’t say you didn’t warn me. You called yourself a guard dog and then I didn’t take you for a walk.”

Rei’s hands curled into fists. He was not going to shake. He was not going to cry. This was just one more horrible thing in a line of horrible things. All he had to do was stand there until it was over. There was no use resisting the terrible. It happened either way. Refusing to believe it was madness.

Accept. Accept. Accept. And breathe.

Lisa swallowed once, still not moving, not even a finger.

Sevastyan rubbed his fingers together, feeling the condensation from the food containers on his skin. “Wait here. I’m going to change.” He strode to the bedroom and disappeared into the room. The sound of dresser drawers opening and closing echoed through the space. Sevastyan appeared again. He took in the items strewn across the living room. Most of them were his clothes. He picked up a pair of blue linen pants with a drawstring and returned to the bedroom.

A few moments later he was back, abs and shoulders bare. “Rei, go change. There’s clothes on the bed.”

Rei scrambled to his feet and on to the bedroom. There was only one article of clothing on the bed, a pair of thin gray sweatpants. Rei stripped off his suit, hanging the pants and jackets in the closet. He hurried back to the living room. Sevastyan had dinner mostly unpacked. He’d collected a few pillows from the room and laid them out like seats around the coffee table. The rest of the mess was untouched. Sevastyan filled two plates, one in front of himself and one on the other side of the table, then pointed to the floor right beside him. Rei dropped his eyes and hurried to the spot. He dropped to his knees and folded his hands in his lap.

Sevastyan settled on one of the pillows and pulled Rei into leaning against him, cradled between his legs. He ate a bit, then held a piece of meat coated in sauce to Rei’s lips.

Rei took the morsel from Sevastyan’s hand without tasting it.

One bite, then two. Rei’s stomach tightened. Sevastyan held him with an arm around his waist, Rei’s bare back against Sevastyan’s flat stomach. He smelled good, like home. But home meant being alone.

They were not alone.

Lisa moved into a crouch on his hands and knees. His eyes were still empty. He crawled, half a meter at a time, toward the plate full of food Sevastyan had left for him. It hurt. Worse than watching him run away, worse than him throwing a temper as he had for Alexi during more than one training session Rei had been present for.

Eventually, Lisa was right at the table, half crouched, eyes on Sevastyan. He watched, not even asking for permission, for food, for anything.

His eyes were hopeless.

Sevastyan crumpled a napkin in his hand, getting sauce off his fingers. Rei’s eyes watched the skin slide over his knuckles. “We should talk, man to man, except by the rules of our world, we can’t.” Sevastyan said. He let Rei sit up and glanced around the living room, including the rampage in the conversation. “By the rules, I should punish you or send you back.”

Sevastyan broke a breadstick in half and laid part of it on Lisa’s plate. “Treat a man like a dog and he has no recourse except to fight like a dog. I made you a guard dog and then took away what you were guarding. Alexi let you fly, then clipped your wings. He promised not to sell you, then sent you away and gave me command. We keep changing the rules and not letting you leave.”

Blood rose in Lisa’s cheeks. His breath came in audible waves, his eyes fixed on Sevastyan.

“I’m not going to punish you.” Sevastyan lowered his hand. “You showed remarkable restraint. None of Rei’s things are harmed or even strewn. He’s done nothing to confuse you. But I have. In many ways. And you have communicated.”

A fine trembling set into Lisa’s limbs. Rei dug his nails into the palms of his hands to keep from rubbing at the acid rising into his chest.