TABOO: THE COMPLETE SERIES(36)

“I need to talk to Jake,” I said to Stoll. “Why don’t you all stand outside and give us some privacy?”

“I don’t think Weldon would approve of that,” Stoll argued.

I had come too far to back out now. “That’s between me and Weldon, Stoll.”

They waited until Stoll gave the others a signal and then they all walked out of the room. “You have ten minutes,” Stoll said, before he left with the others. “Make it count.”

The minute I heard the door clicking shut, I rushed over to Jake and crouched next to him. He was in bad shape, shaking, shivering, crying uncontrollably. “Jake?”

“He was in that room,” Jake hysterically pointed to the large window to one side. “It’s dark now but he was there… I saw it Trey… they were making me watch!!!”

Sadistic fucks they must have known what it would do to him but I was certain Weldon wanted him to suffer. “They’re just doing it to mess with your head,” I told him. “They want you to suffer.”

“Why?” he cried. “What have I done? What has Colton done? What’s our crime?”

On one side of the room there was a chair. I pulled Jake up and took him to that chair and forced him to sit but he seemed like he was completely out of it. “I have to save him, Trey,” he kept saying.

“Jake, Colton needs you to be strong,” I tried to explain. “He’s going to need you when…”

“When Weldon’s done with him,” he finished for me. “When he’s broken my brother to pieces just like he broke me!!!”

I tried to hug him but he just pushed me away. “Fuck off!”

“Jake, I’m just trying to help…”

“No, you’re not!” he said. “You can’t help me! No one can. No will come to help me or Colton, it’s just me and him like always!”

I understood his anger. I’d be angry too if my brother was being tortured right in front of me and I couldn’t do anything about it. It was frustrating watching people suffer, especially the ones you cared about. It wasn’t easy dealing with all that guilt and remorse that you felt every time you failed at what you’d always considered to be your job, your responsibility. I knew because I felt it too, every time I saw Jake being tormented, mentally and physically, by a guy who had no sense of right or wrong.

When I thought about the Jake I’d met in Zach’s home, it broke my heart. The boy I saw then was unhappy but nothing like what he was now, broken, tortured, heartbroken and panic-stricken, fearing every second for something awful to happen.

“You know he rapes me every night,” Jake said, out of nowhere. “He… he comes into my bed and he… he does whatever the fuck he wants and the fuck of it is it’s not even the worst thing that happens to me here, Trey.”

It takes a lot for me to actually shed tears but I did then. He didn’t deserve what was happening to him. He was too young to have to face living in these circumstances. He was in this mess and it was partly my fault, mostly because I could have saved him when he stayed with me all night and moreover because I hadn’t done anything to help him ever since he had been brought here. Before I could think about what to say to him, the door opened and Stoll walked in. “Your ten minutes are up,” he said and stood next to Jake’s chair. “You need to leave. Unless you’re planning to watch the next show.”

It took a lot for me to control my anger long enough to leave. “I’ll see you, Jake.”

But he wasn’t even looking at me. He was staring at some random point in space, lost in oblivion. Stoll grinned. “I think he’s losing it,” he said, ruffling Jake’s hair and Jake flinched. “Are you losing it, Jakey?”

I hated Stoll then, but I knew he was right. There was something off about Jake ever since that severe beating a few days back. Of course, Weldon hadn’t stopped hurting him which was just cruel. I was worried about his mental state. Stoll was still joking about it when he pulled Jake off that chair and back on his knees. I basically opened the door and found a way out before I had to witness anything that might haunt me forever.

At least I had the option to choose.

Jake didn’t.





WELDON





I stepped into the room and they all went silent. No one said a word but Colton was looking at me. It occurred to me he was confused and needed answers but he wasn’t about to get any. He would have to get used to being in a life that was unpredictable. There were no certainties in life so why should they expect it from me? I was a slave to my needs. As were tons of other people in this world but I happened to be the villain because my proclivities lay in regions that the world considered corrupt. Words can’t stop me. I’m the one who has all the power and the world has nothing. The reason I’m where I am and the reason they are where they are, is the same—I take risks and I don’t give a shit.

I wanted this to excite me to the level where I couldn’t see straight, the way it was with Jake. Every time I hurt him, I became powerful and he got weaker. Every time I gave him an order, I got myself ingrained in his brain as a master. Every time he complied he became more of a slave than before. This is what I was good at, this was my domain. I owned Jake’s head and his body, and I owned his decisions and he was with me and we both knew he wasn’t going anywhere without my consent. And I’d rather he died before I let him leave this place, and before I let him leave me.