.:7:.
When Henry and Jo arrived at the apartment, the stench of alcohol and vomit immediately hit them, causing them to recoil from the door. Jo turned her head away, bringing her hand up over her nose. She glanced at the door and then took another step away, hoping to escape the smell. She was glad that despite all of the drinking she did—not enough to get particularly drunk—she never ended up smelling like that.
Nor did she wake up completely hung-over, not like the man that was inside the apartment as the teenage boy had said. How many times had Sydney woken up to find the man covered in his own waste and reeking of alcohol, having to skip school or come late to school because he had to drag him to the shower and wash him off before getting the grown man into his bed to clean him off.
How many times had he managed to avoid the want to drown the man and run off to find his brothers and sisters by himself? Jo asked herself, standing up straight once more, when she got used to the smell. Brushing her hair from her face, she glanced over at Henry, who had recoiled as she did. Then again, he seems really loyal to the man if not completely fearful of him. Lifting her gun, she nodded at Henry and the mysterious man reached out and knocked on the door, keeping his back pressed against the wall just in case something were to happen.
"NYPD!" Jo called, holding the gun steadily in her hands. "Robert Jackson, open the door!"
There was a long moment of silence and then stumbling footsteps before a crashing sound and a grunt. Then silence once more. Jo steeled herself and called out once more. "We're coming in! Keep your hands where we can see them!" She turned her shoulder and rammed it into the door. The door popped open and she quickly slid inside, moving in front of Henry, keeping the gun at a steady level.
Checking the first room on the left, which she wasn't surprised to find was Sydney's—a way for the man to torture the boy, to have him as close to the outside world as he could, but now allowing him that escape—and found it was clear. After her quick sweep—noticing how barren it appeared—Jo continued on through the apartment. Turning the corner, Henry flung out his arm, catching Jo in the stomach and stopping her in her tracks.
Robert Jackson lay kneeling on the floor of the kitchen, one arm leaning against the seat of a wooden chair, the other straight out, holding a pistol trained on both Jo and Henry. His bloodshot eyes trained upon them, eyes a bit lifeless as he continued to watch them.
"What…are you doing in my house?" His words were slightly slurred. And judging by the beer bottles that sat by the recycling bin in the kitchen, he had a high tolerance of alcohol. But from what Sydney had told them when he was brought to the police station for his own safety, the man had been drinking enough for years so that he had managed to drink more and more as the days went on.
"In fact," Sydney had said with a light laugh, "I'm surprised his liver isn't completely falling apart, yeah?"
Now Henry and Jo knew that while the man was intoxicated, or at least hung-over, he may have been even more dangerous. "Robert, we have reason to believe that you've been hurting your child," Henry said to the man as calmly, rationally as he could. He was angry, having seen the state of the apartment, the living conditions that Sydney had been in, hearing the story of how he was ripped from him home and his brothers and sisters all because Robert wanted to exploit his smarts as well as musical ability…
It made him sick.
It took everything in his body not to lurch across the room and throttle him.
"We have a warrant for your arrest," Jo continued. "We're going to handcuff you and take you down to the precinct to get everything straightened out."
Robert slowly started to smile. "Is that what he told you?" He asked. "What's wrong with a bit of discipline."
"What's wrong," Henry shouted. "Is that you're not giving him discipline, you're scaring him half to death! You're torturing him and beating him when he doesn't live up to your standards. That is not discipline and don't delude yourself into thinking it is!"
Robert slowly rose to his feet, still holding the gun. "Is that what you think?"
"Drop the gun, Robert," Jo said, keeping her gun pointed at his shoulder. They didn't want to kill him, just wanted to incapacitate him enough to show him that she meant business.
"You don't know a damn thing about me! Who the hell do you think you are?"
"I said drop the gun!"
"I'm his friend," Henry replied, hands clenching into fists.
He was aware he was putting himself in danger, not only of getting hurt, but risking Jo and Robert both finding out his secret. But he didn't care. He didn't care about himself or what would be the fallout, he cared about the well-being of the fifteen year old boy that had gone through so much pain at a young age and continued to feel that pain from the hands of another person as he grew up. It would take a long time for the fifteen years of pain to finally be reversed and for the boy to know he wasn't as much of a failure as Robert had drilled into his head. Henry wouldn't allow him to be a punching bag anymore.
"I care about him and I can't stand the thought of you mentally, physically, and emotionally abusing him anymore."
"It's not abuse, it's tough love!"
"And ripping him away from his brothers and sisters, the ones that really loved him, and taking him here was the best way to do that?"
"Robert, I will ask you one more time to drop the gun, now!"
Robert let out a loud, hollow laugh. It sounded harsh and empty. When he lowered his head once more his face was a mask of a lot of emotions that Henry couldn't quite place. "I gave that little runt everything he could need, so what if I started to give him a bit of discipline when he acted out? I know he missed his brothers and sisters but he wasn't going to get the best education out there. The kid's a genius those school weren't challenging him and he started to get bored."
"That's not the story we were told," Henry growled.
"Yeah, well, he's a liar."
"The last thing that boy is, is a liar." Henry took a step forward. "He's open and honest and a bit arrogant, but he's not a liar. He only became a liar because you made him that way!"
Something shifted over Robert's face and it turned dark; an evil, malicious darkness that was a very obvious shift. Robert's arms dropped to his side and he glared at the two before suddenly moving, bringing his arm back up. Jo reacted quickly and shot him in the shoulder. Robert stumbled back, face contorting in surprise and pain.
Then there was another gunshot.
Now Henry let out a gasp of surprise. Bringing his hands up to his chest, he recognized the feeling of the bullet being lodged into his chest. Glancing down, he noticed the red rose of blood blooming across the front of his clothes and the pain set in. Grimacing, he glanced over at Jo, whom he noticed had moved her lips as if she was calling his name, but he couldn't hear anything.
Things were moving at a slow blur.
He had to get out.
Henry turned and stumbled out of the apartment as quickly as he could, making sure not to press his hands against the walls to stop himself from falling. He couldn't risk leaving any hand prints, or any other evidence that would make things harder for him to explain how he had disappeared. Henry managed to make it as far as the hallway before collapsing on his back. He took the last few gasps of air before he felt his heart stop.
Then everything had gone dark and he was back, popping up like a cork in the east river, shivering and gasping for air.
He rolled his eyes, letting out a huff when he spotted the park filled with people milling around, some starting to move towards the water's edge as they noticed him. Then he noticed that a few were calling over to him, waving their hands, someone had a phone up to their ear.
He didn't expect it'd be long before h was back with the NYPD explaining, once again, that no, he did not have some sort of exhibitionist fetish, and no, it wasn't funny.
After Henry had gotten clothed at the police station, he did his best to steer clear of Jo, knowing she was going to need some sort of explanation as to how and why he had disappeared as well as to why he wasn't injured. He could fake it; he had done it for ages, but she as bound to dig into his file and question why he hadn't been taken to the hospital or why he didn't have a wound in the middle of his chest.
He could probably pass it off as the one on his peck, but who knew how smart she was or how she was able to see through his lies. Instead, he avoided her as he moved through the halls of the precinct, looking for the room that Sydney had been brought to earlier that morning.
Finally, he had found Detective Hanson leaving the room and walked up to him. "Pardon me, but I hope you'd give me the chance to speak with Sydney."
"We've just told him that his father is in custody," Detective Hanson replied. He hesitated for a moment before reaching out and patting Henry on the shoulder. "Great job, doctor," he said to him. "The boy's not going to live in fear anymore."
Henry nodded and waited for Detective Hanson to leave the vicinity before knocking on the door and heading into the interrogation room. Sydney flicked his hair out of his face, hands in front of his sweatshirt, and looked over at Henry with a curious expression on his face.
"So I heard that my Dad roughed you up a bit, yeah?" He remarked.
Henry grimaced. "Nothing that I couldn't handle," he replied, taking a seat away from the table and sat down next to him. "I used to box, you know."
"I don't believe that for a second." Chuckling, Sydney shook his head. "You're too…gangly for the sport, no offense, mate."
Henry laughed. "I can assure you that I am not too gangly for the sport, in fact, I'm quite life on my feet. I really enjoy it, though it's only something I've just taken up recently." He cleared his throat, leaning forward and rested his arms on his legs, hands dangling between his knees. "We have your father in custody and I can assure you that he's going to be in for a long time."
Tilting his head to the side, Sydney's face twisted into an expression of utter disbelief.
"I know he's managed to get away from it before, but he's not going to get away with what he's done to you now," Henry continued. Sydney nodded and looked away. "And, we're going to do our best to get in contact with your brothers and sisters and find them for you and reunite them with him. I'll admit, he's done a great job of keeping you all separated, but we're going to find them." Sydney nodded again. "When was the last time you've seen them?"
"Two years ago," Sydney said, voice breaking at the end with emotion. "I used to spend every day with them, yeah? Day in and day out and suddenly, they were gone. I was forced out of the house and on a plane and brought here, saying I wasn't going to see them again." He scratched his forehead. "It wasn't until I managed to get my hands on a prepaid phone and call them that I found out Patrick and Noah had been granted emancipation from Robert and I was stuck and Robert knew it, so he took me away."
A tear roll down his right cheek and he quickly brushed it away. "I didn't know anything about it…and yet I was the one pawn he had and he knew it. All because for the next six years or so I was still under his order before the law got in the way."
Henry nodded and reached out, placing his hand on Sydney's shoulder. The boy squeezed his eyes shut and flinched away for a moment before relaxing, his shoulders slumping in relief when he found that Henry wasn't about to hit him. They sat in silence for a long while before Sydney spoke up again. "Dr. Morgan, thank you."
"You're very welcome, Sydney," Henry replied, sincerely. "We're going to help you the best we can."
Sydney lifted his head and looked Henry up and down for a long moment. Taking in his body language and smile, he knew the older man was being sincere. "Henry, may I ask you something?"
"Sure . Anything."
Sydney's right eyebrow rose, a dimple appearing in his cheek. "Why are you wet?"
Henry was stunned for a second before he burst out laughing.
THE END
A/N: Thank you so much for those that reviewed, favorited, and alerted. I really enjoyed writing this story and I'm glad you enjoyed it as much as you did. I have an idea for a sequel where Sydney works along with Henry and Jo, the way Abe kind of does, as well as bringing in his siblings...let me know if you'd like to see it.
Thanks again!
Cheers,
-Riles
