And we return..
He was falling... An unexpected image of his mother flickered before his eyes as he plummeted down through this blackness. He was reaching, stretching for her...flailing his arms in slow motion in an attempt to draw her nearer...
Moooooommmmmmmm!!!!!!!.........
He felt a hand on his shoulder...warm. He turned over and stared up in a daze, realizing that someone had seated themselves next to him and was gazing down upon his body.
"Mom..?" he whispered hoarsely, blinking his tired eyes and seemingly caught between dreams and reality. He saw her smile.
"Mom.." he said again assuredly, smiling and sitting up halfway before he felt the sting of cool metal on his neck. All at once, his mother's face disappeared. It was a man....
"Sshh...lay down Max." came a hushed voice from above. Max rested his head back down upon the pillow, noticing that the digital clock behind the foreign figure read 2:08 A.M. He had been dreaming for hours..was he still? He blinked lazily, his vision clouded with sleep. Only from the light of the moon sifting calmly from between his window blinds could the boy make out any form at all at this dark hour.
"Stay quiet." the voice spoke again. It had taken a while for Max to realize that something was terribly wrong. That thing against his neck was the only object that kept him from struggling in a confused daze. Woken out of a dead sleep, he had been slow to confirm that this object was in fact, a blade.
"W-Who are you..?" Max asked in an innocently sleepy voice.
"Sh."
Neither spoke for a while, and Max gradually began to regain his sight and use the tiniest of moon shine to the best of his ability. When he did, he almost yelped with surprise. Noticing the change in the young man's expression, McDowell chuckled lightly.
"Surprised, are you?" Precisely.
Max shuddered and his face blanched; he tried desperately to remain motionless against the knife.
"Please...p-please don't.."
"Don't what?" McDowell sneered, his thin lips curling. He replaced the knife with his hand, wrapping it around the boy's thin neck and crawling over him slowly. The feel of the jugular vein that pulsed in a slightly constricted manner beneath his cool hand further excited the man. So much power... He could feel Max beginning to shake uncontrollably.
"So.." Jacob began. "If I'm not mistaken...you were on the verge of revealing to your little boyfriend our conversation last week...our precious conversation."
"W-What..? No...n-no I.." the boy replied, forcing his brain to function in spite of his terror. How would he know..?
"I don't care if you didn't. You were about to." McDowell spoke in a morbidly calm fashion, bringing his head closer to his victim's and tightening his hold slightly.
"N-no....please.." Max whimpered. Oh my god...no...no...don't let him do this Spencer...wake up...wake up..
"You and that sonofabitch put on quite a little show today didn't you..? Or should I say, yesterday." he chuckled, realizing the time. "I thought you two were about to do something illegal..you little slut. You were just dying to fuck him weren't you..? You would risk your entire future career...just to get some tail? You better find someone your own age."
How could he know...how...?
"And don't ask me where I was."
But where could you have been??
"Now..." the man whispered, slowly peeling the covers down and off of the boy to expose his thin torso, then his legs. Max shivered and grit his teeth. "You're going to get up...you're going to leave a note..make your bed...and then you're going to come with me, and make no sound, or I'll kill your brother and take you anyway. Understand?"
Max nearly cried at the orders, but proceeded to hold back his emotions and crawl cautiously out of bed. He folded the sheets down in a neat manner and then write up a quick note, proclaiming that he had some early business to attend to, and that he had taken the city bus to the university. McDowell obviously considered it to be very convincing; by the time any suspicion had been aroused, it would be too late. Please don't hurt me...Please...
Jacob smirked when he saw that tears had gathered at the corners of the young man's eyes.
"Don't cry little boy." he mocked as Max turned to face him. Fear, humiliation, then irritability flashed in his victim's eyes.
"I hate you." Max spoke angrily, his bottom lip trembling. And he meant it.
McDowell, his temper flaring unexpectedly, grabbed the front of the boy's hair roughly and gritted his teeth. "You had better watch yourself."
The teenager whined as he was dragged towards the closet and told to grab some clothes. He did as he was told, head throbbing, then followed the man out of his room and down the hall. He was given a severely animalistic glare from McDowell as they passed the hall the led to his brother's room. If he wasn't quiet, he would blow the whole operation. Who said that was a bad thing..?
"Be...silent." Jacob warned, walking across the creaky wooden floor then waving the boy over. Max began to walk forward, jumping and clutching tightly to the clothes as he accidently bumped into the hall table. The strange artistic vase that had been given to his brother for Christmas wobbled at it's base. If I could just...make a noise somehow..
McDowell's eyes widened, and he waved again, more furiously this time, as if he knew that Max was stalling. He stood, eyes narrowing, and half concealed in shadow, nostrils flaring in a livid manner.
"Get...over here....no, no don't YOU DARE-
CRASH
Max, wild eyed and desperate, threw the vase to the floor with all of his might and took a step backwards as the man did the opposite.
You little bastard..I'll kill you for this!!
"Max?" came a tired call. His brothers voice reached the young man's ears like an angel's song. Then suddenly, a light flickered on. McDowell seemed to skitter off in a flash just like the darkness as the light invaded. He heard his footsteps disappear through the kitchen and across the living room, and then, wood against wood. He came in through the old window...
"Max...?"
The young genius dropped the clothes on the mess of glass and felt himself shake with tears.
"Max..? Max? What's wrong Max?" Spencer gasped, spotting his brother half naked, traumatized, and standing in a heap of glass. "What...w-what are you doing??" He rushed over and wrapped his arms around his brother's chest, lifting up and away from the glass to the best of his ability.
"Max talk to me! Max..."
The teenager sniffled and hung his head, seemingly incoherent with upset, but thinking hard. I'm already crying..I'm already upset like this. I can't hide it.....I can't...think...think.... He thought hard, and his brain went back to a book he had just recently read, "Telling Lies" It is most difficult for the lie catcher to uncover the lie if the lier changes not the emotion itself, but the reason behind that same emotion..
"I.." Max sniffled. "I...I was sleepwalking...I had...a d-dream about mom...I'm sorry.."
"Oh Max.." Reid sighed, pulling his brother into a warm embrace, trying to fight through his tiredness. He pushed a strand of hair from his saddened face and wiped away the tears, feeling a sense of protectiveness for Max. "It's alright...I'm here for you..."
"I'm s-sorry I woke you up."
"No..no, come on, let's go back to my room. Forget about this mess."
Spencer smiled and led Max back to his room, tucking him into his bed, already warmed with his own body heat and touched his pale cheek gingerly.
"Is there anything you need..?"
The boy thought for a moment, still a bit unnerved. He had a feeling that McDowell wouldn't be attempting to make a second visit in one night, and yet his body still shook at the thought of any possibility.
"Can you..make sure everything is locked?"
Spencer stared for a moment, a bit confused, but then kindly obliged. "Alright, be back in a second."
Max adored his brother's room. It was always clean and pleasantly cluttered, just enough to know that someone lived there. He had more books here than Max had in his room; hundreds. His eyes eventually trailed from the tuscan blue walls, across the brown framed pictures and to the gun that sat, untouched on the bedside table. The young man stared at it's black majesty and felt safe..
Spencer locked up all of the doors and windows, even the one that he had never bothered to; the old wood shipped one that hung near the basement. It had been a huge pain to close and hinge, but it was worth it. Max seemed to be incredibly shaken by whatever this dream was, and it was worrying Spencer. Had he been carelessly harsh with his brother? Maybe Max was really, truly upset by that man's words. Maybe he had managed to unearth a whole mass of issues.
"There." Reid smiled, entering into his bedroom and getting into bed beside his brother. "I locked everything, absolutely positively."
With Max's approval, he turned off the bedside lamp.
"Listen Max..I-
"No Spencer, don't. I'm okay now, really I am.."
The older male sighed and curled his arms around his brother's middle. "Come here." He pulled him close and began to stroke the back his silky soft hair and kiss his forehead. The boy snuggled in and buried himself against Spencer's bare chest, taking in the familiar scent and allowing himself to be comforted.
"I'll never let anything happen to you.."
