3

That silence when all you can hear is your own terror. All you can smell is your own fear. That eerie quiet when the victim suddenly falls silent. ~ Shatter.

Spencer thought, really thought, that it would be much better if they were not seen together. Not then. It would be noticed. Someone would say something. When questions were asked and they would be – when asked… they would remember the guy with the bruises. They would remember the shifty looking fellow who was blinking too often and scratching at his arms. People would look. They would pull their children away from the odd couple who stood holding hands and looking like they were searching for something or someone. When a certain someone suddenly disappears, then fingers would be pointed. Spencer was very sure of that.

'Subconsciously, people pick out the ones who are different from themselves. They might not want to or even feel that they are, but it's what happens. I know this. Floyd, you should go alone. You won't look like you're about to crawl out of your own skin. Please, just think about it. One very good looking man alone would maybe be noticed too, I agree with you, but you with me?'

Floyd was gripping door handle. His knuckles white. His eyes flickering from Spencer to the door and back again. 'It's a fucking partnership, Spence. We need to do these things together. I've gone through it with you.'

'I can be your partner here. I can be an alibi. I can lie. Perfectly capable of that now. I will cover for you. I can't do that if we're together. Take the bike and sidecar. It will be safer, quicker, easier.'

'So you are telling me that I'm wrong? You're correcting me?'

Spencer flinched slightly. Damnit. 'No. I'm just pointing out that when security cameras are looked at I will be seen. You, you not so much.'

It was a nod now. The hand loosened its grip on the door. 'Bike and sidecar stand out. I'll drive. Babes, you take one step in the wrong direction here and we lose Sam and I'm not going to have that happen. Go sit. I'll tie you to a chair.'

This wasn't going in the direction Spencer wished it to. He shook his head and sighed. 'And if someone does see something and the cops come knocking? How will I be your alibi? Just go. You're wasting time. Contact me if you need me, but I know you don't. You've never needed me before to carry out your jobs. You don't need me now. Get it done and get home. Quicker the better. I'll field any calls to the house. Not that I'm expecting any. No one will notice you. You'll not appear on security and hell, no one knows we are even alive. Hurry home. We can take in that movie when you're back.'

'A week.' And now the door was being pulled open. 'Give me a week.'

'Oh.' Spencer now gently touched Floyd's arm. 'I thought it would be a night at the longest. A week?'

'Well you know… things happen. That's worst case scenario. Likely be back by the morning. Might take longer. You know… sometimes…'

'Just don't hurt him… or kill him!'

'Not going to talk about that shit again. It's done.'

Floyd pulled Spencer in close and kissed him gently on the side of his neck. Floyd had his lovely musky man smell about him and his breath smelled of cloves. He was at least making an effort not to stink. It was a good start. Today also there didn't seem to be that second person under Floyd's skin. Either the veil was up and working properly, or Spencer had imagined it in the first place. 'Be careful. I can't lose you.' Spencer wiped a bit of hair of Floyd's face. 'And take the bike. If you drive you'll be stopped for speeding, or running down pedestrians.'

'And you're correct again. I won't need the sidecar. Stay in the house.'

Spencer nodded, but remained silent. It was long past time to get this hideous thing done. He stood and watched Floyd leave in a deep rumble of motorcycle and then closed the door, putting the latch across and then turning, leaning on the door, resting his head back. Floyd was gone for now. It was his perfect chance to make the calls he knew he should make, so why he was sliding to the floor and sitting there, back pressed against the old wooden door, well he couldn't explain that now and would probably not be able to explain later. He felt sick. His heart was hammering. Spencer just hoped it was fear he was feeling and not excitement. He really hoped he hadn't slipped so far down the chain that he had become numb to the fact that he knew Floyd was going to snatch JJ's child and that Henry would never be seen again. At least not by family or loved ones. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed at them with his fingertips. He didn't really want to be here alone at night. This old house creaked and whined when the sun went down. Wind blew through the surrounding trees and whistled under the eaves. It was a ghostly and miserable place to try to amuse yourself in. Though he knew that Floyd was every monster from all children's dreams and nightmares, he was still the only person Spencer felt completely safe with. Which was stupid. He knew that. He was thinking what a fool he was for everything as he stood and walked to the small kitchen to make some coffee. Maybe a drink of something sweet would settle his stomach… ease that sickness, unless of course it was adrenaline, in which case he would just become more jumpy and nervous.

The car was outside. There was nothing to stop him from getting in it and driving to somewhere brighter. A town. A motel room for the night maybe. Except for as he glanced at the small hook they kept the keys on, they were not there. Floyd had probably taken them with him to stop him from doing that exact thing. Running away.

There were a lot of things Floyd disliked in a person. Lies, cowardice… fake teeth, apologies… running away. Floyd would do what he considered regrouping, rethinking a strategy, backing away, but never running. That was cowardice. That was weakness. That was something Floyd couldn't abide, so it seemed he had stopped Spencer from doing that thing. He was stuck here unless he walked away and… well, no… that was not a thing Spencer considered doing. Not now he was seated with his mug of overly sweet coffee and was sitting on the couch with a book on his knee. One night. He could survive that!

Spencer had to remember, and he had an ache in his ribs to remind him, that this was all for Sam.

The Sam. A creature who Spencer had in the past sworn to protect, yet loathed with all of his being. Yes, Spencer was going to sit on the couch and ignore what Floyd was doing, he was going to pretend Floyd was not going to the circus to steal a child. He would imagine that Floyd was just out on the bike getting fresh air in his hair and bugs stuck to his face. That was what Spencer wanted to think.

His knee ached. It was throbbing in time with the pain in his side. Coffee finished, he took the mug, washed it and put it away, then went to the bathroom where he stripped off and looked at his mostly naked body in the full length mirror. It was the bruises he wanted to look at and touch gently. He wanted to prod them slightly until he could close his eyes and imagine Floyd doing that to him again. Each kick, every pinch and bite. He needed to see it all so that he could remember. A reminder that he was nothing. Worth nothing. He peered at his face. No marks there. Floyd had been at least slightly careful. There were blooms of dark marks around his neck, broken skin on his collarbone which had been bitten. Teeth marks above his left nipple and bruising where Floyd had sucked at the blood. Spencer knew he should be thankful. He was sort of alive. Floyd hadn't gone so far as to tear him apart and remove his heart, and he really did know that it was not something beyond Floyd.

He curled up alone on the bed and looked at the curtains which moved slightly in the breeze which managed to cut its way around the window frame and somehow through the glass. That frame which rattled and squeaked when the wind really blew. That frame which was somehow painted shut and yet still had enough gaps to make the curtains sway like a ghost was there hiding behind them, waiting… waiting for Spencer to drop his protective barrier and relax and then it would rise up and do something abhorrent. Or maybe it really was just the way the frame was poorly fitted and the single layer of glass which when you looked through it on a sunny day, looked as though it was tinged with blue.

He snapped off the main overhead light in the room, but kept on the small side light. It was evening. Time had passed too quickly, yet the quicker it passed the sooner Floyd would be back and the sooner he could spy on his clothing and ensure there were no splatters of blood. He could grasp Floyd's hands and kiss his knuckles whilst looking carefully for broken skin, or something nasty behind fingernails. He could breathe in Floyd's scent again and even if he did see those things, he knew he would say nothing. He would shake off that sickening feeling which might be fear, hate, exhilaration. He would ignore it. Spencer was very good at doing that. He could ignore warning signs. He could ignore the best guidance. He could ignore the blood splatters and the grazed knuckles. Spencer had become an expert at that.

The small electric clock on the shelf showed him that it was four in the morning. Spencer hadn't realised that he had fallen asleep, but he must have done. The side light was still on. The door shut. The room silent apart from his own shuddering breaths. Something had awoken him and he had no idea what that was. Maybe a night creature had called out. Perhaps Floyd was home and sitting alone bloody and pale. Spencer pushed back the bed covers and pulling on a housecoat, padded to the door, listening at it, placing his fingertips on the door handle but not yet twisting the large brass ball of a knob. There was no peculiar vibrations. There was no sensation of heat. The metal felt cool in his hand. The house was empty, apart from himself. Floyd was not yet back. He peered out of the window at the front of the house. The car was still there, alone. The bike not back its place. Floyd not returned. It was maybe not too late to leave, by foot, in the middle of the night…

A laugh left Spencer, making himself jump slightly and flinch from the sound. He'd not meant to do that.

'This isn't funny.' He bit down on his bottom lip and wandered to the kitchen, flicking on the lights as he went. Coffee was needed to calm him and get rid of yet another headache, or maybe it was still the same one which kept drifting away and then smacking him again between the eyes, just as a reminder that things were not as they were meant to be.

Floyd didn't turn up when the birds began to sing their morning song. He wasn't there when Spencer made some eggs for breakfast, throwing them away afterwards out of fear he'd throw up. Floyd didn't come home when the sun was at the highest or when it started to go down again in the evening. Floyd wasn't there to see Spencer checking coat pockets for keys to that car with the blacked out windows. Nor was he there when Spencer finally found the spare set in stuck at the back of the drawer in the kitchen which was full of very sharp knives. Spencer went out of the house at that point, still in his housecoat, but with a pair of old shoes on his feet and crunched along the driveway to see if they were the right keys and if they were, that the car still worked.

It was a sigh of delight when the engine turned over and made that smooth purring sound it tended to make when it thought it was going out for a long drive. Not today, tonight, it was night-time now… not now. Spencer put those keys under a large stone which was under the second wooden step up to the wraparound porch. He pressed it down into the cold earth and hoped that it wouldn't ruin it. He was sure it wouldn't. It was just in case, you know? Just in case he had to get away quickly. Just in case Floyd came home with a blond child's head in a bag tied to his belt with a W engraved on the buckle. Just in case he had to run.

The spare key was still there a week later, but by now it had been carefully wrapped in a piece of plastic from a bag used to put things in freezer. Left over bits which would never get eaten. Bits of this and bits of that which looked dodgy when they had first been cooked and now looked like bits of frozen brain and slices of suspect other stuff which Spencer didn't much want to think about and certainly wouldn't be eating – not through choice.

The spare key was still there a month later. It had moved slightly from the original position because Spencer had removed it and tried the car out again, and again, and again. Slight panic at first, then a whole bucket load of panic shifting through his body and brain, making his eyes water and his nose feel stuffed up.

He sat there on that second step knowing that the key was just a few inches away from him, smoking a cheroot and feeling his head spin and his heart hammer. A whole month. Too long. Something had gone wrong. Yet no one had come to the door and rattled the knocker or smashed in the locks to come looking for him. He'd seen no flashing blue and red lights and he'd heard no sirens. No one was coming looking for Spencer because his worth was zero.

Even the signs which had been there once which showed him that he meant something, proved to him that Floyd had been here and it wasn't his own insanity which had imagined it, even they were gone. The bruises faded to nothing. The bites just tiny marks which looked more like scratches and maybe they had always been just that… he'd had an 'episode' and had lost his mind. Thought it all up in his head.

'Tomorrow.' He told himself. For now he wasn't quite sure what that meant. It could have been that it was tomorrow that Floyd would return and allow him to regain his lost sanity or it might have meant that tomorrow he would finally start that car engine and actually drive away. For now, though, he just sat and smoked and thought and the longer he did that for the more the world spun around his head and the more he convinced himself that he was mad, mad, mad.

'Tomorrow.' He sighed.