"I've only just got rid of your girlfriend, Brady."
Brendan's jaw locks. He struggles not to bare his teeth at the officer.
"He's not a girl." He knows he shouldn't give him ammunition, but Jesus, if the man could see what they do together - what they've just done - then he'd never call Steven his girlfriend again.
"Tomato, tomato." The man crosses his arms, has never been scared of Brendan. It's a mistake. Anyone feeling invincible in this place is.
"Just let me see him. I won't be long." He's outside the interrogation room, can't see Walker yet but he knows he's in there. It had taken a lot to peel himself away from Steven and come here, and he can't go back now.
"Your girlfriend seemed awfully disappointed when Walker told him he didn't love him."
Brendan knows how the officer wants him to react. He smiles through his little speech, hoping that he doesn't let his discomfort show. He believes in Steven, believes in what they have. It's going to take more than this to break them.
"You're either gonna let me inside that room, or I'm going to call Tony and he'll do it for me."
The officer's not so confident now. Tony's fondness for Ste isn't a secret, and Brendan's prepared to use it if he has to.
The door's opened, the officer ushering Brendan inside in irritation, brushing against him forcefully as he walks over to the corner of the room, standing guard.
Walker looks up in surprise when he sees Brendan enter. He doesn't seem to know what to do: he settles for a nod of acknowledgment, looking at the chair opposite him, silently inviting Brendan to join him. Brendan walks towards him slowly, feels like he's on unfamiliar territory, approaching a caged animal. The sound of his chair scraping back is the only noise.
They face each other, and Brendan waits; had expected Walker to mock him about Steven, to tell him all about their little discussion. When he makes no attempt to talk, he begins, trying to remain casual as his voice fights to betray him.
"Have they told you where you're going?"
Walker shakes his head. "They're going to do an assessment first. My lawyer wants to tell the court I'm crazy, get me sent to one of the psych wards."
Brendan snorts. "You ain't crazy, Simon."
"I know. That's what I told him, but you know lawyers."
Brendan thinks back to his own disastrous meetings with Browning. Yeah. He knows lawyers.
"Either way, I'm screwed." He gives a smile which is chilling in its lack of concern.
"And you're fine about this, are you?"
"Brendan. I'm not willing to do this again, okay? I've already been through the motions with Ste. Just let me spend these last few moments in peace."
It sounds like he's dying.
"Sorry, but no. Actually, I take it back - I'm not sorry. I'm not sorry for coming here and expecting to hear the truth. Not after all you've put everyone through. Steven's not a bastard, see. He's a good person. He was never going to sit here and demand the truth from you, not leaving until he got it. Me and you - we're different, aren't we? We don't play nice."
Walker looks towards the ceiling, calm demeanor unravalling. He looks like he's realising that he's walked into a trap, and he can't simply escape like he did in the past. Even in prison there's places you can go, still some form of refuge. But here, in this room, there's nothing.
"I've got nothing to tell you."
"Why did you kill them?" That's a good a start as any, and he's not here to be polite or bide time. "Steven says you don't love him - then what? What else is there?"
Walker shrugs. "Use your imagination. Create your own story. And please, make it something interesting. I have a reputation to protect, you know. I don't want it to be a boring murder."
Brendan wants to bang his head on the table. Bang both their heads. It's been like this from the start, everything in riddles, everything guesswork.
"Did you fuck him?"
Brendan can feel himself blushing, and he never blushes.
"What?" He's disarmed by the abrupt change in subject, and it causes his detachment to slip.
"Ste. Did you two just sleep together? You've got that rosy glow about you." A smile spreads across his face. "I'd know what it looks like, remember?"
He pointedly ignores him, doesn't want to give him a single detail that he can use during all those lonely nights spent in a high security prison.
"How did you do it?" He says, thinks that Walker will at least tell him this, that it's one of the easier questions. "You don't have a bruise on you. People have wanted to kill Warren and Silas for years, and you do just like that. I'm not buying it."
"It's really not that hard." There's no arrogance behind his words. He looks like he's telling a story, one that belongs to someone else. "It's the element of surprise. I stole one of the knives from the kitchen. Before anyone could find out who'd taken it, I'd stabbed them. Just gone into their cells before they even had a chance to scream. Then I cleaned myself off, and waited for the police to get a clue."
Brendan feels sick. He didn't know he was capable of feeling like that, didn't think that anything could shock him, or repulse him. He wanted this. Wanted to do to those men exactly what Walker did. But now that he's hearing about it -
It's brutal. Violent. Psychotic.
"I don't understand." He doesn't understand any of this, is what he wants to say. "You wanted to get caught?"
"I wasn't going to let you take the fall for it." Walker looks away like he's said too much, and Brendan sees a way in: is sure that he can make him talk, if he pushes certain buttons.
"Thought you'd love that. Me on trial all over again, having Steven free for yourself."
"I told you. I'm not in love with him."
"But you'd fuck him, wouldn't you?" It's self punishing, what he's doing. He thought he'd finally managed to draw a line under Steven and Walker, had convinced himself to stop torturing himself with thoughts of them together. He's allowing it to get to the surface again, to take over.
"Brendan, I fucked you. I'm not that fussy."
It earns him a scowl and a five minute period of silence.
"Why?" He needs to know. He understands Steven's insistence upon learning the truth now. There's always been something secretive about Walker, a part of him that's always stayed hidden. Everything is superficial - the long hair, the curve of his full lips, the darlings and the sweethearts and the flirtation, but Brendan realises for the first time that he's never really known him.
"We're probably never going to see each other again. I'm not going to tell anyone a damn thing. Simon, you killed for this - for whatever this is. You must have thought it was worth it, but you can't even tell me? What's the point?"
Walker looks at his hands, avoiding his gaze, and Brendan can see he's wearing him down. He doesn't press it; patience isn't something he's ever been good at, but he knows it has its rewards.
"That day that I found you and Ste in the library..." He's whispering, and Brendan senses the importance of what he's saying, knows that he doesn't want the officer and his straining ears to hear. Brendan leans forward in his chair, listening intently. "It was the worst day I've had in here."
"Because of Steven?"
"Because of...what nearly happened. What did happen. Have you ever seen rape on television, Brendan?"
Brendan frowns, confused by the direction of the conversation.
"What do you mean?"
"In fiction. Have you ever seen it?"
"Once or twice I guess." He'd always changed the channel if there had been even a hint of it. He'd been scared of his reaction, of Eileen guessing. Of what she might think of him. Of what she might tell the boys, and Cheryl.
"It's always over so soon, isn't it? You see someone struggling for a few weeks, maybe scrubbing at themselves in the shower a bit, crying a few times. Hiding away from the world. Then it's gone. They get back to life. They recover."
They recover. Brendan hadn't felt like he'd recovered anything, didn't even come close to feeling like that until he met Steven.
"It's shit, isn't it? It's shit."
Brendan nods, his mouth dry.
"You don't ever forget. If you smile then it feels like a lie. You feel like you'll never laugh again."
Brendan looks at him sharply. Walker's eyes are wet, his lashes dark, his gaze still not meeting Brendan's. He looks like he's thinking of something: a far off memory, perhaps.
"It's you, isn't it?" Brendan coughs, clearing his lodged throat, his voice low. They're speaking so softly, so privately, that it's a wonder that they can hear each other at all.
"What?"
"You were raped. That's why you did it." It's like a dawning realisation, like things clicking into place. "That's why you killed them."
Walker looks at him. He looks thin in the artificial light, the veins on his neck pronounced. He gets like this when he's anxious; he doesn't eat, and he looks almost childlike in his fragility.
"If you could swap places with Ste, would you?"
Brendan's disarmed by the question, unable to reply. His mind's still churning, still piecing together everything - these last few years, and how they've lead to here. Walker's like him. He's been through what Brendan's been through.
"If you could give him your father, and your childhood - your childhood could have been different. Would you do it?"
"Fucking hell," he breathes, feels disgusted by the idea of it, goosebumps forming along his neck and arms. Steven and Seamus.
"Imagine what your life could have been like. You might not even be in here. You might have been able to fall in love, without the manipulation, without the violence. Think of what you could have had."
Brendan shakes his head, bile rising in his throat. "No. Not Steven."
"Why not?" Walker's asking it like he already knows.
"I could never...I'd rather it was me than him."
"Because you love him."
"Yes."
"Because when you love someone, it hurts more to see them in pain."
"Yes." The images swimming in his peripheral vision are suffocating. He's heard about Steven's step dad, knows the vile things he was capable of, but Seamus -
The thought of anyone like Seamus going near Steven -
The thought of what Warren did -
"I'd rather it was me. I wouldn't change it."
Walker rests back in his seat, and there's a kind of sad acceptance there.
"I'd do anything to have been the one who was raped."
Brendan feels like the breath has been knocked out of him.
"What?" He can barely form the words; is torn between hitting Walker and demanding explanations.
"My brother. Cam." He says his name in the same way that some people talk about God. Brendan knows that it's the same way he talks about Steven.
The pieces are fitting together rapidly now. Brendan's head feels full of them, like his mind's on fire.
"I loved him more than anything in this world." And Brendan can feel it, can feel the love rippling off him in waves. "I wish it had been me, Brendan. I wish it had been me."
Cameron was several years younger than Walker. They were the antithesis of each other; Walker was always quietly confident, an extrovert when he needed to be. He didn't have many friends at school, but people respected him, born out of a sense of fear. There was something different about him, they said. Something wild, and rough around the edges. Whether this was dramatised for the police reports or whether this was the truth remains to be seen, but he always felt different. Like he should of been born in another time.
Girls flocked to him - boys too, when Walker made his interests known. He adopted the nickname early on. Simon was too ordinary, too dull for his tastes - Simon says, and Walker was what the girls shouted out when he went down on them, and it was what the boys moaned when he gave them head and sucked their balls in his mouth. Threesomes were his specialty: at eighteen he let a man fuck him while he took a girl's nipples into his mouth, circling his tongue around their fleshy softness, and he developed a hunger for both sexes that would never leave him. People excited him: the silky smoothness of a girl's hair after she'd got out of the shower. The wetness beneath her legs. The curve of her mouth when it secured around his dick. The muscles of a man's arms as they pushed him towards the bedroom. The sight of a dick getting harder in his grasp before it entered him.
It's where he escaped, and where he expected everywhere else to. The problem was, his brother had other ways of escaping.
It began slowly. There was nothing to worry about, not then. Cam smoked pot, but everyone did. Walker would share it with him sometimes, and they'd sit under a tree in the park, killing time until they'd have to be home before their parents would start to worry. They both heard stories, how it messed with peoples heads; Cam even knew someone who'd had a stint in a unit, drug related psychosis they called it, and they were spooked enough to stop. It was over. They stuck to nicotine, and somehow the threat of cancer seemed less frightening than the idea of ending up like their old friend Martin, punching walls and talking to himself.
Walker knew that Cam thought he wasn't the same as him. Once or twice he heard Cam ask their parents, are you sure I'm not adopted? He was far more mild mannered than the rest of them, and he'd never been one to join in on the arguments or the drinking that took place. When Walker's father would offer his son booze, when he'd hold him by the scruff of his neck and threaten him when his mother found out, Cam would watch from the sidelines, mystified by the display. He could never understand why Walker would want to get involved in it all.
Walker knew people whispered about his brother. The other boys at school, and the girls too: he wasn't one to be caught with his pants down his ankles behind the bike sheds like Walker was. He never had a girlfriend, could never even talk to girls. He went through life with his head down, eyes to the pavement. He looked like he thought he was shit, so people treated him like shit. When Walker wasn't there to protect him, the true extent of the name calling and bullying would spiral.
Walker was twenty when it started. He and his friend had visited the University halls of a guy they had known from school. One of the men there had caught his eye: brown hair, slightly shaven at the sides. Slim, so slim that you could almost wrap a hand all the way round his waist. Blue eyes that looked like the depths of the ocean. He didn't have a type - not in the way that some people do - but he noticed that he'd been going for these boys lately. Twinks, he'd learnt they were called.
His friends immediately cottoned on to what he wanted to do. One smirked fondly, used to his ways, and the other rolled his eyes, tired of them. They made their excuses and left. They weren't comfortable enough with the idea of listening to two men fuck, and Walker was grateful. It gave him a chance to be alone with the boy. He'd sensed his interest from the moment he'd walked through the door.
He was a good fuck. Experienced and willing to please, and his dick slid down Walker's throat like a dream. Walker bottomed; he alternated positions, having a penchant for both, and the guy entered him with nothing more than some spit and a lubricated condom to ease him. It was rough and there were times when it hurt, but he liked that. He liked the burn.
They were getting dressed afterwards. A sort of discomfort settled over them. Neither quite knew what to say. It had been easier when they'd been fucking.
"What did you say your surname was again?"
He was surprised by the question, wondered if the boy wanted to ask around about him.
"Walker."
"I thought that was your first name?"
"Simon's my first name. I go by Walker." Only his parents ever called him Simon.
"Oh. Right." The boy frowned like it was unusual. "It's just I think I know your brother - Cameron, is it?"
Walker's attention was trained on him now. It was always like that with mentions of his brother. Everything came to life. He could talk about Cam all day. He was the only damn good thing he had in his life.
"Yeah. Cam. That's him."
"I know him from school. He was in my year."
Walker stared at the boy carefully, trying to remember if he had met him before, but he couldn't recall anything. No one from Cam's year had ever come round the house.
"I'll say hello if you like."
"Sure."
There was silence again. Walker couldn't figure it out - he thought that the mention of Cam ought to make things better, should give them something to talk about. But it seemed like the atmosphere had shifted, had become even more tense.
Walker turned towards him, feeling like the boy had something else to say.
"Did you two get along?"
The boy shifted uneasily, fully clothed now. He had looked better when he was naked.
"Not really." He trailed off into nothingness.
"Why not?" Walker was asking more intensely than was appropriate, but he didn't care.
The boy shrugged. "Don't know. We don't all get on, do we?"
He couldn't let it drop, felt like there was something missing.
"Was he not good enough for you? Was that it?" He was towering above the boy, his voice growing nasty, intimidating. He was scaring him; the boy looked towards the door, as though suddenly realising that he'd just gone to bed with a man he didn't know, and there was no one else inside the flat.
"No, course not. We just didn't...click."
Walker wondered if he was one of the boy's who had made his brother's life hell. Who had teased and tormented him. Cam had managed to get into University - he'd always had the grades - but he was sick everyday before he left the house, bleaching the toilet until the smell would no longer linger. It was all because of them.
"Why? He's amazing." He said it like a child might, full of awe and wonderment. It had begun since the day Cam was born, when Walker had held him. Here was this person, this innocent person without faults or judgement. This person wasn't going to be like his mother and father: he was going to be good. Untainted.
The boy made a fatal mistake. A fatal mistake that would change everything.
"He's just a bit weird, isn't he?" He regretted it instantly, holding his hands before his face in defense when Walker advanced, fury lining his features. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, alright?"
"Not good enough." He strongly considered punching him, of leaving him there to rot. But there were three things wrong with that scenario. Firstly, there was something extremely twisted about the idea of fucking someone and then beating them senseless. It didn't sit right with him. Secondly, his friends would come back eventually, and they'd find out everything. And the thing that was pressing down upon his mind the most: what Cam would think if he found out. If he knew what he was capable of.
He listened as the boy continued rambling, pleading for forgiveness and a way of making it up to him. Walker's eyes lit up.
"You mentioned something about a party earlier, right?" He'd heard him saying something in the moment before they kissed for the first time.
The boy stuttered, eventually getting out the details. Walker must have really spooked him.
"Great." He flashed a smile, showing his teeth. "Me and my brother will be there."
"He invited me? Are you sure?" Cam was understandably dubious; his past experiences didn't connect to this unexpected invitation.
"Yeah. Everyone wants you there." Walker combed through his hair in the mirror, staring at his own reflection, at how easily he was able to lie. He would ordinarily feel bad. He never lied to Cam, would never want to, but this was for his benefit. If it would make him feel good, and mean that he could meet people, then the lie wouldn't be nothing.
"It just sounds a bit weird, that's all."
Walker's expression turned hard in the mirror. He's just a bit weird, isn't he?
"There's nothing weird about you being there." He faced his brother, hands on his shoulders. This wasn't right. Cam had always been the one to give him strength, and yet people saw him as something strange, weak. "You deserve to be there." What he didn't tell him was Cam deserved so much more. Deserved more than the forced conversation and the parties and being in the same room with people who had only ever looked down on him.
When Cam only grew more nervous, he assured him that he'd be there the entire time. He wouldn't leave his side if necessary.
"You don't have to be stuck with me all night."
Walker shook his head. Cam had never understood, still didn't understand what he'd done for him.
"I want to be."
As they made their way out of the door, he added emphatically, "And it's not being stuck."
Date rape, they called it. Walker had never thought much about the term - you didn't, did you? You didn't try and think about things like that, the dark things that no one ever talked about until you had to, until something so bad happened that you were forced to look it in the eye.
It was only after that day that he began to despise the words. Date made it sound playful, less serious than it was. Like it was something almost romantic, taking away the brutality of the act. When shock had set in and he could barely function, he'd lie awake in the middle of the night, talking to himself when there was no one else he could go to. Why is it called that? Why do they not show it for what it really is?
He pieced together the story slowly. Some of the guys at the party - guys he'd never met, who he didn't even know - had thought it would be funny to bring some rohypnol and slip some into girls drinks. They hadn't got far when they met Cam. They watched his movements and instinctively knew that he wasn't at ease at the party, but they thought no more of it. He was an outsider, but he wasn't bothering them.
It wasn't until the boy that Walker had fucked earlier, Charlie, had talked to them about Cam and his psycho brother's threat that they took an interest. What began as a joke escalated, and soon they were talking about revenge and pay back, bandying about terms that they barely even understood. It felt like child's play, something without consequences. When one of the guys suggested putting rohypnol into Cam's drink, Charlie laughed it off. Don't be stupid. When another of the guy's said that he'd fuck him up the arse, the ultimate revenge, Charlie's laughter grew louder. Yeah, sure. You do that. Sure.
He walked away. He got off with another guy that night, spent most of the party in his bedroom. He thought the conversation had disappeared from his mind, irrelevant, but even as he began to doze beside the guy afterwards, he thought of it again. Something about it unsettled him. He called himself crazy, knew that he was worrying over nothing. No one would do that: not someone he knew. They wouldn't drug and rape a stranger just because of something he'd said. His friends weren't like that. They wouldn't.
When Charlie later found out what happened, he never stopped blaming himself. He got married, got a job in the city, had kids, but he never forgot. He finally understood what it was like to be haunted by something. The most terrifying thing was not knowing. Not knowing that the people he had drinks with every Friday down the pub were capable of it. They were casual friends, not the kind of people who he'd confide in, but he thought they were decent. Reliable. A laugh. He began to look around at the people in his life, wondering who was next. Who would show their depravity to him.
One of the things he regretted the most was the blame that he assigned to Walker. Where were you? Why were you not with your brother? Why did you let him out of your sight? There was a temporary relief to accusing him of neglect, but it did nothing to numb his guilt in the long term.
Walker had answers, thought he did, but when they stumbled out of his lips they sounded like lies. Excuses.
I thought he was having a good time. He'd watched as Cam had gotten steadily more drunk, but there had been a lightness about it. He wasn't depressed or scared anymore, or out of control with it. He'd been laughing, talking to people who he'd have been too anxious to approach. He was belonging.
Walker was true to his word, staying by his side. It was Cam who'd asked him to leave.
"Go and talk to people." He'd been smiling, trying to reassure him.
"No." Walker sipped at his drink. "I'm fine where I am."
Cam rolled his eyes. It was so playful that Walker wanted to laugh. He hadn't seen his brother like this in a long time.
"Come on. I know you. There must be someone who's caught your eye."
Walker wasn't even aware of when Cam had found out about his sexuality, and the things he'd done. He never told him, but he'd instinctively seemed to know. They'd never had that conversation - that coming out conversation, full of dramatics and tears and please don't tell mum and dad. Cam had been calm. "I don't care who you sleep with. Men, women - it doesn't really bother me. Want to have pizza?" They'd ordered take out and never spoken about it again.
Walker broke into a grin, looking around the room. "A few," he admitted. He had to hand it to his friends. They had good taste.
"Go on. Mingle, or whatever it is they say."
"You sure?"
"Yes. I'm having a good time."
He wouldn't have left him if he'd seen anything but certainty there. Cam was surrounded by people, one a mousy blond who looked just his type, and Walker could see it: he really was enjoying himself.
He left him for more than an hour. Had a few drinks, caught up with some friends, got a girl's number. When he came back, his brother was unconscious on a bed, his lower half naked, a small blood stain on the sheets.
It took hours for the drug to leave his system. He was slumped on the pillow, and Walker cradled him in his arms while he called for an ambulance. He didn't understand what had happened, not entirely, but instinctively he knew. He knew.
Cam didn't remember anything. The last thing he could recall was dancing with some girls - you sure? You don't dance was Walker's attempt to make a joke, to restore some sense of normality. Cam's gaze was blank. He didn't say anything, just continued telling the police that he'd had a few drinks, and then everything after was a blur. He couldn't think of who'd want to do this to him.
The police wanted to send him to a unit to do an examination. The word sent a chill through Cam, and he begged and pleaded with Walker to get him out of there, grabbing him by his shirt collar, tears streaming down his face. Walker had never denied his brother anything, took all his strength to refuse to drive him home. He wanted to catch the bastards who did this, and the only way was to get their DNA. Cam hadn't washed, and they still had a good chance. There might be particles of semen on his clothes, invisible to the human eye, but something that would show up in a lab.
Cam called it intrusive. Told Walker that he just wanted to forget it had ever happened. He couldn't bear the humiliation of someone prodding and poking at him. He'd never even slept with a woman, and he'd have one inspecting his body, destroying his dignity.
"It's their job," Walker tried to explain. He understood - fuck, he understood, but he'd want to catch them. If it was him, he'd want to gather all the evidence and make sure the bastard rotted in a jail cell for the rest of his life.
"I don't care." And he didn't. It looked like he was giving up.
He ran from the hospital before Walker could stop him. He couldn't restrain Cam, couldn't touch him after what he'd been through. He was terrified that Cam would get flashbacks, would remember being pinned down.
It was too late when Walker got home. Their parents were out, and Cam had already showered, getting rid of every trace. He'd burnt his clothes in the back garden, ignoring the stares of their neighbours when they watched him lighting up a trash can and crying as the flames rose. They told journalists later that thought he'd killed someone and wanted to dispose of his blood stained clothes. Always a weird one, that Walker boy.
Walker wept with him. He wept for everything that was being destroyed, for the trial that would never happen, for the sentencing that he'd never see.
"Do you know how many rape cases get happy endings? None. I've looked."
"What, by typing something into a search engine? You're not everyone, Cam." He'd have made sure of it. He'd have done everything to get a guilty verdict. Would have moved heaven and earth to make it happen.
Cam turned away. They were sitting on the sofa, television flickering in the background. Neither of them were watching it. Their parents were in their bedroom arguing. They hadn't noticed a damn thing about their son's behaviour, about how he had isolated himself even more in recent weeks. Walker wondered what their reaction would be if they knew. Something told him that they'd immediately blame Cam, think that he'd done something to cause the incident, as he knew they'd call it. Not the rape. Not the attack. Not the violation. The incident.
"I can't do it." Cam looked towards the screen, eyes unfocused. "I can't be dragged through the mud like that. Whoever did it, they're going to get a defense. Someone's going to dig up all my history, aren't they? Tell the jury that I'm a liar. That I've always been weird, that I make up stories to get my kicks."
Walker sat in silence. He didn't argue back because a part of him knew it was true. That was exactly what people would think. Without evidence, they had nothing.
"Why do you want to be a policeman?"
People asked him that a lot. Walker gave the generic reply.
"I want to help people." His audience would nod and smile as though they immediately trusted him. He was a police officer, so he had to be a good person, right?
It was okay to say that catching the bad guys gave him a buzz. It wasn't okay to say that he wanted to kill them, that he would if he could get away with it. His colleagues would talk about him, would speculate between themselves. There was a darkness about him, an edge, that left them guessing about his past. They noticed that certain cases would interest him more than others. Rape and drug offenses were what drove him, what got him out of bed in the morning and kept him coming back. He did everything in his power to do his job correctly. With Walker working for them, they never missed a shred of evidence. His communication with other departments was faultless. He took interest in cases even after they were out of his control. He liked knowing how it all ended; what the verdict was.
He met Shawnee in his third year on the job. She was his superior, and he was attracted to her immediately. There was a toughness about her, a shrewdness that was different to all the other doe eyed girls that had come his way, getting their tits out for his attention, flaunting their bodies in short skirts. She never did that. She was more likely to be covered in mud with torn trousers after a chase than immaculately dressed with her make up still visible. She was hard on him, and never gave any details away about her private life, but that's how he liked it. She reminded Walker of himself.
As things fell apart - as Cam holed himself up in his room and received visits from drug dealers with a talent of making him forget - Walker learnt what it was like to lean on someone. To ask for help. He requested time off with Shawnee, told her a half truth, that he had family problems, and she gave him paid leave without asking all the questions that he'd been dreading. He'd come home to find Cam crashed out on his bed, track marks down his arms, and he'd do what he could: run him a shower, try and get him to eat something, maybe see a bit of sunlight.
"Things will get better." It was a hollow statement. It had been years, and things had never changed. Walker had tried to find out what had happened that night countless times - namely, who the rapist or rapists were - but no one at the party was talking. As tempting as it was to kill all of them, he couldn't. All he could do was wait for the day when new information would come in.
Cam looked at him. His eyes were glassy, his expression vacant. The only bit of feeling that showed through was that he knew Walker's words had no real promise behind them. Sometimes things just don't get better.
"Just get out."
"But -"
"Get out." Cam wasn't even shouting, wasn't even raising his voice.
Walker left the room, leaning his back against the door and closing his eyes. No one cared about what was going on in there. No one but him, and he was useless. He wasn't doing anything.
He took out his phone.
"It's me. Can I come over?"
He spent the night with Shawnee, and he felt like he was falling in love. The one person he wanted to tell - the only person, was too far for him to reach.
They didn't tell anyone, knew that there would be a disciplinary meeting if they did. Shawnee was meant to teach him, not fuck him. Countless times she tried to break it off. Her professionalism would kick in, and she'd end it for a week, perhaps two at the most. All it would take was a look between them, or an afternoon spent in the same car, and they'd be kissing, hands all over each other, Walker's words in her ear, I've missed you. He'd never met anyone like her, someone who he wanted to be with exclusively. He never told her that he was bisexual, didn't see the need. He knew what people thought: that if you liked to fuck both men and women then you were greedy, promiscuous. A cheat. He didn't want Shawnee to ever entertain those thoughts. He wasn't going to cheat on her. Not for anyone.
Being with her meant that he had a concrete reason to stay away from home. His parents expressed disbelief that he was settling down, had found something steady. They believed him incapable of getting anything right, and thought it was only a matter of time before he screwed up his career. He excused himself from half hearted attempts at family dinners, choosing to be with Shawnee instead. It didn't matter that they were often holed up at her flat, afraid of being spotted by their colleagues outside.
"What are they like? Your parents?" She'd asked him it one night, and he'd taken her face in his hands, running his fingers through her hair.
"You don't need to worry about that." He thought he knew what she was really asking. She wanted to know what was wrong with her. Why she hadn't been invited to meet them yet. "They're not worth it. They're not...I don't get on with them."
"Why not?" Something about Walker's voice told her that this wasn't simply a case of a teenager squabbling with their parents. Walker wasn't even a teenager more.
"We just never have." It was the only explanation he had to offer. Saying they don't care about me. They don't care if I live or die didn't seem possible; it was too serious of a thing to say to a girlfriend. Shawnee was meant to be a refuge from all of that.
"Move in with me if you want. Get away from them for good."
The lightness of her tone made him think that she was joking, but she broached the subject more and more. He'd be miserable on the job everyday, witnessing Cam shooting up on heroin and his parents completely aware and uncaring. It fucked with his head.
"Move in with me." She made it clear that she was serious this time. He reminded her of the practicalities - what if someone discovered that they were living together? They'd instantly know that there was something going on. She was nonplussed: they'd deal with that if the time came. He wasn't underage. They weren't teacher and student. They were crossing boundaries, but it was nothing that hadn't happened before. Work place relationships weren't uncommon.
Walker wanted to. He wanted to leave home more than anything. But there was one thing stopping him.
He knocked on Cam's door one day. It was becoming a rarity for him to be inside, and that worried Walker more than when he used to never leave the house. At least he'd known where he'd been then, and had been able to keep an eye on him. He had his suspicions, knew that in all likelihood his brother was out using, was scoring more drugs.
His room looked empty when Walker stepped into it. He was selling things, selling them to pay his dealers. Walker wondered what he'd do when he ran out of things to give away. He suddenly had the intrusive thought of Cam selling himself, and the memory of the night of the party burned vividly in his mind. All of this - all of this devastation that had wrecked their lives in the last few years - it had all been a result of that night, and Walker's own choices.
"Alright?" He put on the light; it was too dark to see more than the outline of Cam. He blinked up at Walker, eyes adjusting.
"Hi. How's Shawnee?"
"Good." He hated that they hadn't met. Under normal circumstances he would have been the first person he'd introduce Shawnee to. He was sure that they'd get on. Sure that the old Cam would get on with her.
He approached the bed, felt wary and he hated that. He'd never felt wary of his own brother before. Cam stared back apprehensively, as though he knew what was about to come. Maybe he did.
"It's time to go to the police."
Cam understood without him having to elaborate. He was angry, furious, but his eyes were wide with fear.
"No. No way. Never."
It was the response that Walker had been expecting. He tried to stay calm, to stay seated. This was never going to be easy. They would have done it years ago if it was.
"I don't care if we don't have evidence." He did care - he cared a hell of a lot. He would never stop regretting his decision to let Cam run from the hospital. He wished he had held him down, forced him to stay, even it distressed him. They should of done that examination. If they'd got swabs, if they'd got DNA -
Everything could have been different. Cam could have got help.
"It's too late."
"It's not. Would you tell a woman that? If she'd been raped, would you tell her she was too late?"
Cam ignored him. He'd never seen it as the same thing. From the start he thought that the police wouldn't believe him, that they'd laugh at him for what had happened. A man doesn't get raped. Cam was one of the smartest people Walker knew, but in this he seemed to lose all rationality, controlled by the fear that no one would listen.
Walker would make people listen.
"I know people, remember? I work with some good guys - I know which people to go to." He'd get the best. He knew he'd have to keep out of it; he wouldn't be allowed to be involved in the case. But no one knew about him and Shawnee, and she'd want to do everything in her power to help his brother. "Please."
"Why?" Cam stood up, and it was only then that Walker realised how thin he'd become. There was nothing of him. "To make you feel better? Because I don't want to do this."
He wasn't entirely wrong. Walker was doing this for himself. He couldn't stand to see Cam suffer anymore, couldn't stick around and watch him kill himself. Smoking when they had been younger had been something recreational, something that most of their friends had grown out of. This was beyond Walker's capacity to understand.
"Is it to relieve your guilt, eh?"
Walker was silent, waiting. Waiting for Cam to twist the knife in, to say what Walker had tormented himself with for years.
"I never even would have gone to that stupid party if it wasn't for you." He ought to be crying when he was saying this, Walker thought. There ought to be more emotion than this. This attack had been building up between them for a long time, but Cam still looked dead to it all.
"I'm sorry." They were just words. He knew there was nothing he could do, nothing that would explain that he'd replayed that night constantly in his head, picturing all the things he'd do differently. If he'd just stayed -
"Doesn't matter. It's over." Cam sunk back onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling.
That was the worst thing. There was no big argument, no scene. There was nothing resolved. If they'd fought then perhaps they would have felt better afterwards, like they'd left a weight behind. But there was just a bitter kind of acceptance from Cam that things could never be altered, and Walker trailed from the room feeling like a defeated man.
Walker often wondered if he'd have felt better if they'd parted on good terms. He imagined that he'd be able to feel some kind of peace at knowing that Cam loved him, and that his brother was reassured by the depth of his feelings - that he hadn't been in doubt of how he'd been the only person growing up that had believed in him. But later, when the years in incarceration meant that all he could do was think, he recognised that it wouldn't have made a difference. There was a divide between them, and one pleasant conversation wouldn't have made up for the years of growing distance between them since the rape.
He learnt about Cam's death from a close friend on the force. He drove to the hospital, nearly colliding with vehicles before he eventually reached his brother's bedside. His parents were already there. They hadn't thought of contacting him.
He was already dead. An overdose. Ecstasy. Walker had always imagined heroin getting him when he allowed his thoughts to wander at all. He'd never thought that a dance drug would do it. You don't dance.
He wasn't even thirty.
Cam's skin was different. White and cold. It felt oddly waxy, like the face that Walker was touching wasn't human. He was granted a short amount of time alone with him, and he knew that he was expected to say goodbye. To be brave. He sat holding Cam, talking to him, and he apologised until the words lost their meaning. He'd failed him. He'd failed him.
Shawnee was at the hospital, waiting outside the room.
"What about people finding out?"
"Fuck it." She never had been prim and proper. She said things as they were. Her ams were the only thing holding him up.
"I need to find them." He spoke into her shoulder, aware that he was making her t-shirt wet with his tears. It was her favourite t-shirt. He remembered her telling him.
"Who?" She was rubbing his back in soothing circles, the kind of thing that a mother might do a child. His mother has never done that.
"Whoever gave him the drugs." His voice was twisted with hate, his eyes rimmed with red. The look he gave her scared her. She hadn't seen that before, not on him.
"Leave it to us. Stay out of it." She tried to be gentle but she knew she had to be firm too; he seemed so determined.
He brushed past her and opened the swing doors of the hospital, not turning back even when she called his name and warned him of the consequences, that he had too much to lose. Walker had only ever been kind to her, protective, but she suddenly felt certain that he would kill whoever did this to Cam.
"Walker, you have no way of knowing who's done this."
He was already gone. Shawnee took a breath and got her radio out from her pocket, altering the team to a situation.
"Why did you kill her?"
It was one of the first questions he was asked. He never tried to hide the fact that he had done it.
The newspaper headlines were all the same. There was nothing that painted him in a sympathetic light. No: Policeman seeks vengeance for brother's death, or anything similarly sensationalist but just.
He was a man who had stabbed a woman to death. That's all that anyone wanted to report.
The prosecution argued that it was premeditated. He came from a bad family, didn't he? Parents who were never there, a brother who had overdosed. He was called a bad seed, a term that he didn't even know people still used. The jury feared him.
"I didn't mean to do it." He never used the words kill her. "Things got out of hand."
They'd been arguing. Shawnee had been at his house, making a last ditch attempt to convince him to think about what he was doing. He'd grabbed a kitchen knife and a bag large enough to carry it. He didn't have a gun, didn't even know how to go about getting one. A knife was going to have to do. The problematic nature of his plan - how he would even find the people that he was looking for - barely registered. His skin was humming, a salty line of sweat trailing down his back. Adrenaline propelled him forward, kept him moving. Rage boiled like blood inside him, and he wanted to find everyone who had ever wronged Cam; not only the people who had given the drugs, but the men who started all of this. The men who had been at the party. He wanted to kill everyone.
There was an altercation. Shawnee loved him so much, too much, that she wouldn't let him leave. She hit him to make him stay, and the shock of it slowed him more than the pain. Her love was written all over her face, and it was more than he could take. He knew this would end them, that going out of that door would be more than she could withstand. She hadn't signed up for this.
The thought of her no longer loving him made his chest hurt.
She wrestled him to the floor. She was on top of him, trying to pull the knife away, and it was the first time he'd seen her cry. There had been other moments, of course; she cried at films like girls were prone to do, but this was the first time it had been real.
The first twist of the knife felt almost easy. It went into her like butter, and she didn't seem to register what had happened at first. She sat on the carpet, her gaze travelling to her chest, and she seemed to be trying to work out what he'd done.
Then the pain set in. It sounded like she was howling from it.
The public hated him. When he drove to prison the van was targeted, people banging on the windows, and he was sure they'd tear him to shreds if there was nothing separating them. Perhaps if he stabbed Shawnee once then the sentence would be different. Five times: that was why he was a monster.
He'd lost the only two people he'd ever loved.
Walker leans back in his chair, separating himself. It's for Brendan's benefit. He has that effect on people; when he tells them something that's not covered in lies, they don't want anything to do with him. They don't want to be near him.
Brendan looks like he's reeling. Desperately trying to process this.
"How's that for a goodbye?"