Cover art by Amber Shah.
Daniel Whitlock is terrified of going to sleep. And rightly so: he sleepwalks, with no awareness or memory of his actions. Including burning down Kenny Cooper’s house—with Kenny inside it—after Kenny brutally beat him for being gay. Back in the tiny town of Logan after serving his prison sentence, Daniel isolates himself in a cabin in the woods and chains himself to his bed at night.
Like the rest of Logan, local cop Joe Belman doesn’t believe Daniel’s absurd defense. But when Bel saves Daniel from a retaliatory fire, he discovers that Daniel might not be what everyone thinks: killer, liar, tweaker, freak. Bel agrees to control Daniel at night—for the sake of the other townsfolk. Daniel’s fascinating, but Bel’s not going there.
Yet as he’s drawn further into Daniel’s dark world, Bel finds that he likes being in charge. And submitting to Bel gives Daniel the only peace he’s ever known. But Daniel’s demons won’t leave him alone, and he’ll need Bel’s help to slay them once and for all—assuming Bel is willing to risk everything to stand by him.
Like the rest of Logan, local cop Joe Belman doesn’t believe Daniel’s absurd defense. But when Bel saves Daniel from a retaliatory fire, he discovers that Daniel might not be what everyone thinks: killer, liar, tweaker, freak. Bel agrees to control Daniel at night—for the sake of the other townsfolk. Daniel’s fascinating, but Bel’s not going there.
Yet as he’s drawn further into Daniel’s dark world, Bel finds that he likes being in charge. And submitting to Bel gives Daniel the only peace he’s ever known. But Daniel’s demons won’t leave him alone, and he’ll need Bel’s help to slay them once and for all—assuming Bel is willing to risk everything to stand by him.
The best gay romance I have ever read. Period.
- Christopher Rice, NYT bestselling author
- Christopher Rice, NYT bestselling author
An excerpt from When All the World Sleeps:
CHAPTER ONE
“Hey, Harnee’s kid,” Daniel Whitlock said, and the smile lit up his whole face.
Bel resisted the urge to plant his fist in it. “Officer Belman to you, Whitlock.” He took his flashlight from his belt and shone the beam in Whitlock’s eyes. The guy’s pupils had almost swallowed his hazel irises entirely. “What’d you take?”
Whitlock turned from Bel and shoved his hands in his pockets, pulling his jeans tight across his ass. “I’m going home. You coming with me?”
They were in the parking lot of Greenducks, a rundown bar wedged between a former beauty salon and a mortgage firm. You had to go down a flight of half-rotted wooden stairs, and then you were in a basement full of cocksuckers. And not the kind you saw in gay bars in movies. No tanned and toned bodies, no goddamn angel wings or leather shorts. These guys stank, and they smoked, and they’d do anything for drugs. Bel only went into Greenducks when he was desperate enough to pretend not to notice the exchanges that went on.
“I ain’t going nowhere with you,” Bel told Whitlock.
Fucker. Goddamn filthy tweaker head case.
Liar.
Murderer.
Everyone in Logan, South Carolina, knew who Daniel Whitlock was—what he was. But what made Bel doubly uncomfortable right now was that unlike most everyone in Logan, Bel had noticed Daniel Whitlock long before he’d been in the papers.
Before he got his badge, Bel had worked a night shift twice a week at Harnee’s Convenience Store, and Whitlock used to come in Thursdays around 1 or 2 a.m. to buy a Twix and a bottle of Mountain Dew. Always went through Bel’s line.
“That stuff’ll keep you up all night,” Bel had said once, nodding at the Mountain Dew. Whitlock hadn’t answered, and that was the first and last time Bel said anything to him beyond “Have a good night.” But he’d noted the strong, easy slope of Whitlock’s chest under his T-shirts. When it got colder, Whitlock had worn plaid flannel like all the other guys in Logan. But in the summer his T-shirts had been just a little too tight. Close-cropped hair the same linty brown as his faded sneakers. Beautifully defined features, almost too sharp.
“He don’t want to join us, Danny,” a voice said.
Bel hadn’t noticed Jake Kebbler standing behind Daniel in the shadow of the bar. If Bel’d had to pick any of the Greenducks crowd for looks alone—besides Whitlock—he’d have picked Jake. Unfortunately, every queer in Logan had already picked Jake, over and over again. “Looks like a gnat-bit curl of pork rind,” Matt Lister had said once about Jake’s dick.
Whitlock grinned. He pushed Jake against the side of the building. Kissed him. Risky—Greenducks gave queers a place to meet, but it sure as fuck didn’t fly the rainbow flag. You came to Greenducks because it was the closest to safe you were gonna get if you liked restroom blowjobs—not because you were welcome there. And once you were outside, well, you were in hetero territory.
Jake tipped his head back then slowly collapsed. It was oddly graceful, like a dancer’s swoon. Whitlock tried to catch him, failed, and lowered himself on top of Jake. Kissed him again, or maybe whispered something—Bel couldn’t tell. Then he got up and walked over to his car, leaving Jake on the ground.
Nice, Bel thought. Your date passes out, so you’re just gonna call it a night? Not that Jake seemed to care. Hell, he probably wouldn’t even remember what had happened when the sun woke him in the morning with a face full of asphalt. Jake didn’t have a brain cell left he wasn’t bent on destroying with meth. And was that . . . yeah, Bel could just about make out the glow of a burning cigarette in Jake’s hand. Stupid asshole.
Bel walked over to Jake. Wasn’t like he could leave a man to burn to death. Which made him the only one. Whitlock was still standing by his sedan, staring at nothing.
“You stay right there,” Bel called as he bent to check on Jake. Still breathing. Bel plucked the cigarette out from between Jake’s skinny fingers and crushed it under his boot. When he turned around, Whitlock had taken a step closer. “I told you to stay there.”
“Need something so bad.” Whitlock sighed. He slid his fingers into the waistband of his jeans, like he was going to tug them down right there in the parking lot. “You wanna fuck me, Harnee’s kid? Can use my car.”
Bel had been a cop for three years now, and he’d been propositioned more times than he could remember. It was never like those letters in skin mags though. Usually it was some toothless skank old enough to be his grandma, giggling drunken high school girls, or narrow-eyed truckers who would nod to the side of the road in silent invitation like Bel was dumb enough or desperate enough for that. Might as well just roll around in the filthy bathrooms at the truck stop on US 601, pick up his diseases that way and take out the middleman.
And now, Daniel Whitlock. Who might have been Dear readers, I never thought it would happen to me material back when he was in high school—Bel, still in middle school, had noticed him right about the same time as he’d noticed those weird tingly feelings that made his dick hard—but doing it with a fucking murderer was never going to happen. And Bel was pretty damn insulted that Whitlock even thought he had a chance.
“Get your ass home,” he said, curling his lip.
Whitlock reached for his car door.
“You ain’t driving tonight,” Bel told him. “Ain’t you killed enough folk in this town?”
It didn’t even register with Whitlock.
“You walk,” Bel said. “You give me your keys, and you walk.”
No argument. Whitlock dug around in the pocket of his jeans and held his keys out. “I’m going home now?”
“Yeah.” Bel took the keys and crossed his arms over his chest. “You’d better start walking.”
“Okay.”
Bel shook his head. Goddamn drug-fucked nutjob.
He watched as Whitlock turned and squinted down the street, wobbling like a compass needle before it fixed its position. Then, his hands still in his pockets, Whitlock started to walk. Bel leaned against his cruiser and looked down at Whitlock’s keys, thumbed through them and found a tarnished Saint Christopher medallion. Not so different from the one Bel’s mama had given him when he’d become a deputy.
Bel sighed. Figured he couldn’t let the guy get squashed like a possum on the side of the road. He didn’t get to pick and choose who he looked out for.
He got in his cruiser, turned the engine over, and flicked the headlights on. Set off down the street at a crawl, keeping well behind Whitlock as he stumbled toward home. Bel wondered what it would be like living out there in the woods. Cold as hell in winter, probably, and mosquitoes as big as chicken hawks in the summer. Perfect for freaks like Whitlock and the Unabomber.
The twenty-four hour diner on Main was empty; Bel glanced in as he drove past at a snail’s pace. Sue-Ellen was working, or at least she was leaning on the counter staring at the small TV beside the register. Across the street, Harnee’s was open too, the H flashing intermittently again, so half the time it just read arnee’s. Bel figured he’d stop in on the way back, just to show the flag. On weekends, the high school kids hung around in the parking lot, trying to get someone to buy beer for them. But tonight the lot was empty.
Bel remembered a long stretch five years ago where Whitlock hadn’t come to Harnee’s on Thursday nights. Recovering from what Kenny and his friends had done to him, Bel had figured, though he’d refused to join in his coworkers’ gossip sessions about it. Long after Daniel must’ve healed up, he’d still been absent. People’d said his mama bought his groceries. Bel had almost missed him. The guy hadn’t been friendly, but he’d been easy enough to look at. Then Whitlock had showed up the night of October sixteenth and had bought a lighter along with his candy and soda.
The next morning, the story had been everywhere.
Kenny Cooper’s house had burned to the ground. Kenny inside.
Bel had followed Whitlock’s trial with interest. Had even been called to give testimony about the lighter. And he’d been as pissed as anyone when the prosecution had opted to seek a conviction for manslaughter instead of first-degree murder. Wasn’t like Bel gave two shits about losing Kenny Cooper—that asshole had been a waste of air. It was Whitlock’s bullshit defense that had made Bel half-crazy.
Sleepwalking. Seriously. Like Whitlock was some kind of zombie lurching around eating people’s brains, then waking up the next day not remembering any of it? Yeah, that was the shit you saw in movies. How about Whitlock was a crazy meth head who’d say anything to save his hide? The more Bel’d thought about it, the angrier he’d got, and the more convinced he’d become he’d seen signs Whitlock was off whenever he’d come into Harnee’s. Something not right in his eyes. The way his body twitched while he was waiting for his total, like he was receiving small shocks.
And Bel wasn’t the only one who, after the murder, suddenly remembered things they’d noticed about Whitlock. Sunday school teachers and guys he’d run track with and even the girl he’d gotten to second base with on prom night, all eager to chime in.
“Always knew there was something wrong with him.”
“He had that look, you know?”
“I smacked him as soon as he put his hands on me. Knew he was no good.”
And Bel had raged with the rest of the town when Whitlock had been released after eight months in jail. This wasn’t about Kenny Cooper—it was about justice. You didn’t burn someone alive and then walk free, no matter what some quack said on the stand about your sleep disorder. It was impossible to drive five miles in your sleep, shake kerosene around the base of a house like you were watering the goddamn plants, flip your lighter on, then go home and climb into bed.
Bel looked up the street again. Whitlock was still heading in the right direction. He was passing in front of the Shack now, where Bel drank most times. All the cops drank at the Shack. Hell, all the town did. It was closed at this hour, a few trucks parked out front still. Owners must have walked.
A battered red pickup swerved onto Main Street, going too fast. It overcorrected, swinging wildly toward the center line before it recovered. Bel recognized it: Clayton McAllister’s truck, so it was probably Clayton at the wheel with a few of his buddies packed into the cab.
The truck headed toward him, slowing as it passed Whitlock, then braking and backing up. Too far away to hear what they yelled at Whitlock, apart from faggot. A beer can flew from the window and bounced on the road. The horn blared.
Whitlock stopped. He lifted his head to look at the truck.
Last thing Bel needed was Clayton and his drunk buddies figuring it was time for another gay bashing. Bel hit the lights, the red-and-blue strobes flashing. Just to let Clayton know he was there.
The truck didn’t move, so Bel rolled his window down. Just in time to hear Whitlock yell, “Wanna suck my dick, cunt?”
The truck’s door flew open, and Clayton jumped out. Bel was out of his cruiser in a second, moving automatically to stand between Clayton and Whitlock. “Fellas,” he said, because Brock Tilmouth was getting out of the truck too. “I don’t need any trouble here. Go on home.”
“You hear what he said?” Clayton was a scrawny guy. Thin and rat faced. Had a few gingery hairs on his upper lip that were trying real hard to be a mustache. Pale blue eyes.
Bel glanced at Whitlock, who was standing slack-jawed, completely spaced out. “I heard, and you’ll live. Get on home, Clayton.”
“Wanna . . .” Whitlock slurred. “Hey, faggot.”
Clayton shouted around Bel at Whitlock. “You’re the faggot, freak! Didn’t learn your lesson the first time?”
Bel’s jaw tightened.
Hell, he thought as much as anyone that Whitlock deserved a beating. Not because he was gay, but because he’d gotten away with murder. Kenny Cooper had been Clayton’s best friend. They’d bashed Whitlock first, which was what’d made him go all fire starter on Kenny, but everyone knew Whitlock had started it by offering to suck Kenny’s dick.
And here Whitlock was making the same offer to Clayton. Goading him.
Bel could remind Clayton not to take the law into his own hands, but Whitlock had done just that—and gotten off almost scot-free. Less than eight months in prison, and what was it? Three years parole? That was a kick in the teeth to Kenny Cooper’s family, his friends, and pretty much the whole town.
No justice in that.
What was it his gram used to say? Take an eye for an eye, and soon the whole world would be blind. You weren’t supposed to go out and get your own revenge when you’d been wronged. You were supposed to trust the law to deal with it. But nobody said what to do if the law failed you.
Hurl beer cans and abuse, maybe. Couldn’t blame Clayton for being angry.
But then, where was the justice in the law’s reaction to Cooper bashing Whitlock? No arrests made, because Whitlock had sworn he hadn’t seen the guys who’d done it. And yet everyone knew it’d been Kenny Cooper and his buddies. Just no one’d lifted a finger to look into the matter or prosecute Cooper.
So couldn’t blame Whitlock for being angry either.
It scared Bel to catch himself thinking that way. He didn’t blame Whitlock for his anger, but he sure as hell blamed him for killing Cooper.
“Enough, Clayton,” Bel said, his voice hard. “You keep moving. I’m gonna get Whitlock home.”
For a second, Bel thought Clayton was gonna fight. Was gonna lunge at Whitlock even though Bel was right there. At the very least, Bel expected Clayton to say something. But with a last glare at Whitlock, Clayton climbed back in the truck, put it in drive, and crept past Bel’s cruiser.
When the truck was out of sight, Bel turned to Whitlock.
“Get in the car.”
Whitlock didn’t move. He gazed at the spot where Clayton had been and drew in a shuddering breath.
“Whitlock. I said get in the car.” Bel stepped toward him, and Whitlock cringed back. Stared at Bel with eyes Bel remembered from nights at Harnee’s—unfocused, bloodshot, the sockets bruised looking. He blinked in the glare from the headlights.
“You wanna walk all night, or you wanna ride home?”
Whitlock took a couple of steps toward the cruiser. Nodded at the back door. “In there?”
“Yeah. In the back, Whitlock.” Bel climbed in behind the wheel. Whitlock hesitated.
“Get in the goddamn car. You’re lucky I don’t arrest you. What’re you on, huh? If I searched you, what would I find?”
“You can search me,” Whitlock said softly. He walked closer to Bel, who tried not to look at the front of his jeans. Whitlock leaned against the cruiser, one arm on the roof, his hip cocked, drawing the fabric of his T-shirt tight. “Want to?”
“Back of the car,” Bel repeated. “You get in now, it’s a ride home. You don’t, it’s cuffs and the station.”
Whitlock gave a sharp inhale that made Bel’s dick stir. Then he grinned, said, “Yes, sir,” and stepped away from the window.
Bel couldn’t see Whitlock’s face as he slid into the backseat of the cruiser. Whitlock pulled the door shut and then sat staring straight ahead through the partition.
“Tell me how to get to your place,” Bel said.
Whitlock didn’t answer.
“You can do that much, can’t you? Not so trashed you can’t tell me where you live?”
No answer.
“I can get out to Kamchee, but you gotta tell me where your cabin is.”
Whitlock glanced out the window.
Bel turned and slapped the partition. “Damn it, Whitlock!”
Whitlock jerked in the seat. He struck the partition right back, then fumbled for the door handle, but he was locked in. He planted his hands in a wide stance on either side of him, drew his legs up onto the seat, and stared down into the seat well as though it was full of alligators or something, shaking.
“Nutcase,” Bel muttered, stepping on the gas. They headed toward Kamchee. Bel kept sneaking glances at his passenger. Whitlock’s breathing gradually slowed, and Bel saw him looking around, confused but obviously trying to orient himself. He looked up finally and met Bel’s eyes in the rearview mirror.
“I’m under arrest?” His voice sounded different—harder. Wary.
Bel shook his head. “I don’t have time to screw around with that. Tell me how to get to your place.”
“My car?”
Bel held his tongue. The guy was slower than a frozen creek, and Bel hated how much he liked looking at him. Only thing more fucked up than being a murderer was having a hard-on for one. “You can get it tomorrow.”
Whitlock closed his eyes briefly and nodded. Told Bel how to get to his cabin.
“Not real smart, was it?” Bel asked. “Goading Clayton like that?”
“I don’t know.” The words were almost inaudible.
They drove in silence a while longer, until Whitlock pointed out the turn to his cabin.
When he let Whitlock out, Bel suggested, “Sober up.”
But Whitlock seemed plenty sober now. Didn’t sway or grin. His expression was focused, almost angry. “Thank you for the ride,” he said stiffly.
He walked up the gravel drive and let himself into the cabin. A light went on. Bel got back into the cruiser and let out a sigh. He didn’t want to think about the shit Dav had told him. She claimed there really were people who did things in their sleep and had no recollection later, and that Daniel Whitlock had been a model of good behavior since his release. Of course he had been—he didn’t want to go back to fucking jail. Dav ought to know Whitlock was no saint.
Bel recalled Whitlock’s reaction when he’d slapped the partition. The lashing out, the confusion, the fear. The change in Whitlock’s voice, in his body. Was it possible . . .?
No. You had to be awake to drive yourself into town. To get down those stairs at Greenducks. To kiss Jake Kebbler out back by the dumpster.
You had to be awake.
***
The can was on the floor, on its side, tangled in the little string Daniel had set up so carefully on its pulley system before going to bed. Must have knocked it down there after getting the key. The straw was on his pillow. And strewn over his mattress were the open cuffs, wrist and ankle, and a tangle of chains.
Fuck.
He’d fucking drunk it.
He’d known as soon as he came to in the back of the cop’s cruiser that drinking from the can had been the only way out, the only way to get the backup key to lower within reach. He should have known better than to set up the backup system in the first place, but in the last few days, he’d worried more than usual—what if something happened and he needed to get free? What if he couldn’t wait until morning when enough light had crept around the blackout curtains to see the combination to the lock that he’d taped on the wall the night before, his eyes squeezed shut?
He’d thought the system would be complicated enough, gross enough, that his sleeping brain wouldn’t be able to get around it. Drink the liquid to get the key for the left wrist cuff. Find the key for the right wrist cuff taped to the wall at the furthest extent of his reach. He’d practiced when he was awake, and he needed to be a fucking contortionist to do it. The effort to free himself had left him panting, exhausted. And that was before he’d filled the can with the most disgusting fluid he could think of.
Which meant he’d drunk his own piss to get to the first key.
The thought sent Daniel straight to the bathroom, where he went down on his knees in front of the toilet and vomited. Mostly beer. So great, drinking beer as well.
And fuck, he was tired. Whatever he’d been doing, he was tired.
He was always tired.
It was back to the ice locks, then. They only bought him a couple of hours of sleep, but at least he couldn’t get out of them. No more emergency backups. Better to risk his own life than risk hurting someone else. Or worse.
He rubbed his face. God, he needed to sleep. But more than that, he needed to be able to trust that he’d stay put while he slept. He wished he knew why he was so hell-bent on getting free lately. Two nights ago, enough moonlight had apparently crept between the curtains to allow him to read the combination on the wall and make an escape. Tonight he’d drunk piss. And God knew what all he’d done once he was out.
When it first started happening, Daniel had thought his parents were playing some sort of elaborate joke on him.
“Daniel! What happened here?”
The living room wall had gone from beige to neon green overnight. The same neon green his sister Casey had bought to paint some banners for school.
He’d looked, astonished. “It’s green!”
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t . . .” But there was green paint all over his hands, his pajamas.
“Don’t lie to me, Daniel!”
He’d stood there for a very long time in his paint-splattered pajamas, waiting for his mom’s face to break into a smile. Waiting for the punch line that never came. Until, very gradually, it dawned on him that it wasn’t a joke. That he’d done this thing. That saying over and over that he didn’t remember sounded like the most pitiful lie in the world.
There were other incidents too; some small and some not so small. His parents had started locking his bedroom door at night. Daniel had gone out the window. Climbed onto the roof and down the gutter pipe, they figured. They’d started talking about mental illness then. No doctors, though. Couldn’t afford it, and more importantly, they didn’t want word getting out that their son wasn’t right.
In college, it got worse for a while, until Daniel found Marcus, and Marcus beat him so hard that his body was too exhausted to move. All the other trappings of that—the bowing and scraping, the leather gear, the getting fucked—were inconsequential as long as Marcus beat him. Or he’d wanted them to be inconsequential, until he’d gotten used to sleeping beside someone. Started to think Marcus was more than a means of keeping himself under control. Shit, he’d liked the guy. But in the end, Marcus couldn’t deal with a partner who didn’t get off from the pain but needed it in a whole different way. Nothing sexual about Daniel’s masochism.
After Marcus, Daniel hadn’t gone looking for a relationship like that again—or any kind of relationship. Too much work, trying to explain what he needed and why. Too hard to think about someone else walking out on him when he couldn’t be what they wanted. But recently, he’d been drawn once more to the idea of what his and Marcus’s arrangement was supposed to have been. He wanted someone who could keep him contained, keep his body exhausted—nothing more.
He looked at the marks on his wrists. Finding someone to control him would mean no more piss-can pulley systems. No more great escapes. No more late-night trips to Greenducks and waking in the morning with an ache in his ass and no memory of what had happened. He pushed his arms together to make the bruises match.
Gonna have to get tested again. Though maybe I didn’t get up to any of that. He shifted experimentally. Nothing hurt. He could usually tell when he’d been fucked. No one in the Greenducks crowd went easy on him.
So what did I do?
Clayton McAllister. Officer Belman said he’d goaded him. Where the hell had he found Clayton?
Had he been looking for him?
“Dumbass,” he whispered.
He rose from the bathroom floor and walked back into the main room. Ignored the bed and sat down at his desk instead. He turned the computer on and blinked in the glare from the screen.
In prison, they’d given him drugs to make him sleep. Dumb, because sleeping wasn’t the problem. And the drugs only made it harder to wake up. Left him feeling sluggish and spaced out for days afterward. What he needed was something like he’d had with Marcus—but with someone who didn’t mind beating him, even if he didn’t get off. Someone who would keep him contained. There was a guy online he’d messaged yesterday who lived about thirty miles from Logan. Claimed to be a dom looking for a 24/7 slave. Promised he didn’t care if Daniel never came. Said he preferred it that way.
Master Beau. His profile picture was a pair of high-shine leather boots. He’d said he wanted Daniel naked, on his knees with his arms bound behind his back, to lick those boots.
Need you to chain me up, Daniel had responded. Keep me under lock and key.
24/7, Master Beau had promised.
I got a job.
Don’t need a job. Ur master will take care of u.
I got parole. Can’t miss appointments.
U won’t.
Master Beau hadn’t even asked what the parole was for, which sent up a red flag. But Daniel was hardly the only one taking a risk here. Might have been stupid, agreeing to submit to the guy without having laid eyes on him. But no way in hell did Master Beau know what kind of crazy he was courting.
Daniel felt a little guilty for that, but it would be okay. As long as Master Beau locked him up, it would be okay. He couldn’t hurt anyone.
Clayton. Might fucking hurt Clayton.
I want to hurt Clayton.
He clenched his fists. The strength of the desire was frightening, but it vanished quickly, leaving him gasping, choking.
He wasn’t going to hurt anyone else.
Didn’t want to.
But he needed someone to make sure he didn’t. Couldn’t.
He typed out a message: When can we meet?
Looked at it for a while, and then looked at the open cuffs on his mattress and the empty can of piss on the floor. His stomach churned.
He hit Send.
CHAPTER ONE
“Hey, Harnee’s kid,” Daniel Whitlock said, and the smile lit up his whole face.
Bel resisted the urge to plant his fist in it. “Officer Belman to you, Whitlock.” He took his flashlight from his belt and shone the beam in Whitlock’s eyes. The guy’s pupils had almost swallowed his hazel irises entirely. “What’d you take?”
Whitlock turned from Bel and shoved his hands in his pockets, pulling his jeans tight across his ass. “I’m going home. You coming with me?”
They were in the parking lot of Greenducks, a rundown bar wedged between a former beauty salon and a mortgage firm. You had to go down a flight of half-rotted wooden stairs, and then you were in a basement full of cocksuckers. And not the kind you saw in gay bars in movies. No tanned and toned bodies, no goddamn angel wings or leather shorts. These guys stank, and they smoked, and they’d do anything for drugs. Bel only went into Greenducks when he was desperate enough to pretend not to notice the exchanges that went on.
“I ain’t going nowhere with you,” Bel told Whitlock.
Fucker. Goddamn filthy tweaker head case.
Liar.
Murderer.
Everyone in Logan, South Carolina, knew who Daniel Whitlock was—what he was. But what made Bel doubly uncomfortable right now was that unlike most everyone in Logan, Bel had noticed Daniel Whitlock long before he’d been in the papers.
Before he got his badge, Bel had worked a night shift twice a week at Harnee’s Convenience Store, and Whitlock used to come in Thursdays around 1 or 2 a.m. to buy a Twix and a bottle of Mountain Dew. Always went through Bel’s line.
“That stuff’ll keep you up all night,” Bel had said once, nodding at the Mountain Dew. Whitlock hadn’t answered, and that was the first and last time Bel said anything to him beyond “Have a good night.” But he’d noted the strong, easy slope of Whitlock’s chest under his T-shirts. When it got colder, Whitlock had worn plaid flannel like all the other guys in Logan. But in the summer his T-shirts had been just a little too tight. Close-cropped hair the same linty brown as his faded sneakers. Beautifully defined features, almost too sharp.
“He don’t want to join us, Danny,” a voice said.
Bel hadn’t noticed Jake Kebbler standing behind Daniel in the shadow of the bar. If Bel’d had to pick any of the Greenducks crowd for looks alone—besides Whitlock—he’d have picked Jake. Unfortunately, every queer in Logan had already picked Jake, over and over again. “Looks like a gnat-bit curl of pork rind,” Matt Lister had said once about Jake’s dick.
Whitlock grinned. He pushed Jake against the side of the building. Kissed him. Risky—Greenducks gave queers a place to meet, but it sure as fuck didn’t fly the rainbow flag. You came to Greenducks because it was the closest to safe you were gonna get if you liked restroom blowjobs—not because you were welcome there. And once you were outside, well, you were in hetero territory.
Jake tipped his head back then slowly collapsed. It was oddly graceful, like a dancer’s swoon. Whitlock tried to catch him, failed, and lowered himself on top of Jake. Kissed him again, or maybe whispered something—Bel couldn’t tell. Then he got up and walked over to his car, leaving Jake on the ground.
Nice, Bel thought. Your date passes out, so you’re just gonna call it a night? Not that Jake seemed to care. Hell, he probably wouldn’t even remember what had happened when the sun woke him in the morning with a face full of asphalt. Jake didn’t have a brain cell left he wasn’t bent on destroying with meth. And was that . . . yeah, Bel could just about make out the glow of a burning cigarette in Jake’s hand. Stupid asshole.
Bel walked over to Jake. Wasn’t like he could leave a man to burn to death. Which made him the only one. Whitlock was still standing by his sedan, staring at nothing.
“You stay right there,” Bel called as he bent to check on Jake. Still breathing. Bel plucked the cigarette out from between Jake’s skinny fingers and crushed it under his boot. When he turned around, Whitlock had taken a step closer. “I told you to stay there.”
“Need something so bad.” Whitlock sighed. He slid his fingers into the waistband of his jeans, like he was going to tug them down right there in the parking lot. “You wanna fuck me, Harnee’s kid? Can use my car.”
Bel had been a cop for three years now, and he’d been propositioned more times than he could remember. It was never like those letters in skin mags though. Usually it was some toothless skank old enough to be his grandma, giggling drunken high school girls, or narrow-eyed truckers who would nod to the side of the road in silent invitation like Bel was dumb enough or desperate enough for that. Might as well just roll around in the filthy bathrooms at the truck stop on US 601, pick up his diseases that way and take out the middleman.
And now, Daniel Whitlock. Who might have been Dear readers, I never thought it would happen to me material back when he was in high school—Bel, still in middle school, had noticed him right about the same time as he’d noticed those weird tingly feelings that made his dick hard—but doing it with a fucking murderer was never going to happen. And Bel was pretty damn insulted that Whitlock even thought he had a chance.
“Get your ass home,” he said, curling his lip.
Whitlock reached for his car door.
“You ain’t driving tonight,” Bel told him. “Ain’t you killed enough folk in this town?”
It didn’t even register with Whitlock.
“You walk,” Bel said. “You give me your keys, and you walk.”
No argument. Whitlock dug around in the pocket of his jeans and held his keys out. “I’m going home now?”
“Yeah.” Bel took the keys and crossed his arms over his chest. “You’d better start walking.”
“Okay.”
Bel shook his head. Goddamn drug-fucked nutjob.
He watched as Whitlock turned and squinted down the street, wobbling like a compass needle before it fixed its position. Then, his hands still in his pockets, Whitlock started to walk. Bel leaned against his cruiser and looked down at Whitlock’s keys, thumbed through them and found a tarnished Saint Christopher medallion. Not so different from the one Bel’s mama had given him when he’d become a deputy.
Bel sighed. Figured he couldn’t let the guy get squashed like a possum on the side of the road. He didn’t get to pick and choose who he looked out for.
He got in his cruiser, turned the engine over, and flicked the headlights on. Set off down the street at a crawl, keeping well behind Whitlock as he stumbled toward home. Bel wondered what it would be like living out there in the woods. Cold as hell in winter, probably, and mosquitoes as big as chicken hawks in the summer. Perfect for freaks like Whitlock and the Unabomber.
The twenty-four hour diner on Main was empty; Bel glanced in as he drove past at a snail’s pace. Sue-Ellen was working, or at least she was leaning on the counter staring at the small TV beside the register. Across the street, Harnee’s was open too, the H flashing intermittently again, so half the time it just read arnee’s. Bel figured he’d stop in on the way back, just to show the flag. On weekends, the high school kids hung around in the parking lot, trying to get someone to buy beer for them. But tonight the lot was empty.
Bel remembered a long stretch five years ago where Whitlock hadn’t come to Harnee’s on Thursday nights. Recovering from what Kenny and his friends had done to him, Bel had figured, though he’d refused to join in his coworkers’ gossip sessions about it. Long after Daniel must’ve healed up, he’d still been absent. People’d said his mama bought his groceries. Bel had almost missed him. The guy hadn’t been friendly, but he’d been easy enough to look at. Then Whitlock had showed up the night of October sixteenth and had bought a lighter along with his candy and soda.
The next morning, the story had been everywhere.
Kenny Cooper’s house had burned to the ground. Kenny inside.
Bel had followed Whitlock’s trial with interest. Had even been called to give testimony about the lighter. And he’d been as pissed as anyone when the prosecution had opted to seek a conviction for manslaughter instead of first-degree murder. Wasn’t like Bel gave two shits about losing Kenny Cooper—that asshole had been a waste of air. It was Whitlock’s bullshit defense that had made Bel half-crazy.
Sleepwalking. Seriously. Like Whitlock was some kind of zombie lurching around eating people’s brains, then waking up the next day not remembering any of it? Yeah, that was the shit you saw in movies. How about Whitlock was a crazy meth head who’d say anything to save his hide? The more Bel’d thought about it, the angrier he’d got, and the more convinced he’d become he’d seen signs Whitlock was off whenever he’d come into Harnee’s. Something not right in his eyes. The way his body twitched while he was waiting for his total, like he was receiving small shocks.
And Bel wasn’t the only one who, after the murder, suddenly remembered things they’d noticed about Whitlock. Sunday school teachers and guys he’d run track with and even the girl he’d gotten to second base with on prom night, all eager to chime in.
“Always knew there was something wrong with him.”
“He had that look, you know?”
“I smacked him as soon as he put his hands on me. Knew he was no good.”
And Bel had raged with the rest of the town when Whitlock had been released after eight months in jail. This wasn’t about Kenny Cooper—it was about justice. You didn’t burn someone alive and then walk free, no matter what some quack said on the stand about your sleep disorder. It was impossible to drive five miles in your sleep, shake kerosene around the base of a house like you were watering the goddamn plants, flip your lighter on, then go home and climb into bed.
Bel looked up the street again. Whitlock was still heading in the right direction. He was passing in front of the Shack now, where Bel drank most times. All the cops drank at the Shack. Hell, all the town did. It was closed at this hour, a few trucks parked out front still. Owners must have walked.
A battered red pickup swerved onto Main Street, going too fast. It overcorrected, swinging wildly toward the center line before it recovered. Bel recognized it: Clayton McAllister’s truck, so it was probably Clayton at the wheel with a few of his buddies packed into the cab.
The truck headed toward him, slowing as it passed Whitlock, then braking and backing up. Too far away to hear what they yelled at Whitlock, apart from faggot. A beer can flew from the window and bounced on the road. The horn blared.
Whitlock stopped. He lifted his head to look at the truck.
Last thing Bel needed was Clayton and his drunk buddies figuring it was time for another gay bashing. Bel hit the lights, the red-and-blue strobes flashing. Just to let Clayton know he was there.
The truck didn’t move, so Bel rolled his window down. Just in time to hear Whitlock yell, “Wanna suck my dick, cunt?”
The truck’s door flew open, and Clayton jumped out. Bel was out of his cruiser in a second, moving automatically to stand between Clayton and Whitlock. “Fellas,” he said, because Brock Tilmouth was getting out of the truck too. “I don’t need any trouble here. Go on home.”
“You hear what he said?” Clayton was a scrawny guy. Thin and rat faced. Had a few gingery hairs on his upper lip that were trying real hard to be a mustache. Pale blue eyes.
Bel glanced at Whitlock, who was standing slack-jawed, completely spaced out. “I heard, and you’ll live. Get on home, Clayton.”
“Wanna . . .” Whitlock slurred. “Hey, faggot.”
Clayton shouted around Bel at Whitlock. “You’re the faggot, freak! Didn’t learn your lesson the first time?”
Bel’s jaw tightened.
Hell, he thought as much as anyone that Whitlock deserved a beating. Not because he was gay, but because he’d gotten away with murder. Kenny Cooper had been Clayton’s best friend. They’d bashed Whitlock first, which was what’d made him go all fire starter on Kenny, but everyone knew Whitlock had started it by offering to suck Kenny’s dick.
And here Whitlock was making the same offer to Clayton. Goading him.
Bel could remind Clayton not to take the law into his own hands, but Whitlock had done just that—and gotten off almost scot-free. Less than eight months in prison, and what was it? Three years parole? That was a kick in the teeth to Kenny Cooper’s family, his friends, and pretty much the whole town.
No justice in that.
What was it his gram used to say? Take an eye for an eye, and soon the whole world would be blind. You weren’t supposed to go out and get your own revenge when you’d been wronged. You were supposed to trust the law to deal with it. But nobody said what to do if the law failed you.
Hurl beer cans and abuse, maybe. Couldn’t blame Clayton for being angry.
But then, where was the justice in the law’s reaction to Cooper bashing Whitlock? No arrests made, because Whitlock had sworn he hadn’t seen the guys who’d done it. And yet everyone knew it’d been Kenny Cooper and his buddies. Just no one’d lifted a finger to look into the matter or prosecute Cooper.
So couldn’t blame Whitlock for being angry either.
It scared Bel to catch himself thinking that way. He didn’t blame Whitlock for his anger, but he sure as hell blamed him for killing Cooper.
“Enough, Clayton,” Bel said, his voice hard. “You keep moving. I’m gonna get Whitlock home.”
For a second, Bel thought Clayton was gonna fight. Was gonna lunge at Whitlock even though Bel was right there. At the very least, Bel expected Clayton to say something. But with a last glare at Whitlock, Clayton climbed back in the truck, put it in drive, and crept past Bel’s cruiser.
When the truck was out of sight, Bel turned to Whitlock.
“Get in the car.”
Whitlock didn’t move. He gazed at the spot where Clayton had been and drew in a shuddering breath.
“Whitlock. I said get in the car.” Bel stepped toward him, and Whitlock cringed back. Stared at Bel with eyes Bel remembered from nights at Harnee’s—unfocused, bloodshot, the sockets bruised looking. He blinked in the glare from the headlights.
“You wanna walk all night, or you wanna ride home?”
Whitlock took a couple of steps toward the cruiser. Nodded at the back door. “In there?”
“Yeah. In the back, Whitlock.” Bel climbed in behind the wheel. Whitlock hesitated.
“Get in the goddamn car. You’re lucky I don’t arrest you. What’re you on, huh? If I searched you, what would I find?”
“You can search me,” Whitlock said softly. He walked closer to Bel, who tried not to look at the front of his jeans. Whitlock leaned against the cruiser, one arm on the roof, his hip cocked, drawing the fabric of his T-shirt tight. “Want to?”
“Back of the car,” Bel repeated. “You get in now, it’s a ride home. You don’t, it’s cuffs and the station.”
Whitlock gave a sharp inhale that made Bel’s dick stir. Then he grinned, said, “Yes, sir,” and stepped away from the window.
Bel couldn’t see Whitlock’s face as he slid into the backseat of the cruiser. Whitlock pulled the door shut and then sat staring straight ahead through the partition.
“Tell me how to get to your place,” Bel said.
Whitlock didn’t answer.
“You can do that much, can’t you? Not so trashed you can’t tell me where you live?”
No answer.
“I can get out to Kamchee, but you gotta tell me where your cabin is.”
Whitlock glanced out the window.
Bel turned and slapped the partition. “Damn it, Whitlock!”
Whitlock jerked in the seat. He struck the partition right back, then fumbled for the door handle, but he was locked in. He planted his hands in a wide stance on either side of him, drew his legs up onto the seat, and stared down into the seat well as though it was full of alligators or something, shaking.
“Nutcase,” Bel muttered, stepping on the gas. They headed toward Kamchee. Bel kept sneaking glances at his passenger. Whitlock’s breathing gradually slowed, and Bel saw him looking around, confused but obviously trying to orient himself. He looked up finally and met Bel’s eyes in the rearview mirror.
“I’m under arrest?” His voice sounded different—harder. Wary.
Bel shook his head. “I don’t have time to screw around with that. Tell me how to get to your place.”
“My car?”
Bel held his tongue. The guy was slower than a frozen creek, and Bel hated how much he liked looking at him. Only thing more fucked up than being a murderer was having a hard-on for one. “You can get it tomorrow.”
Whitlock closed his eyes briefly and nodded. Told Bel how to get to his cabin.
“Not real smart, was it?” Bel asked. “Goading Clayton like that?”
“I don’t know.” The words were almost inaudible.
They drove in silence a while longer, until Whitlock pointed out the turn to his cabin.
When he let Whitlock out, Bel suggested, “Sober up.”
But Whitlock seemed plenty sober now. Didn’t sway or grin. His expression was focused, almost angry. “Thank you for the ride,” he said stiffly.
He walked up the gravel drive and let himself into the cabin. A light went on. Bel got back into the cruiser and let out a sigh. He didn’t want to think about the shit Dav had told him. She claimed there really were people who did things in their sleep and had no recollection later, and that Daniel Whitlock had been a model of good behavior since his release. Of course he had been—he didn’t want to go back to fucking jail. Dav ought to know Whitlock was no saint.
Bel recalled Whitlock’s reaction when he’d slapped the partition. The lashing out, the confusion, the fear. The change in Whitlock’s voice, in his body. Was it possible . . .?
No. You had to be awake to drive yourself into town. To get down those stairs at Greenducks. To kiss Jake Kebbler out back by the dumpster.
You had to be awake.
***
The can was on the floor, on its side, tangled in the little string Daniel had set up so carefully on its pulley system before going to bed. Must have knocked it down there after getting the key. The straw was on his pillow. And strewn over his mattress were the open cuffs, wrist and ankle, and a tangle of chains.
Fuck.
He’d fucking drunk it.
He’d known as soon as he came to in the back of the cop’s cruiser that drinking from the can had been the only way out, the only way to get the backup key to lower within reach. He should have known better than to set up the backup system in the first place, but in the last few days, he’d worried more than usual—what if something happened and he needed to get free? What if he couldn’t wait until morning when enough light had crept around the blackout curtains to see the combination to the lock that he’d taped on the wall the night before, his eyes squeezed shut?
He’d thought the system would be complicated enough, gross enough, that his sleeping brain wouldn’t be able to get around it. Drink the liquid to get the key for the left wrist cuff. Find the key for the right wrist cuff taped to the wall at the furthest extent of his reach. He’d practiced when he was awake, and he needed to be a fucking contortionist to do it. The effort to free himself had left him panting, exhausted. And that was before he’d filled the can with the most disgusting fluid he could think of.
Which meant he’d drunk his own piss to get to the first key.
The thought sent Daniel straight to the bathroom, where he went down on his knees in front of the toilet and vomited. Mostly beer. So great, drinking beer as well.
And fuck, he was tired. Whatever he’d been doing, he was tired.
He was always tired.
It was back to the ice locks, then. They only bought him a couple of hours of sleep, but at least he couldn’t get out of them. No more emergency backups. Better to risk his own life than risk hurting someone else. Or worse.
He rubbed his face. God, he needed to sleep. But more than that, he needed to be able to trust that he’d stay put while he slept. He wished he knew why he was so hell-bent on getting free lately. Two nights ago, enough moonlight had apparently crept between the curtains to allow him to read the combination on the wall and make an escape. Tonight he’d drunk piss. And God knew what all he’d done once he was out.
When it first started happening, Daniel had thought his parents were playing some sort of elaborate joke on him.
“Daniel! What happened here?”
The living room wall had gone from beige to neon green overnight. The same neon green his sister Casey had bought to paint some banners for school.
He’d looked, astonished. “It’s green!”
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t . . .” But there was green paint all over his hands, his pajamas.
“Don’t lie to me, Daniel!”
He’d stood there for a very long time in his paint-splattered pajamas, waiting for his mom’s face to break into a smile. Waiting for the punch line that never came. Until, very gradually, it dawned on him that it wasn’t a joke. That he’d done this thing. That saying over and over that he didn’t remember sounded like the most pitiful lie in the world.
There were other incidents too; some small and some not so small. His parents had started locking his bedroom door at night. Daniel had gone out the window. Climbed onto the roof and down the gutter pipe, they figured. They’d started talking about mental illness then. No doctors, though. Couldn’t afford it, and more importantly, they didn’t want word getting out that their son wasn’t right.
In college, it got worse for a while, until Daniel found Marcus, and Marcus beat him so hard that his body was too exhausted to move. All the other trappings of that—the bowing and scraping, the leather gear, the getting fucked—were inconsequential as long as Marcus beat him. Or he’d wanted them to be inconsequential, until he’d gotten used to sleeping beside someone. Started to think Marcus was more than a means of keeping himself under control. Shit, he’d liked the guy. But in the end, Marcus couldn’t deal with a partner who didn’t get off from the pain but needed it in a whole different way. Nothing sexual about Daniel’s masochism.
After Marcus, Daniel hadn’t gone looking for a relationship like that again—or any kind of relationship. Too much work, trying to explain what he needed and why. Too hard to think about someone else walking out on him when he couldn’t be what they wanted. But recently, he’d been drawn once more to the idea of what his and Marcus’s arrangement was supposed to have been. He wanted someone who could keep him contained, keep his body exhausted—nothing more.
He looked at the marks on his wrists. Finding someone to control him would mean no more piss-can pulley systems. No more great escapes. No more late-night trips to Greenducks and waking in the morning with an ache in his ass and no memory of what had happened. He pushed his arms together to make the bruises match.
Gonna have to get tested again. Though maybe I didn’t get up to any of that. He shifted experimentally. Nothing hurt. He could usually tell when he’d been fucked. No one in the Greenducks crowd went easy on him.
So what did I do?
Clayton McAllister. Officer Belman said he’d goaded him. Where the hell had he found Clayton?
Had he been looking for him?
“Dumbass,” he whispered.
He rose from the bathroom floor and walked back into the main room. Ignored the bed and sat down at his desk instead. He turned the computer on and blinked in the glare from the screen.
In prison, they’d given him drugs to make him sleep. Dumb, because sleeping wasn’t the problem. And the drugs only made it harder to wake up. Left him feeling sluggish and spaced out for days afterward. What he needed was something like he’d had with Marcus—but with someone who didn’t mind beating him, even if he didn’t get off. Someone who would keep him contained. There was a guy online he’d messaged yesterday who lived about thirty miles from Logan. Claimed to be a dom looking for a 24/7 slave. Promised he didn’t care if Daniel never came. Said he preferred it that way.
Master Beau. His profile picture was a pair of high-shine leather boots. He’d said he wanted Daniel naked, on his knees with his arms bound behind his back, to lick those boots.
Need you to chain me up, Daniel had responded. Keep me under lock and key.
24/7, Master Beau had promised.
I got a job.
Don’t need a job. Ur master will take care of u.
I got parole. Can’t miss appointments.
U won’t.
Master Beau hadn’t even asked what the parole was for, which sent up a red flag. But Daniel was hardly the only one taking a risk here. Might have been stupid, agreeing to submit to the guy without having laid eyes on him. But no way in hell did Master Beau know what kind of crazy he was courting.
Daniel felt a little guilty for that, but it would be okay. As long as Master Beau locked him up, it would be okay. He couldn’t hurt anyone.
Clayton. Might fucking hurt Clayton.
I want to hurt Clayton.
He clenched his fists. The strength of the desire was frightening, but it vanished quickly, leaving him gasping, choking.
He wasn’t going to hurt anyone else.
Didn’t want to.
But he needed someone to make sure he didn’t. Couldn’t.
He typed out a message: When can we meet?
Looked at it for a while, and then looked at the open cuffs on his mattress and the empty can of piss on the floor. His stomach churned.
He hit Send.