The Hunt - Ch. 6 (Love, Again Side Story, Patreon Exclusive) (Patreon)

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Chapter Six – You Are

Something had changed. Billy was well aware of it. Suddenly, the place was too cramped, and they kept bumping into each other. What was more difficult to digest was how he became too much aware of Robert’s solid body.

And the man’s warmth. He was supposed to be a professional, damn it! One would have thought that pairing with a lady detective would have caused such problems to surface. Now, he was suddenly conscious of Robert Stryker’s presence, not as that of a partner, or another man, but that of a …

… sexual being.

How on earth did that make any sense?

It wasn’t like him to think like that, about anyone, ever. His sexuality was average, normal in the sense that there wasn’t anything exciting about it. He didn’t have kinks. He hadn’t even …

He needed to stop thinking.

… kissed anyone in a long time.

Great. That thought had just wanted to escape from its tiny cell where it was supposed to stay like a well-behaved convict. Now it roamed free and pretended to be too smart for its own good.

Stay there.

“Is it just me, or is this place too crowded?” Robert said out loud what he was thinking.

“It must be because of all my equipment.”

It was morning again, and they were getting ready for a new day. Billy put one cigarette in his mouth by force of habit.

Robert threw him a crossed look.

Billy took the cigarette out of his mouth. “Sorry. I wasn’t going to light it up in here. Is it a long time since you gave up?”

The look in the dark eyes seemed amused. “I thought you knew everything about me.”

“Not everything,” Billy replied in kind.

“Are we going to talk about it?” Robert asked.

“About what?”

“Ah, I see. It’s okay. As long as we’re on the same wavelength and all that.”

Billy blinked. Had it been an opportunity for him to speak up about what kept on bothering him ever since they … kissed?

If it had been, it was gone already. Robert put on a t-shirt, and Billy followed him with his eyes.

“What are we going to do today?”

“You’re asking me? I thought you told me you were in charge.” Billy didn’t lose any opportunity to remind the detective about their fight, and he hated himself a little for it.

“You’re the guy with the sci-fi equipment.” Robert seemed willing to appease him and not ruffle his feathers further.

“Ah, I see. So it’s only because of my use of technology that you like me.”

“You’re wrong. I like you for many other reasons.”

Billy had a mind to ask about them, but unlike ever before in his life, he was afraid of answers. “Great. Then let me bring you up to speed. The feed from the cameras just showed the scumbag returning.”

“He spent the night there,” Robert said, and a frown made his eyebrows furrow.

It wasn’t easy to explain, but Billy liked that focused, almost angered expression on his partner’s face. It made him have trust in Robert, in his involvement with the case. The detective was a likable man. Only a blind person could deny it.

“What are you thinking about?”

Billy shook his head and blinked. “We should see the sensor blink any moment now.” He pointed at his wrist.

“And then we’re going to shake him in his den?”

“No. We go the other way.”

“To search for Florence.”

“Yes.”

“It’s a good plan,” Robert said briefly.

Billy began putting on his boots. “We’ll go in there prepared in our hearts to get her out, but also ready in our guts to bail out if he has the place monitored.”

Robert grimaced. “Are you scared of security cameras now? I thought you and them shared a beautiful friendship.”

Billy shook his head. “It’s not them I worry about. I worry about the scumbag having some failsafe in place. I’ve seen it before. You may think I have too much equipment, but this guy, he has more. He could lock the place down and kill the girl remotely. We’re not taking any chances.”

“Remotely?”

“He’s done it before. It was another kidnapping case.” Billy stopped for a moment, as his eyes became unfocused. “The intervention team was dead in seconds. And so was his prisoner.”

“Gas?”

“Yes. Sarin. He had no qualms killing the guy he had kidnapped. The people going in hadn’t been prepared to trigger a release of poison into the air the moment they stepped inside. But that happened.”

“I see.” Robert was a man of few words when he was focused like that. “We won’t take any risks. Do you know where we’re going?”

Billy pointed at the red circle he had made on the virtual map on his computer screen. “That’s the area we need to cover.”

“It seems pretty precise. How can you tell?”

Billy shrugged. “It’s no fun to eat melted ice cream. Even Mr. X must know that.”

For a short moment, Robert stared at him. “I won’t question your logic. It never failed us this far.”

It wasn’t that big a praise or anything, but Billy felt his heart swelling with pride. “Thanks.”

“Ready to hit the road?”

“We can take the car this time. But we will have to leave it at a fair distance from the place of interest.”

“Sure. I’m getting used to your MO. A lot of hiking, tree climbing, James-Bonding --”

“James-Bonding.” Billy shook his head in mirth. “You’re giving me way too much credit.”

“Nah, I’m not. And he’s my favorite secret agent ever.”

Billy grinned. They were back to being friends. That was good. He stole one last look at his partner before putting his jacket on.

They were friends.

Who kissed.

For the sake of saving their disguise.

Of course.

***

Robert had preferred to banter with Billy on their way to their destination, but his gut was filled with apprehension, and that of the wrong kind, this time around. His younger partner had been visibly affected as he had talked about Mr. X’s victims. Nothing guaranteed that the scumbag wouldn’t treat Florence with the same lack of compassion.

Human life was nothing to that man. Robert wasn’t the forgiving type. He didn’t go out of his way to find excuses for criminals, to blame it on the society as a whole, on the lack of love and good parenting and whatnot in their lives. Even if all those things were true, for each human devolved to a beast, hundreds and thousands hadn’t succumbed to the darkness inside them.

The toughest thing to keep out was thinking of the girl, the terror in her heart during those long hours. Was she starting to believe that she had been abandoned? By her parents? By everyone who loved her?

No, he couldn’t think of that. He needed to harden himself and have a clear head. Emotions couldn’t help Florence where she was, no matter how well-intended they were.

“From this point onward, we’ll have to walk.”

They stopped at the edge of a forest and hid their car in the brush. Under any other circumstances, Robert would have looked around and admired the raw beauty of the place. Save for the roads cutting through the forest, nature was untamed. It could be because of the case and the man behind it, but the beautiful surroundings carried an ominous quality like they hid something evil.

Twigs and small pebbles crushed under their feet, filling the silence with unbearable noise.

“Do you recall what we talked, Robert?”

Was it the first time that Billy called him by his name? He couldn’t be sure, but it seemed important to remember this precise moment.

“I do. We won’t do anything to put Florence at risk. I understand the circumstances.”

“Let’s go. We’re using this to identify any construction that might not appear on any map.”

Robert recognized the strange camera Billy had shown him before. He saw how that came in handy now. They now had digital eyes that could see through anything, even the dirt under their feet. And that meant that they would get to the hiding place, regardless of how well it was hidden.

He had joked about his partner’s special agent like abilities and gear, but now there was no joke. Robert was glad Billy was so well prepared. Conventional methods were obsolete when it came to catching a guy like that.

In few words, Billy was the best partner he could hope for.

“Can you see anything yet?”

Billy fiddled with his camera. “There might be something.” He offered Robert the device.

“Here, right? It looks too smooth to be natural.” Robert leaned against Billy’s shoulder so that they could both look at the screen.

“It’s what I’m thinking,” Billy confirmed.

“Is it a man-made cave? A house built inside a hill?” Robert voiced his thoughts.

“We’ll see. Whatever it is, it’s not on any map. When we get there, I’ll ask you to put this on.”

Robert looked at the object Billy took out of his backpack. “It’s a gas mask. But I thought we wouldn’t press if --”

“I know. But it can easily be a trap, and Florence might not even be there. Let’s play our role as a rescue team until the end, and without letting the bastard get ahead of us.”

Robert took the gas mask without a word. It wasn’t the regular, bulky stock he had seen so far. He could fold it and put it inside his backpack. Except for the filter, the mask had a minimalistic design.

“I’m glad you’re ready for everything.”

Billy nodded. “I’ve been on this guy’s trail for a long time. Catching him will be the highlight of my career.”

“And I admire your confidence. Hold on to it. I want to catch this guy as much as you. But, Billy.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t do anything rash, okay? Or without my knowledge.”

“Sure. We’re partners.”

It was all he needed to know.

***

“I would say ‘bingo’, but I’ve never played. Have you?” Billy could feel the trepidation in the pit of his stomach growing. His gut instinct told him they had arrived at the right place.

“I can’t say that I have.”

Billy pointed one of his trustworthy gadgets at the door. “Nothing,” he said, and his lips set in a deep, grim line.

“Is it another sensor movement?”

“Not only. Any thermal anomaly should be easy to detect. Among other things. If there’s a human being inside, it should tell us.”

Robert seemed to hold his breath as much as he did as he moved the gadget around. Beads of sweat were starting to appear on his forehead.

“Still nothing?”

Billy shook his head.

“Maybe this isn’t the place.”

“Maybe.” Billy didn’t want to admit that his gut instinct had failed this time. “We should check first.”

He put on the gas mask, and Robert followed his example without another word. Billy had a hunch about what kind of lock he had to deal with and took out of his backpack the most powerful magnet he could carry around without sending the rest of his gadgets out of whack.

Robert looked at him as he examined the door. It took little for the magnet to work its magic, and that made him frown. When things were too easy, there was always an explanation and not the kind that was ever to his liking.

He pushed open the sliding door and stepped cautiously inside. He exhaled. Before him stood another door, and this lock appeared a lot more of a challenge than the first. It wasn’t ideal to lock pick the door with the gas mask on, but being without it wasn’t an option. He handed Robert a flashlight and began to work.

From time to time, he checked his wristwatch. It would be a bummer to have Mr. X on the move right as they were working on releasing the prisoner.

“How will we know we’re not triggering some failsafe?” Robert whispered although they were completely alone.

“I checked the door for any electronics,” Billy whispered back. “And we’ll map every inch once we’re inside.”

“Good. How long will it take to open the door?”

“Not much more, I hope.”

“This place gives me the willies.”

“You’re not the only one to feel that way, then.”

His legs were starting to cramp, but he felt that he was getting close. When the lock gave in with a faint click, Billy would have jumped for joy.

Instead, he got up and groaned. Robert squeezed his shoulder in sympathy. “After you, chief.”

“Don’t joke with such things, detective. I might take your words at face value.”

The way the words came out, muffled by the gas masks, made them sound like protagonists from some horror sci-fi movie. The only problem was that the trouble ahead was real. He opened the door just a fraction and snuck one arm inside, pointing his gadget at the space inside.

“Still nothing,” he said as he withdrew his hand.

That didn’t mean that they could throw caution out the window. He finally pushed the door wide open and walked inside, followed closely by Robert. He activated the night vision goggles incorporated in the gas mask and pressed the button on Robert’s mask, as well.

A long hallway led to what looked like an underground bunker. Billy could hear his own breath, loud in his ears. They walked slowly, his eyes on the sensor that would go red the moment it registered something off.

Another door stood before them. Billy would have held his breath, but it was difficult to get enough air in, the tension making his heartbeat quicken. He placed one hand on the handle and pressed down as slowly as he could.

His eyes never leaving the sensor, he pushed the door open. It was unlocked. There was only one room, and it was empty.

He took off his mask and turned on a flashlight. “Damn it.”

The place had been inhabited until not long ago. The air wasn’t musty, so there had to be an air vent incorporated in the construction. A soft, barely detectable scent let him know someone had been there.

“Was she here?” Robert asked.

He had taken off his mask, too, and like him, he was inspecting the room with the help of a flashlight.

Their lights crisscrossed the walls. The room was sparsely furnished; only one narrow bed, flush against the wall, a table, and a chair. There was no rug on the floor.

Billy began searching the place in detail. He examined the bed. “I suggest that we don’t leave too many traces of our being here. Or at all.”

“If she was here, he must have moved her again.”

“That’s what I’m thinking, too. But it would be better if we found a proof of her stay here.”

His palm brushed over something, and he pointed the flashlight at the spot on the bed. A tiny earring had been left behind. Billy raised it at eye level and then pulled out his phone. From a photograph, Florence smiled happily at him. There was no doubt that she wore the complete set of earrings in that picture.

“She was here,” he said in a deadpan voice.

“And he moved her.”

“Yes.”

“But where?”

Billy could read the tension in the detective’s voice. “That’s hard to tell. He could have just taken her with him back to his place.”

“Strange move.”

The tension was replaced by something else.

“She’s alive,” Billy said in a strained voice.

Robert said nothing.

“We’ll find her,” he added.

“Let’s get out of here.”

Billy followed Robert, making sure to close all the doors behind them and leave nothing that could give away that they had been there.

He didn’t even dare to strike a conversation on their way back. The detective’s face was all a frown, but it wasn’t his usual, focused frown. This was more.

***

A bout of claustrophobia had prompted him to leave the hiding place inside the hill. But it wasn’t something pertaining to the ailment described in medical books, but a thing of a more emotional nature. It didn’t leave him even now after they returned to their lodge.

Memories were a funny thing, sometimes. That unique and strange sensation of having just missed someone as they left had come back to him, as strong as ever. It was hard to fathom what being minutes or hours late meant. There was no air displaced in the room anymore, no sign of the living person who had been inside it. Yet, the soul knew. They had been there.

“Would you say something?”

Billy’s voice reached him. Robert caught his temples and pressed as hard as he could without drilling holes into his skull.

“Hey.” Softer this time. “Just say something.”

Robert groaned. He wasn’t in the mood to talk. What he needed was to punch a hole through a wall.

“I don’t mind you hitting something, as long as it’s not me. But you can punch this.”

He turned. Billy was holding up a pillow, and he hid behind it. Robert just grabbed it from his hands and threw it across the room.

Billy put his hands up. “Is this the moment when I say ‘please not the face’?”

Robert shook his head. That was such an unexpected thing to hear, but maybe not from his partner. The anger turned into something else as he stared at Billy’s face. The dam holding the river broke.

Billy squealed as Robert grabbed him and placed a short, hard kiss on his lips. For a couple of moments, they stared at each other.

“Stop me,” Robert ordered.

“No,” came the breathed reply.

***

Robert was no longer angry. In the blink of an eye, everything had changed, and it had turned the world upside-down. ‘No’ was the only logical answer he could give.

This wasn’t the soft, barely daring kiss they had shared in the hot tub the day before. Robert’s lips were harsh and brushed against his furiously. They didn’t ask for anything, and yet Billy wanted to give them everything he had.

He moved first, sneaking his hands under Robert’s tight-fitting shirt. His fingers were cold, and he realized that only as they got in contact with the other’s burning skin.

A sudden need grew inside him, a desire for feeling his skin against his partner’s body, to move one over the other until the cold was gone.

Robert angled his head, and their tongues touched. It could be because it had been so long. Or maybe because they were in an impossible place with hard choices. This one was easy, by comparison.

Their kiss stopped only as they had to remove one piece of clothing. And then, his wish was granted, and they were skin against skin, on the bed, moving.

Hard body planes and rough skin, stubble making his lips catch fire. Billy could feel them all, and while they were alien to him, he welcomed the lack of familiarity.

He could barely breathe, and that could make him feel so exhilarated. Serotonin triggered all the pleasure points in his body simultaneously, and the only way to deal with their unbearable heat was to move on.

Robert snuck one hand under him, leaving little guessing work to torment them much longer. Billy didn’t mind. At this point, he was okay either way.

“You are,” Robert whispered in his ear.

It was a complete confession, with no need for explanation about what and how. The simple act of existence was, sometimes, enough.

Billy had once wondered about the mechanics of lovemaking when two men were involved. His curiosity had been sated after reading explanations in black and white and watching movies in full color.

He hadn’t wondered about that ever since. Robert must have known the same things as him if he understood what that focused frown on his face now meant.

He exhaled as he felt it. They were hardly adequately equipped to deal with that kind of situation, but that hardly mattered. Billy kept his lips pursed and squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to fight off the sudden battle his body prepared for.

“I won’t hurt you. I promise.”

Robert didn’t even have to say those words. Billy knew them to be true. That invasion of his body wasn’t some sign of hostility. It was just a way for them to bond and deal with what overwhelmed them at that precise moment in time.

His lips were kissed with reverence. His body was held in a tight embrace as they moved.

And it felt glorious, like nothing else ever experienced, like nothing he had ever wished for.

It felt like something whole.

***

Robert could hardly breathe, his entire being focused on one thing only. Billy’s body was all around him, squeezing him with arms and legs and something else made of solid fire. It pushed him to do more, feel more, and he was getting dizzy from the heights of his high.

He moved slowly at first, worried that everything he felt would be pure torture for the other. But no protests were coming from the young body opening to his. All he got in return was a tight embrace and lips rushing to devour his mouth.

It was hard to believe, but it was happening. It was unique and nothing but a comet dashing on the canvas of their lives, never to return.

But memories were a funny thing. They built on fire, as they built on ashes.

***

Robert spoke first.

“Did I --”

“No.”

“Did you --”

“Yes. Do you really --”

“—have to ask?”

They laughed at the same time. Robert ran both hands over his face. “It must be something in the water, right?”

“Sure. We can play it that way. All good?”

“Yeah.”

Silence followed. Robert had a thousand questions on his mind. None was opportune as things stood. They had a case to work on.

“Just for the record,” Billy said, “this was … a one-time-thing, right?”

“I’d say so. Wouldn’t you?”

“Yes. I mean, we’re straight.”

“Yeah.”

“And it was to relieve the tension, right?”

“Right.”

Robert knew that wasn’t the conversation they were supposed to have. And the fact that they were straight had nothing to do with anything. Maybe with him feeling lonely.

Did Billy feel lonely, too?

Or maybe it had everything to do with the dark world surrounding them sometimes.

But there was no way he could ask Billy that directly.

“We’ll have to get inside his house.”

Robert agreed. “He must have taken her there.”

“It will be tricky.”

“But nothing we cannot handle, right?”

“Right. Hold on to that thought, detective. We’ll need every ounce of trust in our abilities to pull this through.”

He could hold on to that and think that they could handle everything about the case. What had just happened was just a small anomaly, a brief memory that he could choose to discard or not, as time passed.

And who was he kidding now?

TBC

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