The thing in the closet wasn't anything like the vortex. It was weaker, less focused, and it definitely didn't ... feel, if that was the right word for it. He felt the it touching him again, soothing him, removing all the sting of his stupidity.
The presence in the closet had been angrier. It wanted inside of Cory, and whatever Lathe had done to him made it impossible for him not to let it. He'd fallen back, and found the iron with its frayed cord at knee level. There was an old socket—it hadn't always been a closet. Someone had died in the back room, and they hadn't been entirely thrilled over it. Cory felt the rage, felt how whoever it was—it had been a woman—had clawed at the door with her nails until they were bloody. And she was furious. They were furious. They would—
Cory got the electrical plug into the wall socket. It was old and took a long time to heat up. The woman in his head didn't speak to him in words, but in images. She'd been a maid in the farm house, and she'd fallen in love with the husband. He hadn't reciprocated; she was convinced he had. The wife locked her up after she'd tried to kill them.
And she'd died.
Cory fought to stay awake. It would be so easy to close his eyes, let her take over, and if Lathe was coming to kill him to free the power she'd consumed, well, that was all right, too.
The smell of electrical burning was heavy in the air. He picked up the iron, casually, like he would a book or a can of Coke, and pressed it against the palm of his hand. The woman, Beth was her name, screamed with his voice and fled his body like it was a burning building.
She'd withdrawn to the rafters and wasn't coming out. Lathe wasn't awake; it was midday, and without the being in the closet with him, there was just a lock keeping him in. He kicked at it, suddenly afraid that the noise would wake Lathe, but the house was silent.
He kicked it again, but nothing happened. He blacked out, twice, when the pain was too much, but the closet door was old, and he'd burst through it. Then it was down the hall, down the stairs, out the door, and into brilliant sunlight. Every step closer to the door, he expected the sensation of Lathe's hand coming down on him, his teeth and nails sharp and cutting, to match the agony in his hand.
His aunt had been convinced that the damage to Cory's hand was some sort of gang initiation. She took him to the hospital, for the first time gentle and caring, but when he hadn't named names, that hadn't lasted. Cory had felt raw inside, said some things he shouldn't have, snatched the bus ticket from her hand, and slammed doors behind him in his wake. When he woke up on the bus, just outside of Kamloops, for the first few seconds he tried to figure out how it had all been a bad dream. But it hadn't. And he knew deep down inside that Lathe would come looking for him. He was going to be ready.
Lathe had found him once, when Brutus had him pinned down. The headlights of an oncoming semi had sent him to smoke. The plan was simple. He'd find another like Lathe and level the playing field. And Luke had seemed the perfect candidate. He didn't carry a torch for his old master; he'd set fields ablaze and held the fire to his chest willingly. There'd seemed like no chance he'd actually grow attached, and for the first few months, Cory had been absolutely right. He kept himself at his prickly best, and Luke would look at him and not entirely see him.
But it hadn't lasted, either. Luke started to see him. He stopped pushing away.
Then he felt Lathe, and Brutus remembered him. He had to leave. So he did, and he didn't want Luke to follow. It had been a bitter, snarling breakup, but Luke had believed it. He was so tired. The mention of Luke interested the thing inside Cory. It dug deeper into those thoughts. “No,” he told it. “Please. I don't want to remember."
Another touch, still as calming as before. It could take away the agony of his hand, but couldn't touch the anguish of what he'd said, what he'd done. “It's not fair."
The memories shifted in his head, away from how bad it now was, to how good it had been. They'd hunted together, and oh, how'd they fucked. He'd never imagined it could be that equal, no take, no give, just willing mouths and fingers and cocks...
These memories he could live with. He touched his lips with his bad hand and remembered how it felt to kiss Luke. And then in that second Luke was there. Not really—he was still in an empty room, and Cory knew he was flat on his back on the cold, wooden floor—but he felt Luke with him. Cory parted his lips, letting Luke inside. He tasted of blood and of wine, and despite the chill in the air, the memory was vivid of the long August nights when it had been so hot that even in the basement it was enough just to feel Luke spoon up behind him, put his hands on Cory's hip, and slide inside him with such slow, painstaking gentleness it reduced Cory's entire world to fucking in general and just being fucked in specific.
And Luke spoke to him, always. Telling him when he would kiss him, and where. Whether it would be a light touch of the lips, barely grazing Cory's skin, or if there would be teeth involved. And then if there was, and there almost always was, Luke let him guess whether or not it was going to be hard enough to draw Cory's blood
