Page 111 of Fool Me Twice

He’d come for him. They were together again.

He lowered the ashtray, pulling on the knob quickly to get the door wide open. It rattled against the wall, but Hart ignored it as he stared at Cane in disbelief.

“How did you find me?” he asked, jumping aside when Cane pushed his way into the small room and slammed the door shut behind him.

He marched toward Hart, gripping him around the waist and pulling him into his chest, crashing their lips together.

Hart groaned at the taste of him, the rush going straight to his head and making him dizzy and weak-kneed. He wrapped his arms around Cane’s neck to keep himself upright, the ashtray in his grip spilling little flecks of ash all over the back of Cane’s shirt.

He allowed his mouth to be dominated, let Cane push his tongue in and control the kiss. He’d missed him so much. Wanted to join them together as one, to crawl inside his mouth and never leave. But there was something nagging at him. A thought that was trying to push through. Cane needed to get him out of here. But why? This felt so good. He wanted him so much. They could just stay forever.

They kissed angrily, hungrily for long moments, fingers gripping, hands moving. Hart got lost in the beautiful ebb and flow, and wondered why he suddenly felt like crying. Why he wanted to beg Cane not for more, but for help, before that nagging presence in the back of his head started acting up again. Getting louder. Bolder. Pushing all Hart’s thoughts into a box and locking them in the dark mercilessly.

It pulled the haze over his closed eyes and made the hand that held the ashtray rise. He broke the kiss, then brought the heavy glass down, catching Cane on the shoulder with it. He didn’t know why.

Cane shouted in pain and pushed Hart away, face contorting.

“Fuck, Hart,” he said, cupping the spot on his shoulder. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Hart’s insides turned over and bile rose in his throat.

“THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ME!” he screamed, desperate for Cane to stop saying there was. Desperate to go back to when he saw him as perfect. He dropped the ashtray and gripped Cane’s shirt in his rigid fingers. He shook him, pushing against his chest and pulling him back in. “Nothing is wrong with me, stop saying that. Stop it.”

“I’ll stop when you stop acting like this,” Cane said. “You fucking ran off on everyone, Hart. We were worried out of our minds.”

Hart froze. He had. He’d run and he’d made sure he wasn’t followed. He’d left his car and stayed well away from places his team knew he frequented. But worried? No, that wasn’t right. They didn’t want him anymore.

“How did you find me?” Hart asked instead. Cane shouldn’t have been able to find him.

“I’ll always be able to find you, sweetheart,” Cane said softly, looking around the room for a moment with a ghost of emotion on his face before fixing his intense gaze back on Hart. “You think I don’t know why you came here?”

“What?” Hart asked, looking around the room himself as if he’d find answers written on the damp walls. He’d come here randomly. Because it was cheap, low-grade, and so unlike him that nobody would think to look for him there.

“The night we first met,” Cane said, walking over to the wall behind the bed and laying a hand on it. “You brought me here with you. This motel. This room.”

“I didn’t,” Hart protested.

“I fucked you here against this wall,” Cane said. “Holding you up until you were screaming. I had you bent over that bed. I had you on your knees for me in that shower. This whole room reeked of us. You didn’t come here by accident. You came here because you knew I’d find you here.”

Hart looked around, blinking hard against the haze. He felt like he was drowning. The room still didn’t look familiar to him.

But Cane against that wall did.

The image of him bent over that bed felt like he’d seen it before.

He began to pace, the filthy carpet muffling up his steps.

He felt a sharp pain in his skull, pressing harder and harder at his temples, like something was trying to escape from the confines and bleed out. He clutched it on either side, trying to relieve the pressure.

“Hart…”

Hart shook his head, not wanting to hear more of the same.

But maybe Cane finding him was a good thing. Hart wanted to be near him. Needed him. More than anything. More than air. More than food. More than sleep. He was a husk without him, drifting and useless. If he could chain them together forever, inseparable, wouldn’t that be bliss? Wasn’t that how they should always be?

You could just leave together and never come back to Slatehollow.

He paused in his steps and opened his eyes, staring at the wall in front of him as the idea slithered in and took root, spreading its tendrils out and infecting everything.

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