Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1055571.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Major_Character_Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      The_Losers_(2010), The_Losers_-_All_Media_Types
  Relationship:
      Jake_Jensen/OMC, Carlos_"Cougar"_Alvarez/Jake_Jensen, Carlos_"Cougar"
      Alvarez_&_William_Roque
  Character:
      Jake_Jensen, Carlos_"Cougar"_Alvarez, William_Roque, OMC, OFC
  Additional Tags:
      Physical_Abuse, Sexual_Abuse, Abuse_of_a_Minor, Alternative_Universe_-
      Travelling_Sideshow, Major_character_death_-_Freeform, original_character
      death, Violence, Description_of_Injuries, Dark_fic, Rated_for_cautionary
      reasons, Non-Graphic_Rape/Non-Con, Non-Graphic_Violence, author_allergic
      to_happy_endings
  Stats:
      Published: 2013-11-23 Words: 8520
****** Only The Broken Remain ******
by S_Hylor
Summary
     This life isn’t for good people. We’re worn out, battered, tired;
     outcasts, bad men, and some outright wicked. It isn’t very often that
     something pure comes into this world. And when it does, everything
     that is tainted tries to devour it.
Notes
     Please, please, please pay attention to the warnings. I'll say again,
     this is not a happy story! At all. It's dark, and depressing, and
     covers a lot of touchy subjects. There is no explicit rape/non-con,
     and the violence isn't overly descriptive either. I've put the
     highest rating on it simply because of the themes of this story.
      
     This fic was inspired by the song Assistant by Amanda Palmer and the
     Grand Theft Orchestra. It was not an easy fic to write, and I in no
     way this this will be an easy fic to read.
      
     A huge thanks to jujitsuelf and 3White_Mage3 for the beta reading,
     hand holding and encouragement.
     Thanks also to quandong_crumble and joidianne4eva for the read
     throughs.
The current kid wasn’t the first, and he probably wouldn’t be the last, but he
was the first in a long time that had lasted so long without breaking. When he
first showed up, looking all of fifteen, trailing along behind his new master,
Jared, all wide eyed wonder, a bunch of folk started laying down bets to see
how long he’d last. I couldn’t help but wonder what could he have possibly come
from to think that this was a step up in life, but one of the unspoken rules
around here is we don’t ask about the past, and we don’t intervene with each
other’s acts.
The magic show is probably the biggest crowd drawer we’ve got, mostly because
Jared was good at what he did, and everyone knows that the bigger the crowd the
more we’ll get paid, and that’s what most are here for. That or they’ve got
nowhere else to go. It’s often both.
Jared kept the kid away from most of us, he usually did, so we never got any
the wiser about what the kid was like, or where he’d come from. There were
scars though, just a few, that I probably shouldn’t have seen, so I pretended I
didn’t. But that was at the beginning, there are more scars now.
I think he could have been a good kid, if he hadn’t ended up here, clever
anyway, probably could have made something of himself if this place hadn’t
sucked him in. Not like me, I’d done my dash and this was as far as I could go.
No prospects. After a month, he didn’t have too many either. After a month, I
thought it would have been lucky if he survived another. He had fight, though,
and proved a lot of us wrong. Would pick himself up again afterwards and keep
going. He didn’t break, and that was the real problem, ‘cause then, it was even
more fun for Jared to try and wear him down.
 
The first time it happened, when that bastard thought he’d be able to break the
kid by taking away the last of his dignity and innocence, we all heard it.
Roque, the knife thrower, told me later, his voice all deadly with anger and
disgust, that there’d been struggling and fighting beforehand, but I had been
over with the animals, feeding the tiger that’d recently been bought off
another show and I hadn’t heard that.
All I heard was the scream.
It was the type of noise that made ice run down my spine and my jaw clench
tight. It was the sound someone made when they could no longer hold it in, when
all the pain got so bad there was nothing else they could do. It cut off half
way through, and I tried not to think about what caused that.
The whimpering came after, like the sound of a dog beaten on so much that it’s
scared of even itself. I was close enough to hear it, later on, and it made me
sick to know what was going on inside Jared’s tent.
What was even worse was none of us did a single thing.
Roque and I returned to the animal truck and tried to drink away the shame of
it and the memory of that sound, but it didn’t change the fact that we were too
gutless to protect that poor kid.
We moved out the next day and not a one of us saw the kid at all during pack
up. That sick feeling set it then, like I was gonna vomit at any minute, and it
had nothing to do with the alcohol I’d drunk the night before. That feeling
didn’t go away, not even when I saw the kid surface a couple days later,
bruised and limping. That was when I wanted to find that bastard magic freak
and break every bone in his body. But I didn’t, I went back to my animals and
promised myself that next time I’d stop it from happening.
 
I can’t stop it though. Jared, he doesn’t just have the top act, but he runs
the show. This is his travelling fucked up freak show, and he knows all the bad
shit I’ve done in my life, he gave me a job and a sense of purpose. Not that
I’m saying I owe the man anything, but he’s got dirt on me. I guess it’s a bit
hypocritical of me, getting mad at him, I’m not a good man by any stretch, I’ve
got history, and it ain’t pretty. I did a lot of bad stuff, but I’d never hurt
a kid. Never hurt anyone like Jared hurt that kid.
I can’t stop it, Roque can’t either, though there are knife marks in about
every solid surface around that have only appeared since this whole mess
started so I know he’s pissed too.
It’s Roque who finds him after the second time it happens, a couple of towns
later. Roque finds him outside, round the back of the big tent, like that
bastard didn’t even have the decency to do it inside. I’m with the animals,
getting along better with the new tiger now, when Izzy, one of the acrobats
comes running up, tells me to drop everything and come with her. I don’t know
what it is to start off with, but when I round the big tent and see Roque
there, pacing back and forwards, fists clenched and all but one of his knives
thrown into the dirt I know it can’t be good. I don’t know why they came for
me, guess they figure since I’m good with lookin’ after frightened and injured
animals I’d be good lookin’ after a human in the same boat. Maybe I let slip
one night, drunk with Roque, that I have seen my fair share of blood and death.
Even with all that I’m still not quite prepared for seeing what Jared left
behind.
The kid’s a mess, trying to hold torn clothes back around him while those eyes,
the ones that once looked at the whole place in wonder, remind me too much of
any newly trapped animal. Scared, angry, desperate and all too willing to fight
if he has to. I can see that in his eyes, but know that there is little fight
left in him, he’s too beat up. I take the same approach I do with most hurt
animals, make myself look as small as possible, bringing myself down to the
ground to be on the same level as him, and I know those eyes are on my every
movement. None of us have ever had a whole lot to do with the kid, Jared likes
to keep his assistants away from us, so he never had the chance to learn that
me, Izzy and Roque weren’t ever going to hurt him. So I wait. Just wait, all
quiet like and after a while I tell him I’m there to help, if he wants. Roque’s
backed right off at this point and Izzy disappeared not long after I got there.
I work my way closer, giving him time to see I ain’t gonna hurt him, and
eventually, whether it’s that, or the pain and exhaustion that win out, ‘cause
he lets me close enough to look past the ragged clothes and see what damage has
been done.
There were bruises and welts all over his torso, some fresh, red raw, others
older and faded. There was blood where there ought not to be blood. It made my
stomach turn. This wasn’t wounds sustained in fights, it was damage inflicted
on a defenceless kid. I tried to be careful, checking along his sides for signs
or broken ribs, pressing fingers against his stomach, trying to feel for
swelling of internal bleeding. He tried to hiss, but it broke off into a
whimper, and it made me want to kill Jared three times over.
Roque was there, still at a distance, asking if there was anything serious, and
I shook my head, no. Nothing life threatening anyway. There was a deep cut
along the outside of his left thigh, a couple inches long, but it looked like
it was days old already. It should have been stitched a time or two, but it
looked like it was starting to mend despite the lack of treatment. I didn’t
know what I could do for the kid. I didn’t have much in the way of gear to
patch up a human, and horse tranquilizers were hardly fitting for a human,
though it’d be a sure way to relieve him of his pain.
I told him we should move him, somewhere indoors and get him cleaned up. He
flinched away from the hand I tried to offer him. It took a fair bit of
coaxing, but I did manage to get him to his feet, and we started the slow,
shuffling trek back to mine and Roque’s shared tent. I wished Izzy had stayed
around, the kid probably would have trusted her more, but instead he got me and
Roque, and that ain’t the most comforting combination. Not to look at anyway. I
knew neither of us would ever hurt the kid. Never hurt anyone that way.
Somehow, between the two of us, me and Roque managed to get the kid cleaned up.
It was no easy feat. He protested at every move, clung desperately to his
clothes and tried to fight back or get away when I had to touch certain areas.
It was not nice. I felt my heart clench in my chest at every broken little
sound he made, every word of protest he uttered. He had got a mouth on him,
cursin’ me and threatenin’ to cut my hands off if I lay one finger on him. But
it was all talk. There wasn’t any real fight left in him, too hurt, too beat
down. Roque left, stood outside the tent like some sort of guard dog when Izzy
came back with hot water and the disinfectant from one of the medical kits
around the place. I had some, myself, but it was in with all the other animal
gear I had, and I guess the human stuff was probably a better idea anyway.
Izzy stuck around to help, short, beautiful and non-threatening, but the kid
still watched her warily. I think, mostly, he’d waited to see her reaction as
his clothes are finally discarded, and I heard her intake of breath and knew
she wasn’t really cut out for this, but at least she was there.
Cleaning up was the worst part. I didn’t want to hurt the kid, or scare him in
anyway, but even with being as careful as possible he was such a mess that
there was no way to escape causing him some pain in the process. There are a
few more cuts along his arms and legs, some old, some new and still weeping
blood. There was stuff left behind by that bastard where it ain’t got no
business being, and that was probably the hardest part to cope with. I don’t
know why it ended up being me who was doing all the touching and cleaning up,
but he shied away from Izzy more than me, so she was there, in front of him,
letting him almost break her hands in his grip, while I was working. By the
time I was done he was a mottled mess of yellow brown antiseptic stains and
yellow black bruises. The wound on his leg had opened up again, so I flushed it
out with more antiseptic and after a bit of contemplation decided to put a
couple stitches in it to try and reduce the scarring if I could. The kid was
laid out on my bed, his head in Izzy’s lap, biting down on a bit of leather I
had around the place while I put a needle through him. He made less complaints
about that than anything else. I guess it’d all finally caught up with him,
‘cause he passed out to Izzy stroking his hair and making false promises about
how it’d all get better.
We let him sleep, dressed in one of Roque’s shirts that was too big for him and
a pair of my pants that were too short for him. Roque let me take his bed, to
sit watch all night, while he stood guard outside. It was pack up the next day,
but I didn’t sleep, I sat there listening to the kid’s breathing and half
thinking that if the world was any good to him it’d let him not wake up again.
 
Things weren’t a lot better in the morning. The kid was still in pain, but I
managed to get a bit of food in him, and load him up with the strongest
painkillers we had that wouldn’t knock him out. He started talking after we’d
eaten, still nestled amongst all the blankets on my bed, as I started packing
up. He didn’t actually say a lot, just talked. It was like he needed to, to
distract himself. Guess we all had our own methods of keeping the demons at
bay.
I offered him the spare seat in my truck that day, somewhere to travel that
might be more safe, and I was surprised when he took me up on the offer. He
told me his name was Jake. Just Jake, nothing else, but I knew that being told
that was something precious, so I held onto it as such. I told him that
everyone called me Cougar, and I almost got a smile for that.
 
I won’t lie and say things got better that, because they really didn’t. What
mattered though, was the kid, Jake, knew that we were there, if he needed. And
he needed. We couldn’t look out for him all the time, couldn’t keep him away
from Jared all the time, but we did try. There were still rehearsals, and right
after the shows, but it wasn’t too often that Jake stayed with him when he
could help it. He took to camping in our tent, him on my bed, me on the floor,
and it was good, in a way, because I got to clean up the mess left behind by
Jared, and patch up the kid the best I could. I couldn’t protect him, but I
could look after him when he was there.
 
I don’t think the kid knew how to be alone, and I hated thinking what had
caused that, because a town later, after he’d come back to us with new bruises,
he’d crawled out of the bed and onto the floor with me. It woke both me and
Roque up, but neither of us said anything. The kid tucked himself against my
body and I had no idea what to do. I spent the rest of the night awake.
It happened again the next few nights, until I finally asked if he was okay. He
plastered on his performance smile that made my skin crawl and said he was
fine, that he’d repay me for looking after him if I wanted. I didn’t want, not
like that, and I told him as much. The next night, the last night at that town,
he came back limping. The last nights were always the worse, like Jared left
him alone during the week so it didn’t affect the shows at all, but on closing
nights all bets were off, as the saying went. It changed that night, there
wasn’t that smile, there wasn’t much at all, like Jared finally succeeded in
breaking him. Jake just shuffled back into the tent, and forgoing the bed
entirely, he just lay down on the floor with me and asked me to hold him. He
sounded so young, so lost. I did what he asked, because I couldn’t say no,
though real careful where I put my arms and hands.
So that’s how it went. I picked him up, stitched him up, patched him up and
each night I tried to hold him together. I told myself that it was the best I
could do. I think, for a while, I almost believed it.
 
Izzy left, just disappeared, one day. We were camped outside of a larger town
than usual, and when we packed up to move on, she just wasn’t there. Some of
her stuff was gone, so I liked to think that she’d gone of her own accord. I
guess she’d just had enough and had found something better to go to. I didn’t
blame her. Since the kid arrived, it had got harder to stay. But I stayed,
because there wasn’t anywhere else for me to go.
Izzy leaving though, that got me thinking, and I thought that maybe, there
could be a chance of something different. A different life, with the kid, and
maybe I could do it if I was leaving for him and not for me. I wasn’t gonna
fool myself, I wasn’t even close to being the best thing for the kid, I wasn’t
the sort of person that Jake needed looking after him, but I cared, and maybe
that was enough. And, oh god, did I care. You can’t sleep every night holding
someone in your arms without caring. Not that I tried to act on that at all.
There were some things that you just don’t get to have, no matter how much you
want. And I was okay with that, because I’d gone through most of my life not
getting what I wanted. It was different though, because, sometimes, I almost
thought that it was something the kid wanted too. Things he did, I don’t know,
just little things, that made me think he cared for me too. But I wasn’t good
for him, and he was so fragile, like if I did the wrong thing, he’d break
altogether, and you just don’t push that. So I left it alone.
Roque and I started to talk about it, ‘bout where we’d go, what we’d do. It’s
not like we made any grand plans. We didn’t have a lot of money, and Jared
seemed to be holding onto our pays longer and longer, so we talked about how
we’d go, once we’d got the money. My truck would have to stay, because it ain’t
really mine, and I wouldn’t want to have someone saying I stole it. But we
could take a train, or maybe a boat, ‘cause at the end of the next month we’d
be on the coast, and we’d just go as far away as we could. Between the two of
us, we’d have a bit of money to get us away, and then we could find something
else. Neither of us had a lot of honest skills, but we’d try our hand at
anything if it meant looking after the kid like he deserved.
It’d be hard to leave all the animals behind, the tiger who didn’t hate me
anymore, the horses, the dog, it’d be real hard, but some things were more
important. Jake had somehow managed to become the most important thing in my
life, superseding all the things that I used to think mattered, like having
money in my pocket, the animals that were so much easier than people, the
drink. The kid changed all of that, with all his noise, his eyes that showed
what he was really feelin’ and the way he needed me. I’d stopped needing people
a while back, liked my silence and my space, but the kid changed that, and
sometimes I think I needed him more that he needed me.
Me and Roque, we both stopped drinking, well, cut back. We didn’t drink like we
used to, because I couldn’t stitch the kid up if I couldn’t see straight. He
was so lost, and hurt, and right on the edge of breaking, and it made me want
to be better, to be a better person, the kind of person who could look after
him. Tried harder to protect him, to mend him, and make him stronger. Like an
injured bird, I wanted to cradle him in my hands and shield him from all that
was bad, to give his wings time to mend, so he’d have a chance to fly away.
And, I dreamed of it, of him getting away, getting better, and even if he left
and never came back to me, it’d be just worth it to see him free. But I let
myself believe, sometimes, at night, when we were both lying in my bed, his
head tucked under my chin and shielded between me and the wall, that he’d
choose to come back. With his breath hot against my chest and his arm tight
around my side, I’d let myself, for only a moment, think about what we could
be, in another life, a new life.
 
I got the chance to watch a couple of shows, made a point of getting the
animals packed away as soon as they finished their performances, and then ran
right back to the big tent, just to see the kid while he was on the makeshift
stage. Roque was there too, the big guy’d been makin’ a real point to sticking
around the kid, and it was makin’ a difference. For the first time, we’d
managed to go a whole town without stitching the kid up. It was amazing the
difference a couple days made. I don’t think the kid knew that he was doing it,
but he started smiling a little more, real smiles, and for me. It made my body
react in ways that it hadn’t for a long time. My heart skipped a bit every time
it happened, and I found myself wanting to reach out and touch those smiles, to
take them and keep them somewhere safe. It was sappy, I know, and I didn’t
deserve those smiles, but I found myself smiling back.
Watching him on stage was both brilliant and frightening. I knew Jared would
never hurt him in front of an audience, but it was still hard to see all those
fake smiles, and the kid acting like he was in awe of Jared. It was so well
played that I almost believed it myself, and then there was that touch of
doubt, that maybe he didn’t hate the bastard in spite of everything he’d done.
We’d never talked about it. He never talked about what happened, talked about
everything except that and his past, and part of me really wanted to know, to
ask him, but I didn’t, and I tried to console myself with the fact that he came
back to my tent every night, to get away, and it was my bed he was sleepin’ in,
and my hands that tried to mend him. I was the one who hurt to see him in pain,
and I was the one who held him at night when he got the shakes and his demons
were too close. And that counted for something. It had to. I thought sometimes,
that for all the lives I’d taken and all the people I’d ruined, if I could just
save this one kid, just protect him and look after him, and care about him the
way I did, maybe I could get a shot at redemption. He was just that little
spark, that little bit of brightness in my life, and I’d never been afraid of
how dark it was until that kid came along.
We waited on getting paid, waited for a long time, far longer than usual, and
it really got me thinking that Jared knew something was up, like he could just
tell we were thinking of leaving. We never said anything to the kid, didn’t
want to get his hopes up at all. I wasn’t one for making false promises, though
on the real rough nights, when I’d had to stitch him up, or when Jared had had
him all violent like again, all I wanted to do was hold him close and promise
him that the future would look up, that we’d get out of there, and I could
build us a safe place somewhere, where he wouldn’t get touched bad by no one
ever again. I wanted to promise him the world, and to make sure it was a good
one I was givin’ him. But I didn’t want to give him false hopes, ‘cause part of
me was still sure that if he came with me, his life wouldn’t be any better than
it was now.
We had one more day left, in the current town, then it was time to pack up and
head for the coast. Roque said if we didn’t get paid after this town, he’d be
takin’ some of the other guys and go and have a talking with Jared, make sure
we had our money so we could catch that boat. It’d be a couple days travelling
to get there, but travelling days were usually better, I could keep the kid
with me all the time and make sure he was alright. Jake seemed to like the
hours spent in my truck, even though he was usually messed up and in pain, but
he talked a lot more, maybe ‘cause it was just the two of us, I never really
worked it out.
The kid met me back at the tent after his show, looking worse than he had all
week. I hadn’t been there waiting for him after the show, one of the horses had
needed seeing to, and I instantly felt bad. All his performance makeup was
still on, but it was smudged all to hell, and I could still see the swelling
coming up in his left cheek. It was probably the first time that the bastard
had actually marked his face, and it made my blood boil, even though a black
eye was hardly the worst the kid had suffered. It was just that it was
something else, on top of everything else. He could tell I was mad, because
that fake smile of his disappeared in a flash and he didn’t protest, or even
complain when I dragged him over to get washed up.
I put him to bed after he’d cleaned up, while me and Roque went to get us all
some food. We passed a bunch of other folk sitting around eating and drinking
in the same exhausted fashion they did everything else, and my hands were
itching for the bottle. We’d gone almost two months without touching the stuff,
and it was still hard to just turn and walk away from it. I could though,
mostly because I needed to keep my wits about me to look after the kid. That,
and I was scared that if I started drinking I wouldn’t stop, and then, I
wouldn’t even be able to protect Jake from even myself.
We ate back in the tent, Jake leaning against my side, all curled up, like he
couldn’t even find the energy to hold himself up, but I hardly minded. The
contact, it was nice. Made me start thinking all over again about how one day
there could be more, when the kid was ready, if he wanted. But I kept those
thoughts, and my hands, to myself, because some things just weren’t darn
appropriate to be thinking. Only had to take one look at the kid to know that
he’d probably never want to be touched like that again, even if it was all
gentle and loving like.
But still, he stayed near to me, and seemed to need the contact as much as I
did. We seemed closer that night, lying in bed after me and Roque cleaned up
our dinner plates. Our bodies closer than we normally were, Jake’s hands
tangled around my shirt, his legs wedged againt mine. I wanted to tell him,
that we were going to get him away. It was so close, so real then, that I just
wanted to share it with him. I kept my mouth shut though, because I couldn’t go
letting him hope, just in case we failed.
At some point I opened my eyes and found the kid looking at me, his eyes too
blue and too emotional, he couldn’t hide anything with those eyes, and it was
hard to see all the hurt in them, all the damage that was there plain to see. I
hoped one day all that’d be gone, and he’d be happy, properly happy, with none
of the demons still haunting him, none of the marks or bruises. I couldn’t help
but touch the darkened spot on his cheek, put my hand over it real gentle, like
I was trying to pretend it wasn’t really there. He was looking at me still,
those eyes showing too much even in the dark of the tent and I just wanted to
hold him and make all that hurt go away. But, the kid’s fingers were twisting
in my shirt, putting that little bit of space between us, and he was moving
just that little bit closer, his face getting closer to mine. He was watching
me the whole time, but it was like he could see straight into me, like he
wasn’t the only one telling all with his eyes. I made a point of keeping real
still, so it was all him, when his lips touched mine.
It was soft, and innocent, hardly even a real touch, but it was all I never
dared to ask for. Then he was moving back, but there was that smile, one of his
real small, true ones, the sort that made my battered heart do flips in my
chest, and that little spark flared up and grew brighter. It was like a
promise, of what we could be, one day, in this life or another, and I held onto
him tight, pressing my lips to his forehead, because he had to know how I felt,
how much I cared, how it was something I was tempted to call love. I wanted him
to know that I loved him, with or without him loving me back, I’d still be
there for him.
 
Everything went wrong the next couple days. It shouldn’t have, everything
should have just been a normal last day. We knew the worst they could throw at
us. I could deal with patching the kid up, cleaning him up and looking after
him. Roque and me, we had a plan, get the money, get to the next town, and get
out. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was more direction than either of us had
had in a long time. We had our shows, each of us separating that morning,
though the kid put it off as long as he could, tailing along behind me as I
went through looking after the animals in the morning. There was another of
those smiles, when he said he’d see me later, and I wanted to kiss him again,
because he was just so perfect in that moment, despite the bruises, that little
spark of light and I was drawn to it. But I didn’t, I just smiled back and
tried not to get too carried away thinking of what we could possibly be in the
future.
I spent the day like I did every other show day, with the animals, feeding,
grooming, tacking up the horses, wrapping their legs, warming them up and
finally delivering them all to their respective shows. I didn’t get a chance to
see the shows at all, only catching glimpses of flashy costumes and the sounds
of the crowds. Roque came past after his act, saying he was gonna round up some
of the guys soon, and try to talk to Jared after his show. We waited outside
the big tent, even though it was the last show we’d get to see, neither of us
wanted to watch it, just waited, listening to the crowds, gasp and cheer. It
wasn’t until we heard them talking as they left that we even thought anything
was wrong. The ones who’d been before, they was saying that Jared had a
different assistant than last night.
I went cold, it was like everything went still, the whole world stopped around
me. Then Roque was grabbing my shoulder and dragging me forward, I could see
the panic in his eyes, it was the mirror of how I felt. I don’t know when we
decided what we were going to do, without even talking to each other, but we
were moving towards the backstage area, Roque hollering out for Jared.
He appeared, still in full stage costume, and right behind him was Lena, one of
the backup performers, and I could tell by her getup that she must have been
the new assistant. I think I was just as mad at her, ‘cause she didn’t tell us
that she was filling in for Jake.
I couldn’t find my voice, but Roque was already demanding to know where Jake
was and what had happened. The bastard wouldn’t really answer, just sayin that
the kid was no good to him anymore, not good enough to keep doing the shows. I
had the horrid thought that maybe he’d sent him away, and we’d never find him
again, but that idea was crazy, ‘cause no one did all that stuff to a kid and
then let them go.
I was runnin’ before I even knew what I was doing. Out the big tent and through
all the still lingering crowds, pushing past people because I needed to get to
Jared’s tent, needed to find the kid in there. I tried to not think about what
I’d find, but even with all the thoughts going through my head, I wasn’t
prepared for what I found in there.
Jake was there, but the relief I felt lasted but a fraction of a second when my
brain caught up with what my eyes were seein’. The kid was there, but he wasn’t
moving, hands bound together and tethered to a metal stake driven into the
ground in one corner of the tent. His clothes were half off him, and I could
see all the bruises and swelling coming up over his stomach, back and chest.
His face was all bloodied up, it wasn’t just one bruise on his cheek anymore.
There was mess leaking out of him, blood and gunk left behind by that bastard,
and it was so much worse than I’d seen in a long time that I almost threw up
right there in the entrance of the tent. But I wasn’t standing there long
enough to let myself.
The kid didn’t respond, not right away, to me being there, checking for a pulse
and tryin’ to hear his breathing. But he whined when I tried to get his clothes
set back right. I kept saying his name, over and over, and I could hear Roque
cursing behind me, but he sounded so far away. The kid opened an eye, and I
don’t think it really saw me, he was slurring words around blood and swollen
lips, but it sounded like my name, and I ain’t ever heard anything better than
that sound.
Roque was there, cutting Jake free of the ropes, and we got him up. His legs
ain’t working, and despite being smaller than Roque, I refused to let him carry
the kid. I needed to be close to him, needed to hear his soft murmurs of how he
was glad I found him, needed to feel his fingers clinging to my shirt and his
breath against my neck. I tried not to hurt him, to make it any worse, but he
was hissing and whimpering every so often, he’s breathing too shallow and too
fast.
We ignored everyone else around us, it was just the show folk by that point,
‘cept for Jared, but I didn’t want him anywhere near the kid ever again anyway.
We left, didn’t even pack up, Roque just started the truck and we piled inside,
the kid half on the seat between us, half on my lap and Roque was driving out
of there. There was enough stuff in the truck to get us through a couple days,
and that’s all that mattered. We’d sort out what we were gonna do in the
morning, and we’d got the kid cleaned up again. It was worse, that time, and
maybe they’re right when they say enough’s enough.
The kid was in pain, it was hard to miss that, he was curled up in my lap, arms
pulled around his stomach, but I don’t think it really helped. I wished there
was something I could do to take all that hurt away, but I had nothing to
offer, ‘cept just to hold him, and pray that there was a god out there
somewhere that’d finally wake up and look after the poor kid.
He looked up at me, gave me another one of those smiles, with lips that started
bleeding again, but there’s that look in his eyes, like he was actually happy,
despite all the pain, but the idea just seemed crazy. He murmured something,
voice barely more than harsh breathing but I could hear him. He told me what
happened, why it was so much worse that time. He had told Jared that he didn’t
wanna work for him anymore, that he quit, and he wanted to work and stay with
me instead. I didn’t know what to say back to that. The kid had stood up to
Jared, more than ever before, for me, to be with me, and it’d got him hurt real
bad. I just held him closer and pushed my lips against his blood and sweat
soaked hair. I wanted to tell him it’d be okay, that we’d get away, and get to
be together, but I couldn’t get the words past the lump in my throat.
We were about ten mile out when the kid stopped moving. Stopped making noise,
and just went still. He was too still.
Things kinda blurred after that, I yelled at Roque, and tried desperately to
get Jake to respond, to wake up, to talk to me, to just give me another one of
those smiles. But he didn’t, and then Roque was pulling the truck up in front
of the hospital, like that was always where he’d planned on goin’ even without
telling me. I could hear him yelling, but all I cared about was the kid in my
arms. I could feel he was still breathing, but it ain’t a whole lot, and
everything was getting dark, all around me, closing in, and I knew it was
coming for him. There were doctors there, nurses with a stretcher, and they
took Jake away from me. I didn’t wanna let him go, but I had to, because they
were the people that would save him.
We waited. That was all we could do. Roque paced, then sat, then paced some
more, and kicked the walls when it seemed to be taking too long. I just stood
there, ‘cause my body didn’t know what else to do. I felt more lost than I had
in the longest time, like part of me was missing, and I think it felt like my
heart. My chest ached, all hollow and empty, and I just waited, ‘cause I didn’t
know what else to do. I never felt so useless in my life, always was able to do
something, ‘til then, when it really mattered.
I didn’t hear the doctor coming back. I didn’t know how long I was standing
there, but my whole body ached like it hadn’t been used in hours, just stood
there staring at the floor. Roque demands to know what was happening made me
look up, and I saw the doctor there, and I could smell the blood I couldn’t
see. He may have taken the gown off, but the blood was still there.
He looked at us, and wanted to know how we knew the kid. Roque told the nurse
already that we worked with him, that we might as well be family. He told them
that we found the kid like that too, and it ain’t a lie, but not the truth
either. But he told the doctor again, like it really made any difference, and
we waited a little more before he told us what happened. I was sick of waiting,
all I wanna do was see the kid again, to see that he was okay, despite that
solid weight that I felt in me, he had gotta be okay, just gotta, ‘cause I
didn’t know what I’d do if he ain’t.
The doctor threw around words like ruptured, liver, spleen, internal bleeding,
too late and sorry. The words, they kinda bypassed me, didn’t sink in, but
beside me, Roque lost it. The gurney beside us was banged into the other wall
so hard it chipped the plaster and collapsed onto its side. He had a knife in
his hand but it ain’t pointed at anyone but himself, while he was yellin’ and
screamin’ and cryin’. Beggin’, demanding they tell him it ain’t so, and that
the kid was gonna be alright.
But he ain’t. They wouldn’t tell us that he was gonna be just fine, and I knew,
because the words had finally sunk in and everything was cold. It was numb and
dark and there ain’t no little spark of light anymore. It was gone, and I was
alone in all the black that used to be my life. Consumed by it. I’d never felt
so alone and scared before. Scared of myself. Scared of what I knew I was gonna
do.
 
They let me see him, all covered up in white sheets, skin too pale and those
eyes closed. I wanna believe that he’d just open his eyes again, and give me
another one of those smiles. But I’d seen a lot of death, and I knew there
ain’t no coming back. All the bruises stood out too much, and I felt the cold
settle in. I knew what I gotta do.
I pressed a kiss to his forehead, and it ached because I had only done that for
the first time the night before. I didn’t tell him goodbye, he couldn’t hear me
anyway. I shoulda told him things, before, shoulda looked after him better,
then he wouldn’t be there, all still, cold. I just hoped that if there was a
god out there, he’d forgive me all my transgressions, all my sins, so when I
died, I’d get to see the kid again, in heaven, ‘cause that’s where he’d be.
I miss him, like a part of me was gone, and everything wass so dark. I guess he
was just too bright for this world, the one we were making him live in. I
realised, standing there in that room that stank of disinfectant, that, despite
it all, the bastard had never managed to break him. He beat him down so much,
but the kid never broke. Those smiles had been proof of that. He was too good
for this dark world, my world. And he’s gone, so it’s only the twisted broken
things that remain. I couldn’t save him, but I wasn’t about to let the bastard
who took that precious kid away from me go unpunished
 
The drive back was silent. We didn’t have to talk to decide on what we were
doing, it seemed like there was only one option. It hurt, leaving the kid’s
body behind, but I didn’t know what else to do. All I could offer him was a
hole dug in a field somewhere, and a handful of words. I told myself that this
way was better, that maybe there was a chance of his family being out there,
and this’d give them the chance to mourn him. We mourned in our own way, tears
shed that went almost unnoticed, with burning anger and loss inside us.
Talkin’ don’t seem right, not even for Roque, the kid was the one who talked,
and we could hear the loss of him in the silence, and at the same time, I could
hear him telling me, over and over, that he was glad I found him.
We pulled up back in the camp, amongst the tents and the people, and for the
first time I really saw it for the hell it is. Part of me wanted to destroy
everything, the whole lot and all the folk, ‘cause no one did a damned thing to
help that kid, but I knew that I’m just a guilty as the rest of them. Stitching
him up wasn’t enough, holding him at night wasn’t enough, ‘cause he was still
dead, and someone could have stopped that from happenin. I figured though, that
god will judge them all as bad people if he saw fit, I said I was done with
killing when I walked away from my past, and it didn’t seem right to go back on
what I said. But there was one person, who I would drag all the way to hell
myself, if I had to, because there was no way I was letting him get away with
this.
Roque was right beside me as we stalked across the camp, and no one got in our
way, they were all there, ‘cept Jared, like they’d all been standing there the
whole time we were gone, and I could see in their faces that they wanna ask,
but none of them dare. I would have thought it was pretty obvious, just us
being back, that the kid was dead. All that anger, and hate, and the black and
dark was curling inside of me, and there ain’t no little spark of light with
his precious smiles and too blue eyes to stop me from being who I used to be. I
ain’t a good man by any stretch, but it was the first time in a long time that
I embraced being such bad folk.
The bastard was in his tent, settling down for the night, and it was disgusting
how easily he seemed to be living with the monster that he was. He shouted out
when we first got in there, but no one came, and that redeemed them just a
little in my eyes. That metal stake was in my hand, about three foot once it
was out of the ground, and it was vindicating knowin’ that the object that
played part in hurting that kid was gonna bring down the punishment upon the
bastard that took that light away from me. Roque stood back, blocking the door
way, but when Jared tried to run I didn’t let him get within three feet of the
exit before bringing that metal down across the back of his knees. He fell,
screamin’, but I barely even heard it, the scream that echoed through my ears
belonged to that innocent kid.
I knew Roque was wanting to hurt him too, ‘cause that kid was his shot at
redemption as well, but he knew that Jake was mine, that he’d chosen me over
everyone else, and it was me feeling his loss the most. I didn’t wanna claim no
monopoly on his loss, but Roque stood by, knives in hand, and watched,
unflinching, as I brought that stake down across the bastard’s back time and
time again. He needed to feel all that pain, every little bit that he’d ever
inflicted upon anybody, that he’d ever made that kid suffer through.
He ain’t moving too much when I kicked him over, and I didn’t care if I’d
broken his back or not, and if I had, despite knowin’ this man’s death had to
be by my hands, I might have been inclined to let him suffer like that forever.
He was beggin, pleading for us to have mercy, for Roque to save him, for anyone
to help him, but no one came, and Roque just passed me one of his knives.
I told him, that he brought it on himself for ever touching that kid, and he
ain’t the big man with all the fancy words when he was lying there and that
look came over his face, like he finally realised all his demons had finally
caught up with him. Bad men who do bad things, bring about bad onto themselves.
It was his doing, and he knew it. I wouldn’t pretend that I was any sort of
hand of god, but I had no qualms using that knife Roque handed over to castrate
that fucker where he lay.
His blood was all over my hands, making everything slick and sticky all at
once, but I still clamped one over that bastard’s mouth to stop his moaning,
because he ain’t got the right to make everyone know he was suffering. I could
hear Roque muttering too, and I probably didn’t blame him, I’d made a right
mess of the bastard, and it could be fair that it was affecting the big guy,
but it ain’t nothing that Jared didn’t deserve. We dragged him outside, and all
them folk were still standing there, but not doing a thing, and I wanted them
to see, to see what they all took part in ignoring. It was not just what I’d
done to the bastard, I wanted them to know that we all failed in protecting the
kid.
Jared died, slowly, Roque put a knife between his ribs and we let him drown,
lying there in his own blood, piss and shit, and no one dared to try and save
him. They all just started packing up around him, not saying a thing, and we
moved out that night, ‘cause not a one of them wanted to still be there come
morning.
We left Jared’s body in a ditch, ‘cause it seemed fitting that the crows got to
pick over him. It didn’t matter if he was found, we’d all be long gone, and we
were ghosts, really, all dead and damned to hell, we just didn’t know it yet.
If they did find us, it didn’t matter, the bastard had it coming. We’d probably
hang for it, so to speak, if they caught us, me and Roque. But that’d alright
by me. I was not a good man by any stretch, and I’d atone for my crimes.
In the end, I was probably no better than that bastard, I was just as much to
blame, when it all came down to it. I had the chance to save that kid, and I
failed, left it all too late. So, really, I’m no better.
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