Dreaming in Color by Cameron Dane (mobi reader .TXT) 📗

“Don't knock him out cold. I want him to feel this.” A clicking sound reverberated through the night louder than the cocking of a gun.

Switchblade. Oh please. No.

The punches to his arms and legs stopped. “Shit,” one of the others said, “you didn't say nothing about a knife.” Colin blinked, and the one in the Freddy Krueger mask backed away. “I ain't gonna kill him.”

“Pussy.” That came from the one kicking his hip, in the Scream mask. “He ain't gonna die.” He stopped and traded places with the first, and now held Colin's shoulders. “It's just gonna hurt real bad. Slice him open like the rooting pig he is.” An ugly laugh muffled from under the rubber covering his face. “Go ahead.”

Colin's shirt was torn open, and such fear attacked him he started to hyperventilate.

“Ain't no running from what you are, fag boy,” the one with the knife, in the Jason Voorhees mask, said. “But after this, you'll think twice about doin' anything about it.”

Without a belt on, Colin's pants rode low, exposing his lower stomach.

“Please…” His plea gurgled through the blood in his mouth as he begged.

Without even looking up, Jason sank the tip of the knife into Colin's belly, and white-hot pain ripped through him hot enough to set him aflame. Then, the knife moved through his belly, slicing his flesh; Colin screamed in agony, and with a surge of strength, rolled out of the hold on his shoulders in an effort to protect himself. The blade stayed in him though, and seared a cutting line all the way around his side and up his back.

“Hey, kid!” A loud voice cracked across the night, and light from the restaurant's kitchen inched into the alley. “Your mom's on the phone. What's taking so long?”

The three men let go of Colin at once, and one of them yelled, “Run, run, run!” They all took off as fast as they had shown up, thundering down the alley at a breakneck pace.

“Hey, stop!” That was definitely Sal's voice above the radio.

Colin rolled toward the kitchen door, moaning as his entire being shrieked in protest of the move. “Help me.” He sucked in a breath and choked on the blood in his throat.

“Holy shit, Colin.” Sal dropped to Colin's side and pulled him onto his lap. “What the hell happened?”

Colin blinked, searching, but everything was a hazy blur. He thought Sal held him, but there were so many faces floating above him, and none of them looked clear, so he couldn't be sure. He reached up, and touched something solid. “Help me.” He coughed, and his entire body cried out with suffering.

“Goddamnit, hold on. Marta! Sierra!” Sal bellowed the names at the top of his lungs. “Call nine one one. Bring some tablecloths, dishtowels…something! Colin is bleeding!” He lowered Colin back to the ground and gripped his hand. “Be strong. Help is coming.”

“'Kay.” Everything in his line of sight dwindled, and Colin's world went black.

* * * * *

Colin jerked awake and battled the blanket tangling his legs, throwing it off his body as if it were one of his assailants. Where am I? Blinking, he looked around, his heart racing until he recognized Marek's home, and the events of the last few days caught up to him. I'm in Fiji, not behind Gino's back in Henderson, bleeding onto the ground. Even as Colin recognized his surroundings, his insides still buzzed with residual nerves. God, he hadn't had such a vivid dream of his assault in years, and it left him trembling. He didn't know why it had bubbled to the surface with such detail once again.

It's all the emotions stirred up in these last few days. Has to be. Colin wasn't used to vulnerability with a partner, and that had to be what was dredging up old fears and pain. With the adrenaline racing through, he wasn't sure he liked dealing with the results that being intimate with Marek stirred in him right now. Nothing in his life, other than the attack, had ever left Colin feeling so powerless and uncertain as Marek's unpredictable behavior, and his ever-changing fits and starts about what he wanted. Even as Colin thought about the nightmare this lack of stability with Marek roused in him, he knew he wouldn't give up what had happened with him on the beach or the foyer floor. He wouldn't dare lose any of his time with the other man in order to restore the calm he normally craved.

Colin shivered again. True intimacy. Scary concept. He stretched out on the couch, unable to make his mind and body relax. It was quiet outside now, the storm having passed from the time Colin fell asleep to when the nightmare ripped him awake. He had fallen asleep earlier to the sound of Marek pacing in his bedroom, but it was silent now, inside and out. Colin sighed and stared out the window in the darkened TV room, still exhausted but unable to close his eyes. Damn, that dream had sapped him more completely than his toughest workout.

Resigning himself to a long night, Colin settled in, then started when Marek's long shadow reached across the TV room floor, announcing his presence. Oh fuck; he came out of hiding.

Colin held his breath when everything in him wanted to run to Marek. Instead, he forced himself to remain in place and wait.

An agonized, tension-filled few minutes sat heavy in the air between them, but eventually Marek crossed the room and took a seat in the recliner, half in dark and half in light but directly in Colin's line of sight. He wore a pair of his familiar khaki cargo pants, and nothing else.

With his feet planted firmly on the floor, and his hands wrapped around the armrests of the chair, Marek blurted, “I didn't wear protection.”

Colin exhaled and started breathing again. “No, you didn't.” He had pilfered a condom and lube packet from Tom's toiletry kit back at the bungalow, but in the heat of the