Unhinged by Onley James

Wayne Holt wasn’t his father. He chewed on that thought the whole way to the storage unit. He’d suffered unspeakable things because of him, would have endured far worse if his father—Holt, he corrected—had gotten his way and was able to just hand him over to Gary. It made Noah light-headed imagining just how much worse things could have gotten for him, but it also hurt more than he’d imagined it could.

Whatever Holt had done to him, Noah had tried to rationalize it, had found a way to convince himself that his father had loved him despite every hurt and injury he caused, had told himself it was a compulsion he couldn’t control. But the truth he could no longer avoid was that Holt had only loved Gary and had thought so little of Noah that he’d not only abused him and shared him with others but had intended to then hand him over to Gary so he could have his turn at doing the same. Noah was a commodity to them both.

And now, there was this new thing… A family. A mother who had somehow let him get snatched away and sold to a monster. A mother who had a new life and new kids in a new country. Noah knew nothing about who he really was. Had never imagined he might be Mexican. Had never even questioned where his mother might be. Had he asked as a child? Had Holt made up some excuse that Noah had just swallowed as easily as he’d swallowed everything else Holt told him? Were the answers to his questions swallowed up in the abyss that had also taken his bad memories, too?

He gazed at his reflection in the side view mirror. He looked nothing like Holt. His father had been a predator hiding behind the visage of a weak, mild-mannered teacher. Not his father. Shit. Holt had thinning blond hair and sharp green eyes hidden behind thick black-rimmed glasses. Noah had always just thought he looked like every other pasty white kid at his school and had maybe pondered as a child whether he looked like his mother. But Mexican? He hadn’t even taken Spanish as an elective. He wasn’t racist enough to assume every person of Mexican descent had dark hair and dark eyes, but that was all he ever saw on television. No fair skinned, freckle-faced boys like him.

He tried to shake the thoughts from his head. None of this even mattered. They had bigger problems than unraveling Noah’s complicated family history. There were men out there still hurting little boys. They needed to be stopped. Noah needed to stop them.

But no matter how he tried, his thoughts kept wandering right back to his new reality. For better or for worse, Noah had to spend the rest of his life knowing he had a mother somewhere, siblings somewhere, whether they wanted him or not. Adam had said he’d kept the information to himself in case Noah had been given up for adoption and had only told him because he wasn’t.

But there was no guarantee his mother wanted him back. She’d clearly moved on. Did Noah want to open up that can of worms? Did she want Noah ruining her rebuilt life? What if her new family didn’t even know he’d ever existed? What if she was horrible? What if she was a nightmare? What if she found out the truth of what he endured and thought he was tainted by it forever?

Then there was Adam. He had no doubt Adam could fake being charming. He’d seen it. He’d watched him easily slip the mask on without skipping a beat and had seen it come off just as quickly. But how would Adam take having to share Noah with others? Did Noah even want to be shared with others? He liked the cozy little bubble of their truly fucked up relationship.

“Hey.”

Noah startled, looking over at Adam. “Hey?”

Adam tilted his head, narrowing his gaze to really examine Noah. “You good?”

He wanted to say yeah. To just nod and smile and fake it like Adam, but he wasn’t like Adam. He was just Noah. “No. No, I’m not good. I’m so far from good I couldn’t locate it on a map.”

Noah watched Adam process this information, saw the way he appeared to be accessing some inner network, like he was trying to know what a person with emotions might say. Then he reached over and took Noah’s hand. “What can I do?”

Tears sprung to Noah’s eyes. “Just be here, I guess. Respect whatever choice I make regarding my mother. I don’t know how to deal with any of this. I didn’t ask for it and I don’t want it. You know? I wish I didn’t know Holt wasn’t my father. I wish I didn’t know that he wanted to give me to Gary like he was handing over property. I wish I didn’t know that I have a mom and she moved on from losing me. If you had just asked me if I wanted to know all this before you stole my DNA, I might have said no.”

Adam’s gaze flicked back to the road and then to Noah, squeezing his hand. “I’m not trying to take the blame off me. I should have asked you. That’s all on me. But had I given you the option of knowing who you really are, do you really think you would have said no?”

Noah pondered the question but didn’t get a chance to answer as Adam continued.

“I mean, what are we even doing here? We’re heading to a storage unit to look for information on the men who raped you because you can’t live with yourself knowing they might still be out there doing the same thing to other children. Even if what you're doing is ripping you to shreds, even if sometimes the memories are so violent they make you puke and shake and break your heart, you don’t hide from the hard things. That’s not who you are.”

Tears slipped down his cheeks, but he quickly wiped them away. “I think you overestimate me.”

“I think you underestimate you. You impressed a room full of killers. Hell, you impressed my dad. Do you know how hard that is? He likes you. Like, really likes you. The twins think you’re great and they don’t like anybody. I know that we’re not the family anybody would want, but we’re your family if you want us. But that doesn’t mean you can’t also learn about your own family, too. If you want. Or when you want. There’s no time limit.”

“And you’d be okay with that? Me having a family? A mother, siblings…?”

Adam was quiet for a long while. “I know I’m supposed to say yes. A normal person would say they just wanted you to be happy, which I do. But a selfish part of me wants to keep you all to myself. I have a family—people who always have my back—but I’m alone in all the ways that matter. It’s just how my brain works. At least, it was, until you. You are the family I’ll fight to keep. Nobody else. If you want to meet your real family, I definitely won’t stop you and I’ll do everything in my power to be whoever you need me to be around them. But the jealous part of me will always want you to pick me…just me, and that’s probably never going to change.”

“I do choose you. I will always choose you. You’re my family, too. And I do feel safe with your family. Safer than I have ever felt, but a part of me wants to know who my mother is, while another part is terrified.”

Adam pulled up in front of the storage unit and put the Rover in park. “We don’t have to decide anything right now except whether you want to open that door and see what was so important your father wrote it into his will.”

Noah stared at the door of the unit. “We’ve come this far…”

“We have. But I can do this alone. My brothers and I can finish this for you. We’ve already got blood on our hands and memories that would break normal people. We have no problem eliminating an army of pedophiles if that’s what it takes.”

Noah’s stomach plummeted. He should just say yes. Let Adam do the hard stuff. But maybe he was right. That wasn’t who Noah was. “Let’s go.”

The key slid home and unlocked with a solid click. The rolling door groaned in protest as Adam slid it upwards, revealing…two storage boxes. Just two. Sitting in a large, otherwise empty space.

Noah bit down hard on his cheek before asking, “Do we take them or look at them here?”

Adam’s gaze seemed to snag on something in the corner of the unit and, for a second, Noah had the irrational thought that somebody was standing there. He turned slowly, following his gaze over and up, heart stopping when he saw the small camera and the blinking light. “Do you think it’s hooked up to something or just there to scare people away?”

“I think it doesn’t matter either way. There’s clearly something in these boxes worth seeing. Snag one and put it in the back.”

“Where are we going?”

“Back to my father’s house.”

* * *

Once they were back in the Batcave, Noah felt much safer. Nobody could touch him there, least of all Gary. But now, he could never go back to his old life. He hadn’t ever intended to go back, but having the choice taken away from him made him feel sick. He was like a spy who’d been burned, and now, the only way out was through. They had to kill Gary, or Noah would never be safe. He might not be safe anyway. There was no guarantee that camera feed went to Gary, even if he was the most obvious choice.

Thomas had joined them downstairs, along with August and Atticus. The twins and Archer were missing. Noah wasn’t sure about the last sibling, Aiden. There were pictures of the seven of them along with Thomas all over the house, but Aiden disappeared around the time of his college graduation.

There was definitely a story there, but Noah couldn’t begin to imagine what it was. The newspapers referred to Aiden as the estranged son, the one adopted as a teen who just never seemed to take to being part of a large family. There was definitely more to his story, but Noah wasn’t going to pry. It didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. At least, not at the moment.

Adam and Noah sat cross-legged on the conference room table, the file boxes in front of them, while Thomas and the others stood. Thomas gave a nod and the boys cracked the lids on each box. Noah frowned. Inside was a bunch of loose pictures, but not the kind Noah had anticipated. It looked like a camp of some sort. There were boys playing basketball, soccer, or just sunbathing on a dock. They were all smiling, happy. The photos were stamped with the date July 1990.

There were hundreds of them, scattered across all the other items, but one caught Noah’s eye. Ten boys in bathing suits, standing in front of a lake, arms thrown around each other’s shoulders. There was something vaguely familiar about it.

Noah sighed. “Well, I have summer camp pictures. What about you?”

Adam seemed equally perplexed. “I don’t know what I have. Bank records? Copies of checks. Financial documents, legal briefs?”

Thomas snagged the first folder from Adam’s box and handed it to Atticus, who dropped into a chair and started to sort through the papers. The second file went to August, who simply began to flip through the documents like he had a specific target.

“What are you looking for?” Noah finally asked.

August frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

“You’re flipping through the pages so fast. What are you looking for?”

“I’m not looking for anything. I’m reading.”

Reading? How? Nobody could read that fast. Nobody.

Thomas gave Noah a smile. “My son has an eidetic memory. He retains everything he reads even if he appears to skim.”

Noah absorbed that bit of information. “Oh.”

August just smirked like he was used to people being impressed by him, but Atticus snorted, rolling his eyes. He was clearly tired of people feeling like August’s talent outshined his own. Were all siblings this competitive or just murderous ones?

Noah went to set the photo down when something caught his eye. He squinted harder at the picture, his gaze snagging on one man in particular. It was the eyes. “That’s my da—Holt. That’s Holt.” He scanned the photo and found another familiar face. “And that’s Gary.”

“They met at summer camp?” Adam asked, taking the photo and flipping it over. “New Horizons, 1990.”

“That doesn’t sound like a summer camp to me. Sounds like a drug treatment facility,” Atticus mused without looking up from his task.

Thomas hit the button on the boomerang and before Calliope could even say hello, asked, “Calliope, we’re looking for a camp program called New Horizons, would have been active in 1990 or so. Holt and Gary both attended the program.”

They listened as she worked, Noah frowning at the pictures, flipping back through them before stopping short. “I-Is that the priest? Father O’Hara?”

Adam leaned forward, close enough for their hair to touch. The photo was grainy and the man wasn’t even in the forefront, just lingering in the background, watching.

“Yeah, I think so,” Adam confirmed, handing over the photo to Thomas.

“Okay, no summer camps,” Calliope interrupted, “but I do have a New Horizons Program for Boys that started in 1974 and…still runs to this day.”

“What kind of program?” Atticus asked.

More clacking and then a soft exhalation. “It’s a rehabilitation program—”

“Told you,” Atticus broke in, smug.

“But not for drugs or alcohol. It’s a treatment program for juvenile sex offenders run by the church. It’s billed as an alternative to prison. If these boys went there, it’s because they were ordered there by the courts.”

“Wouldn’t you have seen that in their backgrounds?”

“Not if the records were sealed or expunged,” Calliope said. “Records for juveniles are often hidden so they don’t ruin the rest of their lives.”

“Can you unseal them?” Adam asked.

Calliope scoffed. “I can now that I know they exist, but it’s going to take more than five minutes. I’ll call you back.”

There was no goodbye, so Noah returned to his file box. Beneath the stack of pictures was a photo album with a pink and blue pastel patchwork bear. Noah’s hands trembled, every fiber of his being telling him to just hand over the album to Adam. Instead, he turned the page and came face to face with a photo of himself.

He couldn’t have been more than five. He sat on that race car bed from the cabin, wearing a t-shirt and shorts. His eyes were hollow and he stared up at the camera with a pain and desolation that made Noah dizzy. Under the photo were the words: Our Boy.

The album fell from Noah’s hands, clattering on the table, capturing the attention of the room. Adam swiped it before Noah could reach for it again, flipping open the cover and then thumbing through it, the muscle of his jaw ticking as he scanned the pages.

“What is it?” Noah asked, voice dull.

“Exactly what you think it is,” Adam said, handing it to his father. Noah had to fight the urge to rip the album from Thomas. Hadn’t he already been humiliated enough? Did they all have to share in his tragedy? Thomas grimaced as he opened the book, fanning through it, just as Adam had, though with more speed.

“Let me see it,” Noah said, voice trembling.

Thomas gave him a sad smile. “No. I won’t. There’s literally no reason for you to see this.”

Part of Noah was grateful, while the other part hated that they got to see him at his worst but he didn’t. “How will I know who they are if I can’t see their faces?”

Thomas closed his eyes, his face pained. “There are no faces but yours. Please, I know you want to be tough, but you can never unsee this. Just…let us protect you, just this once.”

Adam snarled, his own hands trembling, not with fright but with rage. “I want them dead, Dad. All of them. I don’t care if it puts us on the map. They all need to die. Screaming. Bloody. Bruised. Writhing in agony. Every fucking one of them.”

Noah would usually try to rein in Adam’s homicidal fury, but, this time, it felt good. Just. Necessary. Every one of them deserved to die screaming, and he didn’t want Adam less angry. He just wanted to watch.

Thomas kept a grip on the album as they continued to excavate the boxes. More photos, more albums, more boys. Noah might have been the first album, but he was by no means the last. Each with their own disgustingly childish album cover. Noah wasn’t permitted to see any of them. He really didn’t want to see. It was one thing to know it was him being hurt, it was something else altogether to see another child suffering the way he had.

The boomerang chirped beside Noah’s thigh. Thomas reached over and pushed the button. Calliope’s somber voice flooded the room. “Incoming,” she said.

A screen lit up on the wall beside the white board and a picture of a boy in his early teens appeared. It was a mugshot. “Wayne Holt, arrested at the age of thirteen for assaulting his six-year-old neighbor. Was sent to New Horizons instead of a juvenile detention center because the judge felt he shouldn’t ruin a young boy’s life after ‘one mistake.’”

“Pretty big fucking mistake,” Atticus muttered, sounding disgusted.

“That’s not all. Paul Anderson was also there that summer, as was Conan Greevey. All under the watchful eye of Father O’Hara, the program director.” A series of pictures began to fill the screen, ten total, all men who were around the same age Holt was when Noah lived with him. His stomach rolled. “Noah, do any of these men look familiar?”

“Yeah.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “One, six, seven, nine and ten.”

“Raphael Nunez, Judd Dunnigan, Julian Keys, David Krebs, and Phil Armstrong. All part of the program. All with expunged records. All went on to have jobs that allowed them to work closely with children,” Calliope said. “I’ll send you everything I have on them, but I think we’ve found our major players.”

“Not all of them,” August said. “I have at least three more names that you didn’t list who are somehow tied to this. They were selling the content. VHS tapes, then DVDs. There’s payment information, emails, IP addresses. Many of them are overseas but most are right here in the US. This is a much bigger operation than we imagined but, from what I can gather, it’s all run by those men you mentioned, all under the direction of Father O’Hara.”

“Yeah, curiously, nothing to incriminate Gary or Holt, except maybe the use of the cabin.”

Noah frowned, trying to put the pieces together. “That’s why he sent this to Gary. He was handing over the keys to the kingdom. He wanted to be able to burn it all down once Gary died. Why?”

“Who knows? We’re never going to understand whatever twisted bond these two shared. But I think we have more than enough to agree these men all need to be eliminated, no?” August asked his father.

Thomas nodded. “Yeah, but once we kill one, the others are going to go to ground.”

Adam met Noah’s gaze and gave him a gentle smile before he looked at his brothers. “Then let’s take them out all at once.”