Unhinged by Onley James
Adam was well versed in being where he didn’t belong. He’d been breaking into people’s houses almost since he was old enough to cross the street unassisted. Noah clearly had not. He sat beside Adam in the car, staring at Gary’s front door like he expected a SWAT team waited on the other side.
Noah’s worried face made Adam want to forget all about the plan. He was sure he could think of something else for the two of them to do, something that didn’t involve triggering Noah’s worst memories. But he knew that wasn’t going to happen.
Adam sighed, looking out across the well-manicured lawn of Gary’s ranch style home. The guy was paranoid, but he wasn’t very bright. He had surveillance at every corner of his house. Hell, even his doorbell had a camera, but they were all on his wi-fi. His easily hackable wi-fi. It had only taken Calliope minutes to take control of his feeds and loop them so he’d never know they were there. She’d also run a background check, looked at his bank accounts, and attempted to access his laptop.
That was where they’d run into an issue. Gary had NSA-level encryption software, making his system unhackable from the outside. So, not that stupid, Adam supposed. Still, he had more than one computer, so all they could do was clone whichever computer Gary had left behind and hope there was something incriminating behind that encryption software.
“You ready?” Adam asked.
Noah worried his bottom lip between his teeth. “What if we get caught?”
“We won’t get caught. The cameras are looped, the alarm is deactivated. We have the key to his front door. Just look like we belong here and nobody is going to bat an eye. We’re just friends watering his plants.”
“So, we just go in and ransack his house? Won’t he know we’ve been there?”
“No, we go in and you carefully look through his stuff for anything related to his…extracurricular activities. I’m going to clone his hard drive and give it to Calliope so she can take her time cracking it. Chances are Gary has been doing this so long he thinks he’s untouchable. That’s what happens with all these guys. Eventually, they get lazy, and that’s how they get caught.”
Noah swallowed audibly, giving a nervous nod. “Yeah, okay.”
“Hey, you good?” Adam asked, gripping Noah’s chin and tipping it upwards, examining his face. Most people were easy to read, but Noah’s face either said nothing or everything, just like Noah himself. Adam merely wanted to give him what he needed.
“Yeah. Part of me is just afraid of what I’ll find in there.”
Adam leaned into Noah’s space, wrapping a hand around the back of his neck and tugging him in close. “Listen, there’s a good chance that while we’re in there, we’ll find something you can’t unsee. So, look but don’t absorb. Got it? Turn your brain off. Take pictures of whatever you think is important, but don’t look at any one thing for too long. Don’t let anything in.”
“Yeah. Yeah, okay. Let’s do this.” Noah pulled the handle, swinging the passenger door wide.
Adam snagged his arm before he could leave. “I can go alone if you want me to?”
Noah’s eyes widened, then went kind of soft. “No. I need to do this.”
Adam got that. He did. But he also didn’t want to see Noah break under the weight of what he learned. There was already a strange hollow look in his eyes, a kind of misery that came from years of struggle and disappointment, like an animal that had been beaten enough to never trust another human. Adam didn’t want one more thing to disappoint Noah, but he also knew this crusade was going to be a burden he carried for life.
Noah was already learning that he’d endured the worst kind of abuse at a young age. No matter how much he thought he could shut down any memories from surfacing in the future, it just wasn’t possible. The more he poked at his past, the more likely he was going to remember the minute details. And that was going to hurt more than he knew.
They’d dressed in civilian clothes, jeans and t-shirts, making sure to look like two regular guys with every right to be in this surprisingly upper class suburban neighborhood. The only precautions they’d taken in advance were the thin medical grade gloves they’d donned in the car, but they’d be undetected at a distance.
They used the keys to enter the house, closing the door and locking it behind them. There were two open rooms off the foyer, one which held a pool table, the other office equipment.
Adam pointed to the desktop computer and then his backpack. “I’m going to get this started. I’ll come find you in a few minutes. I know you said we have all night, but the faster we’re in and out the better.”
Noah nodded, moving deeper into the darkened recesses of the house.
Once Adam began cloning the hard drive of Gary’s desktop computer, a window popped up telling him it would take approximately fifteen minutes, standard for an average home computer. He spent those fifteen minutes rifling through Gary’s desk drawers, finding little of interest in the top two. The bottom drawer was locked. Interesting. Adam opened the top drawer, searching for something to pick the lock, rolling his eyes when he saw the key under a desk organizer tray. The man really was stupid. Adam unlocked the drawer, heart rate accelerating as he saw the laptop inside.
He pulled it free just as the other hard drive finished. He then repeated the process with the newly found laptop, but, this time, when the window popped up, the wait time for cloning was three hours. Three hours? Adam’s jaw set in a hard line as he did the math. That kind of time meant there was about one terabyte of data on that encrypted server. He shook his head. He wasn’t surprised. These men were all the same, slaves to their impulses.
While Adam lacked the empathy necessary to feel the pain and horror for what these children endured—a blessing given what he’d seen—he did have a disgust for people who preyed on the population’s most vulnerable. It was weakness. Pure and simple. Wolves feasting off the sick and the lame.
But when these predators were cornered, Adam was the wolf and he was indifferent to their cries, their screams, their hollow apologies. He had no problem putting them down with extreme prejudice. For the greater good.
Adam left the laptop to do its thing and wandered the house, opening drawers and cabinets, looking for anything unusual, anything that might give them some idea of who Gary’s friends were.
In the kitchen, under some random mail, Adam found a strangely shaped key. It looked like it belonged to a storage unit or a bus locker. He pocketed the key, certain it wasn’t something Gary used frequently enough to notice it was missing.
He found Noah crouched in a spare room closet, rifling through a file box filled to the brim with papers. When he dropped beside him, he saw it was bank statements and other important documents. “Find anything good?”
Noah shook his head. “No, it's all just the same boring paperwork everybody else seems to have,” he muttered, shoving the lid back on the box with a grunt of frustration.
Adam nodded. “Yeah, it's not like in the movies. Sometimes, there’s not going to be a magical paper trail. I did find a hidden laptop that seems promising. I don’t know what’s on it, but chances are, it's nothing good. We just have to hope Calliope can crack the encryption.”
With the encryption software blowing their quick in and out timeline, they took their time, searching Gary’s house room by room. While he wasn’t a hoarder by any means, he kept boxes of meaningless papers, each more disappointing than the last. Adam was certain there would be something there. A picture, a video, something. All these creeps kept souvenirs. The laptop had to be the key.
They ended their search in the office, scouring the credenza behind the desk, again finding nothing of interest. Adam checked the hard drive. They still had ninety minutes. Shit. Adam opened his mouth to give Noah a time update when he saw him staring at a picture on the wall.
He was visibly shaking, his hand reaching up to touch the photo and pull it from the wall. Adam came to stand beside him. It was a picture of Gary and Noah’s father standing outside a cabin in the woods, arms around each other’s shoulders and big smiles on their faces.
“I know that cabin,” he said, voice dull.
“Know it how?” Adam gently prompted.
“My dad and Gary used to take me there.” He closed his eyes and swayed on his feet. “I can smell the pine needles.” He shuddered. “They built a campfire. I can still smell it and the oil in the lamps from when the power went out. And sweat.” A sharp gasp ripped from him, head turning like he could somehow look away from whatever memory was playing out in his head, the photo slipping from his fingers. They both watched as the frame hit the floor, the sound of the cracking glass loud in the silence.
Noah looked to Adam with wild eyes. “Shit. Shit.”
When Noah went to retrieve it, Adam snagged his arm. “No. Leave it. Shit falls off walls all the time.”
There were too many chances for something to go wrong if Noah tried to clean up the glass. A picture falling off the wall wasn’t nearly as noticeable as a picture disappearing or returning to the wall with no glass protecting it. Besides, if he cut himself on the glass, those gloves wouldn’t protect him from DNA transfer.
Noah gave a stilted nod.
Adam’s gaze darted to the window as he heard the sound of a car door slamming and then a car alarm activating. He looked out the window to see a man walking up the drive in their direction. “Shit. We got company.”
He snagged the hard drive, dumping the laptop back in the drawer, quickly locking the cabinet and tossing the key back in the drawer, snagging Noah’s arm and dragging him deeper into the house, into the back bedroom, quietly closing the door just as the front one opened.
He slipped the window open and helped Noah out first, sliding it closed behind them. They crept through two neighbors’ unfenced yards, staying low to avoid windows. Only when they were a safe distance from the house did they head back to the sidewalk.
Adam took Noah’s hand as a woman walking her dog passed. He gave her a wave and she gave them a reserved smile after she saw Adam click the lock on his BMW. These suburbanites were all the same. Fancy car equaled they belonged in that neighborhood. She wouldn’t give them a second thought.
Once in the car, Noah dropped his head back against the seat, looking worn out and shell shocked. He didn’t protest when Adam clicked him into his seatbelt before fastening his own. He then snapped a few pictures of the man’s Ford sedan and the license plate, shooting it to Calliope before pulling out of the neighborhood.
Noah didn’t speak the whole drive back, just stared out the window, though he didn’t pull away when Adam rested his hand on his knee. He didn’t take them back to Noah’s, instead hopping on the freeway towards Adam’s loft uptown. There was less chance of anything further triggering Noah at Adam’s place.
It was only when they pulled into the garage that Noah seemed to snap out of his trance, looking around like he’d been teleported to another place and time. “Where are we?”
“My apartment.”
Noah gave a hollow, “Oh.”
Adam exited the car and came around to the other side, opening Noah’s door for him. He took Adam’s offered hand, not releasing it once he was on his feet. That was fine with Adam. He liked Noah touching him and Adam didn’t really like touching anybody unless they were fighting or fucking. And he wasn’t fucking Noah tonight. He was too raw.
Once they were outside Adam’s fifth floor apartment, he pulled the keys from his pocket, watching as the loose key from Gary’s tumbled to the carpeted floor. He retrieved it, opening the door and swinging it wide for Noah to enter. “What is that?” he asked, staring pointedly at the fallen key.
“Not sure. Found it at Gary’s. Maybe something. Maybe nothing.”
Noah just nodded, not asking any more questions. Once inside, Adam unzipped his hoodie and tossed it over the chair, watching as Noah wandered around his small loft. Adam could have chosen a bigger space like his brothers, a sprawling house or some sleek luxury penthouse apartment, but he liked the small space with its exposed brick and minimalist design.
Noah looked at the narrow staircase, following it upward with his gaze. “What’s up there?”
“My bed.”
Noah didn’t look at him, didn’t say a word, just started climbing the stairs. Adam stood frozen. If he followed Noah up those stairs, he knew what would happen. Noah wasn’t okay, clearly. That photo had triggered something inside him. But who was Adam to tell Noah how best to cope with his trauma?
Adam followed him up the stairs. When he reached the top, he found Noah sitting on the edge of his bed.
“Whatcha doing?” Adam asked.
Noah’s gaze flicked to his. “I said you could be in charge in the bedroom, right?”
Adam’s cock hardened so fast he started to sweat. “Yeah,” he managed.
Noah leaned back, putting his weight on his palms. “We’re in your bedroom. What are you waiting for?”
Adam watched Noah carefully. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“You don’t want me?” Noah challenged.
Adam arched a brow. “You know that’s not true. I just don’t want to do anything you’re not ready for.”
Noah’s eyes drifted away from Adam’s face and then back again. “I’m hardly a blushing virgin. Besides, I don’t want to think about him…them…what they did to me. I don’t want to think at all. Just stop me from thinking about anything but you. Us.”
Adam didn’t know how Noah intended the words to come out, but they sounded a lot like a plea instead of a demand. Why was he fighting the inevitable? Noah was sitting on his bed, demanding Adam touch him. What was the point of being the villain if he let the right thing get in the way of what he wanted? And he wanted Noah.
He peeled his shirt over his head, dropping it on the floor, before wandering closer. Noah let his legs fall open as he approached. Adam stepped between them. Noah sat forward, eyes locked on Adam’s as he licked over the deep groove of his hip.
“Christ.” He tipped Noah’s chin upwards, running a thumb over his bottom lip before pushing it into his mouth.
Noah sucked eagerly, his thighs squeezing Adam like this was a test and he was determined to ace it. Adam’s cock throbbed as he imagined Noah giving it the same attention as his finger, but he still wasn’t certain if this was the right thing to do.
He hissed as Noah’s teeth clamped down on his skin hard enough to leave a mark. He snatched his finger free.
“Is that how this is going to go?” he asked, voice low, the threat more than implied.
Noah’s pupils blew wide at Adam’s change in demeanor. “I guess that depends on you. I thought you’d be a lot…rougher.”
Gauntlet thrown.
Adam had no problem being the aggressor; it was his default setting. If Noah wanted it rough, he’d give him what he wanted.
He slapped his face, just hard enough to get his attention, carding his hands through his hair and yanking it back to look him in the eye. “Careful what you wish for.”
