The PRL Event: CZS 3
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Ivan and Clay spent their first afternoon together after almost a year ignoring all of the mysteries that surrounded them. Clay had apologized for his behavior, but Ivan wasn’t interested. Alone in his apartment, all he wanted was to have sex and to feel protected from the world outside, the way Clay made him feel when they were alone.
“Should we check on your friend?” Clay asked out of obligation as he sat at the dining room table in the small kitchen where Ivan was making them lunch.
“Not today, we have to meet Detective Young later.” Ivan finished the food on the stove top and brought plates to the table. He knew that Clay had no concern for Sonny, but he didn’t want to be upset at that reality and he ignored it.
“What do we do now?” Clay asked, finding Ivan’s hand on the table, and when he did he squeezed it lovingly.
“We eat…” Ivan started.
“About everything, Ivan. Don’t play dumb.”
Ivan sighs. “I don’t know. You know why I came here. Hopefully Young can help with that now that he knows the truth. Stay with me here. I was dumb not to ask you to come with me.”
“I have obligations at home Ivan.” Clay explained. “You don’t have to be here, you’re choosing to be. I want you to choose me.”
“I choose you. But we can finish this together. And then I’ll go back with you.”
“Fine, but I’m gonna make you workout with me.”
Ivan laughed. “You think I’m fat or something?”
“No, you’re perfect. But if I have to live here for you, then you have to sweat with me.”
“Fine.”
After their meal, the two went to a local park where Clay made Ivan jog the circumference of the park. They sat on a bench after Ivan screamed for mercy.
“It happens.” Clay said when they sat, continuing a conversation that Ivan had started on the drive over.
Ivan is practically doubled over and panting steadily. He is a tall man, well over six feet tall, but he was not in the same physical shape as Clay who barely broke a sweat. Ivan took deep breaths and then sat up straight to look Clay in the eyes.
“I don’t think you understand. No, not that you don’t understand but you’re not thinking about the whole picture.”
Clay smiled as Ivan panted the words between breaths, then he wiped the sweat from Ivan’s forehead.
“I hate it when you do that. I know you don’t think you’re smarter than me, you’re not a patronizing person on purpose, but you always have a way of saying I don’t comprehend or I don’t know enough.”
Ivan was pained and it showed in his face. His big brown eyes furrowed at his thick eyebrows, and he scrunched his wide nose as he pursed his full lips. The sight of him made Clay smile and he couldn’t be angry at Ivan even if he made him feel stupid.
“You know that’s not what I mean, I’m sorry that I make you feel that way.”
Clay shrugged. “But, what I was trying to say was that it happens, this happens. People fall in love all the time and their lives are never the same afterwards, and maybe some relationships aren’t great for everyone involved, but that’s a risk people take. I was bound to fall in love. You were too. I’m just glad we love each other. I’m so glad that you’re not going to take advantage of my crazy jealousy and have me fighting dudes just to stroke your ego. I’m glad that you care about me enough to worry that you might not be good for me. But you have to believe that you are.”
Ivan loved the sentiment. It was reassurance enough for marriage, but it was clear to Ivan that he brought trouble to Clay’s life that wasn’t good for him.
“I don’t know what I am Clay,” Ivan said desperately. “Whatever I am, has rubbed off on you somehow. Aren’t you scared? I’m scared for you. I don’t want the world to think you’re an aggressive black man that it needs to put down. You know the country we live in. If you get shot by a police officer, Clay, I don’t know what I would do to that police officer. I would probably rip them apart, the whole department. But you’re not even a whiff of a threat until I come around. Do you even realize what you did to Sonny?”
Clay knew exactly what he did to Sonny and even though he largely regretted his actions, it was in the past now, and a small part of him was happy that there were witnesses to his wrath. Everyone will know that Ivan is mine and what happens when you test that truth.
“That’s another thing,” Ivan said. “I’m not your property Clay. You can’t dictate who I interact with.”
Clay was taken aback. It seemed that Ivan could hear his inner monologue and was responding to it.
“You have to trust me. Why don’t you?”
Clay doesn’t have to think about his response. “You fucking left me.” It was an angrier tone than he meant and he felt his rage rumble deep inside of him.
Ivan turned his face quickly, before the tears started. He knew that Clay was mad and he was right. But Ivan couldn’t answer for leaving him without explanation and for not contacting him while he chased a monster. He had urges that moved him and the duty he felt to solve that problem outweighed everything in the moment. He had made a selfish decision without consciously making it.
Ivan wiped his own tears. “We have to meet Detective Young. You’ll focus like I asked?”
“I won’t do anything else.” Clay said.
It doesn’t take the two car convoy that includes Detective Young in his car with Ivan and Clay, and the car carrying two special agents of the NC SBI, men named Adam and Manuel, to arrive in the NC town where both Clay and Ivan’s families still live. It is late enough that the group decides to sleep and go to the apartment complex where Ivan’s family lives the next morning. Clay invites them all to stay at his house and his sister, Brittany, is upset with him when she sees the number of men she has to host.
“You disappear then show up with a police force?” She asks.
“Not quite,” he tries to explain as the men sit in the living room and he and his sister talk her bedroom. “Detective Young, and Agents Altman and Gonzalez aren’t here on official police business or anything. They’re just… friends of mine.” He had discussed whether he should tell his sister the truth with Ivan and Young, and they all decided that it was best she didn’t know. Not before they knew more.
“What about the other guy?” She asks. “He police too?”
Clay thinks for a second how he will respond. He never talked about his sexuality with his sister and she never pressed him about it. She has friends that are interested in Clay romantically, but she had kept them at bay explaining that Clay was too focused on making sure he didn’t lose his father’s house. Clay decides that he can’t be ashamed of his love for Ivan.
“He’s my boyfriend. His name is Ivan. And I plan to marry him one day.”
Brittany’s eyes go wide and she half smiles. “I honestly thought I would never hear you say those words, little brother.” Her smile grows as she approaches him and wraps her arms around his neck. “I’m happy for you.” She pulls back quickly and slaps him on the chest. “You could’ve told me you was seeing somebody. You didn’t have to keep him from me.”
“It’s a long story, Brit. It’s hard to explain and I will when we can really talk. Just know that Ivan is a good guy, he works with Detective Young, and those other two guys are looking into something at the apartments where Ivan’s family lives.”
“As long as you’re ok, not getting into trouble.” Brittany says. “I got some third shift work at the hotel. You can use my bed and let your friends be comfortable. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon.”
They hug and as she leaves for her job, Clay tells her sincerely, “Be careful out there. Keep your eyes open.”
“You know I’m always on the swivel,” she says laughing.
“That’s your sister-in-law.” Clay says to Ivan after they‘d met and she’d left.
Ivan smiles.
“So tell us more about how you knew this Crude woman was in your neighborhood.” Adam says to Ivan as he takes the remote to the tv in Clay’s living room from Manuel who was obliging Brittany’s request for them to make themselves at home.
The group circles up in the living room and Clay’s cozy home where he had grown up suddenly feels like a war room.
“Well,” Ivan says, “I was outside of my building, or where I used to live. I had just screamed at my mami and I felt like an ass, but my mind was racing and I had a lot of adrenaline. I don’t let myself get to anger usually, I take every precaution to be as measured as I can be, especially with my mother. But I remember I was just so agitated,” he looks at Clay, “and I had just told them about us. My emotions were high. I was there for maybe five minutes trying to decide what I would do next, and then it was like something punched me in my mind. Like I got smacked in the face really hard and it shifted my brain back. And I could feel this scream, like a volcano erupting from the pit of your stomach and just blasting out. It was rage and it was confusion, it was pointed and focused sometimes, like it was directed at something, but mostly it was chaos. It felt familiar.” Ivan doesn’t want to say that Clay’s rage had erupted in the past and he was there to calm him. “I knew that I could make some of it go away.”
“Why?” Adam asks.
“Because of me.” Clay says. “Because when Ivan’s eyes glow, he can sense stuff and levitate and throw light, but when my eyes glow, I turn into a rage monster.”
Adam shakes his head. Even though he had seen a display of the powers that Clay and Ivan claim to have, it sounds so ridiculous for the serious issue that they have banded together to address.
“What happened next?” Adam asks, shaking his head.
“I followed the scream to the source. It was like walking into a strong wind, I know I looked crazy, but I followed it to the source. She was behind one of the buildings and she was killing a man. She was beating him with her fists, it looked like a hairless Bigfoot or something just wailing on this guy. I yelled and she looked me in the eyes for a quick second and she took off in the woods. I called the cops, I couldn’t get close to him at all. It wasn’t like the other people she killed. That first one, she beat him until you could hardly tell there had been a person there.”
Young, Clay, and Manuel are all wincing at their own mental pictures of the grisly scene.
“We’ll start there.” Adam says. “At that building.”
“Does anybody know who the first guy was?” Young asks. “Why did she beat him into the dirt? The others were hard to look at, but sounds like she was trying to erase the existence of that one.”
“I don’t know who he was,” Ivan says, “but I got the sense over the time that I was following her that she wasn’t killing on purpose. Just to shut people up or to avoid being caught, that kind of thing.”
“Could be,” Manuel chimes in, “that first guy had something to do with her monsterfication.”
“Here’s hoping.” Adam says.
The next afternoon, Ivan readies himself to face his family for the first time since he left for TN. He is outside in the backyard where Clay made regular use of a punching bag. Clay is taking it down and putting it away.
“I’m gonna hop in the shower.” Clay says.
“Manuel’s still in there I think.” Ivan says.
Clay looks annoyed and he sits on a lawn chair. He smacks his thigh with his open hand and smiles up at Ivan who sits on his lap.
“I already showered so don’t get me sweaty.”
“You didn’t work out with me this morning.” Clay says, rubbing sweat onto Ivan’s arm.
“We made that deal contingent on you living with me in Knoxville. But if we do what we came here to do, then maybe I won’t need to be there. I’ll be all yours.” Ivan says it jokingly.
Clay smiles, but now he has a new resolve. He would solve this mystery, alright, and when it is done, he would marry Ivan. The only thing that matters to him now is uncovering the mysterious origins of Crude.
Later, when the group drives to the apartments, Ivan stares out the window. He would apologize to his mother for his disrespect and he would hug all of his brothers and sisters. He didn’t know what he would say to his father. His mother would definitely see him, even if she is still mad at him, she would at least want to gloat about whatever recent prosperity the family may have enjoyed in his absence. If his father is angry with him, though, he would not say a word, he may not even look at him. That would hurt and Ivan is happy that at least Clay would be close by.
At the apartments, the men go first to the building where Ivan had seen Crude kill her first victim. Ivan left the group to see his family and he would meet them there later.
Adam and Manuel, and Clay and Young split up and knock on the doors of the apartments in the two buildings closest to the spot where Ivan had seen Crude.
“Sorry to interrupt your morning ma’am,” Young says at the first house. He is dressed casually, but he displays his badge at his breast pocket. Clay stands behind him, hoping that he looks like he could be Young’s partner. “I am not here to take up much of your time, I was just wondering if you lived here about a year ago, and if so, do you remember ever seeing anything big and scary in the woods.” Young used all of his charm on the people in the apartments who answered their doors, but most either had no information or did not live in the area at the time.
“This is kind of like a needle in a haystack situation.” Clay says to Young as they descend the stairs of the apartment building.
“Yeah. It’s times like these that you remind yourself why you doing what you doing in the first place. And I can’t forget them pictures, son. If there’s a needle in this haystack, you better believe that I’ll find it.”
Clay nods. The two decide to wait for Adam and Manuel to finish knocking on doors in the building they went into. They lean against their cars.
“So, you and Ivan.” Young says. “Ivan is a very sweet, gentle man, but I woulda never guessed. I was sure he had ladies falling all over him. But you two seem to be really into each other. Ivan loves you a lot, I can see that. You love him too.”
“I do.” Clay says.
“You know,” Young says and he leans close to Clay. “I think you and me got a lot in common. I know I don’t know you very well, but I can tell you good people. You got a way about you. You can be scary, my God have I seen you be scary, but I can tell that you use it to help good people, like Ivan. But don’t lose yourself in it. Don’t forget that you got things you want for yourself, things you wanted before you met Ivan. Don’t spend the rest of your life guarding something that you love. That makes you the warden of a prison, and every warden I know is miserable. The person you trying to protect might end up feeling like a prisoner.”
Clay doesn’t have time to process the information before Young’s cell phone rings. He doesn’t say anything when he puts it to his ear, but his expression flashes surprise and he hangs up.
“They’re calling for backup up there.”
The two men sprint toward the stairs.
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