"The longer we stay in here, the more likely it is they'll send him in for us."

I was so startled by Gage's disruption of the comfortable silence that I nearly fell from the edge of the bed. He had finally come out of his trance and was looking at me with his teeth grazing his already bloodied bottom lip. Standing, I smoothed out my blouse and offered him my hand. He stared at it blankly for a second, then shakily rose to his feet and laced his fingers through mine. For extra comfort, I wrapped my other hand around his bicep and allowed him to lead us out of the room. I could feel him growing tenser by the second as we stepped out into the hallway, and stopped suddenly at the end of it, just before we were to rejoin his family.

"Breathe, Gage. It's okay."

I knew that it wasn't, but hoped my words would be as much of a comfort as his had been for me. He nodded, and forced us into the light. My eyes immediately found the monster from Gage's nightmares. He sat beside Cadence on the end of the couch, staring directly at us as we entered the room. If I hadn't stalked Mayor Griffin's facebook profile and found Governor Mason Griffin, I wouldn't have known who or what to look for. Unlike his business photos, his usual greased back dark hair was messy and unkept, as if he'd just decided to leave his house and come here without as much as running a comb through his hair. He was dressed as Gage was, button up and slacks, only the top three buttons on his shirt were undone and one of his hands was wrapped around a wine glass, his beady brown eyes nothing like that of his brother or Gage, but as empty as Louis' were.

"There you are." Alyssa intercepted me before I could block Gage from the man's view, her blue eyes warning. "We've been waiting for you two all night."

I knew if she had even the slightest of an idea of what had happened to her son, that we wouldn't be standing here right now.

"Maverick." The voice was gruff, as if the man gargled gravel for fun. I suppose with his history and what he'd done to Gage, I wouldn't put it passed him. "Who's this? You didn't tell us you got a pretty little girlfriend."

Gage's ears were the first to change color; they went from a sickly pale to redder than the red tablecloth draped over the kitchen table he had his back too. Then slowly the color started to return to his face and he grasped my hand so tightly I was sure he was cutting off circulation.

"Oh, Mason, leave them alone." Alyssa responded with a pointed look. "It's really none of your business."

I wanted to thank her, but Gage started to pull away from me, the Golden in his eyes being suctioned out by the second. They were shifting into a dark brown, almost black, that cold, dead stare he'd had when he was fighting my stepbrother returning.

I knew nothing good could come out of that look.

"Gage." I breathed, taking his face in my hand. "Look at me. Not him."

"I have to go." he croaked, voice strained. "I need to get out of here. I need to—"

Mason Griffin stepped forward so he was invading my personal space, all but shoving Alyssa aside. "Can't even give your ol' Uncle a hug?"

Gage started to try and pull away from me again, and staring into his eyes I could see the internal battle that was going on inside of him. They would grow cold then soften into melted amber as tears surfaced, and repeated in a vicious cycle.

"I'll get you out of here." I said, but something changed in his expression and he grasped my wrists so roughly that I started to get flashbacks and a cry rose in my throat. "Gage!"

"Maverick." Alyssa warned, reaching to remove her son's fingers from me. "Let her go! You're hurting her!"

He dropped my hands suddenly, but with that was him nudging me aside, but because I was already unstable, I nearly tripped and fell headfirst into the chair. Candace's husband caught me before I could face plant, and as I turned back to Gage, that cry quickly turned into a scream. If Alyssa moved even the slightest of an inch, I knew hell would break loose. With the look in his eyes, the fact that he was likely jonesing for drugs, and that his brain was probably a muddied mess of wrong and right, I had no doubt he'd kill his uncle.

"Maverick!" this was Mayor Griffin, eying his son in concern. "What are you doing?"

His father looked ready to cross the room to where Alyssa stood between her son and brother in law, but he remained glued to his seat on the couch.

"Gage." I tried. "Come on. Let's leave."

He acted as if he hadn't heard a word I said, or perhaps he truly hadn't, and he did to his mother what he'd done to be seconds prior, closing the distance between himself and his uncle. I knew that because of our close proximity that Alyssa and I were likely the only ones who heard what he said.

"You have a lot of audacity being here right now you sick son of a bitch." Gage growled, "Even more so to come anywhere near me or my girl."

Mason Griffin grew tense, but Alyssa spoke before he could. "Mav, baby, what are you talking about?"

"I should kill you." Gage snapped, and within milliseconds, before anyone could jump to break the fight, he had Mason by the throat. "God only knows what other poor children you've sat and touched, fucked, destroyed!"

Alyssa staggered back, her hands grasping at her chest, looking as if the wind had just been knocked out of her. Mayor Griffin, who had been ready to defend his brother pull his son off him, froze and looked between the two of them, before saying, "What the hell is he talking about, Mason?"

Just like my brother and all other narcassists Mason couldn't muster up an answer, so Gage did, shoving his uncle away from him and turning to fully face his father.

"What I'm talking about is your brother coming into my room when I was five and climbing into my bed." The room grew silent, and I saw Grams and Candace exchange a horrified look. "You know what he did, Dad? He started to fondle my balls, touch my penis, and then he'd take my hand and force me to do the same."

I watched the mayor's entire guard drop. The tough, strictly-business demanor was gone. In its place was a disgusted and guilt-ridden father.

"What I'm talking about is your brother coming into the bathroom when I was thirteen and joining me. Then getting down on his knees and trying to suck my dick." Gage broke then. Not in the way I had. There weren't any screams or sobs or pleas for helps. No, his entire expression just grew cold, his misty eyes the only sign that there was any of my Gage still left in there. "When I was nine he tried to jerk me in the back seat of your guys' car, While you were in there. But you two were too fucking busy arguing that you didn't even bother to look back."

"Maverick—" Alyssa whimpered, but he turned his cold gaze on her.

"I thought putting a bullet through my head would release me from it all. The pain, the anger, the bitterness, confusion." he reached up and buried a hand in his hair. "But all it did was damage me more. I'm even more fucked up then I was then. Because I have to live with all the shit this sick asshole did to me, plus face the world I so desperately leave."

Alyssa extended her hand in an attempt to reach for her son, but Gage dodged her hand and fell back a step so he was closer to me, but his eyes remained locked with his father.

"What I'm talking about, Dad, is that your brother took my childhood, my innocence, my life from me before I had the chance to live. Now I'm broken, I can't do shit I should be able to, and all I want is to fucking die."

With that, Gage's shoulder brushed against mine and walked out of the house, slamming the door so hard it shook on its hinges behind him. With his departure came a chorus of breaths that everyone had unknowingly been holding. Alyssa immediately went for the door but I caught her hand and shook my head. "I've got this."

As soon as I grasped the door knob, Mayor Griffin crossed the room to his brother, but I didn't stay to watch the hell that was about to break loose.

*

I found Gage a few blocks away at a park. He was sitting in the middle of the field with his head in his hands, and even from afar I could see his entire body ravaging with uncontrollable sobs. I slowed to a stop a few feet away, afraid to startle him, but my heart sunk even further into my stomach when I saw the needle laying on the ground and the black band still tightened around his arm.

"Gage." I lowered myself to the ground opposite of him, not quite in a sitting position but leaning on to my knees. "Gage, look at me."

"Fuck off." He said through a short breath, refusing to lift his head. "Go, Marley."

I reached for the needle, but his hand caught my elbow and his eyes finally met mine. They had returned to the melted puddle, tears staining both of his bright red cheeks as tears continued to roll down them. "Don't."

"You can't keep doing this. You're going to kill yourself. Then what?" I tried to keep my voice level. "What about me? I need you, Gage."

"Maybe we were both meant to die." he answered. "Maybe this is all some sick fucking joke to whatever higher being is actually up there. To keep us continuously having to face the things that forced our hand at ending our lives."

I slid across the grass and touched my hand to his chest. "Don't say that."

"I wasn't going to kill myself, for good this time, the day you ran into me at school." he averted his eyes. "I was on my way home to say goodbye to my mother, then I was going to try my hand at an overdose and lock my bedroom door so she wouldn't be able to find me this time. I knew it was selfish, I knew that she needed me, that she loved me. But my own selfish desire to escape the pain, the memories, overpowered hers."

I shook my head, feeling as though I was grasping at straws rather than at his shirt.

"But damn you, Marlene, because the second I looked down and saw the look in your eyes I knew you were just as fucked up as I was." he touched his palm to my cheek and swept my own tears away before they could fall any further. "And I knew I needed to take it. All of it. All your pain. Even if it meant loading it on top of all of my own. You gave me a reason to continue living."

He shook his head slowly, sniffling. "I want to be able to help you. I want to be the man you need, and I'm not, and I won't ever be. You need and deserve all the happiness this world can offer you after what happened. I'm just a burden, an anchor, that's going to continue to drag you down as you continue to progress and get better."

"Stop." I pleaded, but he didn't even bat an eye.

"I don't know what kind of shitty hand life dealt the both of us, but I'm thankful it gave me you for the time being." he whispered. "Because I learned to love someone, and more importantly, that it was possible to love myself again. It just wasn't enough."

I dug my nails into his shoulder blades until he met my eyes. "Stop talking like a Goddamn suicide note, Gage."

"I'm sorry." It was a strangled sob, and when I glanced down again, I saw the hilt of the pocket knife sticking out from the first clenched around it. "If the drugs don't take care of me first, I have to make sure I'm successful this time.'

"Gage, don't you fucking dare!" I started to stand, realizing my phone was back at the house. Within the few moments it'd taken me to come to the realization, he took the blade to his right wrist. I collapsed back to my knees again, trying to pry the knife from his bloody fingers. "You fucking asshole! Stop!"

He reached up with the hand that was started to soak his surroundings in blood and touched it to my cheek. "You've got to keep going. Live for me. Live for us."

"Gage!" I shouted, but just as he lifted his hand to slit his throat, a round of convulsions started. "Gage, dammit! Help!"

I took his body in my arms and turned him on to his side and continued to shout as loud as I possibly could, until my voice was hoarse and had given out.

"You're not going to die." I cried. "You're not going to die."

I heard the sound of a motor dying before I heard the sound of keys jangling getting closer. Not soon after, I heard Mayor Griffin yell, "Call 9-1-1!"

He fell to my side, trying his best to check his son for a pulse, then stripped out of his shirt and pressed it into his bleeding wrist.

"Maverick." Alyssa breathed, collapsing to her knees opposite of me. "Maverick, baby, no!"

I started to stand and backed away, my chest feeling as if it were tightening, each breath a struggle to get out.

"Marlene." It was Candace, her hand stretched out in an attempt to steady me. "Hey, look at me. Breathe, honey."

I started to claw at my chest so hard that I knew I was breaking the skin.

"Come here." she wrapped me in a hug, touching her hand to my back in a comforting gesture. "It's okay. You're okay."

As I collapsed against her, I couldn't help but notice that the one thing I needed her to reassure me of she hadn't. She couldn't.