“Yes.” Hope flashed through Noah, and he stood straighter. “Yes, Marcus will come for me, I know he will.”
Instead of reassuring him, Ravenswood strode across the empty club, his eyes blazing like fire. “I told you that if you continued to cause trouble, I’d ban you from The Slope entirely.”
“No.” Noah gulped. That couldn’t possibly be right. He would have remembered something like that. And Marcus would never have let it happen. “I have to speak to Marcus. He’s the one I love. Marcus is.Marcus.”
Even as he spoke the words, they didn’t feel true. He knew they were true, but it was as if his heart and body were telling him something else entirely. He didn’t know what, though. He was confused.
“What is wrong with him?” Russo asked.
The voice sounded miles above him. Noah realized that was because he’d sunk down to sit on the floor, his arms wrapped around his legs, which he’d pulled tight to his body. When had he done that?
“I don’t know,” Ravenswood said. “Should we call the police?”
“Don’t do that,” Marcus’s voice rang out in the empty club at last. “I’ll deal with him.”
Noah gasped so hard his lungs hurt and he untangled himself from the ball he’d sunk into. He scrambled clumsily to his feet, seeking out Marcus, then crying with relief when he saw him. “Marcus! You’ve come for me at last. I was so confused.”
He dashed across the room, but instead of opening his arms and welcoming Noah into his embrace, Marcus held his arms up defensively. When Noah tried to hurl himself at Marcus anyhow, Marcus caught him and gripped him by his arms hard enough to leave bruises.
“Stop this at once!” Marcus shouted at him, causing Noah to flinch and shake. “You’re a grown man, Noah. This behavior is unseemly.”
“Marcus, I love you,” Noah said, ignoring his lover’s frustration and coldness. “I loveyou. No one else. You are the one I was born for, the one I am destined to be with.”
It felt like a lie. Why did it feel like a lie? He knew it was true.
“Noah—” Marcus said in an exhausted voice, shaking his head.
“I’ve done something terrible,” Noah shouted over him.
That startled Marcus into silence. He loosened his grip enough for Noah to wriggle free and grasp the front of his shirt instead.
“I…I’ve been unfaithful to you,” Noah confessed in a tearful voice. The specter of darkness within him seemed to grow larger and spread faster. “I was weak,” he said, lowering his head, his shoulders heaving with a sob. “But he has been so kind to me, and he is so handsome. We get on so well, and he doesn’t mind my high spirits or my outbursts. He hasn’t tossed me out. In fact, he’s welcomed me into his bed, and…and it feels so good when he holds me and tells me I’m safe, that he cares for me. He—”
Noah couldn’t go on. The words hurt too much. They were too confusing. Marcus was the one who was supposed to treat him that way. He was the one who was meant to make everything feel safe and happy.
All energy seemed to leave Noah and with a pathetic sob of, “Please forgive me,” he sagged against Marcus.
Or, at least, he intended to. Instead of sinking into a warm, comforting embrace, Marcus shook him so hard that he shouted in shock. Marcus was back to gripping his arms with merciless strength and glaring at him.
“Pull yourself together, man,” Marcus roared at him. “Don’t make me slap you. You’re not a child. You shouldn’t be having tantrums like this. Or is this another fit of yours?”
“I…I don’t…I can’t….”
“God help us all,” Marcus sighed, stepping back from Noah. “We need to send for Beckett.”
“Ricky has already gone,” Russo said. “But God only knows how long it will take for the man to get here.”
“What should we do with him in the meantime?” Ravenswood asked.
“Sit him somewhere where he won’t bother anyone or get away,” Marcus sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “He’ll try to bolt if he feels threatened. You might have to tie him to a chair for his own good.”
“I would never leave your side,” Noah protested, feeling as though Marcus was being horribly cruel to talk about him like he wasn’t even there. “I love you. I’ve come to confess and make amends. Just tell me what I need to do as penance. I will do whatever it takes to win back your love.”
He tried to surge into Marcus’s embrace again, but Marcus shouted at him, “I don’t love you, Noah! I never did. I might have, if you hadn’t been so wildly mad. But you’re disturbed. You should be locked up to keep you from embarrassing yourself like this.”
Something inside of Noah broke. Marcus had never been so needlessly cruel to him before. Yes, his lover had been fickle and changeable sometimes, but he’d never been cruel. He’d never tried to lock Noah away, like Sarah had.
Noah wasn’t sure why he hadn’t remembered that, or why he was remembering it now. His sister hadn’t just thrown him out of their family home, she’d tried to have him committed to an asylum.