Primary Target - 2. Chapter 2

I awoke and felt disoriented as soon as I fully opened my eyes. I almost started to panic – this wasn’t my room! I was in a strange house! But then, I recalled the move and my panic faded. I glanced around and saw I was in the room I picked out. I saw my boxes piled up along the far wall, sitting in front of a large, built-in, floor to ceiling bookcase shelving unit. I was actually happy that Conner let me have this room, mainly so I could store all my books instead of being forced to keep them boxed up due to storage issues. The room itself was pretty big; it could almost be cut in half and turned into two. In fact, that’s how I intended to set it up, with one half being a personal library of sorts and the rest my sleeping portion. I hope I can convince Dad to buy me a reading chair if there isn’t a good one already in the house, I thought to myself.

Just then, my bedroom door burst open in a rush and Conner poured in looking panicked himself. “I heard you scream! Are you okay, Alex?” I didn’t think I screamed, but I guess I did when I first panicked. He rushed to my bed and immediately sat down next to me. Concern filled his eyes as he stared intently at me.

“I’m okay Conner, I think. I just forgot where I was for a second when I woke up. That’s all.” I took the covers off and looked down at myself, noticing the same clothes I had on from before – there was even some dried puke on the top of my shirt. I quickly took it off and threw it across the room, disgusted that I still wore it. “How did I get up here? I… the only thing I remember last was you two comforting me after we started…” I trailed off as I caught Conner nodding his head in understanding.

“I carried you up here,” Conner said. “You were out of it about a minute after we hit the floor next to you. We cleaned you up a bit and I told Dad I’d get you into bed. Sorry about leaving you in the shirt,” he smiled wanly. “I didn’t know it still had some stuff on it.”

I shook my head. “It’s okay. Really. Thanks for carrying me to bed. My neck is eternally grateful to you and your arms.”

He chuckled a bit. “It was nothing, bro.” I stood up and walked around and again hugged him. I felt his warm hands on the bare skin of my back and felt the love pouring from them as he held me. He pushed me away a bit playfully. “Go get a shower – you smell like puke.”

I slapped his shoulder as I walked over to my clothes box. Rummaging through, I found a nice novelty tee I got at Wal-Mart only because it’s wickedly funny. It’s pure black except across the front, a red heart monitor line going across with a flat section before it resumed the normal beats. Under that, it reads, “For a minute there, you bored me to death”. The moment I saw that shirt I laughed my ass off and I had to show it to Jared only a few racks over. He immediately shoved some of his money into me and demanded I buy that shirt. I dug a bit further and produced a pair of jeans that Conner rolled his eyes towards and grabbed a pair of boxers.

“And here I thought you loved me,” I mocked Conner as I made my way into my own bathroom.

“I do, just not when you smell like a rancid raccoon or something!” He called through the door. I heard him leave my room as I just shook my head. I stripped my jeans and underwear off in one motion, leaving me naked. For the first time in a couple of days, I looked at myself in the mirror. I thought myself as a bit plain. Not ugly, but definitely not drop dead gorgeous like Conner. He got blessed with most of the good traits from our parents while I sort of got the leftovers – which were still good, as I’ve seen some siblings of teen gods or goddesses that totally got shafted in the gene pool something fierce. So I usually just described myself as plain. My blond hair was cut short, having it cut before I left the family barber in Ohio behind. I was happy Roger said it was free – a gift for the road, he said as I left for the final time. When it was this short, I didn’t even bother to comb it and just ruffled it with my hands and then straightened it a bit as needed. My nose was sized fine for my face, I thought. Not quite a button, but not quite a honker either. And I studied my darkish pink lips, hoping one day they get the chance to kiss a boy – hopefully the boy I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with. I finally settled on my eyes.

Even I was a bit unnerved by eyes. Jared used to always say that if he was gay, he’d spend forever staring into my eyes because he found them fascinating. He always told me none of the girls he met had eyes even remotely as attractive as mine. I always blushed when he praised my eyes, causing a small giggle to follow suit. But I stared into them, trying to really figure out what color to call them. They weren’t quite blue, or quite green. It seemed depending on how I angled my face into the light, they shifted from one extreme to the other, going from a radiant, vivid blue to a lush, fierce green. I’ve been told they also tend to shift a little depending on my mood but I’ve never seen it happen, naturally. I smiled as I watched the light change their color when suddenly I gasped and froze.

For the first time ever, I stared into my own eyes with complete and utter delight. I’m not quite sure how I did it, but with how my head was angled, my left eye was an icy, almost chilling blue while my left was an almost radioactive green. The smile I had before faded a bit from my shock but it grew tenfold at my discovery. I had to get a picture of this somehow. Without moving my head, I reached over with my foot towards my dirty jeans and brought them closer. Grasping the waist with my toes, I raised my left leg and grabbed the jeans with my right hand. I fished into my pocket and produced my camera phone. It was becoming difficult holding my head the way I was but I opened up the camera app and snapped a couple of pictures, making sure not to get my dick in the shot – I was still naked, after all. I released my head from that position once I was satisfied with the shots. It wasn’t my Canon, but in a pinch it worked. I giggled to myself as I sent a copy of one of the picture in a message to Jared’s phone with the message, “Wild, right? :D” I closed my phone and started up the shower finally. I almost didn’t jump in right away as I forgot my toiletries, but I saw that my shampoo, body wash, and body sponge were already in place. I shrugged.

I jumped in once the water adjusted – it took a bit, as I guessed the water wasn’t run for a while. But once it did, I started to fall entranced with the shower. There were three heads: one in front of me, one behind that could be removed from the wall if needed, and a huge ass one hanging from the ceiling that made it feel like it was raining on me and I wasn’t in the shower. It was luxurious to say the least. After about ten minutes of just standing in the cascading water, I finally reached for my sponge and poured body wash onto it. After it got a good lather, I slid it across my silky skin all over my still growing body, starting with each arm. Once that was taken care of, I dropped the sponge onto the ground to rinse it of excess soap. I grabbed my shampoo and found a small spot in the shower I could remove my head from all water as I lathered my hair with suds. I ducked back into the various streams of H₂O. I stepped out and almost screamed for Conner to get me a towel as I also forgot that too, but once again, a fresh towel hung from the towel bar. Again, I just shrugged as I grabbed it to dry off.

My phone buzzed as I finished drying and sliding on my clean boxers. I flipped it open and saw a text from Jared. He replied, “Holy shit, bro! How’d you do that?!” I sent back a quick, “Not really sure dude. Just saw it while checkin’ my hot stuff out in the mirror: P” Before I could even grab my jeans my phone buzzed again. He replied, “’Hot Stuff’ - You wish! :P I already miss you bro :(”

A knock rapped off my bathroom door. Conner called through it, “Are you decent?”

“I’m in boxers if that’s decent enough for you,” I called back to him. My bathroom door opened.

“Hey, I was going to hit up the mall in about five, if I can find it.” He laughed a bit. “You want to tag along?”

“Sure,” I said with a wide smile. “I got to start checking out the eye candy like now! The sooner, the better!”

Conner laughed as he said, “You’ll get your eye candy while I hope to get some of mine.” He waggled his eyebrows mischievously.

“Conner!” I said, shocked. It was a happy shock, but still shock nonetheless. “I’m a bit surprised to hear you say that after what you had to do with Jeanne. Are you sure you’re ready for the field again?”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Best to make what I can from this, right? I knew Jeanne would go back to Bordeaux one day soon since she was an exchange student. So… time to move on. I wouldn’t trade my time with her for anything, but I can’t stay rooted to the past now either.”

I smiled as I tugged my left pant leg on before trying for the right. “I’m happy to hear you say that, Conner. Oh, I want to show you something really cool!” I stopped with dressing, my pants about halfway up my thighs as I grabbed my phone. I displayed my cool eye picture and turned the screen to Conner. “What do you think?”

He took the device from me as I managed to slide the full way into my pants. I grabbed my tee and slid it over my lithe torso. “Wow, man! That’s really cool, bro.” He grabbed my face and started moving my head slowly. “Open your eyes more – I want to see if I can see it first-hand.” I did as requested and suddenly he stopped rotating my neck. “Holy shit, it’s cooler live dude! I never knew your eyes could do that!”

“Neither did I until I saw it in the mirror before my shower just now. I sent the pic to Jared. For a straight boy, he’s totally in love with my eyes. Check out the conversation if you want while I hunt for socks.” I dug back into my clothes box as I heard Conner laugh a bit. I found a pair of low cut ankle socks and slid them on. I looked up once I finished and saw my phone airborne, flying in my direction. I snagged it out of the air one-handed.

“Nice catch. You sure you don’t want to play baseball?”

“Ew. I’d rather date a girl than play baseball.” Conner almost fell to the floor as his laughter overtook him without warning. “Really, I’m not kidding. Baseball is such a dumb sport, in my opinion.” If I had longer hair, this would be where I’d flip it from one shoulder to the other in disdain. I still performed the action, making Conner laugh even harder.

“Stop… you’re killing… me!” He squeezed out between laughs. I just shook my head as I slipped my Adidas sneakers on. I splashed a bit of cologne on my neck and rolled some deodorant under my arms before I turned back to see Conner more composed, but still struggling to hold his giggles in.

“You know Coach Banner actually asked me to try out for the middle school team?” Conner’s eyes registered surprise. “I know. The man practically begged me to come, but I told him I don’t put out on the first date. Oh wait.”

“You’re too much, Alex. Too much.” Conner draped a relaxed arm over my shoulder.

“Hey, can I ask you something? It’s nothing ground-breaking, I promise.”

“Shoot.”

“Could you possibly start calling me by my other nickname? I really don’t mind you still calling me Alex, but you know about last year with a different Alex in my section. I really like Xander. It sounds more… exotic.”

“Sure, whichever you want dude,” Conner said as he squeezed my left shoulder with his hand. “You’ve been ‘Alex’ to me for about twelve years so I’m sort of stuck in that rut. Just promise me you won’t cut off my balls if I forget, okay?”

“You’re one of the few people I really don’t care which you call me, but I’d like for you to try at least. For me.”

“Sure, no sweat. Just glare at me or something if you really want to press the name thing, alright?” I nodded. “Okay, time to go get lost and end up at the mall only as it’s closing.”

I groaned. “You really don’t know where it is, do you?”

“Not a clue.” I rolled my eyes as I whipped my phone out, about to Google the area malls when Conner snatched my phone from my hand. “Uh uh uh… we’re not going to cheat for this. Not until we find out we’re somewhere back in Pennsylvania or something.”

Again I groaned. This will either be fun or pure hell… “Can we at least get huge sodas so I won’t die of thirst while we spend four hours on the road looking for the mall that’s practically in our backyard?”

“Sure, Xander. I’ll even bring some empty two liters in case we are so lost we can’t find a bathroom.” I laughed as we left the house.

I stared out at the scenery. Vermont seemed like a beautiful state. Lots of trees that seemed to claim the land for Mother Earth and the sparse buildings that broke the wall of green seemed to be an affront to Her claim. “I should’ve brought my Canon. This scenery is begging for cameras to shoot it!”

“It might still be in the back seat. I heard something fall out of a box onto the seat before it hit the floor. I really hope it wasn’t your camera. But if it was, you could take some shots.” I leaned between the two front seats and glanced at the floor of the SUV. At first I didn’t see anything, but then my eyes locked onto the edge of some kind of strap sticking out from under Conner’s seat. I reach down and tugged on in carefully. After a few seconds of struggle, my Canon popped into view. My camera tapped into something else on its way out.

“Sweet!” I exclaimed as I made sure nothing was seriously damaged – it wasn’t – before I reached under Conner’s seat again. I felt something familiar as I pulled it out. “Awesome! Even better – my lenses also fell out!” Again, I examined each different lens for cracks in the glass. I didn’t see any, but I attached each one to the camera and took a shot of Conner’s face with each lens.

“Must I be in the centerfold this month? I thought I was last month!”

“You’re too photogenic not to be every month,” I said with a smile. He wasn’t a huge fan of having his picture taken. “Relax, I’m going to delete them unless it’s an amazing shot – I just wanted to check out each lens for damage to be safe. I wanted as much static imagery I could get. And I need something more dynamic than the dashboard of the car before you say I could have used that.”

“Alright, alright,” he waved his hand between him and the camera. “You’re distracting me from the road a little.”

“Sorry.” I turned back to the scenery as I removed the last lens and just wanted to use the stock one. At several stop signs, I got a few good stills of the forests. But I totally ditched my camera when I finally saw a mall loom on the horizon, spied through my camera lens. “There it is!”

Conner sat down across from me in the food court, a tray of pizza and sodas in hand. I took my slice off as well as my replacement soda from the trip to the mall. As I took a bite of my pizza, my eyes wandered the crowds, trying to analyze each and every boy my eyes found. Every so often, I would see Conner’s eyes look past me, doing the same thing, only taking into account people of the opposite gender.

“We haven’t done this in a long time, Xander,” Conner said after he bit off some pizza.

“Well, you kind of had someone on your arm a good portion of the year, Conner. I don’t think she would have approved.”

“Jeanne might of if I told her I was trying to get a date for my baby brother.” He took a sip of his soda.

“There’s no way you’d use me to help you check out girls while you were with her, right?” I scoffed.

“You’re right. And I did mean what I said. I’m willing to help spot a possible catch for you.”

I took a bite of my pizza and chewed it slowly, mulling over what he said. I swallowed. “You’d really do that for me?”

“Sure!” He said with a smile. “I want to see you happy too, you know. I know most siblings don’t do it, but we could always double date – provided your date would be comfortable enough for it.” Again, when I think Conner’s done surprising me, he winds up pulling yet another ace from his sleeves. I wiped my eyes with a fresh napkin. I know he said I could talk to him, but to actually help in this capacity… it was almost too much.

“Conner, that… I don’t know what to say. You sure that won’t weird you out or anything?”

“I’m comfortable enough with myself to help you out. As I said, I just want my brother to be as happy as I am. I don’t want us to be jealous of each other, especially you of me since you’ll have it a bit harder when it comes to even finding a potential date.”

I saw out of the corner of my eye a group of high school aged kids a couple of tables over watching us. They talked amongst themselves and laughed a few times, but their eyes never broke from our table. I could even tell as they changed their focus from me to Conner and back again. The group seemed very ominous, the sneers on their faces almost a dead giveaway. I lowered my voice just a bit more. “I think we might have some incoming trouble. On your nine. Letterman jackets, thick arms, the works.” Conner’s face visibly tightened as I saw him subtly glance around in their direction, his eyes briefly passing over them like he was searching for something.

“I see them,” I heard the faint growl in the back of his throat. “Tried to look nice and friendly when my eyes swept past them. I hope I don’t get us banned from this mall too. Let’s get ready to go shop in a bit. Hurry and finish.”

I actually swallowed, the first time feeling a bit of real fear over my sexuality. As Dad said, I was lucky in Ohio – I had a group of semi-popular kids always on my tail, keeping the threats and name calling from a minimum to non-existent. I never had to really deal with the possibility of being beaten up or even worse, all because I can’t help but be attracted to the males of the world.

I heard their chairs scrape across the tiled floor of the mall as I kept my peripheral vision locked on them. There were three of them and they seemed to be sauntering in our direction. I was almost done when I saw them right next to our table. “Can we help you guys?” I asked politely and looked to the teen in the middle. He had a long ponytail of rich, brown hair pulled tightly back. He seemed to be the leader of this group; the other two glanced at him a few times.

“Haven’t seen you two around here before,” the jock said casually. “You guys new to the area?”

“Yeah,” Conner replied friendly enough, but with a hint of reservation. “Just moved in from Ohio last night.”

“Ohio, huh?” Ponytail said, trying to look thoughtful. “Whereabouts?”

“Sandusky.”

“Cool, I have family there. My uncle told me about some cool ex-Navy guy that was just transferred out to this area.”

“That’s probably our father, Dirk Jacobs.”

“Yeah, that’s the name.” Ponytail grabbed a nearby chair and invited himself to join us, sitting backwards in the chairs and leaned forward into the back of the chair. “So how you liking the area here?”

“It’s nice,” I offered, feeling a little uncomfortable. “Lots more trees and hills here.”

“I bet,” Ponytail laughed. He turned to me. I finally saw it – the malice I felt pouring from this group. His hand started reached for my shoulder in what appeared to be a friendly manner. I used my left foot and nonchalantly pressed down on Conner’s foot twice – our signal that something was really wrong with the situation. I was very, very right.

I heard the sounds of a switchblade snap open from under the table.

I know Conner doesn’t have one.

Before the teen’s hand grasped my shoulder, Conner was out of his seat so fast the other two didn’t even have time to react. Ponytail flew off his chair and fell underneath Conner, his weapon clattering to the floor. Just as two more blades flicked open, Conner had stood up and had his shoe shoved painfully in Ponytail’s throat while wrenching the arm that held the blade back.

“What the fuck is this shit?” Conner snapped. “We don’t even know you and you want to stab my brother?!”

Ponytail flicked his eyes casually towards the guy that stood to his left – the one closest to me. Before either I or Conner could react, I felt steel against my throat.

“Let my boy up and I won’t slit this young one’s throat,” the guy holding the weapon to my jugular almost shouted. Silence filled the food court. “Now!” Conner looked panicked, but quickly dropped the guy’s arm and stepped away from Ponytail. The third guy stepped between Conner and Ponytail, using himself as a shield for the leader.

Ponytail slowly walked towards me, a sneer on his face. He opened his mouth, about to speak when his eyes narrowed and looked behind me.

“I thought I told you to fuck off Bates,” a voice from behind me called.

“This isn’t your dance Jones,” Ponytail spoke up as he glared behind me. “I found one, so it’s mine.” Found one what?! I screamed to myself in sheer terror. If I hadn’t gone to the bathroom before I ate, I’d be pissing my pants in utter fright. I glanced at Conner – he looked so frustrated, feeling so helpless in this situation. This was my fault. I forgot to follow Conner and keep him between me and the other two – I was a bit stunned at the speed my brother flew out of his seat.

“I call out Third Rule.”

Ponytail dropped his jaw. “What the fuck Jones? I finally found a faggot and just as I’m about to off the piece of shit, you call out Third Rule? Fucking bullshit!”

“It’s either that or I invoke Initiator’s Right. Your choice.”

“Fuck!” Ponytail screamed. Surprisingly, he stormed off and through the front doors. I felt the blade leave my throat and the teen behind me left, along with the one that kept Conner neutralized.Immediately, I saw several mall security personnel step outside after them.

I fell to my knees, the fear of the moment gone. Conner flew to my side and wrapped his arms around me as my tears started pouring. I clutched tightly to Conner as the fear made him feel somehow… foreign. I kept gripping my older brother tighter as he whispered in my ear, trying to soothe, comfort me.

I felt a third hand tap me on the shoulder. Slowly, I turned around, but never left Conner’s grip. The other teen – the one I assumed was Jones – knelt down and faced me. “You alright?”

“N-No!” I screamed. The boy flinched a little but didn’t stand and remained where he was. “I just had a fucking knife held against my neck! H-He could’ve k-killed me!” I felt Conner hold me tighter. Slowly, I felt my brother stand and I did instinctively with him. His arms slowly left me and I almost panicked. Where did he go?! But his left arm wrapped around me and started pushing me gently behind him. He wanted to get between me and “Jones”. I clung tightly to Conner’s shirt.

“Thanks for whatever you did to get that guy to not kill my brother. Jones, is it?”

“That’s right. Evan Jones.” Evan held out a hand towards Conner, offering a shake.

“Conner Jacobs.” Conner reluctantly took it.

Speaking mostly to himself, Evan muttered, “I told him to back off…”

“Excuse me?” Conner asked. I could feel his senses kicking in again.

The boy smiled. “It’s nothing. Sorry about that – he was an old friend, but we recently parted ways.” Both of us looked towards him for a bit more, but nothing else was forthcoming.

“…I see,” Conner spoke slowly, picking his words carefully. “Forgive me if this sounds rude, but you’re not going to try and pick up where Bates and his crew left off?” I heard the steel in my brother’s voice.

Evan laughed. He waved off the posse following him. The four others backed off and almost faded into the crowds finally returning to normal. I felt a bit more at ease but was still on edge after what just happened. Flashes of what happened to Mom started creeping into my head. I valiantly tried to fight those images away with moderate success. “I don’t know either of you. If I wanted your brother dead, I wouldn’t have interfered. Here, come with me.” He started walking towards a bench. He stopped by it and turned, seeing we didn’t follow. Hesitantly, I felt Conner take a tentative step towards Evan. Once we were closer, he motioned for both of us to sit. Conner sat in the middle and I on his left. Evan sat down on his right.

“Is there something you want from either of us?” Conner asked.

“No, no nothing like that. I just am trying to repay some favors to society from my time with the wrong crowd. I just want to get to know a little bit about the two lives I just saved. That’s all.”

“That’s all?” Conner asked, sensing a trap. Evan nodded. “We just moved here from Ohio and spent our first day out exploring. Not much more to tell, really.”

Evan focused on me for a second. I tensed considerably, feeling like a seven year-old in this world of knives and violence. “You remind me a lot like my younger brother, little one. What’s your name?” I sat frozen, afraid to speak. I found my face buried into Conner’s back, the pressure starting to get to me. I just wanted to go home. I just wanted to hide, to get out of the mall. I hated this mall now. “Is he normally this shy?”

“Usually, no. But then again, he almost never gets a death threat when he goes to the mall.”

“Alright,” I heard Evan laugh a bit. “I’ll let you go. Here. It’s my cell number. Call me if anyone is bothering you or your brother. Take care.” A light tap on my shoulder sent a cold shiver down my spine. I felt his breath against my ear as he whispered. “Keep your head up, little one. Bates and his crew are really the only real threats to people like you around here. I hope to talk with you when you’re more up to it.” I heard the footsteps walk away and a few more scurried passed us to catch up with Evan. But… what did he mean…?

Finally alone, Conner grabbed my shoulders and stared into my eyes before he hugged me again. “Bro, are you alright?!” He wrapped his arms around me tighter for a second. “I thought I was going to lose you too…”

“Fuck this mall,” I spat. “Let’s go home. Now, please.”

“Thought you’d never ask.” He helped me to my feet and we broke out into a full sprint towards the car, only to be stopped by some officers. They asked us if we saw what happened when Conner said it happened to us – that we were the victims. I saw Bates and the two guys with him in police cruisers and I looked away, unable to stare at them any longer. Once the officers dismissed us, we resumed our sprint, almost diving into the vehicle and peeled out of the lot like a fire was on our tails.