To Our Pinky Promises

Chapter 27

"There's more?" I thought to myself, already dreading what was coming next.

"One day, we received a call from someone asking us for money. He said that Wayne had borrowed a million dollars from him."

My eyes bulged out at the number and my head whipped to the side to look at Alex to see if he was kidding.

No, he was dead serious.

"That was how we found out that Wayne had been gambling with the money he stole from my parents in hopes of getting more money to buy more drugs." Alex gave me a look that said he understood my reaction.

"Like I said, it gets pretty bad. But that's not the worst part." He warned me. I gulped, not liking where the story was going.

"My parents, again, paid no heed to the call because they simply refused to believe that their perfect son would do anything of the sort." Alex said with a posh accent, a tone that was clearly intended to mock his parents. "They refused to pay the money."

Alex shook his head for the nth time since he begun the story, "I didn't understand how they were so oblivious at the time. At that point, it was clear to anyone that Wayne was not alright. The symptoms of his drug abuse were starting to show physically and even I could see that he wasn't alright. I don't see how two adults who thought they were capable of having kids would have missed that."

"A few days later, another call came in from another debt collector and this time, the amount that he brought up was way more than the last." Alex let out a slightly shaky breath, and I knew that we were getting close to the worst part. "Again, their threats and blackmails went into deaf ears."

"What could small petty loan sharks do to our family, right?" Alex sighed.

"A week after the last call we received, I was hanging out with the boys in a bar. I stepped away to go to the restroom outside of the bar and before I knew it, I felt a dull pain in the back of my head and my lights were out. When I opened my eyes, I was already in a dark warehouse."

I bit my lower lip as I looked at him, concerned. A part of me tried to reassure my conscience that he was alright. I mean, it's been years, he had probably moved on from what happened right?

But then I remembered the panic attack he had after he had gotten hit by Ty and I immediately knew that he was nowhere near alright.

"Once I woke up, I was hanging from the ceiling, bound by chains that were wrapped around my wrists and my feet tied together. The perfect punching bag. A second after I came to my senses, a few guys came in and beat me up a few times. They had to prepare me to give my parents the perfect show. You know, the usual kidnapping scheme; they beat you up, send a video of you getting beaten up and pictures of the final look to your parents and ask for a ransom in return for their dear son." Alex let out a humourless chuckle. "Now that I think about it, they really weren't that creative, were they?"

I stared at Alex. My heart ached and my arms were twitching to reach out and hold him. You could see the fear in his eyes as he talked about what happened despite the mask of hate he wore.

He was terrified. 

"Alex.." I called out.

When he turned to meet my eyes, I finally caught the tears that were threatening to spill over and that was the last straw. My hand reached out and caught his arm, pulling him towards me and wrapping my arms around his body.

Alex finally let himself go, his body shaking as sobs came out of him. I felt the shift of his weight as his legs turned weak. He clung onto the front of my shirt as he buried his face in the crook of my neck.