Page 77 of Yours on the Canvas

Hale gave a small, watery nod, a ghost of a smile touching his bruised face. “Good. Because you guys are shit at hiding it.”

Silas lets out a deep, rumbling sound that’s almost a laugh, and he tightens his grip, pulling both of us closer against the wind, wrapping us in an unbreakable circle of warmth and grit, I knew the storm outside our little family was still raging, and Ray and Dale were still out there, waiting.

But sitting here in the mud, holding the ten-year-old boy who had somehow become the heart of our broken home, I knew one thing for certain.

I was never going to let them take him.

19

Jack

Four weeks.

Twenty-eight days shouldn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things. But the four weeks since my uncle and father breached the sanctuary of Silas’ home feels like an eternity ago.

In that span, our lives had fractured and reformed into something jagged, and fierce. My body betrayed me, locking up in paralysing waves of phantom terror, white noise swallowing my thoughts until I was drowning on the floor.

Hale; our ten-year-old anchor, the kid who had quietly stitched himself into the ragged edges of our makeshift family, had bolted into the freezing rain, driven by the unbearable, selfless belief that if he disappeared, Ray and Dale would stop hunting us. That morning in the mud, with the wind howling off the water, was a jagged scar burned into my memory.

And Silas… Silas had taken a bullet on a mission, returning home with his left arm locked in a sling, his body battered, refusing to stay down because the thought of leaving us unprotected was an agony worse than any wound.

Yet, amid the wreckage, something permanent had taken root. Out there in the freezing rain, with Hale looking up at us with ten-year-old wisdom and demanding the truth, the walls had finally crumbled.

We had said the words; “I love you.” And they carried more weight, more terrifying vulnerability, than anything else in my shattered world.

Life was throwing everything it had at us now, like a relentless storm battering a house built on cracked foundations. But we held strong. Silas was solid steel and unyielding devotion; Hale was the resilient, stubborn heart keeping us tethered to tomorrow.

We were surviving. We were fighting back.

Yet, beneath the fragile peace of every quiet morning, the shadows still lingered. Every time the wind rattled the windowpanes, every time a car slowed down too long on the gravel drive, my pulse spiked.

I could hold Silas’s hand, I could breathe in the scent of cedar and soap against his skin, but every single day, I lived with the paralysing, crushing fear that my father and uncle would eventually break through our defenses and tear me away from the only man I had ever truly loved.

* * *

I headed out in my truck, texting Silas to let him know I was going to the store, then grabbing lunch before meeting him at PalMerc. I told him the exact plan, the exact timing, the exact route. I didn’t know why I did that. Maybe because I needed him to know where I was. Maybe because I needed him to know I was safe.

His response came through a moment later: Okay. See you then.

That was it. Four words. I had expected more, but I knew I shouldn’t have. Silas was a man of few words.

I shook the thought off and focused on the road. The sky was grey, the kind that made the world feel heavier. My chest felt tight. My hands gripped the steering wheel harder than necessary.

I pulled into the store car park and sat there for a moment, breathing through the tension in my chest. I didn’t want to go inside, or be around people. I wanted to be home, in bed, being pressed into the mattress while Silas drives his thick, heavy cock into me. But someone has to do the shopping. So, I force myself out of the truck and walked inside.

I grab a trolley, and pull out my list as I walk the aisles, tossing items in as I go. As I move through the store, I smile at people I know, catching up with those who stop for a chat.

Halfway around, a chill rocks through me, sending ice up my spine. I turn and look, but see nothing. As I round the corner into the next aisle, I freeze. My dad and uncle are standing right there.

My uncle moves toward me, my dad following him like a trained shadow. My eyes don’t leave them, and my breath freezes in my lungs as they stop directly in front of me.

“Hello, Jackie,” my uncle’s voice drips with falseness and toxicity.

“Hello, Jackie,” my father mimics his brother.

I don’t speak. I can’t. Once again, I am completely frozen, my body and mind refusing to play nice.

“Oh, look, Dale. He’s at a loss for words. Our stray dog is happy to see us,” Ray says, venom dripping from his teeth.