Chapter 1: Salt and Sanctuary
The dock groaned underfoot, a chorus of rust and rotten timber. Riley’s grip on Paul’s elbow was the only solid thing in the salt-hazed dark. “Watch the gap,” Riley muttered, pulling him toward the skiff that bumped and sighed against the pilings. The water below was oil-black, swallowing the faint glow of the streetlights a quarter-mile back.
Their new apartment was a studio above a bait shop that stank of old fish and mildew. It had one bed. A real bed, not a cot, which was a minor miracle, but it was narrow and sagged in the middle.
“We’re not doing shifts?” Paul asked, his voice thin. He stood in the middle of the room, hugging himself.
“It’s either this or the floor, and the floor’s got more give than a concrete slab,” Riley said, not looking at him as he tossed their two duffel bags into a corner. “You take the wall side.”
It wasn’t enthusiasm, it was logistics. Riley slept like a trapped animal, all jerks and muttered threats. Paul slept like the dead, until he didn’t—until he woke screaming, clawing at the air. The first time it happened, Riley had him pinned to the mattress in half a second, a hand clamped over his mouth, their hearts hammering against each other. “Quiet,” Riley had hissed, his own breath ragged. “You’ll bring the whole dock down on us.”
They’d lain there, frozen, until Paul’s whimpers subsided. Riley didn’t let go. He just loosened his grip, his palm sliding from Paul’s mouth to his cheek, rough and anchor-steady. An unspoken rule formed: when the night terrors came, no questions, just containment.
Tonight, Paul woke crying. Not the silent, shaking tears, but a ragged, gut-punched sob that tore from his throat.
Riley was already holding him. His arms were around Paul’s chest from behind, one hand splayed wide over his sternum. “Hey,” Riley’s voice was gravel, sleep-scraped and immediate. “You’re here. We’re not on the island. We’re safe.”
Paul trembled, a full-body shudder that made the cheap bedsprings creak. He curled backward into Riley’s solid heat, seeking the proof of him. Riley’s hand shifted, sliding down under Paul’s worn t-shirt, his palm coming to rest, warm and heavy, over the soft curve of Paul’s breast. It wasn’t a sexual move. It was a claiming. A grounding. You are here. This is your body. I am holding it together.
“I’m sorry,” Paul choked out, the words wet against Riley’s forearm.
“Stop,” Riley murmured into the nape of his neck. His lips brushed the short hairs there. “Just breathe.”
But Paul was already gone, dragged under by the memory.
The rectory floor was cold stone against his cheek. The smell of candle wax and his own blood, coppery and thick. Bev’s voice, shrill as a gull’s cry, slicing through the choir of hatred. “Freak of nature! Immortal fag!”
They’d found him praying. As if God listened to things like him. The first kick had stolen his breath. The second cracked a rib. He could hear the sound, a sickening crunch inside himself. Boots and fists, a storm of righteous fury. He’d curled around the pain, thinking, This is it. The second time. They’ll leave me as pulp. No resurrection from this.
A puddle of his own blood widened, darkening the gray stone. He was drifting on it.
Then, the thunderclap.
Wood splintered from the door frame. The assault paused, a frozen tableau of snarling faces. In the doorway, backlit by the moon, was Riley. His wiry frame was taut, a double-barreled shotgun raised and pointed at the ceiling. Smoke wisped from one barrel.
“The next one takes off a face,” Riley said. The words were flat, calm, and absolute. “You want to die for your sermon? Come on.”
He didn’t wait for them to decide. He moved into the room, the crowd parting more from the sheer violence in his eyes than the gun. He hooked his free arm under Paul’s chest and hauled him up. Pain screamed through Paul’s side. “Walk or I drag you,” Riley grunted in his ear.
They stumbled out into the night, the mob’s shock curdling back into rage. Jealous rage. Hateful rage. Torches were lifted, voices howling for the unclean thing to burn. Riley half-carried, half-dragged him down the grassy slope toward the harbor, the mob spilling after them like a vengeful tide.
“Riley—”
“Shut up. Keep moving.”
They wouldn’t make it. Paul knew it. The dock was too far.
Then, headlights cut through the dark, outlining two figures waving frantically from a smaller, second dock. Erin and Hassan. Hassan was untying a skiff. “In! Now!” Erin yelled.
Riley all but threw Paul into the boat. It rocked violently. Hassan shoved them off, the outboard sputtering to life as the first of the mob reached the dock’s edge. Stones plunked into the water around them. A bottle shattered against the hull.
They didn’t stop until they were in the channel, the engine cut, drifting in the inky black between the island and the mainland. They had to wait for dawn. The mob would be watching the main docks. They needed the first ferry’s commotion as cover.
In the bottom of the boat, soaked with seawater and blood, Paul shook. The adrenaline was gone, leaving a hollow, shaking void. Riley pulled him against his chest, wedged between a crate of nets and the damp hull.
“I’m sorry,” Paul wept, the words breaking apart. “For everything. For making you… for this…”
Riley didn’t answer with words. He pressed his forehead hard into Paul’s collarbone. His hand found its way under Paul’s soaked shirt, his palm a brand of heat against the cold skin of Paul’s stomach, then higher, cupping the soft, vulnerable weight of his breast, holding him as if he could shield the very core of him. He kissed Paul’s hair, a mindless, absent gesture of ownership. “Just breathe,” he whispered, a mantra against Paul’s scalp.
Paul went quiet, the sobs subsiding into hitched breaths. He let his head fall against Riley’s shoulder, focusing on the heavy, warm hand over his heart. He felt seen. Not as a monster, or a saint, or a mistake. Just as a body that needed holding together. He felt safe.
Back in the bed above the bait shop, Paul’s breathing slowly synced with Riley’s. The memory released its claws. The damp on his face was from tears, not sea spray. The ache in his side was an old, healing fracture, not a fresh break.
Riley’s hand hadn’t moved. It remained a steady weight over his heart, his thumb making small, unconscious arcs against Paul’s skin.
Paul whimpered, a soft, exhausted sound, and curled deeper into the cage of Riley’s arms. The sky outside their single grimy window was beginning to soften from black to a deep, bruised gray.
Dawn was coming. They would have to move again soon.
But for now, there was this: the rhythm of their breathing, the shared heat, the unbreakable claim of that hand over his heart. Sanctuary.