Chapter Text
DISCLAIMER: I don’t own anything, I’m just borrowing them for the purpose of this story.
WARNINGS: CHILD-ABUSE, SEXUAL-ABUSE, MURDER, PRISON, PTSD
SUMMARY: RE-WRITTEN (NOVEMBER 2019) Desperate to save his younger brothers from their abusive father Guy Germaine has no choice but to sacrifice his future and his freedom...
THE LAST RESORT
CHAPTER ONE
Gordon Bombay, successful defence attorney turned reluctant peewee hockey coach turned miracle worker turned minor league hockey player turned coach of Team USA hockey coach at the Junior Goodwill Games, was woken from his slumber by the ringing of his cell phone.
This wasn’t an unusual occurrence, sadly, but this didn’t mean he was prepared for the tearful voice on the other end of the crackling line that responded to his slurred greeting,
“…h’lo?”
“Coach?”
It took him a moment longer than he would have liked to place the owner of the voice.
“Guy?”
“Yeah, Coach, it’s me. I’m sorry; I didn’t know who else to call.”
Guys soft words, combined with the barely controlled sobs, chased all remnants of sleep from his mind as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Frowning worriedly he asked,
“What’s wrong?”
A sob, guttural and uncontrollable, preceded an answer he could never have expected.
“I just killed my dad…”
It felt as though he’d just been checked into the boards, the air being stolen from his lungs on impact. A noise, a cross between a choke and a gasp, escaped him as his mind struggled to process the information he had just been given. It didn’t make any sense…it just didn’t…
“Guy, what do you mean?”
“I…I couldn’t let him do it to them to so I…so I stabbed him with a knife from the kitchen…”
He was going to be sick.
He was actually going to be sick.
“I’ve…I’ve called the police but…but I was hoping you’d…you’d come too…”
The soft request, broken apart by the teenagers gasping sobs, stole his breath once more.
“…coach?”
“I’m on my way,” Gordon found himself promising. “What’s your address?”
Scribbling the address down on the pad he kept on his bedside table for moments just like this he reassured the nearly hysterical teenager that he was on his way and hung up. His hand shock as he placed his cell phone beside the notepad and then, after a brief moment where all he could do was stare in horror at his own hands, he jumped up to his feet and hurried through to the en suite where he gave in to his bodies need to empty his stomach.
It was only when he moved to the sink to rinse out his mouth that he realised he was crying.
Guy had…
Guy had killed his father…
No, it was worse than that.
It sounded as though Guy had murdered his father…
Hurrying back into his bedroom his dressed quickly, hardly caring what it was that he put on, and then he grabbed the address and his cell phone and all but ran down to his car, only just remembering to grab his keys on the way out. It was a miracle he didn’t get pulled over for speeding given how fast he managed to make it across town, the traffic mercifully light at such a late/early hour, and in less that twenty minutes he was pulling up behind a police car.
There were three cars parked haphazardly outside of his destination, the doors flung open.
They were empty, their occupants no doubt inside the apartment building where Guy lived, and their flashing blue lights cast an eery spell over the surrounding area. It was a testament to both the unpleasant hour and the type of neighbourhood his player had grown up in that no one had been drawn out by the arrival of the police; rather he could see people peering through their blinds but remaining safely inside their own houses and apartment buildings.
Climbing out of his car he hurried up the steps into the building, pushing through the ache in his bad knee to climb the winding staircase as quickly as he could until he reached the fifth floor. A female police officer was stood in the hallway with a couple of boys dressed in worn pyjamas, obviously trying to comfort them as they blinked sleepily up at her. They looked so much like Guy that he assumed, correctly it turned out, that they were his younger brothers.
“I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t…”
“Guy called me,” he blurted out, cutting off the police officer who had stepped forwards to block the doorway upon spotting him. “Guy Germaine. I’m his…I’m his coach and lawyer.”
“Coach?”
Gordon nodded.
“Hockey coach. We just returned from the Junior Goodwill Games.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But I’m also his lawyer so I’d like to see him.”
The police officer visibly stiffened.
“I can’t let you into an active crime scene, you know that,” he pointed out, his words causing Gordon to let out a huff of frustration. The officer was right, of course, but that didn’t make him any less worried. “You can wait out here, though. They’ll be bringing him out in a bit.”
“I want to go back to bed,” the younger of the two boys whined loudly, stamping his foot. If Gordon had to guess he put him at around seven or eight years old whilst the other boy was probably between ten and twelve. “Ben, make them go away. I want to go back to sleep...”
“I’m sorry, Nate, but I can’t,” the older boy responded, his voice painfully hollow. There was something in his eyes which caused Gordon’s stomach to churn. “We have to stay out here.”
“…but why?”
“Because of what Guy did.”
The female police officer froze mid-crouch, her hands hovering over the edge of the blanket she had been about to wrap more tightly around the younger boys shoulders. Likewise the officer who’d just blocked Gordon’s entry to the apartment froze, staring across at the boys.
Nate frowned deeply as he demanded to know,
“What did Guy do?”
“He killed him.”
None of the three adults knew what to expect from the younger boy in that moment.
They certainly weren’t expecting him to scoff loudly.
“No he didn’t.”
“I told him what he did to me and he took a knife and stabbed him while he was sleeping.”
Gordon felt the blood drain out of his face as Nate’s frown only deepened,
“…but I thought you couldn’t kill the devil…”
He sounded so earnestly confused, gazing up at his brothers expressionless face in search of the answers he needed, that even the police officers struggled to hold back their emotions.
“I mean, that’s what they told us in church...”
Just then footsteps sounded from inside the apartment, prompting the male police officer to move out of the way so that two of his colleagues could lead Guy out through the door.
Guy looked awful.
He was dressed in bloodstained pyjamas and his hands were cuffed behind his back.
What was somehow worse were his eyes, both of which were bruised although one bruise was quite a bit older than the other, as they shared the same emptiness as his brother. It was only when he caught sight of Gordon standing there that life seemed to return to them.
“Coach?”
“I told you I’d come, Guy,” Gordon managed to force out before turning his attention to the police officers holding the teenager by his arms. “My name is Gordon Bombay. Guy called me after he called the police. I’m his coach and his lawyer so I’ll be staying with my client.”
“You are aware that your client confessed to murdering his parents?”
“No!” Guy sobbed, sagging in the police officers grip. “I didn’t kill her! I swear!”
Her?
“Guy?”
“I didn’t even realise she wasn’t breathing until after I’d called you, I swear,” Guy choked out, meeting Gordon’s confused gaze. Gone was the vacant expression from moments before, replaced by a desperation to be believed. “I would never hurt my mom. Never!”
All four of the police officers shared a look over the top of Guys head.
“Coach, please, I didn’t…”
“Found a suicide note!” a voice called out from inside the apartment, drawing all of their attention. The female police officer tried to stop Guy’s brothers from listening in on the overly public announcement but it was no use. With each word their little faces fell, tears flooding down their cheeks. “Kid might be telling the truth about his mom after all. Seems that she’d finally had enough of her husband’s abuses and overdosed on sleeping pills...”
“…Mommy’s dead too?”
Guy, tears flooding down his own cheeks, nodded.
“…did you really kill daddy?”
Again he nodded, gasping loudly for air between his sobs.
Nate’s next words caused all of the adult to freeze in place for a moment,
“Thank you, Guy.”
He darted forwards before anyone realised what the little boy intended to do, throwing his arm around Guy’s waist and pressing his face into his brothers chest, smearing blood onto his face. A moment later Ben followed his little brother, moving forwards to wrap his arms around both of his brothers as he pressed his face into the side of his older brothers neck.
“Thank you,” Ben whimpered, only just loud enough for them all to hear. “Thank you, Guy.”
An uncontrollable sob twisted Guy’s face into something that almost wasn’t human.
It was only pain.
And grief.
And sadness.
It was painful to watch the three boys being separated no matter how gently it was done, all three of them sobbing and clutching at each other as best as they could. Guy was led out to the police car nearest the door, the officers carefully guiding him into the back of the vehicle and without even checking to see if it was alright Gordon followed him, sliding into the seat beside his player. As it was the police officers merely signed, defeated, and shut the doors.
“Coach, I’m so sorry…” Guy sobbed in the few moments they were alone in the vehicle. He reacted instinctively, placing his hand comfortingly on the teenagers arm. “I couldn’t…he…”
“I’m going to need you to tell me everything, Guy,” Gordon murmured, keeping his voice soft. “But not now. It can wait until we get to station. For now, I just want you to breath.”
Guy nodded, struggling to do even that simple thing.
The journey to the precinct passed in silence, the police officers checking on the two of them in the rear view mirror every now and then. All too soon they had arrived and the police officers led Guy away to be processed, something that Gordon couldn’t be present during for legal reasons, and so he instead made himself comfortable in the interview room.
Guy was brought in some time later, dressed now in a grey sweatshirt and jogging bottoms as his own bloodstained clothes would have been collected as evidence. They sat him down in the chair beside Gordon and switched his cuffs so that his hands were cuffed to a ring on the underside of the table. His eyes were red but his tears had stopped for the time being.
“I need a few minutes alone with my client,” Gordon informed them in his most pompous voice, channelling his years of practice as a lawyer. His request was granted, the red light on the camera going off a couple of minutes after the door had shut behind the police officers confirming that they were no longer being recorded. “Alright, Guy; tell me what happened.”
Guy bit his lip, inhaled shakily and then began to speak.
“My little brothers call our father the Devil and with good reason.”
“…but I thought you couldn’t kill the devil…”
“I was eight when it first happened to me, the first time he came into my bedroom at night. He'd grown tired of beating my mother senseless and then raping her so moved on to me.”
Gordon couldn’t help but stare at his player in open-mouthed shock.
How…how could he not have seen that something was wrong?
How could no one have known what was being done to Guy until it was too late?
“I got used to it. I learnt to deal with it,” Guy continued, a single tear spilling down his cheek. “But then about…about a year ago I realised that he was doing the same thing to poor Ben.”
Remembering how the younger boy had looked when Gordon had first seen him, the blank look in his eyes and the knowledge of how he’d suffered left a foul taste in Gordon’s mouth.
“I confronted him about it and...and he almost killed me. I was out of school for a week.”
A memory of Guy being too “ill” to attend practice surged to the front of his memory.
He’d almost missed a game, Gordon recalled with mounting horror, and his performance at the game in question had been painfully short of his usual standard. Damn, Gordon scolded himself silently as he remembered how he’d actually scolded Guy for his poor performance.
Guilt flared within him.
“When I was away at the Junior Goodwill Games he…he really hurt Ben…” Guy explained, his voice thick with emotion. “He had to go to the hospital. No one told me until I got back and found out that my little brother had ‘been trying to cook something on the hob without his parent’s knowledge and his sleeve had caught on fire’. That's what the hospital report says.”
Gordon couldn’t stop himself from hissing sharply, his hand moving to rub his own arm.
He’d burned himself whilst cooking, most adults had, and it had hurt a fair bit.
But that had only been a small burn on the back of his hand...
“In reality my little brother, who was ten years old at the time, had tried to stand up to my bastard of a father and he'd set his sleeve on fire with his lighter,” Guy pressed on, anger and bitterness twisting his voice. “He stood and watched as my brother's arm was burnt so badly he's going to be scarred for the rest of his life. He laughed. And Nate saw it happen.”
Gordon flinched as he watched the anger drain out of Guy’s eyes, replaced briefly by a pain so deep that it seemed to take over his very soul before a distressing hollowness took over.
“That was the day I realised that the only way to save my brothers was to kill my father.”
It was said so clearly and calmly that Gordon realised that his player had thought through every possible outcome of his extreme actions, both for his little brothers and for himself.
Gordon sighed regretfully,
“I would have…”
“Please Coach, just let me tell it. If I stop now…I don't know if I'll be able to finish it,” Guy gasped, his carefully controlled emotions cracking through as he pleaded with his coach. Slowly Gordon nodded, signalling for the fifteen year old to continue with his story. “I…I didn’t actually plan to kill him last night but he…he told me that I was getting too…too old and he told me that Ben wasn’t…wasn’t pretty enough anymore following the accident.”
His breath shuddered, angry tears pooling in his eyes.
“He locked me and Ben in our bedroom whilst our mom was at work and went after Nate.”
Gordon couldn’t stop himself from gasping sharply, covering his mouth with his hand.
He felt sickened, worse than he had after Guy’s initial phone call.
How could…
What sort of a monster could do that to his own children?
“I waited until he’d drank himself to sleep in front of the television, took a knife from the kitchen and stabbed him,” Guy confessed in a rush. “I only meant to stab him the once but I…I couldn’t stop. I wanted him to hurt as much as he’d made me hurt, as much as he’d made my brothers hurt so…so I just kept stabbing him and stabbing him until I heard Ben.”
“Ben?”
“He told me I could stop,” Guy gasped, his tears spilling over. “He told me dad was dead.”
“Oh, Guy…”
“I…I called the police whilst Ben went to check on Nate and then I called you.”
Gordon nodded, reaching out to give Guy’s arm a comforting squeeze.
“I swear, I didn't know about mom,” his player and now client pressed on, an urgent tone entering his voice. “I didn't see her all evening. I just…I just thought she was still at work.”
It was a cruel twist of fate, Gordon decided, that his poor mother chose to end her life on the day her abusive husband pushed her son so far that he was driven to commit murder.
“I’ve told the police most of this, either on the phone or at the apartment. I didn't hide anything about the murder and I don’t intend to,” Guy concluded, squaring his shoulders resolutely. “I’m prepared to accept the punishment for my actions, Coach. I always have been, ever since I realised what I had to do to save my brothers from growing up how I did.”
“I wish you’d come to me sooner, Guy…”
“I know, Coach, I know,” Guy all but whimpered, his tears starting up again. “And I wish I had, truly I do, but I can’t regret what I did, not when it means my brothers are safe from him. I just…I just…can I ask you a favour, Coach? I mean, other than being my lawyer?”
“Ask,” Gordon whispered, never breaking eye contact.
“Make sure they stay together? And that they go to a nice family? And that their happy? I don't want to have rescued them from one Hell only to end up in another,” Guy sobbed, tears now flooding down his flushed cheeks at an alarming rate. “Will you do that for me?”
Gordon didn’t hesitate for a single second, his mind already going through the steps he’d have to take and the people he’d need to speak to in order to complete a Guy’s request.
“Yes.”
“…you promise?”
“I promise,” he vowed, reaching down to take Guys hands in his own where they were hanging from the metal eye bolted to the underside of the table, squeezing them for a moment before searching through his pockets for his handkerchief, using the square of fabric to dry his cheeks. “And I promise to do everything in my power to help you too.”
Guy grimaced, his eyes flashing with shame as they dropped to his lap.
“I don't care about me. I'm not worth saving any more,” Guy mumbled heavily, meaning every word he said. “He's poisoned my mind and my body but they can still be saved. I'm...I'm a lost cause, Coach. I mean, I just stabbed my own father to death and I deserve whatever punishment they give me. I will accept whatever punishment they give me.”
“I don't care what you think about yourself and what you believe you deserve, Guy; I am still going to fight for you," Gordon said passionately just as the door opened and a detective in a smart suit walked in, followed by the officers from before. “Can I help you, gentlemen?”
“Times up I'm afraid, the recording equipment is being turned back on and we need to get on with the interview,” the detective offered, seemingly genuine in his apology as he took the single seat on the other side of the table. The officers hovered near the doorway in case they were needed. “Could you please state your name for the record and spell it aloud.”
“Guy Germaine,” Guy answered slowly. “G-U-Y G-E-R-M-A-I-N-E.”
Nodding approval the detective asked hid first and most predictable question,
“Did you kill your father, Guy?”
Gordon met Guy’s gaze when the teenager turn to face him, nodding reassuringly.
“Yes.”
And so began the most difficult case of Gordon’s entire life.
~ * ~
A/N When I first began this story many years ago I had it pretty much plotted out but struggled with getting it out of my head in the manner that I wanted it so I ended up shelving it more than once. Cut to a week ago and, even though I’m participating in a challenge which should be my sole focus right now and already have far too many stories on the go already, my brain suddenly goes “why don’t you try re-writing that old story of yours so that you can actually finish it?” and here we are. Whoops. And boy is this version going to be darker than the original… Comments & Suggestions welcome as always. Marblez x