No Other One, Chapter 55
Title: No Other One, Chapter 55
Author: Duckie Nicks
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Yelina Salas, Horatio Caine, the whole Caine family
Author's Note: WARNING: SPOILER FOR SEASON 6.
Summary: Almost two decades ago, Horatio made a decision that would change his family forever. Will they ever forgive him? Will he ever tell Yelina how he feels? This is an alternative to the beginning of season 6. A Horatio and Kyle story; H/Y romance in the future.
Previous Chapters: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23, Chapter 24, Chapter 25, Chapter 26, Chapter 27, Chapter 28, Chapter 29, Chapter 30, Chapter 31, Chapter 32, Chapter 33, Chapter 34, Chapter 35, Chapter 36, Chapter 37, Chapter 38, Chapter 39, Chapter 40, Chapter 41, Chapter 42, Chapter 43, Chapter 44, Chapter 45, Chapter 46, Chapter 47, Chapter 48, Chapter 49, Chapter 50, Chapter 51, Chapter 52, Chapter 53, and Chapter 54.
Disclaimer: I don't own the show.
“But reason has no power against feeling, and feeling older than history is no light matter.” - Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The messages came one after the other, the voices of the school’s principal and Yelina giving him updates over and over. The common thread, Kyle and the implied, “Where are you, Horatio,” it was enough to make the redhead feel sick to his stomach.
He had failed.
Again.
And just like before, he hadn’t even tried to hurt Kyle. There’d been no premeditation, no plan to choose his job over his child.
But…
That was exactly what had happened.
With a sigh, he snapped the phone shut and set it aside. An overbearing sense of defeat overtaking him, Horatio wondered if he would ever be the kind of father Kyle deserved. Hell, at this point, the redhead would have settled for being someone who remotely acted like a father. Because, where they were now… Horatio wasn’t anything to this boy, much less a father.
There was no closeness between them, no… love.
The only thing they seemed to have an abundance of were awkward moments, pregnant pauses, and… Actually, that was about it, he thought grimly.
As he headed back towards the city, the rational part of his mind realized that it was too much to expect things to be all that different. He hadn’t spent enough time with Kyle, honestly. They hadn’t… done things together, aside from the few bureaucratic details that they’d had to take care of. Which was important, sure, but there was nothing there to bond them.
Horatio supposed that would change - no, he was determined to change that.
And the first step to doing that had to be apologizing for not being there - today and every day previous to this one.
Horatio reached out for his cell phone, which was currently nestled in his empty cup holder. The light plastic feeling weighty in his hand, he realized almost immediately that Kyle would need one of his own. Not that it would have done much good in this situation, Horatio realized. But if Kyle got into any more fights, it would be necessary.
Assuming the reckless teen wasn’t immediately sent to prison.
Of course, that was assuming, Horatio thought wryly, that Kyle wasn’t already being placed in a cop car and taken away.
That disturbing image taunting his mind, he pressed down on the accelerator a little more. The prospect of his son’s future was darkening, even more than it had already been shaded. And Horatio could feel it happening, making him wish more than ever before that he was already home.
Or in the very least more aware of what was going on.
The messages he’d received had been painfully vague. The school had called three times - the first to announce that there’d been a fight. The second had been more disturbing, had said that they were sending Kyle to the hospital for his nose. And the third, somewhere between sad and frightening, announced that they might consider keeping the boy in school.
Hardly reassuring.
Not that the rest were any better.
Yelina’s, if that were possible, were even more vague. Her voice barely containing her confusion and contempt, she had said she was with Kyle and eventually that he was okay. Which was great news, but it hardly answered any of the questions Horatio had.
Why was she there?
Why was she with Kyle at all?
Horatio was sure he hadn’t mentioned her to the school. Doing so would have only created more questions in the principal’s mind, the redhead had believed. And frankly, Horatio had no interest in opening that can of worms if he didn’t absolutely have to.
On the one hand, he supposed that someone from the school could have figured it out. Try as they might to avoid it, the Caine family was known in Miami. First Raymond’s suspicious death and then every sordid and sexy investigation since - the news had taken to reporting on them occasionally. And while Horatio had come to ignore it, as well as anyone could, he understood that… others might not ignore it.
Thinking about it a moment longer, Horatio guessed that that theory was as good as any; maybe even better, because it had to be more realistic than his second option - which was that Kyle had somehow managed to get his hands on Yelina’s phone number and called her himself.
Truthfully, that hardly seemed like an alternative explanation at all. Because, yes, before she had known the truth, Yelina had appeared to be… not protective but concerned about Kyle. Never willing to admit that he had been the one to attack her, she had almost seemed more interested in accusing Horatio himself of misdeeds. And while that might make his son believe she was trustworthy, Horatio doubted that Kyle, who was the most stoic person he’d ever met, had called her. That would have required a tremendous amount of faith, something the boy surely couldn’t have after Horatio had essentially implied that Yelina hated them both.
Which made the redhead think of another question. Regardless of how she found out about Kyle’s fight, none of that could explain why she went to the hospital.
She had no reason to go, no real personal connection to the boy. She might not have been interested in admitting that Kyle had attacked her, but that was hardly the same thing as actual affection for the teenager; really all that had been proof of was her stubbornness, her refusal to admit that some things were out of her control, that some times she did need Horatio around. And even if Kyle himself had misinterpreted what she was up to, surely, Yelina wouldn’t feel the need to drive out to the hospital because of it.
Maneuvering the Hummer around a particularly slow car, Horatio asked himself again:
Why had she gone to Kyle?
When she was so furious about what had happened, what in the world could have happened to make her change her mind? What could make her take time out of her day to go to Kyle?
The CSI had no idea.
It was his job to make connections, find links, and deduce, but when it came to this, he had no earthly idea what was going on. And why should he, he thought viciously to himself. He barely talked to Yelina these days. Ever since he’d sent her to Rio, she had… erected this wall between them. She no longer came to him, no longer trusted him to help her, it seemed.
Which Horatio knew was probably his own fault, his own doing. But that didn’t make it any easier to take. That didn’t make him feel any happier about the situation. Because, even if he’d caused this to happen, he didn’t like being this distant from her.
He liked helping her.
He liked being involved in her life.
As hard as it was to admit that out loud at times, it was the truth. He liked doing things for her and being around her and Ray Junior; it made him… happy.
And regardless of how they got to this point or why they were there, Horatio didn’t like being cut out of her life. Removed from all the sweeter moments, all the tiny little incidents that put a smile on his face, he seemed to only be around these days when he’d screwed up. Not even around anymore for Ray Junior’s mistakes, Horatio realized that they only talked when Yelina was mad at him or when he needed her professionally.
Which meant…
They weren’t really family anymore.
Over the last two years, they’d gone from family and friends to mere strangers. Or maybe not strangers, because there was still all the subtext. They still had all of those memories of each other and of time spent together. And although there was distance, a chasm that seemed to widen every instance they were near each other these days, between them now, Horatio hadn’t forgotten what they’d shared together. Hadn’t failed to notice what they could have had together, had he not pushed her away.
It wasn’t, was not, he told himself, about wanting her in any romantic sense. Even if he really did want her in that way, he was not going to act on those feelings out of respect for his dead brother. He was not going to do that, and it was not about losing her as a potential girlfriend.
That particular word making his stomach clench painfully, Horatio told himself that his problem was more basic than that. It wasn’t about romance as much as it was about family, as it was about once again, being unable to keep a family member around.
His mood darkening even further, he glanced down briefly at his phone. He should call her, he realized. If only to see how Kyle was doing, he should talk to her.
But… in his heart, Horatio knew that he couldn’t do that just yet.
Because, if he could work so hard to do the right thing with her and still drive her away, then what was the point in trying with Kyle? What was the point in working to make things right with the boy if the only thing they would ever get from it was heartache?
He sighed immediately, no answer coming to mind. Dejectedly, Horatio placed the phone back in his cup holder. He couldn’t call, not right now, not until this particular question had an answer. Because if he couldn’t figure out what the point in trying to have a relationship with Kyle or anyone else for that matter was, then a phone call would do absolutely no good.
Shifting slightly in the driver’s seat, Horatio tried to stop himself from going down this mental road any further. Unconvincingly he told himself that… Kyle and Yelina were not the same person, that things didn’t have to end the exact same way. She might have decided that they no longer needed to be friends, that they didn’t need to interact anymore. But Kyle might be different, Horatio thought half-heartedly.
And just as weakly, the redhead reminded himself that Kyle was his son, and that meant that Horatio had an obligation to try with the boy.
They just had to.
Even if he didn’t want to, Horatio had to try.
Which was, admittedly, probably not the way to pursue the matter, probably not going to gain the boy’s trust.
But…
Horatio didn’t have anything else to offer at the moment. Burned by the past too often and too severe, he no longer had, he thought, that innate ability to open up and love another human being. Maybe he’d never had that, he considered truthfully. But either way, after his father had killed his mother, and Horatio himself had killed his father, after his brother and wife… after Yelina left and never really came back…
After all of it, Horatio was mere remnants of who he’d once been. The leftover bits hardly deserving to be Kyle’s father, he knew that it would never be enough for the boy.
But Horatio had to try. Even if all he had left was a bizarre, obsessive sense of duty, he had to try to make things right with boy.
And yet…
As he continued to drive towards Miami, Horatio couldn’t help but notice how his foot had eased off the accelerator.
*******************
Yelina watched Kyle carefully as they perused the hospital’s cafeteria. Her eyes occasionally drifting elsewhere to look at the unappetizing food or a loud child walking past her, she regularly found her attention wandering back to the teenager. In the back of her mind, she was more than aware that, in the long run, little things like this wouldn’t matter; ten years from now, she probably wouldn’t care what Kyle had wanted to eat on this particular day. Seeing, however, that she didn’t know much else about the boy, she supposed that it was all right to be curious about the trivial matters.
Kyle, much like his cousin, didn’t seem to agree with her though. Just as he passed over the large display of chips, he looked over at her. His fingers cautiously sliding towards the glass case of muffins, he asked in curiosity, “Is this some sort of quiz?”
Exhaling in a rush, Yelina asked her own question. “Excuse me?”
He shrugged, as he snatched a piece of waxy tissue. “I dunno. You’re just watching me carefully, and I’m just wondering…” His brow furrowing in concentration, Kyle sorted through the display case until he found the muffin he wanted. Choosing a large cherry muffin that had been slightly burnt around the edges, the teenager looked almost happy for a moment as he pulled it out. The scantest hint of a smile tugging at the small corners of his lips, she thought he seemed pleased by his choice.
But, as was this family’s way, it didn’t last. His mouth relaxing once more, Kyle continued, “Nobody looks at somebody else this carefully unless they want something.”
“I don’t want anything from you,” Yelina replied honestly, quietly, her eyes darkening slightly at the implication.
His response was a surprised, “Apparently.”
“Do you want anything else?” she asked calmly.
His own eyes roaming around the rest of the cafeteria for a moment, he eventually looked at her once more. “I just want to know why you’re so curious,” the teenager told her. “Now that you know I’m not pressing charges against your kid, I can’t figure out why you’re still here.”
Slowly they made their way towards the check out line. His eyes were trained on her the entire way, waiting for her to give an acceptable answer that Yelina wasn’t sure she had. “We’re family,” she offered, pausing to grab a plastic container of milk from one of the refrigerated cases. “You’ll need something to swallow the pills with,” she explained.
“I don’t need it,” Kyle replied, waving the beverage off. “I can dry swallow.”
Keeping the milk with her, she headed to the short line with the teenager lagging behind her. “That’s repulsive,” she told him, her voice only slightly judgmental.
“Fine, I’ll drink the milk,” he said. His tones were strained a little, obviously annoyed and confused by her.
“Good.”
The conversation, if one could call it that, fell into a lull then. The din of chatter echoing around them, there was enough noise to avoid an awkward silence, Yelina thought thankfully. If anything, the quiet that followed felt… comfortable, okay, as though they’d been around one another for much longer than they actually had. Which was interesting, she supposed; it was definitely unlike every other relationship she’d had involving this family.
Not that she would have ever done anything differently, but the fact was… when it came to the Caines, nothing was easy. Thanks to their childhoods, both Horatio and her husband had erected concrete walls around them, and no amount of chiseling or bashing her head against those walls had ever broken them down.
She’d tried so hard to help both of them, had truly wanted to be the one who could… make them happy - as wrong as it was to want to be that for two brothers. But Yelina doubted now more than ever if she’d ever succeeded. Horatio more distant than he’d ever been before, Raymond dead - the results spoke only of failure. And in the forefront of her mind, the mother worried her son would meet the same fate.
And if that were to happen… if her son were never truly able to connect with another person, because he was afraid of repeating his own past…
She’d never forgive herself for that.
But, she thought, pushing the concern aside, with Kyle it was a little different.
Oh, he was closed off, obviously. He was quiet, just as his father and uncle were and had been. He was suspicious of her… almost desperate to prove that she had an ulterior motive.
And yet…
She didn’t know how to describe it exactly, didn’t know how to articulate what was different; more than anything, it was a feeling she had when looking at him. But… in spite of his distrust, she thought she saw interest flicker in his eyes. And maybe, she thought, she hoped, she saw the exact same desire to trust in him that she felt herself.
Having paid for the muffin and milk, Yelina stepped out of line and gave Kyle a choice. “We can either sit or you can eat in the car. I don’t care.”
“Car,” he replied immediately, his thumb and index finger already picking at the top of the muffin.
“All right,” she said, trying not to think of all the crumbs she would have to inevitably clean off of her cushions.
Obviously it was her own fault for suggesting the car in the first place, she realized. And in truth, Yelina… didn’t mind it all that much; she could clean the mess without any problem, and she knew that. But having spent most of her life cleaning someone else’s mess up - both metaphorically and literally - she couldn’t help but think in those terms. It was what she knew, what she was familiar with, and that meant envisioning crumbs and stains even when there was no reason to. Pushing the thought aside, she guided Kyle out of the hospital without uttering a word.
Only when she started to drive did he choose to break the comfortable silence between them. His fingers picking nervously at the muffin in his lap, the teenager spoke up, “You said it’s cause we’re family, but… you don’t really believe that, do you?” His voice was almost tentative, but there was accusation in each word regardless.
Stopping at an intersection, Yelina turned briefly to look at him. “Why wouldn’t I?”
His own gaze focusing on her, Kyle asked, “Do you always have to respond to a question by asking another question?”
“No,” she responded easily. As the traffic picked back up, she explained, “It’s not a compulsion, Kyle. However,” Yelina drew out slowly, licking her lips. “I do find it curious that your natural inclination is to discount everything I say. Have I given you any reason to believe that I don’t see you as family?”
Her voice was calm, the words spoken evenly. All in all, it was a remarked difference, she decided, between any conversation she’d had with her own son as of late. Had they been broaching this particular subject, they’d already be yelling; she had no doubt of that. Just as she had no doubt that they would be screaming at one another when she brought Kyle home with her.
But what other choice did she have?
She couldn’t - wouldn’t - leave the teenager sitting outside of Horatio’s home for an unknown amount of time, without having any idea of when her brother-in-law planned on returning.
And just as she was about to tell herself that that was no option at all, Kyle interrupted. His words were tentative, carefully chosen, as he said, “You and I… we’ve known each other for… I don’t know, a week?” He waited until she nodded her head in agreement before continuing, “You don’t know me, and I don’t know you. All I know is that Horatio says you’ve been furious with him about -”
“Yes,” Yelina interrupted immediately, cutting Kyle off before he could vocalize the thought. “Yes,” she admitted again, the single word feeling weighty to her. Quietly, she said, “I… am angry with him, yes.”
It felt monumentous to say it, as odd as she thought that was. Because there’d never been any doubt in her that she was upset with Horatio; she’d understood that from the moment Rebecca Nevins had told her that Kyle was a relative. But, in a way, it was nice to admit it to someone who… whose judgment didn’t matter.
Which sounded awful, she couldn’t deny; Kyle was her nephew, she supposed, and was therefore someone whose opinion should have mattered. But as things were right now, it really didn’t. If only because any judgment he would make about her (and vice versa) would be so off the mark, she had no problem admitting that she was furious.
And yet, Yelina still felt the need to say, “But last I checked, you were not Horatio, yes?”
“No complaints there,” Kyle murmured as he chased the painkiller the doctor had prescribed him with a long drink of milk.
Taking another turn on the road, she replied dryly, “No, I wouldn’t think so.”
They continued on in silence, their current dislike for Horatio somehow putting them both at ease. And they would have, she was sure, remained quiet, if she had left the topic of conversation alone. But the longer they said nothing, the more she wondered just how much Kyle thought she was angry with him.
So, with the house only ten minutes away, Yelina took the opportunity to clarify; God only knew that as soon as Ray Junior saw him, there would be no time to say anything. “My issues are with your father, not you.”
Kyle shook his head. “Yeah, but that issue is me.” They were no longer on friendly territory, she immediately realized, his voice annoyed and affronted.
“No,” she said harshly. “It’s not.”
“No?” he asked, pretending to sound surprised. “Does he have another bastard child -”
“Don’t talk like that,” she admonished quickly.
But Kyle ignored her and kept talking right over her, “that I’m not aware of?”
Her own irritation was beginning to overtake her; Yelina’s lips turning down into a frown, she could feel her olive complexion starting to blush with a rouge that came only when she was being annoyed. “I suppose,” she said grimly, trying to avoid sounding sarcastic. “That I’m not the one who can answer that question; if Horatio has other children, then… well, I guess he would be the only one to know.”
Kyle opened his mouth to say something, but holding up a hand, she silenced the teenager. “Kyle… I’ve known your father for… more years that I’d care to admit that I’ve lived.”
He smirked. “Yeah, you don’t look like a day over twenty-five,” he remarked sarcastically, garnering a smirk from Yelina...
It was interesting, she mused; from anyone else, that comment would have decidedly not been appreciated by her. The menopause joke Ray Junior had made last month had been proof enough, for her, of that. In that instance, had disembowelment been a legal form of punishment, Yelina was sure she would have opted for it.
When that had happened, Raymond had been trying to push her buttons, had been trying to manipulate her using one of her fears. Not particularly a fear of aging itself, nor a concern of vanity, Yelina had always been… obsessive about her appearance. Or maybe that wasn’t the right word for it, because there were times when she wanted nothing more than to blend in with everyone else.
But ever since childhood, her relationship to her proclaimed obsessively good looks had been as complicated as pretty much every other relationship in her life. She hated being pretty when it meant she couldn’t walk down the street without pairs upon pairs of eyes leering at her. She hated it when the people she would like to know judged her and turned away from her because of it, despised her genes even more when it meant the only people who approached her were the repulsive kind.
And yet…
What scared Yelina about getting old was not death itself, was not disease, or the thought of leaving her son alone in the world. The last had some power over her. But in her heart, even if there were times when she doubted it, she knew that Ray Junior did not need her like he used to; he was a big boy, almost an adult, capable of taking care of himself, despite his almost obsessive choice to do the opposite of what a mature man would do.
But really, it was the fear of losing her looks that worried her about getting old. As many times as there had been where she wished she’d looked like someone else, she could not imagine a world where men did not act disgusting around here, a world where the Horatio’s did not cow from her and where the Stetler’s stayed away.
She could not imagine no longer being beautiful, and the idea of being thrust into that world somehow… terrified her.
And Ray Junior had somehow figured this out; he was smart enough to read her in ways she didn’t care for.
And he’d used it against her.
Her own son.
Pushing the bitter thought away, Yelina tried to return to the matter at hand: Kyle’s own attempt at a joke. Aside from the fact that her son had been cruel in a way that Kyle obviously wasn’t trying to be, he had no real way of knowing that she could possibly take offense.
So… she didn’t take any.
“When you know someone that long,” she explained gently, trying to finish her thought. “You’re either very close to them or not at all.”
“You think?” Kyle asked curiously, his eyes sliding to meet hers.
She nodded her head slightly. “Horatio and I are… I don’t know - both, neither. It’s hard to tell.” Falling silent, Yelina signaled to change lanes. When she spoke again, her voice was louder, stronger. “Whatever our problems are, and God, there are a lot… they are ours, Kyle. Not yours.”
His response was a careful, “Okay…” As though he expected her to say more, he waited quietly for her to continue. But when, after five minutes she added nothing else, Kyle turned back to the muffin on his lap.
His attention on the food, Yelina took the opportunity to assess the damage to her car. And, although the mood had definitely shifted to something heavier and less comfortable, her own mood seemed to lighten at the fact that the teenager, unlike her own son, had mastered table manners. A scant amount of crumbs on his lap, there were no cherry stains on his hands or on the leather seat. And, looking at a relatively easy clean up (if the car needed one at all), Yelina couldn’t have, sadly, been more pleased.
“You missed the turn off,” Kyle spoke up suddenly, her head quickly snapping back to the road. “I think,” he added as an afterthought. “I don’t know.”
She smiled reassuringly. “You have a good sense of direction. But I’m not taking you to your father’s house.”
“Why not?” His voice was filled with suspicion.
Her explanation was terse but simple. “You’ve got an injured nose; you ingested painkillers. You can’t sit on your front porch all night long hoping that your father won’t get distracted by a case and come home to let you inside.” She frowned at the mental picture that created. “You need someone to look after you.”
He sounded annoyed when he said defensively, “I can take care of myself.”
“I have no doubt of that,” she replied easily. “You’re right… I misspoke. You don’t need someone to take care of you, Kyle.”
“Thank you,” he said, as though the situation had been righted.
“But that doesn’t mean I feel comfortable letting it happen.”
“Oh,” Kyle told her, sounding almost shocked. “So then…”
“You’re coming home with me.” Her eyes focused on the road, Yelina pretended not to notice her nephew shift uncomfortably in his seat out of her peripheral vision. Just as she was going to pretend that she couldn’t sympathize or understand his nerves.
“You think that’s a good idea?” he asked her pointedly.
Sighing, Yelina half-asked, half-stated, “You’re worried about my son?” He didn’t nod or shake his head, didn’t give her any response at all. So she took that to mean she was right. “Well….” She slid her tongue along the outside of her teeth as she looked for an answer. “I honestly don’t know how he’ll respond to seeing you, Kyle.”
That was a lie.
She knew exactly how her son was going to react; he was going to be livid. The question was not if he was going to be angry. It was just a matter of how angry and at whom that concerned her.
Unfortunately, Kyle seemed to understand this. “Yeah, he’s just going to love seeing me. Come on, Yelina, we both know that this is a disaster waiting to happen.”
“Probably,” she admitted, her voice heavily accented and harsh. “But this has happened; Raymond chose to fight you, and I’m not going to let you sit outside for the rest of the day by yourself, sweetheart. We are family,” she said, wondering why that word almost sounded like a threat coming from her lips. “And that means he is going to have to grow up and accept that you exist.”
“Isn’t that wishful thinking?”
“No,” she replied sharply. Her fingers gripping the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles were blanching from the pressure, Yelina clarified, “I’m not demanding that you two be friends.”
“Good” was Kyle’s honest response.
“I have no delusions that the two of you will… resolve your differences,” she said, her words awkward and clumsier than she was used to. But really, there was no other way to put it, not in her mind anyway. “But if you are going to go to the same school together, this cannot continue to happen. You’ll both have to learn to live with the other one existing. You can’t spend every minute you’re in the same room together trying to rip each other’s faces off.”
The teenager scoffed, crumpling up the empty muffin holder and stuffing it into the drained container of milk. “You don’t need to tell me that. I’m not the one who went psycho, remember?” he said, audibly annoyed.
As she pulled the car into her driveway, Yelina glanced over at him, a grim expression on her face. “Believe me. When my son sees you and opens his mouth, you’ll be grateful for the reminder.”
Their conversation was over then. The matter closed for the moment, she stepped out of the car and waited for Kyle to get out as well before heading towards the front door. Her manicured nails searching quickly through the now messy contents of her purse, she scrounged around for her keys. Which were hard to find in the unsorted pocketbook; really, Yelina could have sworn that, when chaos existed in her life, order was nowhere to be seen in her handbag. And this seemed to prove that point perfectly.
Fingers moving aside her wallet and compact, she wondered once more, where her keys were hiding.
Not that she needed them.
The second her hand closed around the chain of metal, the front door swung open. The brass knocker rattling against itself, it was an ominous warning.
Not that she needed that either.
Because standing in the doorway with his arms folded across his chest was Ray Junior. His eyes the color of charred toast, he was glaring at them both. Accusation in his posture even before the words left him, Yelina hesitated to take another step closer to her son. Not fearful of him but rather of what he would say to Kyle, she wasn’t sure that bringing her nephew here was such a good idea anymore. And when Ray finally spoke up, his voice hoarse and deadly, she was not surprised by the question.
“What the hell is he doing here?”
Go to the next chapter
Author: Duckie Nicks
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Yelina Salas, Horatio Caine, the whole Caine family
Author's Note: WARNING: SPOILER FOR SEASON 6.
Summary: Almost two decades ago, Horatio made a decision that would change his family forever. Will they ever forgive him? Will he ever tell Yelina how he feels? This is an alternative to the beginning of season 6. A Horatio and Kyle story; H/Y romance in the future.
Previous Chapters: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23, Chapter 24, Chapter 25, Chapter 26, Chapter 27, Chapter 28, Chapter 29, Chapter 30, Chapter 31, Chapter 32, Chapter 33, Chapter 34, Chapter 35, Chapter 36, Chapter 37, Chapter 38, Chapter 39, Chapter 40, Chapter 41, Chapter 42, Chapter 43, Chapter 44, Chapter 45, Chapter 46, Chapter 47, Chapter 48, Chapter 49, Chapter 50, Chapter 51, Chapter 52, Chapter 53, and Chapter 54.
Disclaimer: I don't own the show.
“But reason has no power against feeling, and feeling older than history is no light matter.” - Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The messages came one after the other, the voices of the school’s principal and Yelina giving him updates over and over. The common thread, Kyle and the implied, “Where are you, Horatio,” it was enough to make the redhead feel sick to his stomach.
He had failed.
Again.
And just like before, he hadn’t even tried to hurt Kyle. There’d been no premeditation, no plan to choose his job over his child.
But…
That was exactly what had happened.
With a sigh, he snapped the phone shut and set it aside. An overbearing sense of defeat overtaking him, Horatio wondered if he would ever be the kind of father Kyle deserved. Hell, at this point, the redhead would have settled for being someone who remotely acted like a father. Because, where they were now… Horatio wasn’t anything to this boy, much less a father.
There was no closeness between them, no… love.
The only thing they seemed to have an abundance of were awkward moments, pregnant pauses, and… Actually, that was about it, he thought grimly.
As he headed back towards the city, the rational part of his mind realized that it was too much to expect things to be all that different. He hadn’t spent enough time with Kyle, honestly. They hadn’t… done things together, aside from the few bureaucratic details that they’d had to take care of. Which was important, sure, but there was nothing there to bond them.
Horatio supposed that would change - no, he was determined to change that.
And the first step to doing that had to be apologizing for not being there - today and every day previous to this one.
Horatio reached out for his cell phone, which was currently nestled in his empty cup holder. The light plastic feeling weighty in his hand, he realized almost immediately that Kyle would need one of his own. Not that it would have done much good in this situation, Horatio realized. But if Kyle got into any more fights, it would be necessary.
Assuming the reckless teen wasn’t immediately sent to prison.
Of course, that was assuming, Horatio thought wryly, that Kyle wasn’t already being placed in a cop car and taken away.
That disturbing image taunting his mind, he pressed down on the accelerator a little more. The prospect of his son’s future was darkening, even more than it had already been shaded. And Horatio could feel it happening, making him wish more than ever before that he was already home.
Or in the very least more aware of what was going on.
The messages he’d received had been painfully vague. The school had called three times - the first to announce that there’d been a fight. The second had been more disturbing, had said that they were sending Kyle to the hospital for his nose. And the third, somewhere between sad and frightening, announced that they might consider keeping the boy in school.
Hardly reassuring.
Not that the rest were any better.
Yelina’s, if that were possible, were even more vague. Her voice barely containing her confusion and contempt, she had said she was with Kyle and eventually that he was okay. Which was great news, but it hardly answered any of the questions Horatio had.
Why was she there?
Why was she with Kyle at all?
Horatio was sure he hadn’t mentioned her to the school. Doing so would have only created more questions in the principal’s mind, the redhead had believed. And frankly, Horatio had no interest in opening that can of worms if he didn’t absolutely have to.
On the one hand, he supposed that someone from the school could have figured it out. Try as they might to avoid it, the Caine family was known in Miami. First Raymond’s suspicious death and then every sordid and sexy investigation since - the news had taken to reporting on them occasionally. And while Horatio had come to ignore it, as well as anyone could, he understood that… others might not ignore it.
Thinking about it a moment longer, Horatio guessed that that theory was as good as any; maybe even better, because it had to be more realistic than his second option - which was that Kyle had somehow managed to get his hands on Yelina’s phone number and called her himself.
Truthfully, that hardly seemed like an alternative explanation at all. Because, yes, before she had known the truth, Yelina had appeared to be… not protective but concerned about Kyle. Never willing to admit that he had been the one to attack her, she had almost seemed more interested in accusing Horatio himself of misdeeds. And while that might make his son believe she was trustworthy, Horatio doubted that Kyle, who was the most stoic person he’d ever met, had called her. That would have required a tremendous amount of faith, something the boy surely couldn’t have after Horatio had essentially implied that Yelina hated them both.
Which made the redhead think of another question. Regardless of how she found out about Kyle’s fight, none of that could explain why she went to the hospital.
She had no reason to go, no real personal connection to the boy. She might not have been interested in admitting that Kyle had attacked her, but that was hardly the same thing as actual affection for the teenager; really all that had been proof of was her stubbornness, her refusal to admit that some things were out of her control, that some times she did need Horatio around. And even if Kyle himself had misinterpreted what she was up to, surely, Yelina wouldn’t feel the need to drive out to the hospital because of it.
Maneuvering the Hummer around a particularly slow car, Horatio asked himself again:
Why had she gone to Kyle?
When she was so furious about what had happened, what in the world could have happened to make her change her mind? What could make her take time out of her day to go to Kyle?
The CSI had no idea.
It was his job to make connections, find links, and deduce, but when it came to this, he had no earthly idea what was going on. And why should he, he thought viciously to himself. He barely talked to Yelina these days. Ever since he’d sent her to Rio, she had… erected this wall between them. She no longer came to him, no longer trusted him to help her, it seemed.
Which Horatio knew was probably his own fault, his own doing. But that didn’t make it any easier to take. That didn’t make him feel any happier about the situation. Because, even if he’d caused this to happen, he didn’t like being this distant from her.
He liked helping her.
He liked being involved in her life.
As hard as it was to admit that out loud at times, it was the truth. He liked doing things for her and being around her and Ray Junior; it made him… happy.
And regardless of how they got to this point or why they were there, Horatio didn’t like being cut out of her life. Removed from all the sweeter moments, all the tiny little incidents that put a smile on his face, he seemed to only be around these days when he’d screwed up. Not even around anymore for Ray Junior’s mistakes, Horatio realized that they only talked when Yelina was mad at him or when he needed her professionally.
Which meant…
They weren’t really family anymore.
Over the last two years, they’d gone from family and friends to mere strangers. Or maybe not strangers, because there was still all the subtext. They still had all of those memories of each other and of time spent together. And although there was distance, a chasm that seemed to widen every instance they were near each other these days, between them now, Horatio hadn’t forgotten what they’d shared together. Hadn’t failed to notice what they could have had together, had he not pushed her away.
It wasn’t, was not, he told himself, about wanting her in any romantic sense. Even if he really did want her in that way, he was not going to act on those feelings out of respect for his dead brother. He was not going to do that, and it was not about losing her as a potential girlfriend.
That particular word making his stomach clench painfully, Horatio told himself that his problem was more basic than that. It wasn’t about romance as much as it was about family, as it was about once again, being unable to keep a family member around.
His mood darkening even further, he glanced down briefly at his phone. He should call her, he realized. If only to see how Kyle was doing, he should talk to her.
But… in his heart, Horatio knew that he couldn’t do that just yet.
Because, if he could work so hard to do the right thing with her and still drive her away, then what was the point in trying with Kyle? What was the point in working to make things right with the boy if the only thing they would ever get from it was heartache?
He sighed immediately, no answer coming to mind. Dejectedly, Horatio placed the phone back in his cup holder. He couldn’t call, not right now, not until this particular question had an answer. Because if he couldn’t figure out what the point in trying to have a relationship with Kyle or anyone else for that matter was, then a phone call would do absolutely no good.
Shifting slightly in the driver’s seat, Horatio tried to stop himself from going down this mental road any further. Unconvincingly he told himself that… Kyle and Yelina were not the same person, that things didn’t have to end the exact same way. She might have decided that they no longer needed to be friends, that they didn’t need to interact anymore. But Kyle might be different, Horatio thought half-heartedly.
And just as weakly, the redhead reminded himself that Kyle was his son, and that meant that Horatio had an obligation to try with the boy.
They just had to.
Even if he didn’t want to, Horatio had to try.
Which was, admittedly, probably not the way to pursue the matter, probably not going to gain the boy’s trust.
But…
Horatio didn’t have anything else to offer at the moment. Burned by the past too often and too severe, he no longer had, he thought, that innate ability to open up and love another human being. Maybe he’d never had that, he considered truthfully. But either way, after his father had killed his mother, and Horatio himself had killed his father, after his brother and wife… after Yelina left and never really came back…
After all of it, Horatio was mere remnants of who he’d once been. The leftover bits hardly deserving to be Kyle’s father, he knew that it would never be enough for the boy.
But Horatio had to try. Even if all he had left was a bizarre, obsessive sense of duty, he had to try to make things right with boy.
And yet…
As he continued to drive towards Miami, Horatio couldn’t help but notice how his foot had eased off the accelerator.
*******************
Yelina watched Kyle carefully as they perused the hospital’s cafeteria. Her eyes occasionally drifting elsewhere to look at the unappetizing food or a loud child walking past her, she regularly found her attention wandering back to the teenager. In the back of her mind, she was more than aware that, in the long run, little things like this wouldn’t matter; ten years from now, she probably wouldn’t care what Kyle had wanted to eat on this particular day. Seeing, however, that she didn’t know much else about the boy, she supposed that it was all right to be curious about the trivial matters.
Kyle, much like his cousin, didn’t seem to agree with her though. Just as he passed over the large display of chips, he looked over at her. His fingers cautiously sliding towards the glass case of muffins, he asked in curiosity, “Is this some sort of quiz?”
Exhaling in a rush, Yelina asked her own question. “Excuse me?”
He shrugged, as he snatched a piece of waxy tissue. “I dunno. You’re just watching me carefully, and I’m just wondering…” His brow furrowing in concentration, Kyle sorted through the display case until he found the muffin he wanted. Choosing a large cherry muffin that had been slightly burnt around the edges, the teenager looked almost happy for a moment as he pulled it out. The scantest hint of a smile tugging at the small corners of his lips, she thought he seemed pleased by his choice.
But, as was this family’s way, it didn’t last. His mouth relaxing once more, Kyle continued, “Nobody looks at somebody else this carefully unless they want something.”
“I don’t want anything from you,” Yelina replied honestly, quietly, her eyes darkening slightly at the implication.
His response was a surprised, “Apparently.”
“Do you want anything else?” she asked calmly.
His own eyes roaming around the rest of the cafeteria for a moment, he eventually looked at her once more. “I just want to know why you’re so curious,” the teenager told her. “Now that you know I’m not pressing charges against your kid, I can’t figure out why you’re still here.”
Slowly they made their way towards the check out line. His eyes were trained on her the entire way, waiting for her to give an acceptable answer that Yelina wasn’t sure she had. “We’re family,” she offered, pausing to grab a plastic container of milk from one of the refrigerated cases. “You’ll need something to swallow the pills with,” she explained.
“I don’t need it,” Kyle replied, waving the beverage off. “I can dry swallow.”
Keeping the milk with her, she headed to the short line with the teenager lagging behind her. “That’s repulsive,” she told him, her voice only slightly judgmental.
“Fine, I’ll drink the milk,” he said. His tones were strained a little, obviously annoyed and confused by her.
“Good.”
The conversation, if one could call it that, fell into a lull then. The din of chatter echoing around them, there was enough noise to avoid an awkward silence, Yelina thought thankfully. If anything, the quiet that followed felt… comfortable, okay, as though they’d been around one another for much longer than they actually had. Which was interesting, she supposed; it was definitely unlike every other relationship she’d had involving this family.
Not that she would have ever done anything differently, but the fact was… when it came to the Caines, nothing was easy. Thanks to their childhoods, both Horatio and her husband had erected concrete walls around them, and no amount of chiseling or bashing her head against those walls had ever broken them down.
She’d tried so hard to help both of them, had truly wanted to be the one who could… make them happy - as wrong as it was to want to be that for two brothers. But Yelina doubted now more than ever if she’d ever succeeded. Horatio more distant than he’d ever been before, Raymond dead - the results spoke only of failure. And in the forefront of her mind, the mother worried her son would meet the same fate.
And if that were to happen… if her son were never truly able to connect with another person, because he was afraid of repeating his own past…
She’d never forgive herself for that.
But, she thought, pushing the concern aside, with Kyle it was a little different.
Oh, he was closed off, obviously. He was quiet, just as his father and uncle were and had been. He was suspicious of her… almost desperate to prove that she had an ulterior motive.
And yet…
She didn’t know how to describe it exactly, didn’t know how to articulate what was different; more than anything, it was a feeling she had when looking at him. But… in spite of his distrust, she thought she saw interest flicker in his eyes. And maybe, she thought, she hoped, she saw the exact same desire to trust in him that she felt herself.
Having paid for the muffin and milk, Yelina stepped out of line and gave Kyle a choice. “We can either sit or you can eat in the car. I don’t care.”
“Car,” he replied immediately, his thumb and index finger already picking at the top of the muffin.
“All right,” she said, trying not to think of all the crumbs she would have to inevitably clean off of her cushions.
Obviously it was her own fault for suggesting the car in the first place, she realized. And in truth, Yelina… didn’t mind it all that much; she could clean the mess without any problem, and she knew that. But having spent most of her life cleaning someone else’s mess up - both metaphorically and literally - she couldn’t help but think in those terms. It was what she knew, what she was familiar with, and that meant envisioning crumbs and stains even when there was no reason to. Pushing the thought aside, she guided Kyle out of the hospital without uttering a word.
Only when she started to drive did he choose to break the comfortable silence between them. His fingers picking nervously at the muffin in his lap, the teenager spoke up, “You said it’s cause we’re family, but… you don’t really believe that, do you?” His voice was almost tentative, but there was accusation in each word regardless.
Stopping at an intersection, Yelina turned briefly to look at him. “Why wouldn’t I?”
His own gaze focusing on her, Kyle asked, “Do you always have to respond to a question by asking another question?”
“No,” she responded easily. As the traffic picked back up, she explained, “It’s not a compulsion, Kyle. However,” Yelina drew out slowly, licking her lips. “I do find it curious that your natural inclination is to discount everything I say. Have I given you any reason to believe that I don’t see you as family?”
Her voice was calm, the words spoken evenly. All in all, it was a remarked difference, she decided, between any conversation she’d had with her own son as of late. Had they been broaching this particular subject, they’d already be yelling; she had no doubt of that. Just as she had no doubt that they would be screaming at one another when she brought Kyle home with her.
But what other choice did she have?
She couldn’t - wouldn’t - leave the teenager sitting outside of Horatio’s home for an unknown amount of time, without having any idea of when her brother-in-law planned on returning.
And just as she was about to tell herself that that was no option at all, Kyle interrupted. His words were tentative, carefully chosen, as he said, “You and I… we’ve known each other for… I don’t know, a week?” He waited until she nodded her head in agreement before continuing, “You don’t know me, and I don’t know you. All I know is that Horatio says you’ve been furious with him about -”
“Yes,” Yelina interrupted immediately, cutting Kyle off before he could vocalize the thought. “Yes,” she admitted again, the single word feeling weighty to her. Quietly, she said, “I… am angry with him, yes.”
It felt monumentous to say it, as odd as she thought that was. Because there’d never been any doubt in her that she was upset with Horatio; she’d understood that from the moment Rebecca Nevins had told her that Kyle was a relative. But, in a way, it was nice to admit it to someone who… whose judgment didn’t matter.
Which sounded awful, she couldn’t deny; Kyle was her nephew, she supposed, and was therefore someone whose opinion should have mattered. But as things were right now, it really didn’t. If only because any judgment he would make about her (and vice versa) would be so off the mark, she had no problem admitting that she was furious.
And yet, Yelina still felt the need to say, “But last I checked, you were not Horatio, yes?”
“No complaints there,” Kyle murmured as he chased the painkiller the doctor had prescribed him with a long drink of milk.
Taking another turn on the road, she replied dryly, “No, I wouldn’t think so.”
They continued on in silence, their current dislike for Horatio somehow putting them both at ease. And they would have, she was sure, remained quiet, if she had left the topic of conversation alone. But the longer they said nothing, the more she wondered just how much Kyle thought she was angry with him.
So, with the house only ten minutes away, Yelina took the opportunity to clarify; God only knew that as soon as Ray Junior saw him, there would be no time to say anything. “My issues are with your father, not you.”
Kyle shook his head. “Yeah, but that issue is me.” They were no longer on friendly territory, she immediately realized, his voice annoyed and affronted.
“No,” she said harshly. “It’s not.”
“No?” he asked, pretending to sound surprised. “Does he have another bastard child -”
“Don’t talk like that,” she admonished quickly.
But Kyle ignored her and kept talking right over her, “that I’m not aware of?”
Her own irritation was beginning to overtake her; Yelina’s lips turning down into a frown, she could feel her olive complexion starting to blush with a rouge that came only when she was being annoyed. “I suppose,” she said grimly, trying to avoid sounding sarcastic. “That I’m not the one who can answer that question; if Horatio has other children, then… well, I guess he would be the only one to know.”
Kyle opened his mouth to say something, but holding up a hand, she silenced the teenager. “Kyle… I’ve known your father for… more years that I’d care to admit that I’ve lived.”
He smirked. “Yeah, you don’t look like a day over twenty-five,” he remarked sarcastically, garnering a smirk from Yelina...
It was interesting, she mused; from anyone else, that comment would have decidedly not been appreciated by her. The menopause joke Ray Junior had made last month had been proof enough, for her, of that. In that instance, had disembowelment been a legal form of punishment, Yelina was sure she would have opted for it.
When that had happened, Raymond had been trying to push her buttons, had been trying to manipulate her using one of her fears. Not particularly a fear of aging itself, nor a concern of vanity, Yelina had always been… obsessive about her appearance. Or maybe that wasn’t the right word for it, because there were times when she wanted nothing more than to blend in with everyone else.
But ever since childhood, her relationship to her proclaimed obsessively good looks had been as complicated as pretty much every other relationship in her life. She hated being pretty when it meant she couldn’t walk down the street without pairs upon pairs of eyes leering at her. She hated it when the people she would like to know judged her and turned away from her because of it, despised her genes even more when it meant the only people who approached her were the repulsive kind.
And yet…
What scared Yelina about getting old was not death itself, was not disease, or the thought of leaving her son alone in the world. The last had some power over her. But in her heart, even if there were times when she doubted it, she knew that Ray Junior did not need her like he used to; he was a big boy, almost an adult, capable of taking care of himself, despite his almost obsessive choice to do the opposite of what a mature man would do.
But really, it was the fear of losing her looks that worried her about getting old. As many times as there had been where she wished she’d looked like someone else, she could not imagine a world where men did not act disgusting around here, a world where the Horatio’s did not cow from her and where the Stetler’s stayed away.
She could not imagine no longer being beautiful, and the idea of being thrust into that world somehow… terrified her.
And Ray Junior had somehow figured this out; he was smart enough to read her in ways she didn’t care for.
And he’d used it against her.
Her own son.
Pushing the bitter thought away, Yelina tried to return to the matter at hand: Kyle’s own attempt at a joke. Aside from the fact that her son had been cruel in a way that Kyle obviously wasn’t trying to be, he had no real way of knowing that she could possibly take offense.
So… she didn’t take any.
“When you know someone that long,” she explained gently, trying to finish her thought. “You’re either very close to them or not at all.”
“You think?” Kyle asked curiously, his eyes sliding to meet hers.
She nodded her head slightly. “Horatio and I are… I don’t know - both, neither. It’s hard to tell.” Falling silent, Yelina signaled to change lanes. When she spoke again, her voice was louder, stronger. “Whatever our problems are, and God, there are a lot… they are ours, Kyle. Not yours.”
His response was a careful, “Okay…” As though he expected her to say more, he waited quietly for her to continue. But when, after five minutes she added nothing else, Kyle turned back to the muffin on his lap.
His attention on the food, Yelina took the opportunity to assess the damage to her car. And, although the mood had definitely shifted to something heavier and less comfortable, her own mood seemed to lighten at the fact that the teenager, unlike her own son, had mastered table manners. A scant amount of crumbs on his lap, there were no cherry stains on his hands or on the leather seat. And, looking at a relatively easy clean up (if the car needed one at all), Yelina couldn’t have, sadly, been more pleased.
“You missed the turn off,” Kyle spoke up suddenly, her head quickly snapping back to the road. “I think,” he added as an afterthought. “I don’t know.”
She smiled reassuringly. “You have a good sense of direction. But I’m not taking you to your father’s house.”
“Why not?” His voice was filled with suspicion.
Her explanation was terse but simple. “You’ve got an injured nose; you ingested painkillers. You can’t sit on your front porch all night long hoping that your father won’t get distracted by a case and come home to let you inside.” She frowned at the mental picture that created. “You need someone to look after you.”
He sounded annoyed when he said defensively, “I can take care of myself.”
“I have no doubt of that,” she replied easily. “You’re right… I misspoke. You don’t need someone to take care of you, Kyle.”
“Thank you,” he said, as though the situation had been righted.
“But that doesn’t mean I feel comfortable letting it happen.”
“Oh,” Kyle told her, sounding almost shocked. “So then…”
“You’re coming home with me.” Her eyes focused on the road, Yelina pretended not to notice her nephew shift uncomfortably in his seat out of her peripheral vision. Just as she was going to pretend that she couldn’t sympathize or understand his nerves.
“You think that’s a good idea?” he asked her pointedly.
Sighing, Yelina half-asked, half-stated, “You’re worried about my son?” He didn’t nod or shake his head, didn’t give her any response at all. So she took that to mean she was right. “Well….” She slid her tongue along the outside of her teeth as she looked for an answer. “I honestly don’t know how he’ll respond to seeing you, Kyle.”
That was a lie.
She knew exactly how her son was going to react; he was going to be livid. The question was not if he was going to be angry. It was just a matter of how angry and at whom that concerned her.
Unfortunately, Kyle seemed to understand this. “Yeah, he’s just going to love seeing me. Come on, Yelina, we both know that this is a disaster waiting to happen.”
“Probably,” she admitted, her voice heavily accented and harsh. “But this has happened; Raymond chose to fight you, and I’m not going to let you sit outside for the rest of the day by yourself, sweetheart. We are family,” she said, wondering why that word almost sounded like a threat coming from her lips. “And that means he is going to have to grow up and accept that you exist.”
“Isn’t that wishful thinking?”
“No,” she replied sharply. Her fingers gripping the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles were blanching from the pressure, Yelina clarified, “I’m not demanding that you two be friends.”
“Good” was Kyle’s honest response.
“I have no delusions that the two of you will… resolve your differences,” she said, her words awkward and clumsier than she was used to. But really, there was no other way to put it, not in her mind anyway. “But if you are going to go to the same school together, this cannot continue to happen. You’ll both have to learn to live with the other one existing. You can’t spend every minute you’re in the same room together trying to rip each other’s faces off.”
The teenager scoffed, crumpling up the empty muffin holder and stuffing it into the drained container of milk. “You don’t need to tell me that. I’m not the one who went psycho, remember?” he said, audibly annoyed.
As she pulled the car into her driveway, Yelina glanced over at him, a grim expression on her face. “Believe me. When my son sees you and opens his mouth, you’ll be grateful for the reminder.”
Their conversation was over then. The matter closed for the moment, she stepped out of the car and waited for Kyle to get out as well before heading towards the front door. Her manicured nails searching quickly through the now messy contents of her purse, she scrounged around for her keys. Which were hard to find in the unsorted pocketbook; really, Yelina could have sworn that, when chaos existed in her life, order was nowhere to be seen in her handbag. And this seemed to prove that point perfectly.
Fingers moving aside her wallet and compact, she wondered once more, where her keys were hiding.
Not that she needed them.
The second her hand closed around the chain of metal, the front door swung open. The brass knocker rattling against itself, it was an ominous warning.
Not that she needed that either.
Because standing in the doorway with his arms folded across his chest was Ray Junior. His eyes the color of charred toast, he was glaring at them both. Accusation in his posture even before the words left him, Yelina hesitated to take another step closer to her son. Not fearful of him but rather of what he would say to Kyle, she wasn’t sure that bringing her nephew here was such a good idea anymore. And when Ray finally spoke up, his voice hoarse and deadly, she was not surprised by the question.
“What the hell is he doing here?”
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