“Something is the matter with me, Lew. I think you know when it began.”
David had continued speaking to his friend for what had to be hours. The daylight in their cell faded to twilight and then night; lamplight from the adjoining room splintered the darkness through the hole in the wall.
He had reminisced further about their shared youth, about his studies abroad, about the exploits of his nieces and nephews that his sisters and brother had so thoughtfully passed along, and was about to start a new tale when he realized there was a subject he couldn’t avoid any longer.
“A man can face any manner of horrors if they don’t touch his soul, but that accident…” David scrubbed a hand over his face. “The train, two years ago….”
His friend grunted.
“The world shifted that morning. Since then a thousand petty things have happened that make it ever harder to understand the ‘why’ of anything.”
David heard a rustle in the gloom and then Lewis’s hand gripped his arm briefly.
“Not your fault,” his friend whispered. “Have hope.”
The priest shivered but said nothing; the silence lengthened between them. He knew the accident hadn’t been his fault. Logically, anyway. He couldn’t have known what would happen. Even so….
After a time, David noticed his friend’s breathing ease. He glanced down; Lewis had fallen asleep.
Shaking his head, David stood, stretched, and went to draw himself a sip of water from what little they had left when his friend began coughing. The fits had grown steadily worse as the day wore on, and this was the worst yet.
The priest stood still for a moment, overwhelmed with helplessness.
Useless.
No. Not entirely, anyway.
He could do what his friend had asked of him, at least in part, so he started forward with slightly more energy than an automaton.
He cradled Lew’s head and shoulders as the man struggled ever more weakly to breathe, to cough away whatever was filling his lungs. It was a long fit. When it at last subsided, David wiped his friend’s mouth with the cuff of his own sleeve, and then stared uncomprehendingly at the dark stain that streaked the fabric. He held his arm up to the light.
Blood, he realized, a tiny voice in his head screaming in unbound horror. He is drowning.
And something snapped inside him.
Laying his friend back down ever so gently, David lurched to his feet and over to the oblong slit in the wall.
“I know someone’s back there!” he bellowed, putting his mouth near the hole. “I’ve heard you mucking about in there; heard you tell us to keep silent or else; heard you come and go – but enough! Your crew leader told me to keep Lewis alive after he’d been ripped to pieces by you lot, and I’ve done all I can. Only a doctor could keep him alive now!”
David paused, his fury making him shake.
“What good is his life? To you, it’s so much rubbish. But someone in this place has plans for him, for the pair of us. Else we’d have been dead last evening when we tried to flee. Would you ruin those plans with his untimely death? Tell me!”
David stopped to listen, to determine if his bitter words were finding an audience...or just echoing into an empty room.
He heard voices, though: muttered exclamations and arguing, a shout for him to be silent, and then a shout for that speaker to be silent.
“I demand a doctor for my friend!” David roared. “A surgeon! A physician! Any man of medicine!”
The priest would’ve kept shouting, only the door to his cell smashed open and the blond fellow strode in with a light in hand. Three others followed, and two of these crowded the clergyman against the wall, pinning him there.
The blond chap placed his light on the floor and leaned over the policeman briefly. He straightened, thoughtfulness pinching his narrow features. Saying a few low, quick words to the chap at his elbow, the blonde then departed without a glance at the priest.
He left the door open. The other thugs stayed where they were. Waiting. Silent.
“Going to finish us off now?” David asked, his voice sharp with anger. “Got your jollies making an honest man suffer so? Want to see a clergyman grovel? Why—”
A fist in his stomach cut David’s tirade off sharply and bent him double. When he straightened, winded, another blow drove him to his knees.
“Fancies ‘imself an honest man, don’t ‘e?” The thug who’d struck him sneered to his comrade. Both men had the heavy hands and slab-like shoulders and chests of bruisers-for-hire, and looked quite ready to demonstrate their professional expertise. The third fellow, a slimmer man with the face of a ferret, merely looked bored.
“Not me,” David panted, slowly rising to his feet. “My friend is the honest one. I’m just… I’m just a hypocrite.”
“What?” the first thug said.
“Did ‘e jus’ call us some’ing foul?” the second returned.
“No! I—”
But a backhanded strike aborted David’s reply and snapped his head to one side. It seemed the two thugs were simply hunting for an excuse to work him over.
“Don’t fink we likes bein’ tol’ to lay off, vicar,” the first growled. “Boss said ‘halive,’ but Hi can go a long way afore you gets to ‘dead.’”
The two began to beat David.
All of a sudden, the priest was afraid. Not of the hurt raining down on him, but that these thugs would leave him unable to fulfill his promise to his dear, dying friend.
And David feared that his own ill-considered, despair-spurred anger would’ve driven them to it.