holy or inane

His breathing had been yet to settle completely, and now it threatens to veer into hyperventilating. He feels the urge to apologize for some reason, feels like a child facing a parent’s callous indifference. But he can’t speak. Tears blur his vision, he feels them dropping down over his cheeks.

When another flashlight bobs in the distance, Davin stands up. The sound of running footsteps can soon be heard, drawing closer.

Renee runs directly up to where Conrad is sitting, grabs him by the throat, and before Conrad can react, he decks him in the face.

Conrad cries out in the same instant Renee does. He scrambles back, pressing a hand to his cheek, tasting blood in his mouth, and looks up to see Renee folding over himself, clutching his broken arm tight.

“Fuck!” Renee shouts, kicking up leaves as he paces back and forth, reeling from pain. Still breathing hard from the run, he eventually collects himself and turns back to Conrad. “You little shit. You little fucking cockroach.” He spits on the ground as he walks closer.

Conrad cowers under the looming figure of Renee’s silhouette, raising an arm to shield himself from any oncoming blow. It comes from Renee’s other hand this time, clipping the wound Davin left on the side of his head, making his already aching head explode with another bout of pain. The stars come back.

“You think we’d let you run? Huh?” Renee growls. Hits him again. “Piece of shit.”

“Easy,” Davin says.

Renee turns away from Conrad, leaning one hands on his knee as he catches his breath, holding his broken arm to his chest. “We can’t just let this slide.”

“Point number one is getting him back to the house. I don’t know about you, but I’m not up for dragging him back there unconscious.”

Renee lets out a sound of frustration, kicking at a nearby stump.

Fully shaking from the cold now, Conrad’s teeth are gritted tight to prevent them from clattering. The threat of an oncoming panic attack still lingers, and his attempts to quell his rapid breathing only exacerbate the pain in his head.

Davin’s flashlight has never wavered from pointing at him. “I’d like you to stand up,” the man says evenly.

A sob racks through Conrad’s exhausted body. He feels his shoulders slump, feels the way the air whistles out through his teeth, draining his lungs. Swallowing down the lump in his throat, he forces himself to move, to place both hands and his feet on the ground, pushing up. His hands are grimy, so he dries his tears away with the back of his wrist.

The next sob nearly makes him sink to his knees again. It ripples through him hard enough that he lets out a small wail of despair, clutching his hands to his chest. He can’t go back. He can’t go back to that house.

Through tears, he barely sees Renee walking up to him, but he feels the sudden hard grasp on his upper arm, feels as he is pulled forward. “Save it,” Renee growls low.

Conrad’s chest is heaving as he stumbles forward, dragged in the one direction every instinct tells him to turn away from.

“Stop crying,” Renee tells him.

But he can’t. Can’t fathom the degree to which he failed so miserably, can’t get past his own pathetic drive to keep sobbing. His head hurts. His chest hurts. If not for the tracker, Conrad would have lost them. He would have disappeared in the dark, would have been able to hide properly, he would have been free right now.

He feels the grasp on his arm spin him to the side.

“Stop. Crying,” Renee sneers.

Conrad closes his throat, lets it heave empty as he struggles to push his despair back down. Something else blooms to take its place. Anger. He feels it creeping up his spine, feels it as a rush of blood filling his cheeks. Feels it in the resolute setting of his jaw.

He pulls his arm free of Renee’s grasp. Stands there looking up at him, still short of words, but his eyes are seething in the low light.

Renee raises a brow. “Better,” he says. Smiles.

The anger is quick to dissipate, overrun by exhaustion as they keep walking. Conrad’s thighs and calves are sore from running, his sides still recovering from the sting, the soles of his feet aching from being scratched up by whatever rocks and sticks he stepped on during the chase.

The sound of their footsteps is deafening in the otherwise quiet woods.

As dawn begins to rise, Conrad sinks into the part of his mind where none of this matters. The part where words and discomfort cease to have meaning. Where the connection between his person and his body is severed by an invisible wall, and behind that wall, Conrad is just the detached observer.

The body looks at the sky up above, where the naked tree crowns split the grey clouds like cracks in the pavement. They sway lightly in the breeze, occasionally knocking into each other with enough force to snap dead branches off, sending them tumbling towards the ground.

The body hears the distant morning chirp of early birds, hears the fluttering of wings as they hop from one branch to the other. It hears the occasional trickle of streams they pass. It hears three sets of footsteps on the ground.

The body shudders against the cold, and hugs its own chest. It feels the way its shoulder blades stick out on its back, the way the skin over its ribs moves with each breath it takes. Feels the muscles of its forearms work as it absentmindedly rubs its arms. Feels the uneven ground beneath its bare feet long since coated in dirt.

All of these sensations, all the sounds and smells, each impression that is put upon the body coalesces into an ambient hum, a series of images frozen in time, viewed all at once and from a distance. They’re wholly inconsequential.

When Renee gives the body a hard shove in the back to speed it up, it falls to its hands and knees. Mechanically, it rises again, its dull eyes looking behind it to check if Renee will push again. He doesn’t, so the body keeps walking.

The body has no real grasp on the passage of time, of distance traversed, steps retraced. These things don’t matter to it. When the edge of the woods comes into view, and the suburbs stretch out before it, covered with a thin veneer of morning mist, the body doesn’t care. It can’t care, even as it is ushered onto the narrow path between houses, as it is pushed through the gate, led through the pine grove, through the back yard, and at last, over the plaid covering shards of glass from the broken window.

Renee pulls a chair out and grabs the body by the arm, pulling it down to sit. Then he makes a beeline for the sink, drinks straight from the faucet.

The body’s eyes trail to Davin. He’s watching it with his hands on his hips, face folded into serious contemplation. For a while they just look at each other.

Eventually, Davin says something. His mouth moves, and sound comes out, but the words don’t register as meaningful enough for the body’s dull eyes to even flicker. It breathes evenly, slowly, hands slack in its lap.

“Conrad?”

The body blinks at the name. Sways a little in its seat as its eyes drift toward the floor. They’ve tracked dirt in, there’s the faint outline of shoeprints on the wood. Conrad just seems so impossibly far away.

He manages to looks up at Davin again, swallowing. “I… didn’t hear you,” he mutters.

Davin snorts. Casts a quick glance at Renee before he walks up to the table and pulls a chair out, sitting down across from Conrad. He leans his elbows on his knees. “I know you’re dissociating. I know it’s a lot to process, but you and I need to have a conversation. Do you understand?”

“Yeah,” Conrad says faintly.

Davin looks at his folded hands. “See, I was acting under the impression that there was an agreement between the two of us. Since some things aren’t exactly… comfortable for either of us to speak openly about, I’ve only hinted at it, but I assumed you understood me well and clear.” He shrugs a shoulder, catching Conrad’s eye. “Was I wrong in that assumption?”

Conrad swallows. Moves one arm across his chest. He feels naked all of a sudden. “I don’t…” he says hoarsely. “I’m not… sure I understand.”

Davin smirks. “I’ll phrase it this way then: I really, really don’t appreciate it when people get in between me and what I want.”

Conrad feels himself slipping again at that. Feels the wall come creeping in the air above his and Davin’s heads, threatening to slide down between them. He doesn’t know what to say.

“I’ve given you a lot of leeway, Conrad. Have I been too good to you? Is that why you forgot?”

It’s the night in the van all over again, when Davin threatened him into silence. It’s that same side of him baring its teeth. Conrad’s breathing is getting shallow.

“It’s good you’re listening to me, I really do appreciate it. But you can see why I’d be worried you don’t fully understand, can’t you?”

Conrad’s mouth is dry. “I was… I wasn’t trying to make you angry or, or to double cross you,” he whispers.

Davin smiles. “At least the first part of that statement is true.” He leans back in his seat, looking over his shoulder. “Renee, I’d like you to go grab the rope from upstairs.”

Renee looks hesitant. “What, down here?”

“Exactly.”

Renee raises a brow, shrugging. “Whatever, boss.”

Conrad stomach sinks as Renee disappears down the hallway, as his footsteps can be heard ascending the stairs.

“What are… what are you going to do to me…?”

Davin’s smile fades. He takes a deep breath, looking Conrad up and down, eyes dark. A faint line by his nose betrays his contempt.

“I’m going to give you a warning.”

Although it’s clear that Davin isn’t kidding, it still takes Renee a moment to fully grasp the severity of the situation. Once it finally dawns on him, he is hit with a wave of adrenaline strong enough to outweigh the lingering effects of the benzos he took the previous night. He jumps up, racing to the entranceway, where he haphazardly pulls on his sneakers, eyes drifting to the broken window, which stands out stark against the otherwise polished expression of the kitchen area. He pulls his jacket over the t-shirt he slept in. Already, he can feel the cold air rush through the thin fabric of his sweatpants. It’s going to have to be cold, then.

Before they both leave out the broken window, Davin throws Renee a flashlight. “He’s headed for the woods,” he says.

Renee nods seriously.

With him in the lead, they run out into the yard, quickly making to the pine grove. The fence gate stands wide open, and they run through, out into the narrow passageway that divides the row of backyards from each other.

Renee pauses just on the other side of the gate. “The woods?” he asks, just to make sure.

Davin nods.

“This way.” And Renee sprints right, past the neighbors fenced yard, to a T crossing in the pathway. He makes his way down the narrow alley between houses, ducking past untrimmed hedges. He knows the woods well, he thinks as he runs, he used to frequent them each summer, and in the dark, that has to be a major advantage.

The landscape opens up around them immediately upon leaving the paved path, the edge of the woods splaying out in each direction, soon enveloping them both. Upon reaching the tree line, as the moonlight is mostly blocked out by the tree crowns overhead, both him and Davin turn on their flashlights, catching their breath as Davin checks his phone. Renee shines his light into the horizon of large oaks, the occasional birch reflecting the light even more starkly, searching for movement but finding none.

“Straight ahead,” Davin says.

Renee looks at him. “Split?”

“Yeah. I’d slow you down.” 

Renee nods, and without further ado, he makes his way on the beaten path as fast as his long legs can carry him, letting the woods swallow him up.

💵

His recent bout of pneumonia catches up to him sooner than expected.

Conrad stops in the middle of the path, heaving for breath, resting both hands on his knees, one of which is still clutching the knife tight. He can taste blood in the back of his throat, can feel his pulse flutter away under his shirt, and the sweat is starting to drift its way down his temples, cooling his skin in the soft breeze.

He's almost blind in the dark, but the path has proved useful in at least getting some distance from him to the edge of the woods. What little moonlight makes it through the canopy illuminates the trail just enough to traverse it without falling. The terrain ripples up and down like waves on the ocean, but Conrad is still counting the hills he has climbed in the single digits. He has to keep moving.

As if on cue, somewhere behind him, way in the distance, he sees a flash of light. Then, quickly after that, another.

They’re on his trail.

Dread feels like a pit in his stomach. He has to get off the beaten path, right? They’d find him if he stuck to it.

Swallowing against the vague taste of blood, Conrad forces his exhausted body to move. Just one step at a time, no matter the pain piercing through his sides with every breath, no matter the ache in his thighs, no matter the sharp rocks he occasionally feels himself stepping on. He’s running on pure adrenaline, but at least it carries him forward, makes him capable of putting one leg in front of the other.

He veers off the path after a while, feeling how the dirt under his feet changes to the leafy underbrush of the woods, and where stones were his biggest concern before, now it’s sticks and roots and acorns digging into the soft flesh under his feet. Resolute to continue, he keeps his pace up despite the pain, eyes wide open to catch any trace of light. He ducks under low-hanging branches and jumps over fallen trees, and he’s making good progress away from the path, he is, but then his foot catches on something, and it throws off his balance, and he tries to save it for a few steps but then inevitably falls, his shoulder taking the brunt of the impact.  

He quickly gets back up, heaving for breath, realizing he lost the knife in the fall. Where is it? He can’t see it, only the murky dark of the sea of leaves surrounding him.

He coughs at the pain in his lungs, hands digging through the leaves in the vain hope he can find the knife again, that’s his one shot at self-defense, it was supposed to be his final barrier to ward of his captors. Where is it? Where the hell did he drop it?

A flash of light breaks through the horizon of trees, the beam of a flashlight scanning for movement.

Conrad stays low to the ground, hands still searching the forest floor, finding nothing but acorns and leaves, clumps of moss. As the flashlight starts moving in flashes again, indicating the person has started running, Conrad bites back a cry of despair and gets to his feet.

He just runs.

💵

If Conrad gets away, his life is over.

The thought repeats itself for each footfall, boots heavy against dirt, thunk, thunk, thunk, the steady rhythm of his heart. It beats in his head like a drum.

If Conrad makes it, Renee will not.

Far from pausing to ponder that in any meaningful way, he latches onto it as the sole drive carrying him forward. His elbow is screaming in pain each time his arm swings up or down, each time the flashlight briefly illuminates the path ahead. The adrenaline coursing through his system is making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, it’s as if his whole body is humming with energy.

He almost doesn’t feel it when his phone starts vibrating in his pocket.

Renee comes to a halt, breathing heavily, heart racing enough to make his hands shake as he accepts the call.

“He went east of you,” Davin says immediately. He sounds out of breath, too.

Renee flashes his light eastward, beam illuminating a good quarter mile of wooded terrain. The underbrush isn’t heavy, but the terrain is treacherous in this area, he knows that all too well. “East…?” he pants.

“East,” Davin confirms. 

“He went off the fuckin’ path, then.” He puts Davin on speakerphone, jogging lightly through the leaves for a while to catch his breath. “Stay on the call,” he tells Davin, “we have to communicate.”

“Agreed,” is Davin’s reply.

As he jogs along, Renee shines the flashlight on the forest floor, avoiding sinkholes and molehills, puddles of mud, roots, whatever else the landscape has conjured to trip up the wildlife.

He comes upon a patch of ground where the leaves have been disturbed, exposing wide arcs of dirt and moss underneath. It looks out of place enough to make him pause for a moment, and as he trots up to inspect it closer, something catches in the beam of his flashlights. Walking up to it, Renee nudges a pile of leaves back to reveal a herb knife he’s pretty sure comes from his parents’ kitchen.

“That little bitch,” he growls.

“What? Do you have—eyes on him?”

“No,” Renee says. “He took a knife. There’s a knife here.”

“Well, at least we know—he’s unarmed now,” Davin chuckles in between labored breathing. “Find him, Vaughan. East-northeast, still moving.”

Sneering, Renee changes his trajectory accordingly, picking up his pace.

Conrad can’t be far.

💵

Conrad needs a break.

His breaths take on a more ragged quality as he pushes himself to keep moving, keep running through the dark. His throat his raw, limbs aching with fatigue, heartbeat thundering in his head hard enough to make him dizzy. The cold seems to pierce through his skin, his hands and feet are numb with it.

He yearns to stop for just a moment to gather his bearings, but each time he turns around, he sees the wretched light in the distance. At every turn, it’s almost like they know where he is. Do they see him? How?

The initial adrenaline he felt is starting to lose its potency, and as the feeling of exhaustion steadily grows to take its place, Conrad instinctually starts scanning the dark woods for a place to hide. He finds it in the distance, a fallen tree lying perpendicular to the rest, thick branches shooting out like the legs of an insect, keeping the main trunk afloat several feet off the ground.

Conrad sprints up to it, ducking down in between a gap in the broken branches, crawling his way towards the crown under the trunk on all fours. It must have fallen somewhat recently, because the underbrush is still heavy underneath it. Thin vines of thorny bushes tear at his skin, grabbing onto his clothes, in stark contrast to the cold moss that serves as padding for his hands and knees. The smell of earth fills the air, mixing with that of the sweat pouring from Conrad’s skin.

At the sound of rustling footsteps through the leaves, Conrad freezes, clamping both hands over his nose and mouth, literally holding his breath. He hears something else as well, a voice speaking with an electronic ring to it, too low and muffled to make out any words. The beam of the flashlight doesn’t reach the fallen tree quite yet, but it’s scanning the surroundings, clearly searching for him.

Conrad crawls as far into the tree’s crown as he can, before the trunk of the tree begins to press down on his back, and he has to scoot along on his stomach to move forward. His body must be well covered by the leaves of the canopy now, at least he hopes so to the core. In the crown, he finds a small cavity in the branches in which he can sit up, curling around himself in a feeble attempt to become unnoticeable.

“…close to him now,” the electronic voice says, and Conrad realizes it’s Davin. “Eyes peeled. You’re close.”

How does he know? Conrad thinks.

And then it dawns on him. Feels like a wave of cold water crashing into his body. He barely manages to hold back a cry of despair.

They’re tracking him.

They’ve been tracking him this entire time. That’s how they knew he veered of the path, too.

Suddenly his hands are busy patting down his clothes in the dark, cold fingers feeling out along the seams of his sweatpants, first along the waist and then at each cuff by his ankles. His heart is racing again, his fear spiking to new heights.

The beam of light reaches the base end of the tree trunk, shining right through the branches, and then it slowly starts panning towards him at the pace of someone walking parallel to the fallen tree.

That’s when Conrad’s shaking hands finally find it. It’s small, so small it would’ve been impossible to find if he wasn’t actively looking for it.

Something has been sewn into the collar of his t-shirt.

💵

It looks like the bars of a prison, Renee thinks, the thick branches that keep the thunk afloat, or like the teeth of a hairbrush. The way the light reflects off the mostly barkless wood makes it difficult to get a good look under the trunk, and Renee has to stop several times and adjust the light to get a proper view.

“He isn’t moving,” Davin says from his hand.

“Fucking camping,” Renee snorts.

As he nears the crown, Renee is pretty sure he spots something between the branches, deeply hidden by withering leaves and offshoots dancing in the air like thick spiderwebs. Without further thought, Renee unceremoniously heads into the thicket, swatting away low-hanging branches, pushing through the crown as if wading through molasses, until he gets a clearer view. It’s not a person, he quickly realizes, but a foreign object lying discarded in the underbrush.

“He dropped it,” he growls at Davin over speakerphone.

“What?” comes Davin’s breathless response.

“He dropped the fucking tracker, Davin. He dropped the shirt.” Renee stumbles out of the fallen crown, shaking dry leaves out from the back of his jacket. “Fuck,” he says, and then louder, “Fuck!”

He whips the flashlight around in the horizon, scanning for any trace of movement with a sinking feeling in his gut.

This is bad.

There’s nothing but trees as far as the beam of his flashlight can reach, but then again, Conrad has been consistently running eastward, away from the house. So Renee sprints past the tree crown, cursing as it keeps going much farther than you’d expect, until he finally can run past the felled branches of the very top of the tree, and he stops there, scanning the landscape again.

And then he spots him. Way in the distance, a shirtless, barefoot figure desperately climbing a steep hill, so steep Conrad is almost clawing his way up with his hands. 

“I see him,” Renee shouts into his phone. “He’s headed southeast!”

“Coming. Keep your fucking—eyes on him!”

Renee growls as he starts sprinting in Conrad’s direction. “Trying!”

💵

Conrad heard Renee’s fervent shouts, saw the change in the flashlight as the man started running. He knows this is his last chance to get them off his trail, and with the cold biting his skin, he wishes it gave him additional energy, wishes it prevented him from feeling fatigued, but he has no such luck. The adrenaline is wearing thin by now. Exhaustion feels like an anchor around his waist, like a weight he desperately has to keep fighting to move forward.

His pace isn’t as quick as it was in the beginning, but he’s still running, despite his lungs screaming for air at every step, despite the pain that pierces through his sides, despite the cold that numbs his feet. Conrad runs, not just as if his life depends on it, but because it does.

He imagines Howard and his dad cheering him on, almost fools himself into believing he can see their shadows in the dark. Cheering him on as if this is a harmless race for charity. You can do it, he imagines them saying. You’re almost at the finish line.

There’s a light on the ground in front of him, blinking in and out of existence as the arm that holds the flashlight swings in the rhythm of someone sprinting after him.

It becomes brighter as the figure behind him steadily catches up to him, and soon, he can hear the quick breaths of the runner, hear their boots hammer down on the ground he just passed, he keeps running as the tears begin to well in his eyes.

Conrad knows he has lost long before something crashes into him, sends him sprawling to the ground. He rolls around for several paces as his momentum carries him forward. As soon as he stops, he is heaving for breath in an impossibly dry throat, the blood roaring in his ears. He has barely managed to pull himself up on all fours before a kick to his shoulder sends him flying sideways, and his head slams into the trunk of a nearby tree.

A cry tears from his throat, and he curls up, clutching the side of his face with both hands, sight momentarily white from pain. Gasping for breath, Conrad blinks hard to dispel the stars that dot his vision, and then he plants one foot on the ground, so close to running again – and then a boot connects to his side hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs.

“Renee, please,” he chokes out, scrambling away from the sound of the footsteps, squinting up at the flashlight that’s pointed directly in his face, blinding his eyes. “Please, Renee, I don’t – I can’t go back…”

He can vaguely see the outline of the silhouette approaching him, sees the boots come closer one leisurely step at a time, before the flashlight lowers as the figure crouches down in front of him. “What, did you forget Renee isn’t the only one with a stake in all this?”

Conrad freezes, swallowing thick. Feels something warm run down the side of his face. His voice is small.

“Davin…?”

Conrad blinks slowly. For a while, he’s been so deeply dissociating, he forgot he still has a physical presence in the room.

“If you wanted to kill me, how would you do it?” Renee asks.

The question is enough to tear Conrad back to reality. He looks at Renee sharply, swallowing. “I w-…”

“Speak up,” Renee says with a smile.

Conrad can feel his breathing begin to come quicker, can hear his heartbeat in his ears. “I don’t want to… to kill anyone,” he says.

Renee snorts. “Oh, c’mon, drop the choir boy charade. I know you hate me.” He takes another swig of wine, looking at Conrad expectantly. “Would you make it quick or draw it out? Get some sweet revenge?”

Conrad swallows again, eyes drifting to Davin, who just looks very tired.

“I think there’s a good handful of viewers who wouldn’t mind if the tables were turned,” Renee says. “We saw that today, didn’t we?” He chuckles. “Imagine you had me tied down, Connie. No witnesses, no chance of being caught, just you, me and—”

“Quick,” Conrad mutters.

Renee raises a brow. “Really? How?” He leans forward on the bed, a genuinely excited glint in his eyes. “A gun or a knife, hm? Or something else…?”

Even Davin has paused what he’s doing now, looking curiously at Conrad as he thinks.

Conrad looks at his arm. At the new scars he will have to learn to bear, ugly and jagged to match how shaky his hands were during the stream. “Gun,” he says quietly.

“Where?”

Conrad’s breaths are shallow.

“Where would you shoot me?”

He grits his teeth, looks Renee in the eyes, and says, “Head.” 

Renee’s smile only widens. “Would you want to look me in the eye, Conrad? Like now?”

Conrad doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t look away, either.

“Would you watch me as you pulled the trigger?” Renee keeps the eye contact for a while longer, but once it becomes clear that Conrad has no intention of responding, he leans back on the bed again, taking a swig of his wine. “Me, I think I’d smash your skull with a hammer.”

At that, Conrad stiffens, and although the defiance never quite leaves his expression, he can feel the blood rush from his face, and his chest sinks a little.

Renee suppresses another grin. “I’d have some fun with the rest of you first, though,” he continues casually. “See how many broken bones it’d take to cure your fidgeting.”

“Renee,” Davin says, giving him a look.

“What? He fidgets a lot, y’know.”

Davin just rolls his eyes. 

💵

Long after Renee’s music has seized beating through the walls, long after the hallway light shining through the slit under the door has been turned off, long after the silence has spread its deafening presence like a blanket over the premises, Conrad sits awake in his bed, wondering exactly what he’s waiting for.

It feels impossibly daunting, like staring down the barrel of a gun, as if he’s holding his breath for the coming shot. But if all goes well, this night marks the end of his ordeal.

Conrad wonders, albeit briefly, if he hasn’t gotten attached in some strange way. Attached to his captors, attached to the rhythm of life here, to pain and healing and rebound pain. There’s a simplicity to it that doesn’t exist in everyday life, a clear divide between good and bad, implied guidelines for how to behave, emotions that aren’t ambiguous or muddled by complex circumstances. Here, his suffering has a clear reason behind it. It’s brutal, but unequivocally straightforward, which is strangely comforting.

There’s a new life he has to face when he comes back home, and he knows it. Knows that he will have to learn to relive his trauma, over and over, to face his family and friends again. Knows with every fiber of his being that even if he succeeds tonight, it’s not over, and it’s never going to be over. Whatever life he thought he’d live has been taken from him, it’s been ripped from his grasp, it’s been torn to shreds and he has watched it die. Is he supposed to act like thousands of people haven’t seen him at the lowest moments of his life? Is he supposed to act like he wants to live out the aftermath of that, like he wants to forever be seen as the same ruined, mangled husk of a person he has been in those streams? Even if he somehow recovers fully, physically and mentally; even if he makes a name for himself, lives out whatever potential he still has left – that image will never go away.

A twenty-three-year-old boy, covered in his own blood and sweat, begging at his wits end for mercy. That’s who he will always be seen as, no matter who he choses to become from this point forward. It’s a ghost he can never erase, never overcome, and never outrun.

Conrad DeWitt will never not be broken.

He will have to look Howard in the eye, knowing full well that they already know what he’s gone through. How is he supposed to do that? And that’s just day one.

Despite the clear threat to his life, there’s a thousand reasons for him to be reluctant to escape. To wait just a little longer than strictly necessary. To stave off his return, no matter how much he simultaneously yearns for it.

Thoughts cascading along the same trite lines, Conrad sits idle far beyond the point where he is certain that both Renee and Davin have gone to sleep.

If he had to guess, he’d say it’s around three in the morning when he finally pulls the screw from its hiding place. There’s a moment of uncertainty as he finds the keyhole by touch, but then the pin clicks, and the handcuffs loosen from his wrist. He sits rubbing the abrased skin for a minute, feeling out the quietness of the house, letting it wash over him.

Silently, Conrad eases his way off the bed, bare feet making no sound on the cold hardwood floor. The room is slightly illuminated by the moonlight pouring in through the window, but half the room is still shrouded in darkness.

It feels illegal, somehow, to be free. It feels wrong. If he’s caught at this stage, he’ll have to explain how he got out of the cuffs, and all his work will be for nothing. It seems every noise he makes, every rustle of his clothing, every exhale, every beat of his heart, is amplified in the silence.

He carefully wraps his hand around the handle of the door to his room, cringing as he pushes it down, hears the spring in the internal mechanism. He pulls the door open slowly, raises the handle again slowly, lets go of it slowly, as if any miniscule sound would trigger a blaring alarm somewhere.

It doesn’t.

The hallway, void of windows, is pitch black. Conrad tiptoes through it with one hand trailing the wall, eyes wide open in the dark, occasionally pausing to listen for any sign that his captors are awake. The muffled sound of snoring can be heard through the door to Renee’s room, but it’s completely quiet behind the door to Davin’s, which, oddly enough, is far more terrifying.

Conrad is almost relieved when he makes it to the open kitchen area, not least because the large floor-to-ceiling windows provide a relatively well-lit landscape to his eyes, long since adjusted to the dark. He stops in the entranceway, wondering briefly what his next step should be. He doesn’t have much of a plan, honestly.

Biting his lip, he tiptoes his way to the kitchen island. He opens a drawer, careful not to do it too quickly, lest its contents slide around too much. In the low light, he can barely make out the various cooking tools, but he spots the stark triangle of a herb knife, its blade still somehow shining in the low light.

Conrad picks up the knife, the old wound on the back of his hand aching as he adjusts his grip on the handle, slowly pushing the drawer closed. It’ll have to do for self-defense, he thinks grimly. The thought of stabbing someone with his own hands fills him with nausea, but this is life or death. He has to rise to the occasion. He has to at least be prepared.

 Now he just needs to find a way out of the house.

As he tiptoes his way toward the living room area, Conrad bumps into a chair by the dining table, and winces deeply as the wooden legs scrape across the floor with a noise that seems to cut through the still air like a horn. Grabbing the chair to keep it steady, he stands absolutely frozen for a few seconds, clutching onto the knife, listening intently for the sound of rousing throughout the house, but no such sound is to be heard. It still takes a good minute for his heartbeat to settle after that.

He uncurls his hand from the back of the chair, and continues on past the couch group to the sliding glass doors, which Renee so often frequents on smoke breaks.

In his heightened state of anxiety, he all but forgot about the padlocks which don every door and window of the house, but there it is, brass surface shining in the moonlight. The chunk of metal standing between him and his freedom.

He tries to stick the knife into the keyhole and force it open, to no avail.

Careful not to make too much noise, he tries to open the sliding door despite the padlock, hoping in vain that the screws securing the hinges will easily tear from the frame. That, too, quickly proves fruitless.

With a sinking feeling in his gut, Conrad realizes he will have to break the window.  

How do you do that soundlessly? Is that even possible?

He looks around his dark surroundings, desperately searching for any item that might prove useful in his quest, but nothing he sees gives much in the way of solace. It’s not like he can break the glass with the cushions scattered on the sofa.

He could almost cry with how close he is. As if there’s just one final code he has to break, one final step towards salvation. He sits down next to the sliding door, gritting his teeth against the unfairness of it all, trying to get his breathing back under control, trying to reignite his resolve.

Maybe, he thinks, if he cushioned the legs of one of the dining chairs with that one plaid draped across the arm of the sofa, the noise of it breaking the glass would be suppressed a little. Isn’t that worth a try?

Get up, he thinks to himself, Get up and do something about it.

His knees shake a little as he hauls his weight onto them, and he staggers up, mechanically grabbing the plaid as he walks past the sofa. His bare feet pat against the floor as he walks over to the dining area. Momentarily discarding the knife on the table, he grabs a chair by the back and turns it over in his hands, wrapping the plaid tightly around the two back legs.

He taps the cushioned legs against the glass pane of the nearest window.

Thunk.

Winces at the sound.

This isn’t going to be quiet. Not least when the glass finally shatters and scatters on the floor – it’s going to wake them up for sure.

Maybe he should just count on that. Count on rousing their attention – count on at least having a head start. His nerves are alight with the thought of running, but in the dark, there’ll be plenty of places to hide. If he could make it to the woods, if he could lose them there, find the nearest settlement and somehow contact the authorities – that’d be it. He would be free.

Conrad unwraps the legs from the plaid and discards it on the floor. He stands back, wielding the chair in both hands, giving one final glance at the knife on the table, reminding himself to grab it once the window breaks. His heart is starting to beat dizzyingly hard in his ears, breathing likewise quickening.

Once it happens, there’s no going back, is there?

Conrad throws the chair at the window as hard as he possibly can.

The sound of glass shattering erupts through the house, loud enough to almost be deafening, and shards rain down on the oak floor, but the window doesn’t break all the way; the glass is layered, Conrad realizes, there’s another pane still intact behind the one that just broke. As quickly as he can, he picks the chair back up and hurls it toward the remaining pane, which breaks, too, and the chair stops halfway out on the porch, and suddenly cold air rushes in, and then the light turns on in the hallway.

Conrad leaps for the knife, hands shaking so bad he cuts himself as he grasps it, but his adrenaline blocks it out, he doesn’t even feel it. Grabbing the plaid, he haphazardly throws it over the pile of glass shards on the floor to avoid cutting up his feet as he runs over it, and then he’s on the back porch running towards the fence in the pine grove, breath hissing in his throat.

“Renee!” Davin’s voice behind him. “Get the fuck up!”

And Conrad runs.

One-handed, he pulls the balaclava over his head, feeling his cut hair prick against the fabric, and turns on the camera. Automatically, he strides backwards, watching Davin for the small nod to signify they’re live. The chat, which they’ve set up on a tablet facing Renee, is already running. People are excited, they’ve been waiting for a while.

Davin finally nods.

Renee takes a deep breath. Smiles behind the balaclava. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he says with forced ruefulness, “in-betweeners and outsiders – we’re back at last.”

As he strides to the table Conrad is sitting at, he wonders at the ease with which that persona comes back, that role he has to play for the cameras of an enthusiastic torturer, as if the balaclava shrouds him in the veil of his character. It’s as much a performance right now as the beaming smile of a cashier, he thinks, or the professional understanding nod of a nurse long since numbed to tragedy.

He hops up to sit on the edge of the table, facing the camera. Winces briefly at the pain in his arm. “Some shit happened while we were away, most of which I won’t go into for the time being. Safe to say, we’re not gonna be drowning him again. We’re in luck, though. There’s more ways than one to have some fun.” He chuckles.

Eleven thousand to cut off an ear. Sixteen to have at him with a bull whip. Twenty to hamstring him. Some suggest to sodomize him, a line Davin and Renee already agreed not to cross, while other suggestions lack entertainment value altogether.

Renee sniffs as he lets his eyes scroll over the price tags in the chat. “I actually had something in mind,” he mutters. “I’d like a lazy day today, really kick my feet up and let other people do all my work for me. How does that sound?” He taps the table. “What do we want to see him do to himself, hm?”

There’s a small noise from Conrad behind him, almost inaudible.

Amelia1-5: Make him burn himself with something?

83942347: I see a hammer on the table behind you. 5k for each finger you get him to break.

Egogod76: If you use a stun gun on yourself do your muscles seize up on the button? Be fun to find out hehe.

As Renee reads the suggestions, he feel that old feeling of euphoria finally starting to creep in, like a flower blooming in the back of his mind.

Wyvern: Miserable enough to be a cutter, isn’t he? Make him carve a word of your choosing into his arm, 17k. I’ll make it an even 20k if you can get him to hit muscle.

Renee chuckles as he reads the username. “Wyvern, huh? That’s awfully generous of you.” He slides off the table, making his way back to the table of tools, markedly not looking at Conrad until he’s on his way back to him, nonchalantly flicking the straight razor open in his good hand. “What do you say, hm? Sound doable?”

The guy sits very still, staring stiffly at his hands clamped in front of him. The only clue as to his state of mind is his rapid breathing, noise carefully suppressed.

Lightly running the razor around the side of Conrad’s chin, Renee tilts his head to the side to look him in the eye. “I’m talking to you, dipshit.”

Conrad swallows, breathing sharply through his nose. “I won’t,” he says. And then he looks away.

Renee laughs. “That’s cute.” He leans in closer. “If you don’t do it, I’ll break both your hands with the hammer,” he mutters. “How about that?”

Conrad winces, and there’s tears in his eyes now.

“Do you honestly think that’s an idle threat?” Renee chuckles. “Are you that stupid?” And he brings his fist down on the table hard enough to rattle it, just to watch Conrad jump. He lets go of the razor, letting the it tip towards Conrad’s grasp, and gets himself comfortably seated in a chair behind him, kicking his feet up on the table. His elbow aches as he crosses his arms in front of his chest. “Go on,” he tells Conrad. “We don’t have all day.”

Conrad eyes the straight razor in front of him like it’s a puzzle far past his comprehension. He looks back at Renee, swallowing thick. His voice is small. “You can’t expect me to, to…”

“Stop talking and cut yourself, Conrad,” Renee says, and while the amusement isn’t entirely gone from his tone, neither is his irritability. “Let me think of a nice word while you get used to it.”

Carefully, with a grimace of disgust marring his features, Conrad wraps his fingers around the razor’s handle, breathing impossibly shallow. Hands still cuffed to the hinge in the table, he moves the blade down one arm, until the edge barely brushes skin – and then he stops there, hovering. “I can’t do this,” he groans, sniffing. “I can’t do this.”

Renee chuckles. “Exactly how handicapped do you want to be in the near future? That’s the real question here.”

When Conrad turns to look at him, pale and wide-eyed, he cocks his head to the side. It takes the guy a while, but eventually, he takes a deep breath and quickly flicks the razor across his skin.

Renee kicks his feet on the ground, leaning over the table and squinting. From the shallow cut in Conrad’s arm, beads of blood begin to coalesce and run down onto the table. “Nah,” Renee says. “You’re gonna have to do better than that.”

“I can’t,” Conrad hisses.

Renee gets up, walking back to the table of tools to grab the hammer, bringing it back into Conrad’s view. “Drop the razor, then. Hold out your hands.”

Conrad shakes his head, teeth gritted against a sob. His hand clutching the straight razor is shaking. “I c-can’t do it,” he stammers.

Renee hits the table with the hammer hard enough to leave a dent in the wood, teeth bared under his mask. When Conrad flinches, Renee has the impulse to bring the hammer down on the guy’s stupid, curly head, feel that thick skull give way. He’s pretty sure he knows what kind of sound it would make.

Maybe something shows in his eyes, because Conrad winces and turns his attention back to the razor and his arm. Renee watches with spiteful, hungry eyes as the knife digs into flesh again, this time going deeper than before. The knife shakes so badly by the time he’s done with the cut, tiny droplets of blood are flicked from blade to table. Conrad lets out a whine as the pain hits him, rocking somewhat in his seat.

“Another,” Renee says. “This time, make it fucking count.”

A sob racks through Conrad’s frame as he tries to steady himself to cut again. “I hate you,” he hisses under his breath.

Renee just snickers, and waits, absentmindedly twirling the hammer in his hand.

The third time Conrad draws the razor across his forearm, he finally lets the blade bite deep. It’s fascinating to see his expression change from the anticipation of pain to something akin to shock as the wound gapes open under the knife – to actual pain when his nerves finally catch up. He lets out a cry, dropping the razor to the table, clutching his arm tight in his other hand. Blood creeps out between his fingers.

Renee raises a brow. “Not bad,” he says. Lets out a chuckle. “Now do it again.”

Conrad swallows, not looking up at him. “Again…?”

Renee shrugs. “C’mon, someone’s paying good money for this.” He pauses. “How about that, hm? I’ll let you carve out some dollar signs. Man’s gotta know his own worth.” He laughs.

Conrad looks on the verge of throwing up. Hand slick with blood, he warily picks the razor back up, steeling himself for another cut.

By chance, Renee’s eyes drift to the tablet as he waits for Conrad to bring the knife across again. “Oh, hang on,” he says. “There’s drama in chat.”

Amelia1-5: Someone ban cortesal.

Amelia1-5: keeps running his mouth

Renee snickers. “You think we have chat moderation? This isn’t fucking Twitch, Amelia.”

N0cturn4l: We got a preacher in chat ahaha

Ricochet: LMAO @cortesal448 just kill yourself honestly.

“Fuck, no, hang on, let’s see what this bitch has to say,” Renee chuckles, as he walks over to the tablet, scrolling back until he finds the comment from the right username. “The host is a coward through and through,” he reads. “He terrorizes someone he already knows can’t fight back, meanwhile he for sure can’t take what he dishes out… insecurity, bla bla… I wouldn’t be surprised if he… oh.” Renee pauses, squinting at the screen. “Oh that’s not family friendly.”

Laughing, he steps back from the screen, looking at the camera.

“You bring up some interesting points, I’ll admit, but you’re wrong about a few things. First of all,” he says, pulling a knife from his pocket. “I lay some mean pipe.”

He chuckles a little to himself as he flicks the knife open.

“Second of all… Can’t take what I dish out, huh? You think I’m a hypocrite. Really?”

Renee hitches up the sleeve, careful not to disturb his broken arm too visibly, and places the blade against the skin on his forearm. With a forefinger against the blade’s back, he presses the edge downwards and steadily moves it across. Pale skin is split layer by layer, anatomy he recognizes but can’t name. As blood begins to flow, creeping forward from sources not visible by the naked eye, the pain finally comes creeping too, a shrill note that fades in and almost immediately crescendos, deafening out most of everything else. He pays mind to it, acknowledges it, but doesn’t let it take over his body, not yet. Instead he keeps applying pressure until the knife makes it past bubbly deposits of fat to expose stringy bands of darker, more fibrous flesh, and to avoid permanent damage, he stops there, retracts the knife, closes his eyes, and leans his head back. One deep breath at a time, in through the nose, slow and steady, he lets it wash over him, lets it surround him without a fight; a rush is a rush is a rush…

As the immediate pain fades to a duller, more muffled ache, Renee gives a sharp shake of his head, rolls one shoulder. Opens his eyes and meets Conrad’s incredulous expression with amusement playing on his own.

With a sigh, he lightly sticks the tip of the knife into the wound as he holds it up to the camera, pointing to the darkest layer. “That right there is muscle,” he says. “I’ve made Conrad DeWitt scream and beg with less – so yeah, I can take it. I’d go as far as to say I can take it better.”

He dries the knife off in his pants, clicking it closed and sliding it back into his pocket.

Conrad’s just staring at him, open-mouthed.

Renee laughs. “What? Bitch called me a coward.” He shrugs. “Get back to work.”

That finally makes Conrad close his mouth.

Beside him, Renee sits silently, gaze fixed out the window on his side. After their conversation, he’s been reserved around Conrad, not interacting with him more than strictly necessary, and then doing so dispassionately, short of words. Conrad doesn’t want to dig around in it. That’s something else he’s tired of – the constant fight to convince his captors to have a shed of humanity. Maybe it just can’t be taught, or shown, or learned. He’s tried of failing.

They’re on the highway for about half an hour, and Conrad, still fighting the urge to cry, tries to at least enjoy the scenery a bit. It feels like it’s been years since he saw a field, and even if it is barren and bleak this time of year.

He watches flocks of migrating birds pass above, headed south for the winter. Watches clusters of cows or sheep grazing on misty fields. As they drive though a wooded area, he spots a herd of wild deer hopping through the underbrush at least a hundred and fifty yards out.

Maybe it does give him some peace. The fact that life goes on. That it doesn’t stop, even for what he’s been through. That beauty can still manifest in small ways here and there.

He tries to bottle that peace down as something he can take with him going forward, as something worth fighting for. If not for Howard or his dad, if not for the people who took time out of their day to search for him, or whoever else might have been affected by all this – at least for the mere continuation of life, to be an observer to growth and death and rebirth. Isn’t that enough?  

They reach the summer home neighborhood around noon. Conrad almost forgot what Renee’s parents house looked like from the outside – he wasn’t exactly paying attention the last time he was out here. The chalked white façade stands out among the other houses, contrasted by black frames around the windows and doors. It looks recently built, or at least freshly renovated, with dozens and dozens of pots scattered throughout the property, flowers wilted and dead.

Davin pulls the keys out of the ignition, and is quick to get out of the car before Conrad has so much as clicked off his seatbelt. Conrad looks up at the second story window, boarded up on the off chance a curious passer-by should see what happens inside. His stomach churns, but then Davin opens his door and gestures for him to get out.

Conrad hesitates.

Beside him, Renee lets out a breath through his nose. “If you so much as twitch in the wrong direction, I’m gonna beat you so bad you won’t be able to lie down afterwards. Follow Davin.”

The way he says it, monotonous compared to his usually near-manic flair, makes Conrad wince. When he gets out of the car, Davin gives him an apologetic smile, but nonetheless gently takes him by the arm.

Conrad feels like a man headed for the gallows as he is lead to the front door, and although he wishes he could bear that feeling with his head still held high, he can’t help himself from shutting down, feels his gaze come out of focus and drift to the ground. With Renee at his back and Davin to his side, he patiently waits for the latter to unlock the door. His feet drag over the threshold, and Davin locks the door behind him.

And just like that, he’s back in the form of captivity that’s so well known to him by now, it has a strange familial tint to it.

This house, these walls.

💵

Time passes silently, right up until the moment it suddenly doesn’t anymore. It shifts the second they come for him again, like a record getting stuck on the needle; Conrad feels as though the vinyl shatters into a million fragments.

They always bring him back to square one. Always back to that scared, bewildered state. Always back to realizing whatever progress he thought he’d made was for nothing. He starts shaking, and the words get stuck in his throat, and the amalgamated memory of all the previous streams comes flooding back into his head.

Conrad is frozen on the bed as they both enter his room.

Renee’s expression lack that sadistic, giddy spark today – more than anything, he just looks like a man set on completing a job. They’ve cut his cast off for the occasion, but he still keeps his arm at a right angle by stuffing his hand in the pocket of the black jacket he usually wears on the streams. In his other gloved hand, he’s dangling a set of handcuffs, which he throws on the bed next to Conrad.

“Hands in front this time around,” he says.

Conrad blinks at the cuffs, a feeling of nausea in his throat. “You want me to…?”

“I do, smartass. Cuff yourself.”

For a while, Conrad just stares at the cuffs like they’re a foreign object, as if they’re incomprehensibly complex. Slowly, he reaches out and loops his finger around the cold metal, pulling the handcuffs closer.

Renee lets out a groan. “Get a fucking move on.”

Wincing, Conrad bites down his nausea as he clicks one cuff over the abrasions on his left wrist, and then over the ones on his right. He looks up, seeking the gaze of Davin, only to be met by that detached seriousness that usually surrounds him on streams. He shouldn’t expect more from the man, he knows, and yet he always does.

Renee grabs him by the arm with his good hand, hauling him to his feet. “C’mon,” he says. Conrad stumbles along, walking backwards for a while to look Renee in the eyes, a plea stuck in his throat, but before he can say it out loud, Renee just grabs him by the shoulder to spin him back around, pushing him ahead of himself.

“I’m still sick,” Conrad says hoarsely in the hallway.

“Good for you,” Renee mutters, and doesn’t let him slow down his pace.

“Please, just, just give me a break from this,” Conrad whispers, and there’s tears in his eyes now. “Just this one time…”

The hand on his arm hauling him up the stairs doesn’t seem to care how wobbly his knees feel. His cuffed hands cling feebly to the railing, feet dragging up each step.

“You don’t have to do this, you know you don’t have to—”

On the plateau at the end of the stairs, the hand on his arm shifts to grab him by the front of his shirt, pushing him back-first into the wall. Renee’s sneer is unmistakable. “Are you gonna shut up on your own, or do I have to make you?”

Conrad lets out a whine, not meeting his eyes.

“Look at me, you fucking coward,” Renee growls low. The hand in his shirt pushes him further into the wall, he can feel knuckles brush ominously against his Adam’s apple.

Conrad reluctantly does.

Renee’s gaze is pitch black, piercing, and full of disgust. “Are you going to shut up?” he says. “Hm?”

Conrad nods.

“Say it.”

“I’m… I’m going to, to shut up.”

Renee doesn’t smile, even though Conrad is pretty sure he normally would in a moment like this. Instead his sneer fades a bit, and he nods to himself. “About time you fucking did.”

And he pulls Conrad along into the second story room.

Conrad tries to get his eyes to focus on Davin’s face, as a low whine escapes his throat. “He was s-stepping on me,” he croaks out. “Everything was—it was as if—everything was red.”

“I hear you,” Davin says. “Deep breaths now.”

His calmness rubs off on Conrad. Slowly, he feels himself settling into the bed, exhausted from the effort, lids suddenly heavy. “I don’t want to die,” he whispers.

Davin nods solemnly. Lets him go when it’s clear he won’t struggle further. “You’re safe, man. You can rest.”

And Conrad slips back into unconsciousness.

💵

When he opens his eyes, the sun shines through a slit in the curtains, illuminating a slice of the air by the dust particles floating in it. Ambient traffic noises can be heard through the window pane, but even through its muffled nature it sounds distant and inconsequential. A machine by his right, which has the thin, clear tube of his IV pinched in its jaw, whirs with a sound similar to that of a cassette tape spooling back. His breaths come a little easier now, and seem to reach deeper than they did before. The air doesn’t whistle in his throat anymore. Getting oxygen no longer requires a fight. The light doesn’t hurt his eyes.

Conrad lets a dry tongue roll around his mouth, taking in a deep breath through his nose. His head feels clearer, not marred by fear or abject bewilderment. His confusion is more reserved, better under control.

“Welcome back,” Davin says. He’s sitting at Conrad’s bedside with an open book in his lap, long hair cascading over his shoulders, smiling warmly when their eyes meet. “How are you feeling?”

Conrad tries to swallow, but finds that he can’t. “Thirsty,” he croaks out. When he coughs, a bit of phlegm in his throat is dislodged.

“I’ll find you something to drink, then,” Davin says easily, closing the book and sliding it onto a bedside table as he gets up.

Halfway out the door, Davin stops. “Behave,” he tells Renee. Then he leaves.

Conrad nearly has to do a double take when he locks eyes with Renee, sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the room, phone in his hand. The man’s bleached blond hair has been shaved off, face bruised and scraped up, and his arm is in a sling. He’s about to ask what happened when the words get caught in his throat. His teeth are on edge from anxiety. He gently runs a finger over the piece of plaster keeping the IV flush to the back of his hand.

Renee sniffs, scratching at his stubble with the hand not in a sling. “Someone made us even,” he mutters as an explanation. “Partially, anyway. I guess you still pulled the short straw.” He laughs a little, but it’s too tense.

Conrad doesn’t say anything.

He’s not sure how to feel, seeing bruises on his torturer, so he settles on feeling nothing in particular.

Renee clears his throat, somewhat awkwardly. “You’ve been out of it for like… two days, something like that,” he says. Shrugs. Looks at his phone, even though the screen is black. “No more water stuff,” he says. “That’s the new rule.”

“I told you to stop,” Conrad says hoarsely. “And you didn’t listen.”

Renee lets out a laugh, but it’s an awful, bitter kind of laughter. He gets out of his seat, seeming not to notice how he starts pacing around the room.

Conrad carefully clears his throat. “I tried to tell you...”

“All you do is fucking beg,” Renee says, half interrupting him, in a tone that’s a lot harder than it was just a moment before.

Conrad closes his mouth, gritting his teeth. Watching, as Renee turns his back on him, good hand clenched tight into a fist, shaking.

“I don’t have the fucking patience for your bullshit anymore, dude. What was I supposed to do, hm?”

When he looks over his shoulder to meet Conrad’s eye, his own are dark.

“If I stopped every time you asked me to, I’d be out of a job.” He throws out his hand. “The entire fucking point of this is that I have to cross the line. You realize that, right?”

Conrad stays silent. In the back of his mind, he knows he’s poked some nerve, and he’s waiting for the resulting blow. Just patiently waiting for it.

Renee turns around fully, walking up to the foot of the bed. Hand slack at his side, face sporting a bleak degree of seriousness. “Do you want my pity, Conrad? Is that it?”

Conrad opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Renee’s gaze seems to pierce right through him. He swallows down the urge to pull his legs up under him, to create more distance between them; it’d only serve to cement his fear in Renee’s eyes. “I j-… I just—”

“Speak up,” Renee snaps, upper lip curling into something like disgust. “Do you want me to fucking pity you?”

“I just want you to see me as human,” Conrad says in a near whisper. His voice breaks on the last word.

Renee just stares at him, eyes dark, jaw working.

When the door opens behind him, all he does is blink.

Davin walks in holding a glass of water. He stops next to Renee, seeing Conrad’s expression, and his eyes flicker back and forth between the two as his brow furrows. “What’s up?”

Renee makes a sharp inhale through his nose. “I’m going for a fucking smoke, that’s what’s up,” he says, tone not entirely void of edge.

Grabbing his jacket, he walks out, slamming the door behind him.

It doesn’t take more than five minutes to stitch him up. His eyebrow, split from a kick to the face, doesn’t require anything more drastic than a couple surgical strips.

“You’re starting to bruise around your eye,” Davin says. “I can ask Shaun if he’s got an ice pack lying around.”

Renee shrugs, kicking his heal at the base of the cot. “Fuck that, honestly,” he mutters.

“As you wish.” Davin snorts. He sits back on the stool, rolling his shoulders a bit. “I am going to have to ask him to take a look at your arm, though.”

Renee swallows. “Can’t you do it?”

“I don’t know shit about setting broken bones, Renee.” Davin gives him a genuinely regretful smile.

Renee feels himself grimace. “Fine,” he says. “Whatever.”

He’s not entirely sure why he’s so opposed to it. Maybe because it feels like such overkill, in a way, to have anyone but Davin fuss over his injuries. Davin leaves him alone for a few minutes, and Renee tries to push down that sick, childish feeling at his core. At least its curbed by the complacent euphoria of the pills, easy to hide from his features when Davin comes back into the room, followed by Shaun.

The doctor gives him a careful smile, but doesn’t divulge in formal pleasantries, which Renee is grateful for. “Well, step one is getting that hoodie off of you,” Shaun says.

Renee nods, gritting his teeth.

He needs help with it. It’s so stupid, but when he tries to get it off on his own, he gets stuck with it halfway over his head, hissing at the pain in his elbow that erupts at every small movement. Davin comes to his aid, pulling his head free, but then keeps peeling the fabric down over his arm, and the sleeve gets bunched up at his wrist, pulling at his elbow, and Renee’s vision starts to flicker. “Wait,” he gasps.

But Davin doesn’t wait. Instead he just keeps pulling the sleeve down.

Renee holds his breath, only releasing it when his hand is finally free of the sleeve. “Fucking asshole,” he hisses.

Davin just smiles.

They give him some time to recover.

“I’m gonna do some exercises with you,” Shaun says apologetically. “Some of them are going to hurt, alright? I’m just trying to figure out the lay of the land, so to speak.” He gently takes Renee’s hand in his own, using the other to support his upper arm. “I’m going to try and bend your arm like normal, okay? You ready?”

Renee nods wordlessly.

At first, it’s not so bad, but then it’s as if it all catches up to him. Renee’s breaths come more and more quickly through his nose, and he shuts his eyes tight, feeling a wince of pain form on his face. Maybe he’s just imagining it, but he thinks he can feel his flesh being poked by the sharp fractures in the bone, just below his elbow.

“Tell me if it becomes unbearable,” Shaun says.

Renee lets out a low growl, good hand clenched hard around the edge of the cot. When the pain starts to become a duller constant, and Shaun stops moving it, his arm is at a ninety degree angle.

“Very good,” Shaun says. “Now, I’m going to move your wrist in different ways. You tell me if it hurts, alright?”

Renee nods.

The first test, in which Shaun wriggles his wrist up and down as if Renee is waving, passes relatively painlessly.

The second test is much worse. Shaun starts with holding Renee’s hand palm down, but then slowly starts to rotate his wrist. There’s a sense of something moving in a way it definitely shouldn’t. Renee’s back arches, and he leans forward involuntarily, grabbing hold of Shaun’s hand tightly to keep him from twisting his wrist further, panting through his nose. He can’t help but scowl a little.

Shaun chuckles. “Got it, got it. Sorry.”

It keeps going like that for a while, Shaun moving his arm this way and that, sometimes to the tune of sharp inhales and cursing, sometimes in blissful silence, until Shaun finally takes a step back. “I’d wager it’s your ulna,” he says conclusively.

Renee tries not to look too exhausted. “Will I ever play tennis again, doc?”

Shaun laughs. “’Course you will. But I am going to have to put you in a cast for now.”

The cast, as it turns out, is ridiculously thorough. It goes all the way from the middle of Renee’s bicep, down over his elbow at a ninety degree angle, down his forearm, wrapping itself around the base of his thumb, rendering both his elbow and his wrist completely immobile. Not only that, but once the cast is dried, Shaun digs through a low cabinet and pulls out a fucking sling.

“No,” Renee says flat out.

Shaun chuckles. “It’s just for the first couple of days, don’t worry. Right now your arm needs as much rest as it can get.”

Renee rolls his eyes. “How am I supposed to do anything with a fucking sling?”

“You’re not,” Davin says. “That’s the whole point.”

Renee scowls at him. Shakes his head. “Fuck it, okay then. Sure, go ahead.”

💵

More than anything, he’d just like to sleep, actually. That combined half-hour of rest coupled with a fight and a Xanax has all but ground his nerves into frail, exhausted threads at this point. He grits his teeth and tells himself he’ll make rushed work out of cleaning himself up.

His reflection looks miserable in the small bathroom mirror. His skin is starkly pale against the backdrop of blue tiles, dark circles barely visible for the bruises surrounding one eye. Little flakes of blood still stuck to the parts of his face that Davin didn’t clean during the patch-up; it colors stripes of his stubble the color of rust. The split in his eyebrow has swollen, leaving his face somewhat lopsided, foreign-looking. The patch missing from the side of his head makes the whole tangled mess of his hair look even more abysmal.

It’s not something he can cover, or fix with a trip to the barber. So Renee, far beyond the point of apathy, borrows a trimmer from Shaun, setting it to an fourth of an inch of length, and gets to work shaving off the rest of his hair one-handed, wincing at the pain in his ribs when he lifts his arm above a certain point. He starts from the front and works his way back, blindly running the trimmer up and down the back of his head until there’s no way he missed a single spot. He watches the small sink steadily fill up with tufts of dyed blond, some matted with dirt or blood, careful not to aggravate the wound or get the stitches caught in the trimmer.

Eventually, all that remains on his head are the brown roots, buzzcut-short.

He stands for a long time just staring at his new reflection, expression nothing short of exhausted. He runs his free hand over the short remnants of his hair, and it feels odd and prickly, but he knows that feeling will pass over time.  The tangled, slain remnants in the sink seem to take up much more space than they did on his head. He feels a vain sense of regret looking at it, as if he now has to depart from some essential part of his character. It’s so stupid. Hair grows back. When has it ever mattered?

He can’t run from the fact that he recognized himself in the man that broke his arm – or that, when the guy’s friends cheered with excitement after the fact, he recognized Conrad in himself.

Renee wonders what it feels like to know for certain that there are videos of your torture circulating the internet, that people are watching and commenting on it and breaking it apart frame by frame. To have it met by virtual cheering, with excitement, disgust, or arousal. To know that at least a thousand people save each clip onto their secret hard drives.

To know that there’s no such thing as scrubbing that material off the web. To recognize its permanence.

What’s Renee supposed to do with that? Is he supposed to feel guilty now? That’s not how this works. That much he’s relatively sure of. When he enters Conrad’s room and sees the sleeping form on the bed, curled up on his side, chest rising and falling at steady intervals – sure, there is a pang of something in Renee’s gut, but he’s pretty damn sure it isn’t guilt. 

He still doesn’t want to examine it.

Renee lies down on the chairs and tries to find a position that doesn’t upset his ribs too much – eventually he settles on lying on his right side, facing the wall, cast making him curl his arm around his waist.

It doesn’t take him long to fall asleep.

To Renee’s right, Bastard One grabs at the shoulder of his jacket to pull him backwards. Renee twists around, elbowing the guy hard in the face, reveling in the sound of the impact, as cartilage snaps, and blood spews from a broken nose. It happens in the same instant that someone else approaches him from his left. Renee sees Bastard Two out of his periphery, even sees when the guy retracts his arm, but he’s too preoccupied by Bastard One to dodge out of the way in time. The punch hits the side of his face, and he staggers for a split second before he spins on his axis, driving a fist into the guy’s midsection, adrenaline spiking at the way his breath wheezes out through his teeth. Four seconds have passed.

It’s as if Renee’s focus shrinks down and down, until it’s the size of a pinhole. He sees the hands, hips and feet of his opponents, shrouded in red at the edges of his vision, and their angry faces blur in with the background. His only instinct becomes to tear the bodies that circle him to pieces. Like a filter painting them in a strange light. He wants to see them suffer, and writhe, and squirm.

Fuck them all. Fuck everything.

The next guy in line approaches. He’s about the same height as Renee, but good deal broader, to such a degree that it gives Renee pause. For a moment or two, they square up against each other, feet moving, loose fists defensively raised.

Renee is the one that breaks the dance.

He lunges for the guy, telescoping an uppercut with his right hand, but at the last second, he hits the guy with his left hand instead, fist driving upwards from his waist. It hits the guy in the soft flesh underneath his jaw, and Renee hears the snap of is teeth slamming together.

Bastard Four is already facing him. Seeing the tall one stagger out of his periphery, Renee lets out a wordless yell, which makes Bastard Four tense up, bracing for an attack that doesn’t come.

Renee snickers.

He feels invincible. He feels like a God.

Someone tackles him from behind.

It’s a full body tackle, and they’ve clearly had a running start, because Renee gets thrown forward, nearly missing the tall guy as he crashes onto the ground, taking off with his arms to halt his fall, bits of gravel on the dirt path slicing through the skin of his palms. On the ground, him and his newest attacker roll over each other, and Renee tries to continue that momentum, flipping onto his hands and knees in an attempt to get back on his feet. But his tackler – Bastard Two, now recovered – is grabbing onto his clothes, in an desperate ploy to keep him grounded. It only serves to make Renee’s anger spike, and he wraps his hands around the guy’s throat, squeezing hard. Sees the way the guy’s eyes bulge, not unlike a dog’s squeaky toy.

A flash of white.

A moment of weightlessness.

Reeling, Renee tries to gather his bearings. He’s lying on his back now, staring up into the grey clouds, and the side of his head has exploded in pain so intense, it’s making his vision blurry. Panting heavily, he grasps the side of his head, feeling a wetness there, his fingers are stained red.

“Fucking psycho!” someone yells, and kicks him hard in the side, cracking two of his ribs. He doesn’t hear them break, but he feels it, the way the bones snap. He rolls onto his side, heaving for breath, clutching his abdomen. Barely feels the pain in light of the crushing agony in his head, but it feels appropriate to gasp a little.

Others seem to get inspired by that. Soon the kicks are raining down on him, digging into the flesh of his lower back, jolting his entire nervous system when they hit his spine – that’s when they’re not aiming for his head, which he tries to protect with his arms, but he only manages to cover his face.

Renee doesn’t know how long it lasts, only that his entire body is burning by the time someone in the group finally tells the others to stop.

Breathing hard, Renee rolls over on his stomach, and is painfully pushing himself off of the ground when a weight settles on his back, squeezing the air out of his lungs. Fighting to regain his focus, Renee gasps under the weight, eyes dancing over the shoes that encircle him, as his arms are forced onto his back and pinned there with a knee. “Get the fuck off me,” he groans.

He sees one man’s boot retract, but he only manages to close his eyes before it connects with the side of his face, whipping his vision sideways, he’s blinking stars. He feels the blood running into the crevasses of one eye from a split eyebrow, feels it trickle down the side of his head as he desperately struggles against the weight pinning him in place. The pain in his ribs is making him dizzy. 

“You make some weird life choices,” someone says above him, and then steps on his head, pressing his face into the blood-speckled dirt. Renee lets out a wordless cry of rage. “But I guess that’s not unusual for a faggot,” Coat Guy chuckles.

“Motherfucker,” Renee wheezes, trying to write free, shaking violently in an attempt to dislodge his assailants. He can’t catch his breath. It’s like several people are sitting on top of his back, compressing his lungs. The blood is starting to run into his eye. “Get the fuck off of me!”

Laughter above. The men not busy pinning him down circle around him like vultures orbiting dying prey. “What do we do with him now?” someone asks.

“He broke by fucki’g dose,” someone else says.

“I say we give him something to remember us by,” Coat Guy says.

“Don’t you fucking dare touch me,” Renee hisses. “Don’t you fucking dare!” He can hear the desperation in his own voice, hidden beneath layers and layers of aggression.

“You right-handed, huh?”

“Go fuck yourself,” Renee grunts, voice cracking.

Coat Guy laughs. “I’ll take my chances, then.”

“Don’t fucking touch me!”

“Try and lay out his arm, Jordie.”

Bastard One obliges, prying Renee’s arm from his back. Renee shouts with the strain of trying to retract his arm, trying to fight against it, but it’s all but useless, and soon his arm is extended out at his side, fingers clawing in the dirt.

Coat Guy still isn’t satisfied. “I’d like him to look at it, guys.”

“Fucking sadist,” Renee spits. “You pay me? Huh? Do you pay me?”

“He’s fucken crazy,” someone laughs.

Renee groans as they press his cheek into the dirt, facing his extended arm, and someone holds his head steady with a firm grasp in his hair. Blood rolls across his forehead from whatever injury he sustained on the side of his head. He can do nothing but watch as Coat Guy stands over him, ugly smirk on his face.

“I’m gonna teach you a lesson, man, since you seem so desperately in need of one.”

Laughter all around. Renee scowls up at him, teeth gritted.

Coat Guy takes a few step back to get a running start. Renee sees what he intends to do a split second before he does it, and manages to hiss out a “No.”

Then Coat Guy kicks his arm as hard as he can. Something near the elbow snaps, and the arm bends wrong.

Renee screams into the dirt.

Cheering.

The pain nearly knocks him out cold.

They’re fucking cheering.

💵

Lying in the dirt, clothes tattered, still bleeding, he looks up at the rolling clouds and just breathes for a while.

No passers-by come to check on him.

Almost like he’s cursed.

💵

The ordeal must’ve taken less than five minutes in total, but Renee feels as though he has run a full marathon. Exhaustion washes over him like a heavy weight, bogging him down, making his knees shake. Every step brings an ache somewhere in his battered body. He walks somewhat crouched over the broken ribs, hand clutching his bicep as he lets his broken arm dangle at his side. Worst of all, still, is the pain in his head. Renee can’t stand headaches. Can’t stand how all-consuming they tend to be, how they rob your attention. Now, it’s like the lights are so bright, they slice through his brain like a knife. He still doesn’t know what hit him.

Strangers stare at him as he hobbles past, wide-eyed, and open-mouthed, clearly alarmed by the sight. Renee supposes there’s really no way to hide from prying eyes, not when you’re six feet four and covered in blood and grime. He can’t help but swallow down anger at the humiliation of having people see him like this. He throws up the hood of his jacket, but that only serves to roll a fresh batch of gravel and dirt down his back. So that’s great.

The walk back to the Jackson household feels longer than it did on his way out. It feels grating, wears him down, until he’s like a walking husk, a sorry excuse for a man.

He wonders how often Conrad feels like this.

Now there’s a thought better left packed down in some abandoned corner of his mind. Renee sneers at the parallels, hobbling on.

He has to take a moment to collect himself before he painfully climbs the steps up to the front porch next to Jackson Auto. Voices in the kitchen hush at the sound of the door going. He closes it in silence, exhaustion once again rearing its head at the realization he made it back.

Footsteps, and Shaun leans his head out the door to the kitchen. He draws in a sharp breath when he sees Renee. “What happened to you?”

“Just… got mugged,” Renee mutters, leaning his back against the door, wincing at the ceiling.

 “Come in, come in, let’s have a look at you.”

Renee is filled with reluctance at that. He just wants to sleep, to give in and disappear into unconsciousness for a while. He has two and a half Xannies in his backpack – honestly, he should’ve taken them sooner, and this whole thing may have been avoided.

Shaun spots him clutching his arm strangely, and is quick to offer a hand as Renee undoes the buttons of his jacket with his good hand. “Let me take that – here, I’ve got it.” 

“Can you just – not fucking touch me right now?” Renee snaps.

Shaun hesitates, looking at him in pensive surprise for a good five seconds before he finally puts up both hands, as if at gunpoint. “I’m just trying to help,” he says.

“No thanks,” Renee jeers. Swallowing down a knot of shame, he stubbornly sets on peeling off his jacket on his own. “I’m fucking fine,” he mutters angrily, teeth gritted hard to keep himself from crying out in pain as he slides the jacket over his shoulder, careful not to disrupt his broken arm too badly. Panting by the end of it, he finally lets his jacket drop to the ground.

Shaun lets him pass in the narrow hallway, and Renee catches Imani putting a hand over her mouth at the sight of him as he passes the door to the kitchen. Renee tries not to let the concerned look bother him, just hobbles into Conrad’s room, teeth gritted.

Davin looks up from his phone. “What h—”

“Don’t fucking talk to me,” Renee growls.

Davin raises his brows at that, thankfully closing his mouth. He doesn’t say anything when Renee opens his backpack and scours through its contents one-handed to find the orange pill container. Popping off the lid with his thumb, Renee leans his head back and swallows one bar straight out of the cylinder.

Then he finally, finally sits down. Sighing deeply, he leans his head back against the wall and closes his eyes.

It takes about a half-hour for the drugs to set in, and by then, Renee’s anger has dissipated, giving way to pure, unparalleled exhaustion. As his breathing evens out and his heartrate drops, his vision starts to get that dream-like quality where all the details blur into inconsequential background noise, and his head and limbs begin to feel heavy.

He is very, very far away when Davin crouches down beside his chair.

“Renee,” he says, all quiet. “You’ve got a pretty nasty gash on the side of your head, and it’s still bleeding. Kinda thing that needs a few stitches. Would you let me take a look at it, hm? No talking, I promise.”

Head swimming, Renee closes his eyes against the dizziness. “I don’t know what they hit me with,” he mutters.

“That’s alright,” Davin says gently. “It’s not important now.”

Renee nods a little. Looks down the length of his own body, where both his hands lie slack in his lap. “They broke my arm,” he says.

 “We’ll figure that out, too,” Davin says.

Renee thinks the pills might make him high enough. “Alright,” he says. “Do it.”

One leg bouncing nervously, Renee sits in a chair to the side, scrolling through social media to occupy his time. It’s only when Shaun finishes setting Conrad up and leaves the room, and Renee and Davin are alone for good, that he puts his phone away.

Davin sits down in a chair on the opposite side of the room, crossing one leg over the other, hands folded across his lap.

Renee waits until he’s sure Shaun isn’t coming back, until he’s sure there are no footsteps outside the door to the small room.

“So,” he says after a while. “Kit.”

Eventually, and still clearly reluctant, he sighs deeply and looks at Renee. “What do you want to know?” he asks.

“Alright,” Renee says. “What’s your name?”

Davin chuckles a little, though it fades quickly. “It’s Davin,” he says. And then he adds, as if it’s an afterthought, “To you.”

Renee lets out a frustrated sound, running a hand through his hair. “Can you quit the bullshit for even half a second, dude? Quit with the fucking… half-truths and tell me who the fuck I’ve been working with all these months. Are you wanted or something? Is that it?”

Davin laughs bitterly, but he doesn’t say anything.

Renee sneers, running a hand over his mouth to bite off a curse of exasperation. He lets out a sigh, settling back in his chair. “What’s my name?”

Davin snorts.

“I’m serious. Answer my question. What’s my name?”

“Your name is Renee.”

“My full name.”

Davin rolls his eyes, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “Renee Vaughan,” he says finally.

“Mhm. And what’s my sister’s name?”

“This isn’t… It’s fucking complicated, Renee, it’s not comparable.”

“What is my sister’s name?”

Davin looks him in the eye. “Her name is Stephanie Vaughan.”

Renee grits his teeth, heart beating a little bit quicker. He didn’t know for sure, but it doesn’t come as a surprise to him that Davin has looked it up. He throws out his hands, staring at Davin with wide eyes. “See?”

Davin shakes his head, uncrossing his legs to lean forward, tucking a stray strand of hair behind his ear.

“If you were me, would you be willing to work with yourself, huh? With someone you knew jack shit about? Someone who refused to tell you?”

Davin laughs again, shaking his head. “If I were you, I’d run for the hills.”

Renee nods enthusiastically. “Exactly. Exactly. So fucking… give me something to work with.”

For a long time, Davin is silent, idly staring at the floor, clearly contemplating what to say, or how much to say, or whether to say anything at all. Eventually, he straightens up. Nods at Renee. “I wasn’t in the mob, per se. I was a… a freelancer. Contract to contract. I used to do a lot of different work for a lot of different people.”

“What kind of work?” Renee swallows. “Did you like… kill people…?”

“Jesus Christ, Renee, no,” he says with a low chuckle. “No, I did some programming. Encrypted messaging, markets, shit like that.”

Renee raises a brow. “That’s it? What’s with the whole ‘Kit’ business, then?”

Davin shrugs a shoulder. “Precaution,” He says with a half-smile. Looks on the verge of saying something when he stops himself, shaking his head and looking down.

Renee waits.

After a while, Davin clears his throat, getting a distant look in his eyes. “I used to have my own market. With… someone else. You asked if I’d be stupid enough to work with someone I knew nothing about, well. I suppose I used to be.” He clears his throat. “They went as Spyder. I never actually met them. Man, woman, I had no idea. Still don’t. I figured the trust was mutual.” He takes a deep breath before he slowly continues. “It was pretty successful, especially in the south. No hitches. We ran it for five months. Never got caught, never had it taken down.” He pauses. “The turnaround was about a million a month towards the end, in crypto. Pretty good money stored in that site.”

The pause after that continues so long, Renee thinks Davin might have gotten lost in the memory.

A machine by Conrad’s bedside beeps once and is silent again.

“Spyder cashed out and vanished,” Davin says, smiling bitterly. “Doxxed me in the process, just for good measure. I still don’t know how they found my address, but they did.”

He looks at Renee.

“I have no intention of letting something like that happen again,” he says, and there’s a sharpness to his tone that wasn’t there before. “So I’m Davin to you. I’m Kit to Shaun and Imani. To some, I’m Jared, or Seth, or Caleb. I’m not giving you anything else, because in the end, it doesn’t fucking matter. By all other names, just as fucking sweet.”

“Alright,” Renee says, a little taken aback by the tensity.

Davin nods. Cocks his head to the side. “Anything else?” The question is posed almost like a challenge.

Renee sits with the revelations for a bit, chewing on his thumbnail. In its own right, it does explain a lot. Davin’s never-ending paranoia, his almost religious reluctance for self-disclosure.

“I didn’t want to pry,” Renee mutters, nail still between his front teeth. “You just have to know it’s… frustrating. Not to know, I mean.”

Davin waves him off. “I get it. And you’re not wrong for asking.” He takes a deep breath. “Maybe I should’ve told you all of this sooner.

Renee raises a brow. “You think?”

Davin laughs.

They sit in silence a bit, both of their gazes drifting to Conrad, who’s still sound asleep on the bed.

Two beeps from the machines pass before Davin speaks again. “It’s funny, you never considered giving a false name until now.”

Renee snorts. “What if I did?”

Davin chuckles. “Nice try, Vaughan.”

💵

Turns out there’s not much to do while you’re waiting for the guy you kidnapped to come out of his fever-induced coma. Renee is bored again. Bored with a capital B.

Three chairs next to each other have acted as a makeshift bed, which him and Davin have taken turns lying on throughout the night as the other kept watch. Accumulated, by the time the clock reads six thirty, Renee thinks he’s gotten about half an hour of genuine shut-eye in total. Mostly, he spent his time lying incredibly uncomfortably on the chairs, getting more and more annoyed at how the machines would beep, as if on cue, every time he even came close to finally dozing off.

Now that it’s his turn, Davin doesn’t seem to have the same issue. He doesn’t snore, but his breaths do slow down at one point, and they stay that way. Lucky bastard.

Tired of fiddling with useless games on his phone, and after as many smoking breaths as he can take without developing a crushing headache, Renee finds several old receipts in the pocket of his jacket, and spends the better part of an hour tearing small pieces from the paper, crumbling them between his fingers, and flicking them, sometimes at Conrad’s bed, sometimes at the sleeping form of Davin, to see if either will notice it and rouse. They don’t, and then he’s out of receipt pieces to throw. So that’s time well spent, Renee thinks grimly.

He stares himself blind in the colorful lines of the wallpaper, trying to name each color, which doesn’t yield more flamboyant language than red, yellow, white, red, yellow, red...

He paces around the room for a while. Stretches his legs a little. Sits back down. Stands back up. He snorts a line from the bathroom sink. Not that it’d help with his restlessness, he just can’t help himself. At least tweaking feels good.

On his way out the door to go for another smoke, he bumps into the woman, Imani. She’s already wearing full makeup, frizzy curls seeming to explode in all directions from a band bound tightly at the back of her head. “Oh,” she says with a friendly smile. “I didn’t know you’d be up so early. There’s coffee in the kitchen if you want, you just go ahead.”

“Thanks,” Renee says, trying not to sound too grumpy. He stands there a little awkwardly, somehow feeling he should say more. “Uh, nice house, by the way.”

It’s half-hearted, but Imani seems genuinely appreciative. “Thank you,” she says with a grin, stepping to the side to let him pass in the narrow hall.

With another nod, Renee leaves out the front door.

It’s still dark outside, but the city is already beginning to awaken. Several cars pass in the street while Renee smokes, commuters starting their journey to work from a parking lot farther down the street. The noise of more condensed traffic can be heard in the distance, engines revving and the occasional honk of a horn. Steam rises from a manhole cover close to the entrance of the Jackson garage, a larger smoke signal than anything Renee can produce with a cigarette. He warms himself up by the exhaust of an air conditioning unit.

Back inside, Renee stops in the hallway next to the entrance to the kitchen. Imani stands at the sink, filling cold water into a kettle. She looks over her shoulder when she hears him, gesturing wordlessly at the kettle.

Renee shrugs, then nods. “Sure,” he says. “Coffee.”

“Come sit down, then,” Imani says, starting the kettle and filing through cabinets to pull out clean mugs, instant coffee and

“Um, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather just take it back to the room,” Renee mutters.

Imani looks a little disappointed at the loss of company, but then that friendly smile is back, and she waves him off. “Just put the mug by the sink when you’re done, I’ll wash it up for you.”

“Okay.”

They wait as the kettle slowly begins to boil, it’s roar the only plaster on the awkward silence.

Renee clears his throat carefully. “So… did Shaun tell you who we are, or…”

“Oh, no,” Imani says, shaking her head. “I don’t really pay much attention. A lot of people come and go in this house.”

That’d explain why she’s so nice to him. She doesn’t know. Renee nods. “I can imagine.” He rolls his heels on the threshold with his hands in his pockets. His eyes trail listlessly around the blue cabinets of the kitchen. Porcelain stacked on shelves, a French press, a shelf of cook books. Nothing really stands out as a conversation piece.  

Imani finishes pouring boiling water into two separate mugs, grabbing one and gesturing at the other with another smile. As Renee takes his hands out of his pockets to take the mug, there’s the soft thunk at his feet. He looks down, horrified to see his small zip-lock bag of cocaine on the floor.

“Shit,” he lets out, leaning down to pick it back up. For a moment, he thinks he might have palmed the bag quickly enough that it’s contents weren’t too obvious, it was only visible for a fraction of a second. He stuffs it into his pocket, gripping it tightly in his fist.

“Oh, honey,” Imani says quietly.

Renee meets her eyes, gritting his teeth. Why is he so nervous about it? What does he care if she knows?

She gives him an earnest look. “If you want,” she says,  “you should know that Shaun is always willing to help out those struggling with addiction.”

Renee swallows. “… what?”

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. There’s no such thing as a taboo in this house.”

“That’s great and all, but I’m not addicted,” he says, laughing a little.

Imani opens her mouth, then closes it again. “Alright. Just… if you feel a little lost, don’t be afraid to stop by, yeah? Promise me that, at least.”

“Yeah, got it,” Renee says, nodding along, nowhere close to meaning it, he just wants the conversation to end. He holds up his mug. “Thanks for coffee,” he says, nodding at her as he backs up out into the  hallway.

His teeth are on edge as he trots into the room, mug in hand, heart beating fast, although he’s not sure why. Is he angry? Why the fuck would he be angry? It doesn’t matter.

Davin is awake, sitting with one ankle on his knee, scrolling through his phone. “Morning,” he mutters unenthusiastically.

Renee lets out a low growl in response.

Davin sniffs lazily. “Why do I keep finding tiny pieces of paper in my hair?”

Shrugging, Renee takes a sip of his coffee. “Must’ve been something on the chairs.”

The next few hours pass uneventfully, much like all those previous hours did.

Semi-lying in the chair, Renee’s arms are crossed tightly in front of his chest to keep his hands from fiddling, although his leg bounces so vigorously, his shoe makes a continuous squeaking noise on the floor. He’s scowling at the wall. “How long are we supposed to stay here?”

“Until Conrad gets better,” Davin mutters absentmindedly. He seems perfectly well satisfied by his phone.

Renee lets out a grunt of disapproval.

Chuckling, Davin gestures at the door. “Go for a walk or something,” he says.

Renee shrugs indecisively, but he has to admit, it might not be a bad idea. Getting some fresh air, moving around a bit, instead of being stuck in one room for ages. The longer he thinks about it, the more appealing thought becomes.

Davin doesn’t comment when Renee finally gets up, shrugs on his jacket and heads out.

At first, the streets he traverses are mostly void of people, sporting the same warehouses and mechanics he saw on their drive in last night. It slowly changes. He walks in between the tall buildings of an apartment complex, snaking his way through the narrow streets. Approaching the city center, he lights up a cigarette when the buildings begin to house storefronts, everything from chain convenience stores to low-end clothes outlet stores and cheap junk food joints, where the smell of frying oil and shawarma is already starting to drift out into the street.

He briefly stops by a convenience store to get a pack of cigarettes. Asking to use their restroom, Renee sniffs a line off the porcelain sink just to keep his high going. He’s in a much too irritable mood to crash, he reasons, leaving the store with newfound energy and a bitter taste at the back of his tongue.

He tries not to think about the conversation with Imani, but has to admit it’s relatively difficult to get her earnest request out of his head when he’s currently chasing that high. Has he been ramping up his use, lately? He’s not addicted, but perhaps he ought to tone it down. These past few weeks have just been… extraordinary. They’ve required a new kind of attentiveness from him, one that’s been difficult to keep up with without the helping hand of chemicals. 

It’s not that he doesn’t know that the shit he puts into his body isn’t healthy in the long run. It’s more, well… The ever-present gut feeling that Renee will never have any such thing as a long run. Live fast, die young. Isn’t that the saying?

It’s almost ten when he comes upon the entrance of a park area. Given the lateness of the season, it looks sort of abysmal, skeletonized trees towering on either side of a dirt path, brown on brown on brown. The rotting leaves by their trunks fill the air with a musty sort of smell, as if it’s been raining, even though Renee is pretty sure it hasn’t.

It's a welcome change in scenery, though, so Renee sets on the dirt path, cheeks flushed against the cold, hands firmly tucked in his pockets.

Up ahead, a group of maybe five, six men his own age are taking up most of the path, headed in the opposite direction. They’re laughing, occasionally pushing each other around like little school boys on a field trip, yelling out crude punchlines in the otherwise silent park.

A man in a long coat towards the end of the group doesn’t move out of the way as Renee approaches, so their shoulders bump.

“Move, faggot,” the man hisses.

Feeling the hairs stand up at the back of his neck, Renee stops in his tracks and looks over his shoulder. “What the fuck did you just call me?” he says low.

Coat Guy turns around, walking a few steps backwards before he stops as well, looking Renee up and down. “What, you gonna get all offended now?”

Renee grits his teeth against the spike of anger at his core. He growls, spits on the ground. “What the fuck did you call me?”

He’s so focused on Coat Guy, he barely notices when the guy’s friends, realizing their parade has stopped, begin to fan out behind him.

“I called you a faggot,” the guy says with a tense laugh. “You fucking look like one, what can I say?”

If Renee could think past his high and his anger, maybe he would have considered the fact that they’re six on one and backed off. Maybe he would’ve taken his general situation into account and reasoned that getting into trouble now would be a bad idea. Maybe he would’ve realized he’s overreacting.

But he can’t think. His first punch is impulsive.

It’s been two years, but Kit hasn’t aged a day. His hair is tied in a knot at the back of his head, a few loose strands here and there betraying the length of it. Unhidden, his face sports those vaguely native American features, the high cheekbones, the hooked nose. Perhaps he's a tad thinner, but that’s all the difference to be spotted. Shaun can’t help but grin as he greets the young man, shaking his hand and patting him on the shoulder. “It’s good to see you again, Kit,” he says. “Honestly, I thought you’d left the country.”

Kit returns his smile, but there’s something strained about it. “Likewise,” he says. “Though, I apologize it had to be so late…”

Shaun waves him off. “You’re welcome anytime,” he reassures him.

It’s not until then that Shaun spots the tall, blond man on the curb, in the middle of lighting up a cigarette. As their eyes meet, the man straightens up, blowing out a lungful of smoke, and his gaze darkens, features frozen as something that’s probably supposed to intimidate.

To put it simply, Shaun has seen that expression one too many times for it to have the desired effect. He offers the stranger a professional smile. “Is that your patient?” he asks Kit.

Kit grimaces. “Business partner. Patient’s in the back seat.”

“Well, bring him in, bring him in,” Shaun says. “You’re going to catch your death out here.”

A look is exchanged between Kit and the tall man, who rolls his eyes as he throws his cigarette on the ground, grinding the ember into the pavement with the heel of his boot. As he opens the door to the back seat and crouches out of sight to pick up its inhabitant, Shaun can’t help but notice how tense Kit appears.

It’s subtle, but then again, the man has never been one to wear his emotions on his sleeve. His posture is relaxed enough, but his jaw works on occasion, and the dark, serious look never leaves his eyes. He looks at Shaun, taking a deep breath before he speaks. “I need your full discretion tonight, Shaun,” he says quietly.

Shaun smiles, but it’s marred with confusion. It’s not uncommon for clients to doubt his silence, but Kit should know better, shouldn’t he? Has it been too long? He tries to come up with a scenario in his head that might explain Kit’s paranoia, but finds himself unable to. “Of course,” he says, mirroring Kit’s seriousness, although he’s mostly just confused.

Just then, the tall one shuts the car door with his foot, bridal carrying a much smaller body under a thick blanket, whose face is turned in toward the tall man’s shoulder, as if he’s hiding, clutching a bandaged hand to his chest. As they approach, Shaun begins to hear the faint wheezing sounds of the small one’s labored breathing, the classic shortness of breath associated with pneumonia. He catches Kit looking at him as if he is gauging his reaction to something, but then Shaun gets distracted as the tall one reaches the porch steps.

Shaun gives the tall one and Kit both a friendly smile as he opens his door wide and steps aside to let them both into the narrow hallway. “If you go straight ahead,” he tells the tall one, “down the hall and to the right, you’ll find my office.”

They pass the kitchen on the left, where Imani is wiping down the countertop with a damp cloth. Kit stops in the doorway to briefly greet her, but they don’t exchange many pleasantries before he excuses himself again to follow after the tall one, who has rounded the corner to Shaun’s office.

The kind of unspoken nervousness that enshrines both men usually doesn’t bode well, and it bothers Shaun that he isn’t able to pinpoint precisely what’s at its center. Do the tense glances they occasionally exchange point to a falling out? Is it the way they seem so guarded about the sick one? Is that out of protectiveness or guilt? Shaun has seen both. He’s fairly sure neither would surprise him.

The office is a modest space, barely large enough for all three men to stand at a comfortable distance to one another. One wall is occupied by bookshelves while the other houses his work desk, over which hangs cabinets full of various medical supplies. A good portion of the available floor space is taken up by a black leather cot, which Shaun wordlessly gestures to. He watches as the tall one carefully lays the sick one down on the cot. Hears how the labored breathing gets markedly worse as the guy’s chest is laid down horizontally, a good testament to the fluid in his lungs. In between the ragged breaths is an occasional pained murmur, hands clenched tightly in the blanket they’ve brought along for him.

“I don’t think I caught your name,” Shaun says to the tall one, sticking out his hand.

The tall one casts a quick glance at Kit before he answers. “I’m James,” he says.

Shaun thinks he catches Kit rolling his eyes, but he isn’t entirely sure. “I’m Shaun,” he says, in case James missed it earlier.

It’s not until he’s in the middle of pulling on a set of disposable gloves that he finally decides to get a good look at the unconscious body on the bed, that it all clicks for Shaun. Like a lightning from a clear sky, all their odd behavior suddenly makes perfect sense. He finds himself drawing in a sharp breath, eyes wide as he stares, unmoving, at the soft features.

The hair matted with sweat that nevertheless still curls. The skin, flushed with fever, which still has that tan tone to it, much lighter than Shaun’s, but still noticeable. The eyes, occasionally fluttering against the light, unseeing, and unmistakably blue, like they were in that photo the news station showed of him, the one that looked like he was on vacation somewhere warm, with palms in the background.

Conrad DeWitt.

On instinct, Shaun looks to Kit, who is observing him from the door, arms crossed over his chest. Gauging his reaction in reserved silence.

Clearing his throat, Shaun smiles nervously. He takes a deep breath to steady himself, very consciously donning a more professional façade. “Excuse me,” he mutters. “I was just a little taken aback, that’s all. Now…”

And Shaun gets to work assessing the patient. 

As he works, hooking DeWitt up to a multi-parameter monitor by placing five electrodes on his chest – he has no outward reaction to seeing the scars there, letting the revolt wash over him and fade – his thoughts go a million miles per hour, despite his stoic appearance. He takes DeWitt’s temperature, checks his blood pressure and oxygen intake, listens to his lungs, writing down notes on a scrap of paper to get the full picture of the boys health.

James must be the host, he thinks.

Shaun can feel the man’s gaze on him, following his hands. Like Kit, James, too, is gauging his reaction, and paying close attention to what he’s doing to DeWitt.

Shaun has never liked torturers. Never liked their tendency to treat violent behavior like a craft that rewards skill or even talent. Never liked the types that insisted their methods gave trustworthy results, as if their claims were supported by any kind of scientific consensus. Too many times, he has been one to call when things have gone too far. Calls like that have cost him the respect for far too many people. 

He idly wonders what kind of man James must be – to do it all not for a perceived greater good, but for the sake of the entertainment of others.

For money.

He wonders what Kit’s involvement is. Surely he has something to do with the tech side of things, that is his expertise, after all - and maybe the time spent living with Shaun has taught him a skill or two to use in the aftermath. Shaun has to admit, Kit might be the perfect man for the job, in his own right.

He just can’t wrap his head around why.

The boy rouses at one point. His eyes flutter open, and his hand reaches up to cover his mouth as he weakly coughs – but it gets tangled in the wires, and that scares him. As if they’re restraining him, Conrad begins to pull at the wires, removing the electrodes from the small pads sticking to his chest, which gives the monitor a faulty flat read, setting off several alarms. Shaun is quick to mute the sound.

As gently as he can, Shaun grabs Conrad’s wrists, holding his arms in place, crossed in front of his chest, as he waits for him to calm down again. And it takes a while, but eventually Conrad does. His panicked, wheezing breaths become sobs intermittently broken by coughing, which then turn into silent crying, as his eyes dart around the room, utterly bewildered and progressively more and more unfocused.

“Let me know if you need me to hold him down,” James says with a crooked smile.

Shaun feels a grimace of disgust flash across his face, before he catches himself, once again returning the mask of professionalism. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” he says.

“Maybe you should go for a smoke, James,” Kit mutters.

James sneers. “What, to let the adults speak in peace?”

“Exactly.” Kit smiles.

James rolls his eyes. “Whatever. Sure.”

As he walks past Shaun, he gives him a pat on the back that’s just a little bit too hard to come across as friendly. Shaun doesn’t react to it, just focuses on picking the monitor’s wires back up from the floor, to click them back on the pads in the correct order.

When James has left, Kit clears his throat. “Don’t worry about him. He’s just trying to provoke a reaction.”

“Don’t I know the type,” Shaun chuckles, but it’s humorless. He steps back to observe Conrad for a bit, and has to admit he’s relieved that James is out of the room. “I’ll give him oxygen and fluids,” he mutters. “Start him on a round of antibiotics. Probably give him something to curb the fever a bit as well.”

Kit nods seriously. He hesitates, absentmindedly tapping a finger against his arm. After a long time, he looks Shaun in the eye. “Can I trust you to keep quiet about this?”

Shaun takes a deep breath, looking at DeWitt. “I’d lie if I told you I don’t find this… disgusting. You’ve put me in a bit of a dilemma regarding my ethical obligations as a doctor.”

Kit nods. “I’m sorry about that. Like I said, I wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t strictly necessary. I didn’t want to involve you in all of this.” He paces in the room a bit, eventually settling down leaned against Shaun’s work desk, hands folded in front of him. “One thing I’ve learned from all of this is how well voices can carry under the right circumstances. Saying the right thing in the right forum. It’s a useful skill to know.” He meets Shaun’s eye again. “But if you don’t speak up, neither will I.”

Shaun looks at Kit for a long time, breathing calm, feeling the weight of the atmosphere on his shoulders. When he finally speaks, he does so slowly, carefully. “I’ll stick to my usual discretion, Kit, as I always have. I’d never waive my obligation to privacy.” He smiles. “I’m still within my right to find the torture of an innocent person abhorrent, though. And I’m certainly within my right to tell you about it. Man to man.”

Kit snorts, nodding a little. “I suppose you are.”

Shaun pulls a rubber glove off of his hand, casting a last glance at Conrad before he starts to rummage through his cabinets to find the right medication. “If it’s all the same to you,” he says, “I’d appreciate it if we keep his identity hidden from Imani. She would rip my head off if she knew I were involved with this even peripherally.”

“The less people know, the better.”

“And Kit?”

Kit blinks at him, attentive.

Shaun gives him a forced smile. “I understand why you’d be nervous, but please. You should know better than trying to threaten me into silence.”

Kit laughs.

The sky is in the midst of turning dark, as the sun sets beyond the pine grove in the yard, its last remnants of light reflected in the now-empty glass bottle on the desk. Davin enters the room quietly, careful to close the door gently when he sees that Conrad is sleeping.

“You don’t have to tread so lightly, man, he’s completely out,” Renee tells him. “I sneezed like a motherfucker a while ago and he didn’t even flinch.”

Davin chuckles, but there’s a crease of concern in his forehead. He’s carrying a large bag over his shoulder. “How long has he been out?”

“Since I called you.”

Davin nods. “That’s good. I think.” He places the bag on the desk, opening it to dig through its contents. He pulls out a couple of curled up black tube-looking things with a round piece of metal connected to one end. It’s not until Davin uncurls the tubes that Renee realizes it’s a stethoscope.

Renee snorts. “What, you a doctor now?”

Davin grimaces, bobbing his hand. “I was in med school for a while,” he mutters. Catches himself. “Or something like it.”

As he sits down at the edge of Conrad’s bed, Conrad lets out a small whimper, drawing backwards, and his eyelids flutter as if he’s struggling to regain consciousness. But he never really wakes up, not even when Davin pulls the duvet back. He just seems to curl a little more around himself, as if the air is uncomfortably cold against his skin.

Davin puts on the stethoscope, pressing the metal end flat against Conrad’s back.

Renee doesn’t know why he bothers. It’s clear even from a distance that the ragged way Conrad breathes can’t be healthy. The way the air whistles in his throat, the pace, even, as if he can never really get a deep breath.

Davin removes the stethoscope, speaking as he pulls the duvet back over Conrad’s shoulders. “There’s fluid in his lungs,” he says.

Renee nods. “Duh. So… what?”

“So, that’s not good. My best guess is he’s got bacterial pneumonia.”

“I thought pneumonia was an old people thing.”

Davin shakes his head. “Old people and drowning victims, man.”

Renee swallows again. He looks at Conrad, at the brows furrowed even in his sleep. Thinks of the fitful way he’s been out these past few hours. “On like a scale from not good to shit-fuckery, where are we?”

Davin grimaces. “Probably not in the good end. I don’t like how quickly it progressed to this.” He gestures vaguely at the unconscious form.

He sits for a long time on the edge of the bed, seemingly lost in thought, fiddling mindlessly with the tubes of the stethoscope. “I’m going to call someone,” he says eventually.

Renee feels his adrenaline spike. “We can’t go to a hospital.”

“I’m not talking about a hospital,” Davin reassures him. “Just… trust me on this one, alright? We’re out of our fucking depths, Renee. This isn’t normal.” He has already pulled out his phone.

Renee’s leg begins to bounce. “Who are you calling?”

“Someone I know,” is all Davin says. He stands up, walking aimlessly around the small room as he dials in a number.

Renee rolls his eyes, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. He can hear the whine of the dial tone in the silence that follows, as Davin puts the phone to his ear and leans his back against the wall.

As they wait, they’re both looking at Conrad.

Eventually, Davin clears his throat. “Shaun. Male in his early twenties, uh, post a drowning accident. I heard fluid in his lungs, he’s got a high fever, vomiting… yeah.”

There’s a pause.

“No, not as far as I’m aware,” Davin says.

Another pause, then, “Labored, I’d say.”

Then, “No, I don’t have…”

Then, “About eighteen hours. He’s unconscious.”

Then, “No papers, Shaun. Why do you think I’m calling you, specifically?”

Renee bites his thumbnail as Davin is talking, watching the man’s expression oscillate between concern, frustration, and thoughtfulness. His leg bounces on.

“I’d rather avoid that if I can,” Davin says.

The voice on the other line gets louder at that, more articulated, although Renee still can’t make out what it’s saying.

“I was hoping you could give me…” Davin trails off as the voice interrupts him, and he runs a hand over his face, looking more than a little frustrated. “He’s caught up in some bullshit I’d rather not send your way, Shaun, that’s why. I can’t just…”

A long pause. A very, very long pause. Renee can hear the Shaun guy intermittently saying something as Davin’s expression darkens, and his brow furrows, and he holds his forehead with one hand, partially obscuring his grim expression.

“No, you’re right,” he says finally.

Renee thinks he hears Of course I’m right on the other end.

“I’d need total anonymity, do you understand? I’d need you to clear house. I don’t want to run into anyone but you or Imani.”

Once the Shaun guy starts to respond, Renee catches Davin’s eye and mouths the word ‘no.’ But Davin just waves him off.

“What’s your new address?” he asks, grabbing a pen and paper from the desk, hurriedly writing down in the silence that follows.

Renee makes the gesture of a knife across his throat, wordlessly trying to catch Davin’s gaze.

“We’re an hour away,” Davin says. Then he hangs up.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Renee hisses. “We can’t go to anybody with this! His face is plastered on the news, Davin, everybody knows who he is.”

“I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t necessary,” Davin says.

Renee stares at him so hard, he feels like his eyes are going to bulge out of his head. “You’re not serious. You’re supposed to be the smart one here, what the fuck?”

Davin takes a long breath. “Their whole business model depends on this kind of trust, Renee. If there’s anybody we can count on, it’s them.” He catches Renee’s gaze. “If you have a better idea, I’d love to hear it. What’s the alternative? We could do nothing and let Conrad progressively get worse until his lungs give up and he dies. How does that sound?”

 Renee grits his teeth. Looks again at Conrad’s unconscious form, at the sweat-matted curls plastered to his forehead, and that god-awful breathing. “If they turn us in, I’m gonna kill them.”

“Deal,” Davin says easily, offering Renee a smile.

Renee just lets out a frustrated sound.

Before long, Renee finds himself reluctantly packing down essentials in his rucksack. Fresh pairs of clothes, hygiene products, his phone charger, his wallet. He tucks a few items from his stash into a hole he made in the lining on the back, more out of habit than out of paranoia. If they get caught tonight, the drugs will be the least incriminating thing in his possession.

He picks the gun up from his desk, staring at it for a while before he tucks it into the back of the waistband on his pants. You never know, he reasons.

The twilight has turned to early night, as Renee uses the trip out to his Clio to smoke, hoping the nicotine will dull his nerves somewhat, but it doesn’t, he barely even feels it. He throws the rucksack in the trunk, closing the door with much more force than necessary. Spies up and down the empty street for a while, but the neighborhood is completely empty. Even the raccoons have left for the season. Somewhere far away, he hears the shrieking cry of a fox, the only sign of life.

Inside, he waits impatiently for Davin to pack the rest of his necessities. Once the other finally gives him the green light, he heads for Conrad’s room.

He finds himself uncharacteristically careful in the way he approaches picking Conrad up from the bed. The guy occasionally shakes a little, wounded hands weakly clutching at the fabric of his thin clothes. As they head outside into the cold night, Conrad lets out a pained murmur, and his eyes drift open. His breathing becomes slightly more frantic as he looks around, seemingly unseeing, confused, and fearful.

“You’re good, Connie,” Renee mutters to him under his breath. “We’re just going on a little ride. Apparently.”

With Davin’s help, Renee manages to maneuver Conrad into the back seat without too much of a hitch, laying him down across all three seats and pushing his legs up under him. Davin hands him a blanket, which he awkwardly pulls over the shivering form.

“All set to go,” he tells Davin as he reemerges from the back seat.

“I’m driving,” Davin says.

“It’s a stick.”

“I’m aware,” Davin says. “Give me the keys.”

As they drive down empty lanes, past gas stations and retail stores closing for the night, it occurs to Renee that when push comes to shove, he doesn’t actually know all that much about Davin. He never got around to asking him about his past or where he came from, or if he did, maybe he just never got a clear answer. Maybe he got too comfortable in relenting that Davin is the sort of person who likes to keep his life private, who doesn’t divulge any more details than what’s strictly necessary. Maybe he should’ve tried to do a background check or something.

He can’t help but wonder at it, now that they’re on their way to meet someone who Davin clearly has some kind of past with. Who is Shaun? A relative? A mentor? A former partner in crime…?

They tow the proper speed limit down the interstate for a while. Davin drives like he drove that first night, careful to abide by every law to not rouse suspicion or give the cops an excuse. And like that first night, Renee still feels his teeth are on edge. The gun is a foreign pressure on his lower back. It’s both terrifying and comforting to know he has options in case they do get pulled over.

They pull off the interstate onto a state highway, then onto another, then a main road. The roads shrink and the distance between turns gets smaller. They’re cruising past the suburbs of a major city. The buildings get taller, the trash on the pavement mounds up, graffiti becomes more and more common. Renee gets more and more uneasy, looking out the window, as if what they’re carrying on the back seat is some kind of explosive that might detonate at any moment. On a red light, he catches the gaze of a hooker, who raises an eyebrow at him, a silent question. He shakes his head. If she knew who she just locked gazes with, she’d be calling the police. Instead she gets a pouty look on her face, clearly well practiced, and waves at him as the light turns green.

They pull into an industrial area, where barbed wire fences line the alleyways in between used car dealerships and depot stores.

Davin stops in front of a three-story brick building that’s directly next to the garage of an mechanic repair shop. The illuminated sign out front reads JACKSON AUTO in bold, red letters.

“This is it,” Davin mutters.

But he doesn’t get out. Instead he just sits there, hands loosely gripping the steering wheel, eyes fixed straight ahead, clearly contemplating something.

“There’s something I didn’t tell you,” he says after a while.

“Which is…?” Renee prompts.

“I know him,” Davin says.

“Uh. Okay…?” Renee stares blankly at him. “I mean yeah, I kind of gathered as much…”

“I know him, he knows me.” Davin takes a deep breath, finally pulling the keys out of the ignition. “Just for now, just as long as we’re here… my name is Kit.”

And he opens the door and steps out.

Renee blinks. “Wait, waitwaitwaitwait, hang on,” he mutters, but Davin has already shut the door. Renee scrambles out, trying to catch Davin’s gaze across the roof of the car, but Davin isn’t looking his way. “What the hell is that supposed to mean, dude?”

“Nothing to you,” Davin says over his shoulder, charging up the steps to the house’s front porch.

“Davin!” Renee shouts after him, noticing full well how the name echoes off the nearby buildings.

As intended, Davin stops in his tracks, sending him a sharp look.

“What the actual fuck?” Renee exclaims. “Were you in the—” He catches himself before he blurts it out too loud. Lowering his voice, he hisses, “Were you in the fucking mob?”

“We’re not having this conversation now, Renee.”

Renee throws out his hands. “When the fuck are we having it, then?!”

Davin grimaces. “Later, alright? I’ll tell you what you want to know, I’ll answer all your fucking questions. Can we please just get this over with first?”

Renee lets out a frustrated sound, but Davin is already headed pack towards the porch. Shaking off the urge to follow his footsteps and keep pestering him about it, Renee stays by the car as Davin rings the doorbell.

They wait for the door to open in tense silence.

Breathing is so easy. It’s all smoke to him, all milky white fog, he can feel it spreading out from his lungs to feed his fingers and toes with a slight tingle. He’s pretty sure his mouth is open, there’s no resistance. His body is a prism, parting pale light into colors.

The driftwood voice bops back up to the surface. “—fucking eyes, I don’t have all day.”

It sounds so harsh. Renee twists his body around, turning his face away from the voice. “Nnnnnnngrrrh,” he says into his pillow. The feeling of the duvets fabric on his bare skin is so pleasant.

“Do I really have to douse you with cold water or something?”

At last, Renee is mostly conscious. He lets his eyes peer up from the pillow, not hiding his lazy disdain. “Get th’ fuck outta my room,” he grumbles.

“I’m leaving for a few hours. Conrad is sick. You’re on your best behavior, you hear me?”

Renee grunts, rolling onto his back. One hand rubs the sleep from his eyes. “What time is it?”

“Almost one,” Davin says.

Renee lets his hand drop, letting out a long breath. “I’m still high,” he mutters groggily.

Davin rolls his eyes and leaves the room. He doesn’t shut the door behind him.

It takes Renee a good ten minutes of staring up into the ceiling before he has gathered up the energy to push himself off the bed. By then, he’s heard the front door go, and the house is filled with a silence that would be awfully nice to sleep in. He sniffs a line to wake himself up a little, staggering out into the hallway with heavy footfalls, a bitter taste on the back of his throat, still shirtless from bed. A quick piss and a smoke, that’s all that’s on his mind. That’s his survival until the snow takes effect.

In the bathroom, he gets stuck staring at himself in the mirror. The tousled white-blond hair with dark brown roots growing in, the hint of circles under his eyes, the tired, hooded lids, the stubble on his chin. There’s marks on his torso from the folds in the fabric of his duvet, snaking up his chest and arms, blending in with his tattoos. He looks at his hands. He thinks about putting a gun in his own mouth and pulling the trigger. Frowns at his reflection. “Thanks for that,” he tells it. Then he walks out.

It’s so stupid. He should be in a celebratory mood, given how well that last stream did. Their little fake-out seems to have skyrocketed their viewer base. Fifteen thousand people is a damn decent crowd. And Renee knows it, on an intellectual level, but still finds himself numb to the numbers, as if they’re incomprehensible. As if they have nothing to do with his work.

Maybe it’s just the drugs.

By the time he is done smoking, another high than that of the pills is starting to take effect. The faint dizziness subsides, replaced by a sharpening of his senses, the feeling of a heavy weight becoming much easier to shoulder. He plops down in an armchair in the living room, leg bouncing with the sudden burst of excess energy. As he sets up a first person shooter, he decides that today will have to be one of those days where he does what he wants, when he wants it, with no thought of ought-tos or who cares, lest the thought of banging his head into a wall until his rotten brain is exposed becomes a little too alluring.

An hour or so of uneventful gameplay later, long after the rush has worn off, Renee gets a nosebleed. He doesn’t notice it at first, doesn’t fully recognize the feeling of warmth trailing over his lips, until the bitter taste of blood fills his mouth, and he looks down at the stain on his shirt. “Ah, shit,” he mutters, cupping his hand under his chin.

He gets up, rushing past the dining table and into the kitchen area, where he rips a few paper towels off the roll and haphazardly presses them to his face.

There’s a cough behind him.

He spins around, fist clenched around the bloody tissue, ready to lash out if need be, until he sees Conrad’s form clutching his hands to his chest, entirely unthreatening.

“Jesus! Don’t fucking sneak up on people,” Renee hisses.

“Sorry,” Conrad says faintly. “I just…” He frowns. “Is that blood?”

Renee eyes the stained paper towels in his fist. “Just a nosebleed,” he says, pressing them back under his nose. “What do you want?”

Conrad steps, a little uncertainly. “Just… some water,” he mutters.

“All yours.” Renee points to the cupboard with glasses, then pulls the towel from his face, coiling up a clean end to stick in the offending nostril, tilting his head back.

Conrad seems under the weather, and Davin did say he was sick. There’s something odd about the way he breathes, a faint wheezing sound in his throat for every shallow inhale. It sounds painful, almost, as if it’s a strain. He has to pause to catch his breath after getting a glass, as if the mere act of reaching up into the cupboard winded him.

The more Renee looks at him, the worse he appears. Dark circles under his eyes, fading bruises and scarring wounds poking out under the sleeves of his t-shirt, the bloody abrasions on his wrists that never seem to get to heal. He’s pale as a ghost, skinny to the point where a better man than Renee might have shown concern over it alone. A dot of red has seeped through the newest bandage on his right hand. He fills his glass, and Renee doesn’t overlook the way he takes a few steps away from him to drink.

It's one thing to think about the aftermath in theory, and a whole other, he realizes, to stand a few feet away from it, staring at your own handiwork, the cursed product of your labor. Reality always hits harder.

“I’m sorry,” Renee says, compulsively. It just stumbles its own way out of his mouth.

Conrad freezes, gaze fixed to the floor. His hand grips the glass hard enough for his fingers to turn white. 

Renee clears his throat. “For losing it a bit yesterday, I mean. I shouldn’t have…” He trails off.

Conrad doesn’t look at him for a long time. When he finally does, his expression has hardened. “An apology is the, the last thing I want from you,” he tells him quietly. His voice hitches a little. Then he markedly looks away again.

Renee nods. “Fair enough,” he mutters. “Yeah, that’s…”

His half-chuckle doesn’t ease the tension in the air in the slightest.

Nodding to himself, he decides to carry on as if it doesn’t exist at all, fiddling with the paper towel in his hands, wiping down his nose for the last remnants of blood. He discards it in the wastebin under the sink, then plies a clean piece from the roll, double-checking to make sure the bleeding has stopped.

When Conrad silently goes back to his room, Renee can’t quite place the feeling that’s left in his wake, but he thinks it might be relief. He leans on the sink for a while, closing his eyes, letting his thoughts circle death and gore and mayhem until the nauseous feeling in the back of his throat has subsided.

What’s up with him today? It can’t just be the drugs, can it? Coke crashes can be rough, but maybe this one is just uncharacteristically hard on his mood. Maybe if he crushed up a molly…

He’s taken out of his thoughts by the sound of a coughing fit in the far end of the house, vague behind closed doors. From the sink, he can’t see the door to Conrad’s room open, but he hears it go. Hears sluggish but hurried footfalls, hears another being pushed open, and Conrad’s coughs take on that ephemeral echoing quality that sound gets in bathrooms.

Reluctantly, Renee walks to the hallway, rounding the entrance to the bathroom just in time to see Conrad folded over the toilet bowl, coughing, and retching into it, whole body shaking.

The image is similar enough to that of Conrad bent over the lip of the basin upstairs that for a moment, it’s all Renee can think about. Holding him down as he struggled. The way he twitched.

Once it’s clear that nothing is coming up, Conrad breathlessly sits back on his haunches, one hand pressed to the wall for support. His breathing comes rapid and shallow, making that faint wheezing sound in his throat. He looks up at Renee with utter exhaustion painted on his face, wincing slightly. His cheeks are flushed with color. He doesn’t say anything.

Renee purses his lips. “You’re really not feeling great, are you?”

Conrad wordlessly shakes his head, looking away.

It’s not hard to imply causality.

The moment Conrad stands back up, he gets a distant look in his eyes. Swaying, he takes a step back in an attempt to regain his balance, but then his eyes glaze over, and he tilts his head back, and his knees buckle.

Renee barely manages to lunge forward and catch him by the arm to halt his fall – by the time he gets a proper grip, Conrad is completely limp, half-lying on the bathroom tiles, half-leaned against Renee’s shins, head lolling.

“Shit, Connie,” Renee mutters as he lowers him the rest of the way down, laying him on his back. He takes a few steps away from the unconscious figure. Blinks down at it. Feels a little awkward, as he finds his gaze wandering the room, as if searching for anything that might help in this situation.

What are you supposed to do when someone passes out?

Renee pulls out his phone and punches in Davin’s number. As he waits for an answer, the dial tone loud in his ear, he crouches down next to Conrad. With one free hand, he manages to roll the guy onto his side, not missing how utterly hot and clammy his skin is to the touch. 

Rustling on the other end of the line, and then Davin’s voice is stern in his ears. “Kind of in the middle of something, man.”

“Yeah, but, uh,” Renee says, straightening back up. “I think Conrad is sick. Uh, I’m not just talking about the cough, I think it’s worse than that.”

There’s a long pause before Davin responds. “Okay…”

“He passed out,” Renee adds.

“When?”

“Just now. He’s on the floor.” Renee nudges at Conrad with his foot for emphasis. Not that Davin can see it. “His breathing is weird.”

“Weird how?”

“I dunno,” Renee says. “Quick...? It just sounds weird, okay?”

Davin lets out a long breath. “Get him back to bed, I’ll be back in a bit.” And he hangs up.

Renee curses, looking back down at Conrad. Eyes closed, face flushed with fever, his brow is furrowed as if he’s in pain.

Rolling his shoulders, Renee crouches back down to him, easing one arm behind the back of his shoulders, the other under his knees. Conrad stirs a little as Renee picks him up, letting out a small sound of discomfort, head rolling back. Even while unconscious, he keeps his impaled hand vaguely cupped in the other, guarded.

Renee carries him bridal style from the bathroom, pushing the door to the guest bedroom open with his back, wondering at the amount of heat radiating from the other being, even through the layers of both of their clothes.

Once again, as he’s lowering the limp figure onto the bed, Conrad stirs, eyes fluttering, trying to open. He lets out a moan, and his hand reaches up to grasp the fabric of Renee’s shirt.

Renee gently pries his shirt free, laying Conrad’s arm back down on his chest with the other, where it rises and falls with his quick, staccato breathing.

When Conrad’s eyes finally open for real, he blinks around, disoriented. He catches Renee’s gaze, seemingly too tired to really frown. “Wh…?”

“You blacked out for a bit,” Renee tells him. “Uh, no biggie, just, y’know…” He clears his throat. “Try to sleep, yeah?”

Conrad blinks at him for a moment, seemingly lost in the meaning of his words, before he settles back down into the bed, curling around himself. He looks absurdly small like that, small and strangely fragile.

Somewhat awkwardly, Renee pulls the duvet over his wiry frame and steps back.

What’s he supposed to do now? Would it be risky to leave him to sleep on his own? What if the guy vomits in his sleep and chokes on it and fucking dies? Good luck explaining that one to Davin.

After a quick smoke outside, and a quick trip to the fridge, Renee sits down with a cold beer on the guest bedroom’s desk, pulls out his phone, and settles into his bedside vigil.

On his first night, he slept sitting up in the corner of the bed. He assumes that position again, leaning his dizzy head against the cold mortar, tucking his legs up to his chest, and tries to convince himself that the headrest pressing into the healing brand on his arm isn’t wholly uncomfortable.

He doesn’t get much sleep. Although the cough isn’t nearly as frequent now, it’s still present, and he never manages to find a position to sit in that gives him rest. To top it off, he begins to shiver at some point, alternating between tucking the duvet up to his chin for warmth and throwing it off in a fit of feeling too hot. He does start to cry, silently, in the empty darkness of the bedroom. Exhausted out of his mind, sick with the desire to just lie down and rest. Too tired to sob, he just lets the tears roll down his face, breathing calmly, unseen in the night.

He can’t wrap his head around the gun incident, or the drowning. The memory of both makes him too nauseous to process. Conrad never wanted to know what it feels like to die. And now it’s like there’s a fragment of that feeling that remains with him, like a shard stuck in his throat, or a plume of smoke floating above his head. He can pinpoint the exact memories he thought were going to be his last. Can remember the way his thoughts circled and seemed to stop, at times, as though they were frozen in place. To be that deer on the road, watching the rapidly approaching headlights of a car, overwhelmed with terror and confusion.

Why did it have to be him? What has he done to deserve all of this?

What did he do?

Did he get too used to the comfort of actually having someone? Is that a self-destructive thought?

In the years leading up to when he met Howard, Conrad’s anxiety had been on a steady incline, and for the most part, apart from his dad, he was alone. Most of the time, he could convince himself that he preferred it that way, that the moments of feeling cosmically disconnected, of feeling like a social deviant in some vague, undefined way, were a natural part of solitude, and that all in all, these feelings did not matter. He ate alone in his campus cafeteria, walked alone from building to building in between classes. Spent his weekends walking, or studying in his usual niche in the public library. He could convince himself that he didn’t really mind feeling like an outsider.

In came this confident, vibrant person.

When Howard moved to his city, they lit up every inch of pavement they walked on, like something out of a fairytale. The whole city became brighter. Here was someone whose warmth stayed with him long after they’d said their goodbyes and parted for the night. Someone whose love for the world, and eventually for him, never went unspoken. Suddenly, Conrad wasn’t so alone anymore.

Did he get too used to that?

That’s always the way it is in stories. The universe punishes you for complacency. If this was a movie, there’d be a point to this, a reason why it had to be Conrad specifically, and not some other random guy.

So is there?

By the time the sun starts to rise, Conrad is pretty sure he hasn’t slept more than two hours in total, intermittently nodding off for a few minutes until he’s interrupted by the next coughing fit. When he touches his forehead with the back of his hand, he isn’t entirely sure whether or not the heat he feels is abnormal, it’s hard to tell.

He fishes the screw out from its hiding place, brushing concrete dust and tiny white paint chips from it. It’s been a while since he tried it in the luck, and to his surprise, the screw - more of a nail at this point, since most of the threads on its lower half have been ground away – fits flush in the keyhole, albeit binding if he turns it a certain way. He tries to rummage around in the lock with it, feeling for the internal mechanism, listening intently for the tiny clicks the lock makes when Davin unlocks it with the key.

No luck.

Maybe he has to bend the screw to reach the pin.

Swallowing thick, he looks around his immediate surroundings for a suitable hard surface, decides that the metal bar outlining the shape of the headrest of the bed, which the balusters are connected to, might be his best shot.

On his first attempt, the screw slips around under the baluster and hits his supporting hand, the tip digging into his skin. He shakes his hand, inspecting the impact site, but it isn’t more than a small abrasion. There’s a little blood, but the wipes it away with his thumb. It didn’t even hurt.

On his second attempt, he holds the screw a little more firmly, careful to balance it just right as he starts to put pressure on it with both thumbs. The strain of the muscles in his hands hurt both the fingertips of one, and the impalement wound on the palm of the other, but Conrad keeps squeezing, until the metal tip starts to bend, frustratingly slowly, and the sweat starts drifting down his face.

It takes him a good fifteen minutes, but eventually, the tip of the screw stands at about a ninety degree angle from the rest of it. As far as lockpicks go, it doesn’t look particularly impressive, but it’s all he has to work with.

After a pause to collect himself, Conrad sticks the screw into the keyhole of the cuffs, twisting it this way and that in the hopes of dislodging the pin inside.

There’s a click, and the shackle drops.

Conrad freezes, just staring at the cuffs.

Carefully, he lifts his arm up, filled with something like terrified wonder when the cuffs fully loosen from his wrist and stay behind, and he’s free.

He can’t believe it. Quickly glancing at the closed door,  he picks up the cuff and closes it around his wrist again, then sticks the screw back into the keyhole, rummaging it around until he feels it click again, and the cuffs open.

His heartbeat gets faster. His breath, faintly whistling in his throat, picks up.

He wipes the sweat from his forehead, closing the cuffs again and quickly hiding the screw between the mattress and the bedframe, he sits back, barely containing his excitement, even if it is marred with a notable degree of fear.

Conrad hadn’t even considered what the further plan should be, in the event that the screw actually worked as intended, but he knows one thing: He can escape at night, now, when both Davin and Renee are asleep. He just has to figure out how to get through the locks they’ve placed on all the windows and doors.

He can unlock the cuffs at will. That has to be a pretty good first step.

💵

Breakfast is uneventful, although Conrad doesn’t eat more than a few bites before he is hit with a wave of nausea strong enough to completely curb his appetite, and not even Davin’s gentle prompting can convince him to eat more. Every coughing fit earns him a concerned look from the man, the kind of look Conrad would rather be without, and he tries to keep the coughing to a minimal, but with no real success.

He sits by the dining table for a bit, trying to look casual as he eyes the padlocks drilled into every door and window frame facing the outside, a feeling of hopelessness dawning in his chest as he realizes that his makeshift lockpick won’t do much against more complicated locking mechanisms than the handcuffs. Will he have to break a window? How do you break a window without waking anybody up? He could try wrapping something in a dish towel to mute the noise, but the sound of shattering glass would probably still be unmistakable.

In any case, if he did it at night, if he did break a window, he could still get a head start. He could be running before Renee or Davin had so much as left their beds.

Should he stick to the roads, in the hopes of finding a car, someone who could help him? Renee and Davin would have access to Renee’s car. Conrad could steal the keys, he could, but it’s a stick shift, he doesn’t know how to operate it. If he stole the keys, he could run via the roads with no fear of them catching up to him with the car – but then he’d be betting on the fact that neither has a spare key lying around somewhere, and maybe, that’s not a risk worth taking.

If he went out the back sliding glass doors, he could run through the gate in the fence behind the pine grove. From the dining table, he can see the tree line of a forest in the distance. He could get lost in the woods, and hopefully, eventually, stumble on a road that could lead him to safety. He would be harder to track down in the woods, harder to locate. There’d be more places to hide if they did manage to catch up to him.

“I’d like to remove the stitches from your shoulder today,” Davin says, “if you don’t mind.”

Conrad blinks at him. “Oh, uh.” He coughs into the crook of his arm. “Sure,” he says hoarsely.

“You feeling alright?”

Conrad only grimaces, which prompts a small nod from the other.

“You did say you swallowed some water,” Davin says quietly, as if thinking out loud.

“It’s not that bad,” Conrad mutters. The thoughts of escape have made lighter the painstakingly long unrest of the night. Not that he has forgotten it; it just feels inconsequential. So what, he didn’t sleep well? When was the last time he did?

Davin nods again. He taps lightly on the table. “I’m leaving on an errand run come noon-ish,” he says.

Conrad’s stomach sinks. Maybe it shows on his face, because Davin offers him a reassuring smile.

“I won’t be gone for long. Don’t worry, I’ll tell Renee to curb it.”

Nodding, Conrad rubs his arm. He looks down at the bandages on his hands again, absentmindedly picking at the threads.

His fingers are shaking slightly.

Back in the bedroom, about half an hour later. The sterile saline solution fills the air with a pungent hospital-esque smell. Outside, large tufts of early snow float through the air like flakes of salt to season the earth. Conrad’s exhaustion is starting to catch up to him.

Despite having to pause every time he breaks down in another coughing fit, Davin makes quick work of the stitches. Each time the small pair of surgical scissors brush up against his skin, he shivers with the coldness of them. It’s a strange feeling, that of plastic threads being pulled out of his flesh, but not particularly painful. As the pile of discarded knots in the metal tray steadily grows, Conrad watches it with dispassion, utterly numb to the thought of scarring. All that bothers him is the fit of shivers that dances through him each time Davin’s gloved hands brushes against his naked skin, or if either of them moves too quickly, and the air in the room is stirred and hits his bare torso just right.

Those shivers eventually turn into outright shaking. Waves of it that makes him curl around himself on the chair, even when he tries to grit his teeth and sit still.

Davin puts the scissors down, peeling off one rubber glove to press his hand against Conrad’s forehead. “You’re burning up, man,” he says.

Conrad nods, somehow relieved he at least isn’t making it up in his head. He looks to the metal tray, swallowing down another sudden wave of nausea, rocking a little in his seat. “Are you done?”

“Almost,” Davin says. He brushes a stray strand of long hair back behind his ear.

Conrad manages to sit relatively still for the next five minutes, only intermittently coughing to clear his throat of mucus, as Davin clears the rest of the stitches. Once he is done, though, it’s as if the floodgates open, and Conrad breaks out into a coughing fit so hard, it rattles his beaten body to the core, and soon the nausea reappears, and Conrad finds himself gagging on air in between hacking up mucus.

Davin is quick to scoot a wastebin over with his foot, and Conrad doesn’t even think before he picks it off the floor, gagging into it several times before he finally starts vomiting. He closes his senses to it, tries to go into that far corner of his mind that’s removed from his body, lets it act on its own accord.

Once he’s finally done, Conrad faintly spits foul-tasting saliva into the bin. “I’m sorry,” he says, a little breathlessly, not meeting Davin’s gaze.

“Don’t worry about it,” Davin says with a friendly smile. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before. Any more coming up, you think?”

Conrad shakes his head. He isn’t particularly nauseous anymore.

Davin nods. Once again pulling off the rubber gloves, he discards them on the table, and exchanges the wastebin in Conrad’s hands for a t-shirt. “Try and lay back down, man. You look like hell.”

The suggestion fills Conrad with gratitude. He lets Davin help him with pulling the t-shirt on, lets him lead him to the bed, where he sinks down, curling around himself in the fetal position. Lying on his side, he can cough without feeling like he’s choking on something, and without his arm being tied above his head, lie somewhat comfortably. He tucks the duvet tight under his chin.

By some miracle, before long, Conrad is taken by sleep.

“They expect the worst,” Davin had said, “but they’ll still be hoping for a happy ending. And I want that… acknowledged, I suppose.”

“Why? No, seriously, why?”

He finds his stash, decides to pop a pill before he heads outside for a smoke. He swallows it with no water, shrugging his jacket over his shoulders.

It must be below freezing. There’s no visible signs that the dew on the grass has frozen solid, but the sharp scent of frost bites in his nostrils. The moon is obscured by a thick layer of clouds.

“Because,” Davin had said, stopping himself several times as he searched for the right words. “Because people… average people, I mean, if we’re talking about having an audience beyond just… you know… they’re not going to want a one-sided conflict. They don’t want to watch a man be beaten down only to die lonely and desolate and… disillusioned. They want there to be… something in Conrad’s story that can inspire them. His survival.”

Renee’s usual lighter is running out of fluid. He tries it several times, rubbing his thumb raw on the wheel, but the wick never catches the spark. Digging around in his pocket, he finds a spare, which lights up on the first try, and Renee lights his joint.

The feeling of serenity, of a quieter kind of euphoria, is already spreading throughout his bloodstream. Hands and feet tingling with it, Renee sits down on the patio steps and leans his head against the wall, leg bouncing slightly against the cold. He tries to think about the way the light had left Conrad’s eyes at the end, but can’t fully wrap his head around it before the thoughts dissipate in a cloud of calm complacency. He takes a long drag of the cigarette, watches as the white smoke disappears into the night.

“We might reach the mainstream,” Davin had said, lightly tapping the table for emphasis. “But I don’t think we’re going to stay there if we break his spirit. I think people will tune it out as too depressing. They don’t want to… to face that part of existence. It’s not pleasant to look at, not for anyone who has a sliver of moral decency.”

“Nobody does,” Renee had said with a laugh.

“Not in your world, no,” Davin had retorted without missing a beat. “In his world, everybody does.”

It gets cold, sitting idle in weather like this. Renee tucks his jacket closer around himself, absentmindedly ashing the cigarette as his eyes pan the backyard. Maybe winter is coming early, this year. Maybe a storm is on its way.

“So… what do you want, exactly?”

“I want there to be… a sliver of something beneath it all. Something that’s deep, something that means something to people. And for that to happen, I think Conrad has to be – to remain – willing to live.”

Davin had looked him square in the eyes, an earnest sort of expression on his face, and said:

“A victim isn’t nearly as palatable as a martyr.”