Page 10 of Flames and Blood

The hatch clicks shut behind them. I watch them go down the hallway past the board. If I lean to the left on the cot, I can read that board. Today’s date is circled in a color none of the other dates use. Two more circles ahead of it, evenly spaced.

Courier days.

The young guard from my first night still logs the morning paperwork. He brings his coffee down with him now, which he didn’t do the first morning; the smell of it arrives before his boots do. There’s a fresh nick on his jaw this morning, and when he catches me glancing at it, his hand goes up to cover it.

“You’re going to run out of face,” I say.

“It’s a new razor.”

“It’s a new razor every time with you.”

He sits. He could log from the far desk. He logs from the near one.

“Big day for the courier,” I say, just to fill the silence.

“Twice a week.” He turns a page. “Rush job today. Client bumped the pickup.”

“The client bumps a lot.”

“The client—” His mouth shuts hard enough that I hear his teeth.

I let it sit. Pushing isn’t how this works. Slow is how this works.

“Can I ask you something?” he says, after a while.

“You’re the one with the keys.”

“Is it true you can’t fly out of a mountain? Someone said you have to jump off something.”

“Someone’s an idiot.”

“So you can?”

“I can do a lot of things. Right now I can sit on a cot.” I shift on the cot, and he doesn’t flinch today. That’s progress. “What’s your name?”

“I’m not telling you that.”

“Fair enough, sir.”

“Don’t call me sir.”

“You’d rather I called you by your name?”

He opens his mouth and closes it, and I laugh at him. His ears go red at the rims, and he almost laughs too. Almost. He looks at the door first to check who might be in it.

“Where does the hallway go?” I ask, like I’m bored, because I am bored, but that’s not why I want to know.

“Out.”

“That’s the whole building? A hallway and out?”

“There’s the wing they haven’t finished. It’s just walls.” He catches himself and does what he always does after: he sits up straight and reads the folder. “I’m not supposed to talk to you.”

“You’re not talking to me. You’re complaining about your razor.”

He turns two pages without reading either of them.

“Do they make you work nights outside?” I ask.