Page 51 of Intrepid

Something slammed. Something thunked. The bedsprings jangled and squealed. And through the shuffling and cries, I noticed one thing.

Eli had gone silent.

Light blasted into the room, as Fox slammed through the door. “What the fuck did you do, boy! What did you do?”

“I-I-I-I accidentally sh-sh-shot ‘im! It was an a-a-a-accident, Fox, I swear!”

My muscles turned cold, frozen. Ice crystals branching from where the stab of pain struck my chest, out to my limbs that’d gone numb.

I waited to hear they’d gotten it wrong.

The bullet didn’t hit him! He’s okay!

Shuffling. Squeak of the door.

“Shit. Ah, shit!” The disappointment in Fox’s voice failed to confirm it in my head.

Even if the silent pause had grown so deafening I wondered if I’d lost my ability to hear, I didn’t believe it.

Another minute passed, though, and Eli remained silent. Not a cough, a gag, or a moan. As if he’d left the room entirely.

For one brief moment, I envied him.

My whole body trembled and shuddered, a sickness rising up from stomach. I breathed through my nose, but couldn’t get enough air. A scream sat trapped at the back of my throat as the pressure built inside my head, so intense, it felt as if my face would explode any moment.

“How the fuck’d you get my gun?”

“You—” A loud clatter followed, and startled my muscles.

Tears gathered in my eyes, the sting shooting up my nose, summoning more.

“Eli!” I screamed incoherently through the tape. “Eli!”

The snot and tears blocked the air, and I gagged and sniveled, crying out for my best friend. My brother. Thoughts of him lying there, his mouth covered in bloody gauze, eyes dull and vacant, was unimaginable to me.

Curling myself into a tight ball, I allowed the misery take over me, and fell blissfully into the crackling blackness waiting to pull me under.

* * *

C’mon, boy. Git up.” The voice scraped down my back like razor blades across my bones.

The door of my cage sat open, and all I could make out was Fox’s shadow on the wall in front of me.

Like a bull seeing red, I twisted around and charged forward on my knees, growling and screaming, with my hands bound behind my back, my mouth taped. Once out of the cage, I bounded toward him, but stopped short when his hands gripped my shoulders and, with little effort, held me back.

“Calm down, son.”

My muffled words wouldn’t break through the tape, which only brought a new round of frustrated tears.

Fox tore the tape away from my mouth, and the second I was free of the barrier, I charged again.

“I’m not your fucking son! You piece of shit! You killed him! You killed him!”

A cold hard slap smarted my cheek, and stars floated before my eyes as I stumbled back a step.

“Now, you best calm yourself, boy, or I’m gonna have cut out your tongue.”

Part of me didn’t care if he did, but the wiser part knew that if I made it out alive, I’d need my tongue to send the rotten bastards to prison. I breathed hard, staring down at the worn, gray concrete floor, and the streaks of blood where they’d dragged Eli’s body out of the room.