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“Have they helped you?”
“I’m still here, aren’t I?” he squeezes me closer, and I sense that this is something that means a lot to him, that touches him deeply. Too deeply for words.
“You are,” I nod.But for how much longer?“I want to hear, yes.”
He starts in his low, rumbly voice that is more of a comfort than any words. I close my eyes and try to forget any other sound other than his voice exists. The shots are getting closer and closer together. I don’t think about the shots. I concentrate on his words.
“The Lord is my shepherd,” he says, “I will not want. He leads me to the still waters. He restores my soul. He…”
He goes on like that for a few more seconds.
Then he stops, the vibration of his voice echoing in the empty space like a living thing.
“I would live differently if I had a chance to do it all again,” he says after a moment or two of silence. “I would make a future for myself. Be worthy of you saving my life.”
“You are worthy of being saved,” I say and he shakes his head.
I think of the beautiful words he just recited. How amazing if you actually believe them.‘The Lord is my shepherd.’
“Can you repeat the words?” I ask and he does, more slowly this time. I repeat them after him, trying to learn them by heart.
“Such calming, lovely words,” I say. “Imagine living a life like that.”
“Yeah,” he says, “that was the plan. And then…” he waves his hand around. “The army happened.”
“Although I’m not sure I get it,” I frown. “Does having a shepherd mean that you’ll live like everyone wants you to? Like a sheep?
“A sheep can have a shepherd,” Marco says. “That’s the point. Well, if he’s a good shepherd, then that makes life worth living. Not easy, necessarily. But worthy.” I think of all the things my life has led me to. My ‘shepherds’. The palace people, my father, the king. I have been led by them in everything, and where has that gotten me? In a barn, waiting to die. Drowning in lies. “What does a wolf have?” Marco says. “Victims.”
I shudder.
It seems that I’ve been living among the wolves all my life.
“Tell me where you grew up?” I ask him quickly, as shots start falling over the door in a shower. He makes a movement as if to stand, then changes his mind. His jaw is tight.
“Florida,” he says.
“I’ve always wanted to go.”
He lets out a harsh laugh. “What are you, sixty years old?”
I shrug. “The sun,” I say. “I love the sun.”
He coughs, the sound echoing in the half-darkness.
“Fine, I’ll take you,” he says.
“Tell me.”
“I told you. I’ll take you,” I feel his lips stretch into a smile against my ear.
“What we’ll do,” I say. “Details. Tell me everything.”
I swallow tears, and he starts talking. All lies.
He is still talking about Florida’s beaches, as per my request, when they finally shoot down the door. I had held on to some remote, stupid hope that more reinforcements would arrive in the meantime. After all, we’ve been in here for hours. Marco has done so many things to buy us time, enough time for another squad to reach us. But no.
The door is down, and soldiers come flooding in, their machine guns on fire. Shots ricochet off the walls, but we’re safe inside our barricade. The shots stop, as the soldiers see our hideout. Marco jumps to his feet, mid-sentence, and leaps over me, covering every inch of me with his body. He reaches for the machine guns, his belly on the floor, his body shielding mine. I’m lying down on the ground too, but I don’t even look at the men. I don’t want to. I only look at him.
