He didn’t know what time it was when his body told him he needed to pee. Boldly, he stepped into the woods and somehow managed to make his way to the facilities. There he peed, washed his hands beneath the glare of the light.
The problem started when he turned off that light because now everything was in pitch darkness, so dark that he didn’t know how to get back to his tent. And he’d stupidly not brought his flashlight with him.
Turning to the left, which felt like the right way, he bumped into a tree, pushed off it, and found himself tangled in another tree’s branches.
By the time he managed to untangle himself, he was in a small clearing surrounded by darkness all around, and by silver shots of starlight amidst dark branches with absolutely no idea how to get back to his own tent. But he had to try. It was either that or stand in the darkness all night waiting for something to eat him. With his luck, it would be a very angry bear.
Moving forward, he stumbled across the uneven ground, arms in front of him, fingers curled, reaching for whatever might be in front of him. Which was, of course, more branches that reached right back, grabbed him, and wouldn’t let go.
Tussling with them like he might an invisible many-tentacled beast, he tried to yank himself free, but fell to the ground, clawing the air, wincing as something smacked him in the face.
In the night, something cracked, a stick of wood, or maybe it had been a shotgun. Blaze went still, hugging his knees to his chest, eyes wide, seeking what was out there. Not that he could stop whatever was coming for him, but maybe he could beg a little bit—
A flash of light crossed his eyes. The crunching sound came closer, more regular now. More like footsteps and not the scary slow drag of some unnamed, unknown beast with fangs.
“Blaze, is that you?”
Gabe’s voice. Solid and steady in the darkness, soothing, something for his ragged brain to grab onto.
“Uh,” was all he could manage, his teeth were clicking together so hard.
“Did you get lost?” The steps and the light came closer until Blaze could look up and see Gabe’s face half-limned by the flashlight.
“No,” he said, but of course, it was obvious that he had.
“Let me help you up.”
Blaze sensed that Gabe was holding out his hand, and he took it, mind going blank as Gabe pulled him to his feet with one steady pull. Up close, with the flashlight pointed at the ground, shining between them, Blaze took his first full breath since he’d heard the news Tom was leaving.
“No flashlight?” asked Gabe, not moving back, not letting go of Blaze’s hand.
“No,” said Blaze, soaking up Gabe’s warmth. “Forgot it.”
“Well, let me take you back to your tent, then.”
“No.”
Blaze couldn’t help it that the word came out a half-shout, barked into the stillness of the night that, as his voice died away, became louder with the wind in the trees, the far away whinny of a horse, the burble of the river along the edge of the main part of camp. Crickets. Maybe an owl, somewhere, in the branches, waiting for a mouse.
“I can’t go back there.”
Panting, Blaze took a breath and tried to reverse that to make it seem that everything was okay so Gabe wouldn’t worry. An impulse to divert and deny, even though he very much enjoyed the sense that Gabe was worried, because in his old life, nobody ever worried about him.
“Why not?” Gabe took a step closer and tilted his head closer to Blaze’s head, like they were about to share secrets.
“I can’t.”
Blaze snapped his jaw shut, but the words came anyway, spilling out of him, about that night and the two prisoners two cells down who’d decided he’d been next on their roster.
How the two guards had come just in time to save him from being raped, but that it didn’t seem to matter in the end because he had been just as scared as if hehadbeen raped.
And how that fear was back in him now, anxiety following him in the dark, especially in the dark, and how only now was it coming to the surface because Tom wasn’t there.
Tom had never stood guard, had never known about any of this, but now that he was gone, there was nothing between Blaze and his fears.
“This wasn’t in the file,” said Gabe when Blaze finally shut up. Then he seemed to shake himself. “I mean, I read the file, so I know why you were all banged up when you arrived, but why didn’t you tell the guards about this when they were there?”
There was no way that Gabe could understand how prison worked. How if you squealed on another inmate, you’d find yourself getting a shiv shoved between your ribs at the most inopportune moment.
