Only their eyes speaking those words they didn’t dare to say, the drowning sun’s colors in them as dusk bended into night, the crickets starting their songs, rhythmed but their hearts. Those wounded hearts, beating as one.
Chapter 15
The nightmare came deep into the night, something unexpected, maybe because of all those memories stirring in the depth. Blood dripping from a mouth which kept hissing words. One eye on him. Impossible. Howling. Waking drenched in sweat, that howl barely a moan as he twisted on his back, gulping for air. Heaving, trying to breathe above that panic. The soft shush of air, that darkness laced with a faint light. He jolted at a hand on his chest, almost flailing it away when his voice stopped him, cutting through the haze.
“What’s wrong?” Worried, scared too.
Duncan blinked, wiping the sweat out of his eyes, taking in the room, the windows on that night sky, raindrops sliding down on that smooth glass. He pushed himself up to sit, trying to even his breathing with all those techniques they had taught him. Scared, that the vault of his memories had been open. That those liches were free to roam again. Feeling Spencer sit next to him, lean softly against his shoulder. Silent though, maybe drenched in fear too.
Duncan sighed, taming the trembling of his lips. “I had a nightmare… happens sometimes.”
Spencer traced his arm. “You’re soaked…”
“That happens too… it’s rare.”
“You want to try and get some sleep?”
Duncan knew he couldn’t, alert, his heart pumping that frightened blood around. “No… I can’t… but just sleep. You need it.”
Feeling Spencer take his hand. “I’d rather not leave you alone with your thoughts.”
Duncan smiled, his eyes on the raindrops racing down the window. “I’ll be fine, don’t worry.”
Spencer rubbed his hand softly. “Tell me.”
“What?”
“Your nightmare. Whatever you want.”
“You don’t want to know, believe me.”
“And maybe I do.”
This time, Duncan looked at him in that semi-dark, into those dark eyes waiting with a determined light. All that selfish, mocking smile gone too. A genuine care in his eyes, his touch, the way he seemed to want to know about his ghosts.Shit.But Duncan wasn’t sure, even if he somehow wanted to pour his soul out to him, he wasn’t sure Spencer would be ready to hear it.
“And maybe I don’t want to fuck you up…”
“You mean fuck me up more? What else can you do that hasn’t been already done?” His dark smile, that dark light in his eyes.
Maybe… Maybe…Duncan clenched his fingers on Spencer’s. “Alright… it’s not pretty… so if you… so if after you want space, even to run, I’d get it.”
“Is this about Patrick?” Daring to bring that name to the light on his lips.
Duncan’s eyes, pits of sadness and grief. “Patrick, yes… and what happened to me before I got retired…”
Spencer nodded, holding his hand tighter. “Just tell me, Righteous.”
Duncan leant back, his eyes a bit lost, holding Spencer’s hand. “We were on a mission and got captured. Where and when doesn’t matter, not to you, but those bastards wanted information, or maybe even get a ransom, I don’t know… I had no idea after a couple of days of torture…”
Days blending into nights… They had been tied to metallic pipes and radiators in a small room, cramped together, and taken away one by one to be beaten up, electrocuted, flogged and whatever the fuck they could come up with, their captors. Some of the men died during their torture session and their corpses got thrown back into the room to rot. He had been tied close to Patrick, but could not reach him, not even if he wanted to, but their eyes could meet, that light in them only they knew. He had told Patrick not to give it away, what they meant to the other so those bastards wouldn’t use it against them, but Patrick was younger than him, a tall, lean guy with dark blond hair, and genuine blue eyes, with a wide smile that could melt the sun. Terrified, but determined to play tough, he had been taken away once and brought back bruised and battered, but he hadn’t talked, nor did Duncan, despite him being their leader, and getting beaten up with a metallic rod. They wanted him alive though, tiring too at their silence, at the fact that they kept killing the men, and none of them spoke. Duncan thought they could wait it out, maybe, until the rescue team arrived. But the corpses kept piling up, his men, his friends, and only four of them remained out of the original eight. And one day, one of those tormentors walked in to pick one of them out. Looking around, he turned to Patrick and in that small moment of panic, in fear and wariness, Patrick looked at Duncan. That look could not be mistaken, not even by that man standing over them as they knelt in their own piss. Duncan could rememberthat split second of sheer terror, the man’s smirk as he turned to Duncan. He could remember his hand, drawing a gun, could remember that his own howl burst with that gunshot. He could remember the smell of gunpowder and blood, his wrists threatening to break as he struggled against the cuffs. That sheer disbelief when the man moved and he saw Patrick hunched on his knees; his wrists still tied to the pipe behind him. Half his face had been blown off, the blood pouring freely from that horrid wound. He was howling, he knew, all his discipline gone in that blast, in that sudden death of the man he loved with all his heart. Shutting up when the man yanked his face up by his hair with a nasty grin. Duncan knew what the man knew too. That they had weakened him to the point of breaking.
He was hauled away then, more men coming in to grab him under his armpits as his legs were too weak and hurt to carry him. Maybe he had fought with whatever strength he had left, hoping they would kill him. Wanting that death. Visions of Patrick’s dead body flashing in his mind. Thrown on a table, face down, his legs kicked apart. He was held tight, and he froze at the voices above him. Maybe that man who had pulled the trigger, maybe others.
“You’ll talk or you’ll regret being born.”
Duncan clenched his jaw, and closed his eyes. Fuck you. His lips trembling, still. They cut his pants open, cut his shirt too on his back, a man pushing his head on that table, hard, as others held his wrists. He had no illusions what would come, but in that violent shock, he just let himself go, his mind drifting somewhere where they were safe. Crying out, still, clenching his teeth when a first man took his turn. Rocking with the table, his face pressed against that hard wood. Tears sliding down his cheeks, but after that first cry, he kept quiet, just breathing as best as he could. Jolting at that sharp pain on his hip, knowing what a knife cut felt like. Laughter. That’s one, tough guy… Noidea what was happening, but the men kept taking turns, and that cold knife came back each time one of them finished. Verging insanity, he was losing consciousness. Abused, starved, drenched in pain, his body giving up, finally. They didn’t give him the relief of death, and he got hauled up, dragged down that corridor, and thrown into the room amidst the others’ shouting, rattling their handcuffs. Gunshots, several, that small room filling with the stench of gunpowder and blood, joining the stench of death from the corpses. Duncan was face down, and he stayed there, breathing softly. He had bitten his lips to the blood, but somehow, was alive. Maybe they thought he’d die too, and didn’t bother putting a bullet in his head. Maybe they’ll be back. Drenched in that abyss of pain, he cried softly, just resting, gathering whatever strength he had left. Lifting his head with great pain, he turned it to the side, locking eyes with Patrick’s corpse. Crying, but he crawled there, those few steps already agony. He crawled into that cooling pool of blood under Patrick’s knees and curled up against his thigh, lacing his arms around it as best as he could. He looked up, straight into that one eye which had stayed open. Glazing over with death, but Duncan just clung to it. To his words ringing in his head. Stay alive, Duke. A nickname that had died with Patrick. Stay alive. Knowing what he had to do, but he waited a few moments, to gather his wits, those bare threads linking him to some sort of sanity. Forgive me… Pushing his mouth in all that blood, he started licking it off that hard concrete. His blood… keeping a piece of him this way, feeding his body on that thick blood whilst he held on to that cooling thigh drenched in blood. Licking, swallowing, his starved and thirsty body screaming at him. More. More. Whatever he could scrape too with his hand, suck out from Patrick’s pants. Madness. Maybe he was mad… but it felt good, even if his stomach was revolting, it still felt good to feed afterdays of agony. Crying softly when he had licked up what he could, holding his cold body, curled up against him. Wishing for death too, every step on the corridor making his body clench, even if he knew he could not even lift a finger. Darkness.
Waking to hands on him, shouting, and he flailed at them, howling, dead scared that the men were back… Hands grabbing his feeble hands, pushing them down. A voice. A language he could understand.
