Shut up.
“Yes. Phelps locked me down here.”
“I see.” His voice sounded stronger, no longer so dry and raspy. Squirrel guts must make a serviceable lubricant. I scraped more clay out of the hole, wondering what to say next. I had so many questions that I hardly knew where to begin.
Are you sure you even want the answers?
Really sure?
(the crunching sound of tiny ribs)
… yes. I do.
Stupid question. Of course I wanted answers. I always did, didn’t I?
“I thought you were with them,” the man said.
My laugh could have etched glass. “I’m not.” I tested the board again. It continued not to yield in the slightest.
It occurred to me that I was being extremely short with a man who had, let’s face it, been manacled to a wire table for at least a week, probably more. I was not in the best emotional state myself, but compared to what he’d been through, the last few days had been a pleasant stroll through the woods.
“Sorry,” I said, stepping back from the hole. “I… um.” I glanced over at him, at his limp hands hanging down like rain-blown peonies, and the long, dreadful nails. “You’ve been down here awhile,” I said finally.
He made a rough clicking sound in his throat. It took me a moment to recognize it as a laugh. “Yes,” he said. “Awhile.”
He turned his head a little when he said it, and perhaps it was because of the better light or just the angle or something about the way he held his mouth, but suddenly Irecognizedthat face. I knew him. I had seen him just recently, not as a living man but as a watercolor sketch, the planes of the face sketched out by someone who thought he was handsome, even though there was nothing handsome about him now.
“My god,” I said. “You’re Saul Gregor.”
CHAPTER 18
“I am,” said the man chained to the table, “though I fear you have the advantage of me.” Another hoarse, clicking chuckle.
“Sonia Wilson,” I said automatically, and my brain was so far gone from normal matters that I actually thrust out my hand to shake. We both stared at it, and then I said, “Oh hell, I’m bad at this,” and pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling tears start to threaten again.
(You’d think being in mortal peril would eliminate any sense of social awkwardness, but apparently it just means that you get to spend the last moments of your life embarrassed.)
“It’s not something you get good at,” Saul said.
A fly buzzed somewhere in the room and I hastily shook my sleeve back down over my hand. “I looked at your manacles,” I said. “I don’t know if I can break them.” They were great heavy things, the locks welded shut with rust. I doubted that my faithful enamel pan would be able to smash through them.
“That wouldn’t be a good idea right now,” he said, somewhat cryptically, and closed his eyes again.
“It can’t be very comfortable.”
“It’s not.”
I swallowed. My mouth felt dry, but it was probably nothing compared to his. “Are you thirsty? I have a little water left.”
“Keep it.”
“I have most of a biscuit—”
“No.”
This was beginning to remind me of when my father wasdying. I would ask if he needed anything—tea or fresh pillows or more blankets,anything—because dying was too large and I couldn’t fix it but at least I could make tea. Toward the end, he had wanted less and less, and eventually I realized that I was just trying to make myself feel as if I was helping him.
Except that my father had pneumonia, and Saul Gregor was chained to a table, and the two weren’t similar at all, were they?
