Bloody and Wild

Like a Candle

The foul stench from the rotting corpse hung heavily in the air assaulting Taylor's nostrils and emptying his insides. He had expected Ryder to leave Dona's body in the prison also. He could have watched the stages of decomposition all over again, witnessed how the skin grew taunt and then burst releasing rank juices. As the features began to sink flies and maggots would gather to lay eggs in the warm insides.

Taylor coughed violently, each cough racked through his body making him tremor, by the time the episode subsided he was wheezing horribly. He had become so feeble that he scarcely moved anymore and instead just sprawled on the straw floor staring at the earthen wall. He has lost track of time but it felt like Carver and Gregg had been a long time, perhaps over a week perhaps several.  He wondered if the fools were dead now, he reckoned that they were.

The pups had opened his cell, expecting him and the others to run away with them. As if he could. His cell door was still unlocked, unnoticed by the new prison guard. But it wasn't bars that contained Taylor now. It was Ryder.

Ryder had carried Dona's body up the prison steps, cradling her body as if she were his child. Taylor had noticed the way Ryder had looked at Dona, as if she was a fragile doll that with one careless movement he might accidentally snap in half. But he had killed her all the same.

Taylors eyes were red raw though he hadn't been able to shed a tear, there was no strength left in him to cry.

I don't even have the courage to run away!  

What was a warrior who refused to fight? He had been reduced, everything that made him had proved hollow and he was left with only a husk of skin, bones, blood and shit. The coughing tore through him once more and droplets of sweat trickled down his weary brow.

Like a worm he squirmed and wriggled on his stomach to the bars of his cage.

You've left it too late, you can't succeed and you're too weak now.

Grimly he gripped onto the bars and steeled himself. A man could die if his skull caved in, but could he do it to himself?  

Taylor grunted the first time he bashed his head against the iron. But after that he locked his jaw and remained silent. Blood ran down his forehead and pooled in his earlobe, his muscles trembled as the assault tired. He willed strength back into his feeble limbs.

I am a warrior, he chanted resolutely. I am a warrior. I am a warrior. It grew into a crescendo until suddenly he was yelling.

"I AM A WARRIOR!"

Hands seized his torso and yanked him into the centre of his cell. Taylor was panting heavily, struggling for breath and his vision was blurry. When the room stopped spinning he focused on a dark set of eyes that were staring thoughtfully down at him.

Ryder sat back down upon his ankles and his dark gaze flickered up to the cell door that was swung wide open.

"It seems a shame to die down here," he mused softly.

"I'm useless, I'm nothing. I bring nothing to the world!" Taylor's words were filled with shame and he closed his eyes to avoid Ryder's stare.

"If you truly wish to end your life, then I won't stop you." Taylor couldn't explain why Ryder's words caused him such pain. It was like a knife in his gut has been twisted and pushed in a little deeper and he gave a sharp intake of breath at the shock. The words were confirmation that his life truly had no meaning. "But you're wrong about being useless," Ryder continued, "Taylor the world still has plenty to offer, out of this prison there is culture and a thrilling variety of people. There are beautiful and mental inventions and ideas, and acts of generosity and kindness. In this prison there is suffering but your two friends that ran away also possessed hope. The girl," he indicated the swinging skeleton "symbolises so much more than death. Her life was snuffed out too soon, like a candle with more wax to spare. The beautiful ugliness of waste, in all the possibilities of all she could have been but never will be now. You can decide, if you are truly nothing or if you too would die but in the tragedy of possibility."

Taylor frowned in confusion. "Life is full of possibility but in death there is none. So I leave it to you. Are you nothing or are you in truth capable of more than I can imagine, as I suspect." Ryder spoke with convincing fervour and Taylor felt something stir up within in him, a fresh source of strength to draw from.

"But I can never leave this cell," he protested.

"You've chosen to stay. You're the bars now and your own jailer. But I will spring you free, my bright star, my brother and comrade." Ryder caressed Taylor's cheek with the back of his hand. "Why did I keep you alive if not to let you live."

*

Lauren's back ached as she scrubbed at the stained tiled flooring of the kitchens. Above her head others were at work preparing food, exotic spices filled the air and across the room Lauren glimpsed a cake being iced. Her stomach growled noisily but she ignored it. They might work her hard here but they also kept her well-nourished and lunch would be served in an hour.

She edged forward to be kneeling closer to Roxanne. The kitchen was a riot of clanging pots, heated arguments and the blare of the radio station. Nobody was paying them the slightest attention.

"What's the deal with Thorn?" Lauren asked. Roxanne shrugged her shoulders. "Can he talk?"

"Yeah, he's just the silent type." Roxanne didn't expand further.

"Well? What's he do all day? What's his job?" she asked impatiently. Since her conversation with Ryder, Thorn had become her second shadow. At least in the kitchens she escaped him. Again Roxanne shrugged. "Well is he a good guy at least?" In exasperation, Lauren spoke a little too loudly. Both girls glanced furtively around but couldn't spot anyone looking in their direction. Roxanne edged closer and whispered in Lauren's ear.

"Thorn's been trained by Ryder that makes him powerful and loyal to Ryder. Don't trust him with your plans," Lauren's eyebrows shot up in surprise.

So Roxanne had seen the male clothing, Lauren pondered if Roxanne could also know about the kitchen scissors she had tucked in her sock. The sharp blade felt cool against her shin. Lauren scrubbed the tiles with fresh vigour. Soon she would be able to find answers. The scissors could also serve after as a weapon. Lauren's hands paused in their actions. Could she threaten somebody, if it came to that, could she put the steel against their throat? She hoped to never find out. She didn't want to become a murderer, not even for Lewis North.

"Hey make some space!" Roxanne and Lauren quickly scurried out of the way as two men thundered passed carrying a third man between them. The head cook bustled quickly in their direction. She was a petite, aging woman but with the volume of a fog horn.

"He looks dead on his feet, what you do to him?" She slapped the two men on the arm before turning back and hurrying to put a plate together.

"We didn't do anything, I swear. He just needs a good meal." One of them protested. When this man moved aside to let the cook passed, now brandishing a bowl of hot soup, Lauren caught a glance of the third man. His face was the colour of milk and he looked shrunken somehow, perched precariously on a bar stool. But Lauren recognised the wide hazel eyes and floppy dirty blonde hair that curled slightly at the nape of his neck and the large thin lipped mouth though usually it was pulled up into a rakish grin.

"Mr Knight!" She exclaimed, rushing forward. His hazel eyes flickered up to meet her emerald ones.

"Lauren Fox. What are you doing here?" His brow furrowed in a mixture of concern and confusion whilst Lauren grinned wildly, relieved to see a familiar face at last.

Unknown to them a figure lurked in the back passage. Ryder grinned wickedly in the shadows. Lauren Fox, he'd thought that she looked familiar but now he understood that it was her features that he recognised. She was Oliver Fox's sister. It seemed so obvious now. They had the same eyes, the same large mouth and arch eyebrows and similar impertinent arrogance in how they spoke and held themselves.

Ryder's dark eyes shone brilliantly. A little revenge would be sweet indeed.

This he would savour.