One Blood

Chapter Eighty-One

Chapter Eighty-One

Angola, LA

With an unconscious Jhonnette flung over his shoulder, the stranger led Moses to a covered guard tower adjacent to the building, one of the few dry places left in the prison complex. The last of the drowning prisoners’ screams had stopped a few minutes before and the rain once again trumped all other sound.

Chest heaving with exhaustion, Moses looked at the strange man across from him. As they were making their way through the prison, the stranger had tried frantically and unsuccessfully to revive several of his fellow prisoners. Now he looked shell-shocked and whipped.

“It’s okay, Son,” Moses said in an attempt to console. “There was nothing more you could have done.”

The stranger maintained his defeated posture.

“You know if you hadn’t shown up when you did…” Moses shuddered. He’d danced with death too many times for his own comfort. Maybe silence was best.

The stranger got to his feet and dragged Jhonnette to the railing. As he hoisted her up, Moses realized he meant to throw her over the side of the tower to her death. He propelled himself into the crazed man’s path. “Stop!”

They locked eyes. Moses saw more than lunacy in the other man’s face; he recognized a deep reservoir of regret. “What are you doing? You just saved this woman’s life and now you want to kill her?” Moses asked.

Jhonnette’s torso hung precariously over the wooden banister. The man tried once again to finish what he’d started, but then let her body crumple back to the floorboards. He didn’t even watch her fall back, his focus intent on the human soup below.

“Don’t even think about doing anything foolish, now,” Moses said. “Come on. Sit down. Let’s talk things out.”

“There’s nothing left to talk about, Moses.”

“How do you know my name?” Moses blurted, remembering how the man had called him Tabs.

The man leaned against the railing and sighed. “You know me, Moses. You knew the first moment you saw me. But I imagine that your faith won’t permit you to believe what your mind already knows.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Isn’t your religion built around an unseen mystical figure no one can prove exists? Well look at me, Moses. I exist. Believe in me.”

Moses stared at the man incredulously. The man even spoke in Malcolm’s cadence.

“I know you haven’t seen me without the eye-patch in a while…”

“This is impossible!” Moses proclaimed, eyes wide with fear. “How?”

“I told you there were things at play here you wouldn’t understand. You remember that?”

Moses stared open-mouthed, finally seeing his old friend behind this new mask. “Malc? This…this is a…a miracle.”

“If that’s how you need to think of it.”

Moses’ mixture of confusion and elation was palpable. Questions swirled in his mind.

“You’re probably wondering why I saved you,” Malcolm said. “The funny thing is, I’m wondering the same thing. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”

“You had something to do with this disaster, didn’t you?”

Malcolm met Moses’ accusatory gaze. “And if I did? It doesn’t matter anymore. Duty has denied me from reaching my destiny, yet again.”