The Loyal Alone

Chapter Fifteen

"What he did to me?"

"Miss, I cannot begin to explain." I hear him hunch over, I hear the pads of his hands against the floor, the shuddering breath as he exhales through his teeth. "He stopped being my son in law. Stopped being human-"

"You stopped," I said quietly.

"Hmm?"

"You said that the kids and their grandma thought you were both dead. That he stopped being a father to pursue a cure. That he stopped being human."

"Yes?" He sounded nervous, desperate. His deep breathes were being rocked by emotion this way and that.

"You stopped too," I whisper, looking away.

"I stopped..." He seemed to think about it for a long time. "With all of this, I've lost the ability to call myself a grandfather, I stopped being a human being along the way..."

"Can you- unchain me?"

"Have you eaten?" He asks reaching for my wrists.

I nod, but I know he cannot see me.

I feel the weight lessen. It's the kind of lessen that a rope would feel when a dead body has been hanging too long, and it was finally cut down. Stuck with the thought of its actions, but no longer carrying the physical burden of them.

"I cannot remove the bolts now," he says, "but the chains are gone." He reaches for my shoulders and I slink away from him. But he is persistent, and I cannot fight him, he helps me stand up.

"Lord, Jesus. Only 5 days and you weigh less now." We walk forward, and he sits me on the bed. "Gently," he warns, "Careful." When I'm sitting he lets go.

"Can you turn on the light?"

"No, there is a camera, it turns on with movement, if I turn on the light, it will see us. It can record everything."

I say nothing.

"I've brought clothes. Water. Here, finish the food." He hands me several things at once, but I cannot tell what they are.

Some of it feels like cloth. I feel denim, and I start to put the jeans on first, but my wrists are too weak.

"Please, eat, drink. Tell me when you're done. Gain your strength for what's next, we have to move quickly. Olly is sleeping now, so we only have a little time before he wakes.

"What is the plan?"

"This time?" He pauses. "We run."

"We?"

"I'm leaving too. I will let you get a head start, use fox trails so they cannot track you easily. After a few minutes I will sound an alarm, and, in the chaos, I will escape. I will point them in the opposite direction you ran, and then, when the coast is clear, I will run towards you. When we are safe, I will finish undoing the sliver in your arm, so you can heal properly, and we will split paths."

The sound of freedom... Oh how much hope can do for you when moments before you wished for death, but freedom is so close, it is all consuming.

"I'm ready now," I say.

"No, eat first. You'll have to run some ways away from here." He is on his knees, putting on my shoes, when suddenly, the lights click on, and their ever intrusive 'thrum' reverberates around me, through me.

They are blinding. I felt alienated. But I knew there could only be one person in the door way and it had to be Olly.

"I knew it," He sneered. My vision was adjusting, his white coat blended in with the walls and sparkling light. All I could see is a strip of sweater and a floating head. "I knew they couldn't have all just escaped. I'd been waiting this time. Waiting......"