The Gilded Cage

4 - Cold blood is different

The man's struggles increased to a point where it was almost animalistic and insane. His hands flailed up and clawed at Ethel's already aching face, leaving angry red scratches in their wake. Until he managed to gather both the sobbing man's frantic hands and collected them into his left hand, holding tightly. Ethel dug his heels into the mud and forced every drop of strength into restraining the man, all the while praying Roy would hurry the hell up and shoot him already.

A bullet shattered the silence that surrounded the small group, taking along with it Ethel's weakening faith in his father's decisions. Something broke in their fragile relationship with him realizing that normal fathers don't act like that. They don't make their son aid in the killing of an innocent because some kid had had a few drinks. It was wrong, all wrong, nothing was right with this.

For the first time since he was 9, Ethel cried himself to sleep. The ache in his cheek reminding him of what he did to that poor man. Roy listened to Ethel quietly crying all night, their backs pressed together on the small cot. He didn't console him.

For the next few days that lead up until Sunday, Colm planned how they were going to intercept the Van Der Linde gang's train heist and kept Ethel busy with a never-ending chore list. Ethel didn't complain as he usually would. It gave him time to mull over that night when he killed a man. It wasn't his first time. He'd been in several gunfights beforehand where he had killed many men. But that was different. They were outlaws who were trying to kill him. That could be argued as self-defense. This...this was cold blood.

Ethel sat peeling potatoes for half the day. Colm found him soon enough.