“Thank you,” I said.
“Don’t thank me. You’re the only person he’s agreed to talk to in a week. If you can get him to tell you what’s going on around here, then that’s good for everyone.”
“I don’t know if he’ll tell me.”
“Then we’re both wasting our time, but I’m tired of sitting on my hands while the people in this place suffer.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“Good.” We reached the door, and she let go of my arm. “Make it fast.”
Standing in front of the door made my heart start to race. Had it gotten bigger, somehow, since the last time I had been here? Either it seemed like it had grown, or I felt like I had shrunk. Either way, the door loomed ahead of me, tall and dark and ominous, as if daring me to knock. Go ahead, knock, and see what happens.
I brought my knuckles up to knock, but the door clicked, and then slowly croaked open a little. Cautious, I approached, nudging it with my elbow as I slipped into the darkness beyond it. And it truly was dark, in here. The gloom was so thick, and heavy, I could almost feel it pressing around my shoulders, smothering my mouth, my nose, my ears. It was like a physical thing, a cloud of inky blackness, and at its center, there he was.
The Horseman.
I couldn’t see much beyond him, and that was unnerving in itself. I was comfortable in the dark. I could see perfectly in the dark. But this? This was something else. This made my skin crawl as if I were walking through cobwebs. As if ethereal fingers were touching my arms as I waded through the sea of black all around me.
I hated it, but I kept my composure as I approached the man sitting by his desk. Only he wasn’t the man that I remembered. He wasn’t the tall, broad, strong man I had marked with my blood. He wasn’t the man I had touched, and kissed, and even tasted. He wasn’t the man who had made me feel, at times, like the only person that mattered to him in the world.
This man was shirtless and slouched in his chair, with his elbows on his desk and his head in his hands. On his desk, where I was used to seeing all manner of paperwork, was nothing more but a bottle of alcohol, with maybe a sad finger or two of amber liquid left at the bottom. And the papers that should’ve been there were strewn around the floor, as if blown away by a freak wind.
This, like the darkness around him, was a shadow of the man I knew.
I took a hurried step toward him, then paused when he spoke. “Stop,” he growled, without raising his eyes.
I stared at him from across the top of his desk. “Why?” I asked.
“Because you shouldn’t be in here.”
“I had to see you.”
“You had to?” He made it sound like an accusation.
“Yes. I had to. Things are happening and—”
“—I’m aware.” His voice was cold, and short, and distant; and he still hadn’t looked at me. “Go back to your cell, I am dealing with it.”
“Dealing with it?” I looked around. “Dealing with what, exactly?”
“Did you come here to interrogate me?”
“No. I came here because I—” I paused, swallowing the words I had been about to say. “I just spent a week in the hole, and I’ve come back out to find inmates dying left and right, and you’re nowhere to be seen.”
“Because I am busy handling the situation. Is that all?”
I took another, tentative step toward him. “No, it’s not.”
The Horseman growled again, frustration bubbling up. “What is it, then?”
“I didn’t come here to interrogate you. I didn’t come here to question you. You once told me nothing happens in this prison without you knowing about it. I know that’s not totally true. Not really. So, I know whatever’s happening here… you don’t have as much of a handle on it as you want me to think.”
He dragged his hands across his face and through his thick, black hair, then he gave me his eyes and as much as I was sure he wanted me to see only the cold, calculated determination in them, what I was pain. It was a pain so real and vivid, I felt it wrap itself around my chest and squeeze. I felt for him. Not pity, but sympathy.
He was hurting. He, like everyone else around here, was tired. I had heard it also said about the Horseman that he was Harrowgate prison, and if that was true, then whatever was happening in here was taking a physical toll on his mind and his body. What he needed was help, even if he would never admit it.
“Is that so?” he asked, trying to regain some measure of his confidence.
“This morning I watched a man die a brutal death in his cell,” I said, “Some kind of monster had attacked him, mangled him beyond recognition, but it wasn’t a monster anyone could see, or hear. Most of the inmates aren’t sleeping because they fear the beast comes to get you in your sleep, and the guards agree because they aren’t sleeping either.” I paused. “They call it the devil of Harrowgate… and I’m afraid to sleep, too.”
Nothing I had said had caused an inch of change in his demeanor except for the last part. It was the barest of things, a faint flicker in his eyes, but I’d noticed. The Horseman licked his lips and took a deep breath, his shoulders rising and falling with the motion. For a moment, it felt like I’d just gotten his attention, if not his care.
“You should not have had to see that,” he said.
“The problem isn’t that I saw it,” I said, “The problem is that it’s happening, and nobody has an answer or knows how to stop it.”
The Horseman remained quiet for a long moment, his eyes fixed on me. “I am trying to bring control back to the situation.”
“Do you know what’s going on?”
Another pause. “I cannot lie to you, so I will tell you I am aware of what is happening, but I do not know why.”
I took another step toward him. I was at his desk, now—barely a few feet away from him. “Tell me… please. Let me help.”
He shook his head. “Absolutely not.”
“Why not? You can’t do this by yourself.”
“I am not. Warden Wright is also looking into the matter.”
“The Warden…” I cocked an eyebrow, then shook my head. “You have to give me a little more. I can’t go back to that cell knowing less than when I came into this room.”
“Six, you don’t understand.”
I slammed my hands on the desk. “So, fucking tell me!”
He didn’t flinch at my outburst, but he run his hand across his mouth. Something was playing on his mind. A decision, maybe. If I’d had to take a guess, he was deciding what he was going to do to me after reaching across the desk and grabbing my throat; hurl me across the room, or strangle me to death?
Decisions, decisions.
There was a third option, of course—one that also involved his hand wrapped around my throat and this desk. Thinking about it made my cheeks flush red with hot desire. But that seemed so far out of reach, I highly doubted if we were on the same wavelength.
“You should not have come here,” he said, his tone a low growl in the back of his throat. “The best thing you can do right now is go back to your cell, and let me handle this.”
“Go back to my cell and do what exactly?” I asked. “Wait? Rest? Sleep? I am going on two days straight without sleep. I don’t know why I wasn’t affected by whatever is going on while I was in the hole, but I don’t know how much longer I’ll last, and… I know you don’t want to see me get hurt.”