It couldn’t have been from just sleeping on the floor. I’d been sleeping on it every night. I’d…
It all came back to me as fast and as sharp as the slap Breath had given me across the face.
The chair. The ropes. The clamping of my tongue.
“Wrong question.”
Garin’s screams.
My eyes shot open. The only thought on my mind came flying out of my lips, “Garin!”
“I’m here,” he said.
He was standing in front of the sink. I could relax a little now. He must have been the one who tucked me under the blankets and folded one under my head. But had he gotten me dressed? I feared that was Breath. That those vile, repulsive fingers had grazed my skin while he slipped my clothes back on. I was worried his fingers weren’t the only things that had touched me…or dropped on me.
“What happened to you?” I asked Garin, waiting for him to finish so that I could wash my body. “Where did they take you? How long have we been back?”
He said nothing. He didn’t even look in my direction. He just moved his hands under the water.
“Garin?”
He still didn’t answer, so I rushed over to him and grabbed his shoulders, trying to turn him around. The burns and cuts on my wrists stung, but I ignored the pain. I needed to find out what was wrong with him. He wouldn’t budge.
“Show me your face.”
“Why don’t you go lie back down? They gave you some heavy drugs and—”
“Show me!”
“Kyle, I don’t want to scare you.”
“It’s way too late for that.” He still didn’t move, so I dipped underneath his arm and squeezed myself into the tiny space between his body and the sink. “Oh my God.” I did everything I could not to cringe at the sight of him.
He had bruises everywhere. There wasn’t a section of skin that wasn’t darkened to some shade of purple. I couldn’t tell if the imprints on his cheeks were from someone’s fist or the sole of a boot. There were open cuts around his eyes and forehead, dried blood surrounding every one. There was a scrape by his lip. Gashes ran the length of his throat. The wound by his ear looked like it was becoming infected.
“What did they do to you?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“You’re right. You’re alive, but…” I remembered the fear that had crippled me when Breath made me listen to Garin’s whispers. “I thought…” My voice trailed off, unable to finish.
“You thought they killed me?”
I nodded.
“They wanted to.”
I touched the sides of his face gently. “How could they hurt this?”
I brushed my fingers over the bruises, staying clear of the cuts so that I wouldn’t dirty them. There were more than I thought. Some were even hidden in the thickness of his beard, which had grown so much since we’d been in here. He didn’t make a sound the whole time. He didn’t even wince.
“Let me clean it for you.”
“You don’t have to.”
The guilt was almost unbearable. All of this had happened because of me. I owed him much more than just the cleaning of his skin.
“I want to.”
I grabbed several squares of toilet paper, soaked them under the faucet, and gently rubbed the clump across his chin. I was only able to get off a tiny bit of blood before he grabbed my hand and squeezed it.
“Stop. Just leave it.”
I could tell how much pain he was in. He just didn’t want to admit it. And even though I was trying to be so careful, I was hurting him. So, I got up and flushed the toilet paper, watching it swirl around the rusty bowl before it disappeared down the hole.
The next time we were taken, would he return to the cell at all? Would I?
I hadn’t asked Breath the correct question. What if I was only given so many chances to get it right?
“What did they do to you?” he asked, holding my hands, palm up, rubbing his thumbs across each mark.
There wasn’t any blood on my wrists. I suspected that was because Garin had cleaned them while I slept.
What if this was our last moment together? The last time he’d ever touch me?
When I didn’t answer, he picked me up and rushed me over to our bed, covering me in a blanket. “You’re shaking.”
He was right. My entire body was convulsing, my teeth chattering. I didn’t know how the fear would ever leave me, how I would ever stop trembling with these thoughts in my head.
“Tell me what happened