Royal (Terk’s Guardians #9)

Chapter 1

J anna Monroe stared across at Rick, her expression calm, almost blank, but that was the default expression she used as she stared out at the world. They were still in the castle, still at Terk’s huge dining table in the kitchen. She’d even shared a meal with them, as they’d tried to regroup forces. Rick would be her partner in this rescue mission, but he obviously wasn’t happy about it. She continued to study him.

“It really would be better if you just stayed here,” he stated, glaring at her for the umpteenth time.

“That may very well be true,” she conceded, “but you won’t find Royal without me.” He groaned, and she shrugged, as if she hadn’t a care in the world. “Unless you have a finder on board here.”

Immediately everybody turned to Langdon.

So, he must be their finder , Janna thought to herself. Interesting . She read Langdon’s energy and shrugged. “He is indeed a finder, but not the same as I am.”

“And that means what?” Rick asked.

“It means that I’m locked on to Royal’s energy. While I may not know his actual location, I know which direction we should be heading,” she shared, looking from one to another. “Your guy Langdon might have other skills that we could use to make this work easier, but the chances of finding Royal without me are not very good.”

“Do you know what happened to him?” Clary asked, patting her tummy gently.

Janna shifted her gaze away from Clary’s rotund belly, just one of so many here that made Janna’s heart clamp with grief and despair. She shook her head. “No, all I’m getting from him is that he was doing a job for some government agency,” she explained, trying desperately to hold back her emotions. Still, such bitterness came through her tone—a bitterness she hadn’t been prepared to let surface—as the others faced her. She clamped down her jaw and glared at Terk.

He took a moment and looked around at the rest of them. “One of the reasons Janna wouldn’t come work as part of the team some years back was because she has had some issues with government agencies.”

The note of humor in his tone surprised her. Puzzled, Janna stared at him oddly. “And yet you don’t appear to be… Surely this property wasn’t provided for by the US government?”

He shook his head. “Right, you are correct,” he declared, his tone calm, reflective even, as he studied her. “We definitely found some downsides to being tethered to government affiliations.”

She snorted at that statement. “I had a taste of it, remember? No backup. No support. Only take, take, take,” she muttered. “That was not what I would do and definitely not something I signed up for. I did one job for them and walked.”

“Not too happily either, as I recall.”

“No, I basically ran before I didn’t have anything left to even walk away with,” she stated, staring at him, “as you very well know.”

“I do know,” Terk confirmed, with a small smile, “and that was a bad deal.” He looked around at the others and clarified, “Janna was asked to work in Germany on a special project, but it ended up being quite an abusive job situation, as the researcher didn’t believe in the work that we were doing, that Janna was doing,” Terk corrected and then sighed. “She ended up a prisoner, then escaped to get out of Dodge, so to speak.”

“Yeah, ya think?” Janna quipped, with a shudder. “A lot of those government workers cannot be trusted.”

“A lot of them aren’t trustworthy,” Terk agreed. “We went through that exact same hell ourselves.” And then he told her what had happened to them with the CIA and the others. All of it.

She stared, dumbfounded, her gaze going from one team member to the next, getting hard nods and cold looks in return. “Good God, yet you’re doing jobs for them now?”

“On our terms and within our business model,” Terk noted, with a smirk, “because, as you know, governments have lots of money. And money is money, no matter who is paying the bill.”

She blinked at him and then giggled. “Oh, now that’s a really good thing. I’m glad to hear that it works for you because, wow, if I thought that you were still working for those guys…”

“We’re not exactly what you would call working for them,” he clarified, with a wry smile. “We are, in a sense, on a contract basis, but we set the terms. We have our freedom, and we are free to refuse them, if that is our choice.”

“Good,” Janna declared, “because I’m pretty sure a government agency has Royal.”

At that, some of them stiffened.

“What are you talking about?” Rick asked.

She sighed. “I think he’s in Russia,… but I’m not sure. He went over there as part of a group to do a job, and then… I don’t know what happened.”

“How do you even know that much?”

She flushed. “I’ve kept track of him… on the ethers,” she admitted. “I know it’s stupid, and I will not tolerate any criticism from you on this matter. However, after losing my child, it seemed to be the only way I could heal, by keeping a connection open to Samuel’s father.”

The women nodded at Janna, and she knew Terk was studying her energy with that same in-depth ability that he always had, but still, she glared at him. “Yes, that probably makes me psychotic when I refused to have any other connection with Royal, and it also probably makes me look unstable even, but I really don’t give a shit.”

Terk’s lips twitched. “I always liked that about you. A lot of people thought you were just bitchy and bitter. As far as I am concerned, you were always a straight shooter.”

“Always have been,” she stated. “That hasn’t changed. Losing my son was the most incredibly devastating event of my life,” she shared, “and I became incredibly protective of all forms of life ever since, though I’d always been that way to some degree. I had six months with my baby, and that was it.” She looked away from all of them. “All the while I was trying to figure out whether I should tell Royal about Samuel or not.”

“What makes you think he didn’t already know?” Rick asked, his tone cool, obviously not appreciating the fact that the child’s father had been kept out of the loop.

“Royal took off,” Janna snapped, “before I even learned I was pregnant, and I never heard from him again.”

“What kind of time line can you give us on all this?” Terk asked.

“My government work was around ten years ago. The incident with the acid was shortly thereafter. Then I had… maybe a million surgeries over the next couple years to fix my face. Royal came into my life around eight years ago, and I got pregnant,” she shared, with a wave of her hand. She took a deep breath.

“I was lonely, felt hated by the world, and very unattractive, thinking I would never have a relationship ever again in my life. Yet I gave in at a weak moment, and Royal and I had a wild and crazy weekend, which did a lot to reopen some of the pathways I had shut off. When our weekend was over,… he was supposed to call me. Of course he didn’t. So, I went through all kinds of drama. Screw him. He didn’t care anyway . I’m sure you can imagine how that went,” she said, looking at the women, who all nodded.

“What happened then?” Terk asked.

“When I realized I was pregnant, I did try to reach out to him and got no response,” she stated bitterly. “I got nothing on the energy pathways that we had opened and had shared up until then. Nothing. I didn’t know what to think, and I went through the pregnancy alone—the highs, the lows, still trying to contact Royal. After Samuel was born, I gave up trying to contact Royal, as my hands were full.

“Samuel was born with a heart condition, and he had lots of issues. The doctors were still running tests, trying to figure out exactly what the problem was, when he just… didn’t make it. One night he went to sleep as always and… never woke up again.” At this point, she couldn’t hold back the tears. She sniffled several times. “I’m sorry. I keep thinking that I’ll talk about him and not cry the next time. Yet… I just can’t.”

And then two of the most beautiful women she’d ever seen in the world, clearly twins, moved to sit down on either side of her. They each gently picked up one of her hands and placed Janna’s hands on their protruding tummies.

The tears welled up again, and Janna sniffled.

“I’m Clary and this is my sister, Cara. Just because you suffered a loss,” Clary whispered, “doesn’t mean you won’t find joy again. It doesn’t mean you won’t have another child. Yet each one will be different, of course, because each child will be a different soul. However, your son Samuel has moved on, and he is at peace. You should never blame yourself for his death.”

Janna stared at Clary and whispered, “I know. It’s the only thing that helped me survive this. I saw him leave. I was in the room with him and was just nodding off myself. I woke up suddenly and saw this shimmering energy atop my son’s body. I cried out, begging him not to leave, begging him to take me along, and he gave me the sweetest smile, almost as if… a kiss in the wind, and then he was gone. I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t been the same since.”

“I can only imagine,” Cara replied, teary herself.

“In the meantime, I’ve had no contact from Royal, at least not until several weeks ago,” she explained, “and I’ve done everything I could to reply, to reach him, but I can’t. Also I’ve tried everything I could to block him out, and I can’t do that either.” Janna waved her hands in frustration. “At that point I decided, if I desire any sanity to return to my world, I would have to do something to help him.”

“Yet otherwise you’re against helping him?” Rick asked in that same hard tone.

“It’s not that I’m against it,” Janna clarified, “but I understand what I’m supposed to do. I’m confused, yet I want to help Royal, even if for a sense of closure. So that is why I came to Terk, because it’s very much more in your wheelhouse.”

“It’s exactly our wheelhouse,” Rick confirmed, “which is also why I don’t want you coming.”

“That’s nice,” she snapped, stiffening her back and raising her chin in a move everybody recognized. “Yet I am coming along with you, so get used to it.”

“You seem sensible. So I hope you don’t have a death wish—or do you?” Rick asked in that same hard tone.

“No, I do not have a death wish. Do I have a burning desire to live? No, not particularly. I haven’t found the world all that hospitable,” she declared fiercely. “However, I don’t blame Royal, even though I don’t know what happened to us. Yet I’m not trying to fit into some righteous victim narrative either. Besides, it’s way past time to do anything about my life anyway. Samuel is long gone, and I certainly won’t be looking for love or to get pregnant again,” Janna muttered.

“I can only handle so much pain, and frankly I’m well past my limit for that. If you don’t want to help me, I get it, fine. However, not helping me is one thing, but not helping Royal is another.” Frazzled, she turned to Terk, with a head tilt to Rick, as if asking who the hell this guy was. With the tiniest headshake, she got herself back to the matter at hand. “But back to Royal. You should remember him, Terk. You looked at bringing him on board many years ago.”

He frowned at her. “Really? I don’t remember him.”

“You will remember Royal if you ever see his energy again,” she noted, with half a smile. “I’m not sure what’s happened to him and why he’s in this situation, but I can tell you that he’s reaching out.”

Just then Terk’s phone rang. He frowned as he stared down at an all-too-familiar number, one they all knew to be the CIA. He held it up for the rest of his team to see, at least those who were closest, and their frowns were instant.

“You can deep-six that number.” One of the men, she thought his name was Damon, declared with a hard tone. “We don’t need to be taking calls from those bastards. I vote you block it.”

“We all know very well that I can’t do that,” Terk replied mildly, seemingly unbothered. He got up and walked a short distance away from the group to take the call.

Janna could only stare and watch as the others, filled with mixed emotions, stared daggers at Terk’s back. “The US government, I presume,” Janna muttered. “I don’t know anybody else who can cause that kind of universal reaction.”

Clary turned to Janna and chuckled. “You’re quite correct. That’s definitely who it is.” She smiled at the woman. “You do know that healing starts from within, right?”

Rolling her eyes, Janna nodded. “I’ve been working on it, but sometimes it just seems as if we can’t heal so many things. We can’t see that things will ever improve. And some days, with all that failure staring me in the face, quite literally, I just give up. Why bother? I didn’t want to live without my son, but guess what? I’m still here,” she stated bitterly. “It’s not as if anybody’s listening.”

“Of course you feel that way. We all would. As you have no doubt noticed, we’re all very much in the family way around here, hoping these precious lives will go smoothly. But there are no guarantees in life. No matter what, we live with whatever life has in store for us. We also know that the healing work we do…” She hesitated, then glanced at her sister. “Both my sister and I frequently work with people very much on the verge of death, and… sometimes we must let them go.”

Janna stared from Clary to Cara and back again. Janna felt as if she had been splashed with ice water but was too stunned to say anything.

Clary continued. “Sometimes it’s what they need, and sometimes it’s what they want. In your case, I don’t know what happened with Samuel. All I can tell you is that, when death does come, we do believe it’s for the right reason.”

Janna dropped her head and nodded. “I’ve been to hell and back trying to convince myself of that, but somehow it still doesn’t make it any easier.”

“I understand,” Clary replied. “Still, we could do a lot to help you heal.”

“Heal me? In what way?” Janna asked, frowning at her. “I haven’t worked with energy healers before. I didn’t know any who were truly gifted. Most of them… Well, does the word charlatan come to mind?” she asked, with a bitter laugh. “No offense.”

Clary nodded. “Definitely a lot of those are out there, but I can assure you that we are not of that bent and would certainly be willing to do whatever we could to help you heal from that devastating hurt.”

“But in what way could you help me heal?” Janna asked, looking at the twins oddly.

They smiled. “One of the things that’s the hardest to understand is that healing comes from within. We know how much pain you’re in and how little healing can happen because of that agony.” Clary added, “So, if you would give us a few days, we can set your perspective straight.”

“When?” Janna asked. “I’ll go help them find Royal, so afterward maybe? Yet I always pay a price when rehashing those memories of loss. However, when I return with Royal, I’ll probably be more willing to pay it.”

The two women exchanged a glance, then faced Janna. “You’re totally okay if you don’t come back from this mission, aren’t you?”

Janna shrugged. “Not very much in my world is worth staying connected to,” she admitted. “Now, before you get all hyped up, the way Rick over there did, let me be clear. I don’t have a death wish, and I’m not trying to get myself killed on this job,” she repeated, with a smile. “I’m doing this to give Royal a chance at a better life than mine. And, yes, I’m conflicted. I don’t really want to open that door and all the hurt that will come rushing in again. And I,… I guess that might come across as being suicidal, but I’m not.”

Janna gave another wave of her hand. “You need to understand that I’m really not suicidal. I promise. I guess I’m just fatalistic, and my perspective isn’t all that great. I can’t see much on this side of life that’s realistically worth living for. Look at you. You’re all in relationships. You’re all at the start of a brand-new life, which, for you, is incredibly exciting and fascinating,” she shared, looking around at all of them.

“Now look at me. Look at my face. The last relationship I had was with Royal, who then promptly left me. In fairness, we didn’t have any permanent plans, but, yes, he was supposed to contact me, and he didn’t. So, what do you think I assumed was the reason?”

“Yet you don’t know what his reason was. You don’t even know whether or not the reason was within his control,” Clary added, and then studied Janna’s face intently. “You know, living tissue is still there.”

“Sure, and the doctor told me that I can go back for several more rounds of surgery when I’m up for it,” she replied, with a snicker. “As if it’s that simple or that easy.” She shook her head. “I haven’t done any surgeries since Samuel passed, and, at this point, I,… I really don’t care to do any more.”

She got up and paced the small room. “Look. I know that Terk’s on the phone, and I know that you guys need him to be a part of this discussion, but I also need to be a part of this Royal mission too,” she stated. “I really don’t think you’ll survive rescuing Royal without me.”

At that, Terk walked back over to the table, pocketing his phone. “Why is that?” he asked, eyeing her intently.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, “except for the connection between us.”

Terk sighed. “You were correct about that call.… That was the US government, the CIA. They are the same old agency but with new people in charge,” he shared, with an eye roll at the rest of his team. “They have also expressed an interest in getting Royal out. Apparently he’s being held—compliments of the Kremlin—in a prison. The CIA was trying to do a prisoner exchange, which has been refused. The Kremlin states Royal is treasonous, and they want to execute him.”

Janna gasped at that.

Terk nodded. “The trouble with that comment is that it causes lots of drama, but it doesn’t really do us any good. So, the CIA has asked us to help free Royal—illegally of course. So, we will take on this op, and it is totally off the books.” He turned and looked at the others. “Thoughts?”

“Janna was willing to pay, so we don’t need the CIA’s money in the first place,” Rick pointed out. “I’m willing to go. I speak some Russian, though I’m not that great at it. Still, that’s not an issue right now. I would just as soon not come across any Russians, if we have a choice in the matter.”

Terk nodded at that. “We definitely don’t want to encounter any of them if we can help it,” he murmured. “Yet dealing with the locals is our normal approach.”

“We never get any answers from the Russian people,” Rick noted. “You know that. We all do. And so finding those answers could be a bit harder, especially if Royal’s in rough shape.”

“He is definitely in rough shape,” Janna stated. “That’s another reason why I need to go. We need to get to him fast.”

At that tidbit, everybody eyed her questioningly.

She sighed. “When we were together, I realized I could… help him heal. I don’t know why him or even how I did it. I don’t understand how any of that works, but, after we were separated, I used that energy to try and connect with his energy. The fact that he was ignoring me made me angry, but it didn’t change the fact that we have a connection.”

“And you think you can help heal him via that connection? If so, can you heal him from here?” Clary asked urgently. “Can you give Royal energy? Can you do anything at all from a distance right now?”

“I don’t know,” Janna admitted. “I’ve never tried to do this.”

“You need to try it then. It’ll take a little bit of time for our team to get the logistics in place and to sort out things with the CIA,” Clary explained, turning to Terk. “I presume an urgency is attached to this.”

“Yes, there is. Royal’s slated for a firing squad next week,” he told them.

Everybody turned to look at Janna. She was at a loss for words and just shook her head.

Terk turned to Janna and yet kept a watchful eye on Rick, “I get that you want to go, Janna…”

At that, Rick started protesting.

Terk held up a hand. “I’ll send a couple of you with Janna to ensure this goes as planned. However, we don’t even have a plan yet. So, with more of you on board, maybe we can reach Royal faster.” He turned to the others. “Volunteers?”

Calum nodded. “I’ll go. Those Russian jails are the worst.”

“And, if Royal’s an American and a political prisoner, you can guarantee the Russians haven’t been easy on him,” Rick shared, as everybody turned to Janna.

She nodded. “He is in rough shape, but he is there. I just don’t know what that means.”

Clary noted, “You need to tell us exactly what you’re feeling as to Royal’s situation and exactly what you think is going on with his system. If we can get those details, we may be able to give Royal some support from here.”

Cara nodded in affirmation.

When Janna frowned at the twins, clearly puzzled, Clary nodded. “We heal. That’s what we do. It’s… who we are and how we operate, but we do it in a big way, and we can do it from here.”

Janna still stared at them.

“Yes, from here, and that keeps us safe. It keeps our children safe,” Clary clarified, with a laugh.

“And we don’t have much choice,” Cara added, with a light laugh. “As round as we are, we don’t necessarily want to be on the front lines anyway. However, we have gone out and done several jobs onsite, depending on who was involved and the circumstances. Yet, for the duration of our pregnancies, that’s not really in the plans.”

“No, I wouldn’t think so,” Janna agreed, staring at the women. “Still, I’m surprised that you’re even considering being involved at all. You don’t even know who Royal is.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Clary declared. “Not all of the world is inhospitable and angry, and you’ve come from many horrific scenarios in your past that hurt you. And trying to heal when you’ve got as many issues as you’re dealing with,” she explained in a calm tone, “can be very difficult, but it’s not impossible, and we can help you. We would prefer that you stay here, but you’re arguing against that pretty clearly. So I presume you have a reason for that.”

“Yes, and I’m not arguing against it for my sake. I’m arguing because I need to go. I have to. I see no option.”

And, with that, Terk nodded. “So, that ends the argument.” He looked around at the others. “We need to get plans in motion. You’ll be outta here soon.” He checked his watch and then asked Sophia, “We need flights. Can you check that out?”

Sophia nodded. “On it, now that I know how many are going.”

“Immediately, and private if we can,” Terk added. “We’ll need our people to land as near to Russia as possible, preferably without anybody knowing.”

Sophia laughed. “Now this sounds like fun,” she quipped, flexing her fingers. “I’ll set up aliases and get the IDs ready.” And, with that, she quickly disappeared.

Terk faced Janna. “You need to sleep.” When she shook her head, he frowned at her. “The time to argue has passed, and you’ve just hit that wall.” She glared at him, and he smiled. “You’re worried, and I get that, and I’m happy that you came to us for help. The fact is, the CIA will pick up the tab, so that makes it even easier, but the bottom line is that you’re still in rough shape, and we’ll need you up to par for this op, as much as you can be, before you leave.” He walked to her side and then added with finality, “So, go get some rest while you can. Clary and Cara can show you to a spare bedroom.”

And, with that, he turned and looked at the others. “If any of you guys can do anything to help, you know the drill.”

Then he turned and walked out of the room, with Calum and Rick following at his heels.

*

Royal Henderson sank back against the single cot, furnished with a single thin blanket . It was more a sheet than a blanket, but the guards called it a blanket more to mock their prisoners than anything. Royal glanced over at his cellmate, a dangerously thin man, probably five years younger than Royal was, and in worse shape, so Royal kept funneling more energy his way to try and keep the poor guy alive.

“I won’t last much longer,” Bruce muttered.

“Yes, you will,” Royal declared, determined to keep his friend bolstered. “If not, we’ll both go out together.” Royal snorted. “And I’m scheduled to go out next week, right?”

“They’ve been telling us about our executions being planned for months now, but, so far, it hasn’t happened. It’s propaganda, trying to work their psychological games on us.”

“That may be, but this time it feels different somehow.”

“No, they just like to torment us,” Bruce argued, shifting on the single cot. “One good thing about dying though. At least I won’t be so damn cold,” he muttered.

“The cold is jarring, isn’t it? We can never find a comfortable position to be warm. If we ever did, we would probably sleep. Of course sleep deprivation is part of their torture as well.”

“Sleeping wouldn’t be a bad thing either. It’s not as if we’ve had any sleep in a very long time.”

“Not beyond dozing with one eye open, that’s for sure,” Royal clarified, “but even that isn’t easy in here.”

Royal stared around at the small room, roughly eight by six, with two identical cots chained up against opposite walls. Just the two of them were here, so they hardly had any space to move. Royal was pretty sure that he and Bruce were being monitored, which is why he spoke mostly telepathically with the seemingly comatose young man on the cot beside him. Royal knew that the time was coming when the young man wouldn’t make it, and yet Royal was doing everything he could to keep Bruce alive, but it was damn hard.

It broke his heart every time he saw Bruce fade away a little bit more. Royal kept funneling more and more energy toward him, not for the first time wishing that he had more skills, more education, more of any knowledge whatsoever about energy work, so that it would help Bruce more.

Royal also knew that, as soon as Bruce died, Royal’s own energy would surge in a big way. Without the tether keeping Bruce alive, maybe Royal could get himself out of here. However, sacrificing somebody else’s life in order to save himself was crossing a line. Even if Royal were able to get himself out of here, no way he could ever get back in to help Bruce. Therefore, Royal was stuck where he was, doing the best he could to keep the young man alive for as long as possible, meanwhile hoping some help appeared before one or both of them died in here. This place was just a dark hole. Standing by and letting someone die was something Royal simply could not do.

When someone was taken prisoner by the Russians, execution usually happened pretty quickly. Yet Royal suspected some negotiations were happening, some jockeying back and forth. It could involve potential trades for other people. He didn’t know for sure, but it seemed as if he’d been here for a year. More likely it was probably about ten months. He’d lost track of time, and things were sometimes a little hard for him to figure out, particularly when he was funneling all this energy to Bruce.

When the wooden door to the cell slammed open, he didn’t move. It slammed open on a regular basis as buckets were brought in and out. Swill was brought in and given to them, plus water, the ever-present water, which wasn’t usually drinkable, but Royal and Bruce had no choice, so whatever.

Their jailer greeted them with raucous laughter. “This one will not even make it to the firing squad next week,” he declared, still laughing. “They’ll save some bullets with him.”

Royal almost winced at that, hearing the reference to next week. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard about that, but this time he did register it. Maybe it was finally time. As soon as the door slammed shut again, he looked over at Bruce.

His cellmate nodded, then whispered in his mind, See? I won’t make it .

You’ll make it , Royal argued, wishing he could believe it himself. Bruce didn’t deserve this. None of them did. But the Russians were the Russians, and they had their own code, their own rules and laws. Nobody got a chance to even argue their case because they were just taken out back and shot.

At least that’s all Royal had seen from this nightmare. He had come over, supposedly to do a job with the CIA, working with an intelligence department. Instead he had been jailed almost immediately after the job ended and labeled a traitor. He shifted, his own body in agony due to the nonexistent protection offered by the bare cot with a single sheet, and getting far too skinny himself, fragile even. He hated to even consider how fragile he had become. He shifted once more, trying to get comfortable, his mind working around next week’s scheduled execution. He wondered if he was the reason that date had been pushed back several times.

He’d hoped so because it gave him a flicker of optimism, but he figured other people were playing games and trying to get something out of keeping him alive. Maybe they’d given up on negotiating now. Royal didn’t know. He looked over at Bruce and frowned. It was hard to see if he was breathing, so Royal got up and checked for a pulse. It was there but very faint. “Hang on, Bruce,” Royal whispered. “Come on. Hang on, buddy. You can make it, man.”

Realistically he knew Bruce had a pretty slim chance of surviving this ordeal, and that thought just made Royal angry. Angry and hurt that some young man—who had done absolutely nothing wrong—could be in this position and at the mercy of the bitter and angry men at the Kremlin, where nobody cared. As long as Bruce didn’t cause them trouble, they were okay to let him suffer here, until he faded away into nothing.

Frustrated, Royal got up yet again and walked over to the food bucket on the floor. It contained some watery gruel, the only thing that they ever got. It clearly didn’t come with vitamins or nutrients. It was usually hard to get down, and he only ate it because he needed something to keep himself alive, even though it was getting increasingly more difficult for his stomach to accept.

He closed his eyes and just ate, not even allowing himself to think about what he was eating. When he heard an odd sound, he walked over to Bruce, placing a hand on his shoulder, telling him, “It’s okay, buddy. It’s okay.”

The other man shifted, which was one of the biggest signs of life he’d seen out of Bruce in a long time. Royal bent down beside him. “Hey, Bruce, you awake?”

Bruce’s eyes slowly opened, and he looked at him briefly. Then he shut them quickly and whispered, “I wish I wasn’t.”

“Can you eat?”

He shook his head. “No, it won’t stay down. I just want to go back to sleep.”

“I thought for sure you were in a coma, so the fact that you’re even talking to me is something.”

“We’ve been talking,” he muttered. “I know we have been.”

Royal didn’t say anything to that because they had been, just not talking consciously. They’d been talking in a way that he wasn’t sure Bruce could handle, even if he knew.

“That’s right. I’m just trying to keep you in good spirits. Better try some water at least.” With that, he brought some and tried to help him get down a swallow or two. “Sure you don’t want to try and get some of this other down?”

Bruce opened his eyes and asked, “Why? They’ll kill us one way or the other. It’s just so painful while they make up their minds. I wish they would decide pretty damn soon. I’m sick of this.” Bruce shivered and fell silent.

Royal walked back to his own bunk and grabbed his sheet and wrapped it around his friend’s shoulders.

The other man sighed and sank back under again.

It was good that Bruce had been awake for a bit. It was truly sad that Bruce was right in the sense that this was just a painfully endless dawdling torture, to the point that Bruce would be grateful to have it all over with. And that just pissed off Royal all over again. For weeks, he had been sending out messages to anybody out there, hoping maybe somebody would hear him.

And yet he wasn’t getting any response at all,… from anybody. He looked down at Bruce and sent more energy his way, trying to keep him bolstered and in good spirits. Exhausted and too gloomy to continue, Royal sank back down onto his bed, now without a cover, knowing, even if he fell asleep, he might end up with pneumonia. He quickly made a decision and walked over to Bruce, lying down behind him, giving him the benefit of his body heat, even as they shared the two sheets. Then Royal closed his eyes and fell asleep again.