“We are caught,” he says quietly. “They know we are here.”
Her eyes widen like a frightened animal. “No—”
“You need a doctor, Ellie.”
She starts to argue, but he puts a finger to her lips. He is just sitting there when the SS Commander lifts his head above the lip of the hayloft, holding a Lugar. Before the man can speak, Revik sits up, raises his hands so they are visible.
“Rolf Schenck?”
Revik nods. “That is me.”
“You are under arrest.”
His wife, still half-lying beside him, bursts into tears.
...Darkness fills me, cold. I hear her last words to him. She thinks he let them be caught, and there is some truth to that, too.
He did not do it for the reasons she thinks.
He has no place to take her, not anymore.
You want to die so much? I hope they torture you! I hope they beat you half to death...
She bursts into tears, clutching at him, begging him.
...And then she is gone, too.
There is nothing to push against, nothing with which to push. A faint whisper of voices speaks softly, a tinge of warmth that he will not let near enough to feel. The light is gone.
It is gone.
...I wake in the dark.
The mind-numbing disinterest remains.
Anger lives here, as well, a wanting of...something. That something is death, but death itself feels unsatisfactory. His muscles hurt from disuse, and of all things he would like to use now, it is them.
He amuses himself with their minds instead, if they are foolish enough to be alone with him. He flexes the only muscle he can, and ignores the voices that grow fainter and fainter as he learns new trails in the light.
They know what he is.
His marriage is void. He was never married.
He gets the followers, too...those who believe him an angel beside them who think him a devil. He doesn’t discriminate; he hates them all. His wife gets her wish, too. They beat him when they’re bored, but it’s never enough...for them, or for him.
He has forgotten the reason that brought him here, the thing that once seemed so important.
It is a story to him now, and childish. In any case, his own people will not come for him now. Not anymore. Perhaps not even before he became a murderer.
This will all end soon. He knows enough to allow it to happen. He sits, leaning on a stone wall. His hands crumple together in his lap, his wrists encased in iron chains. His face is covered in bruises. His skin twitches when a fly alights on a cut, but he does not brush it away.
It happens again. And again.
Then...a clanking emerges from outside.
The door opens and Revik squints as two men enter. Surprise touches his light; his internal clock tells him it is too soon. But these are not priest and guard. The first man is of medium build and wears expensive clothes. Where his face should sit, I see only a blur, a movie screen on which several movies are being projected at once.
The second man I know from Golden Gate Park.
Like Revik, Terian does not appear to have aged. He wears the black uniform of the Gestapo. On him, it looks like a party costume.
“Rolf Schenck?” the man who is not Terian says.
Revik looks the two men over. He doesn’t know either of them.
“I've answered all of your...questions,” he says. “Or would you like to hit me some more?” He raises his bound hands. “Maybe you could take these off? I could use the exercise.”
Terian laughs, nudging the man with no face.
“I'll hit him, sir,” he says. “He seems to want it so badly.”
“No.” The new man’s focus stays on Revik. “No. I think we could find better ways to spend our time together. Perhaps, as Terian here believes, we could be frank with one another, yes?”
Revik gives Terian a dismissive look, looking at the man with no face.
“Does he make you feel safe, worm?” he says only.
The faceless man smiles through his shifting countenance.
“You are operating under a misconception, Rolf. I do not speak for the Reich, nor for any of the human governments. I would like to offer you a job. One you’ll find interesting, I think, even apart from your current lack of options.”
Revik scans the human in the expensive clothes. He cannot read this faceless man. He assumes the seer with him shields them both.
He lets his hands fall to his lap, shrugs.
“I'll be otherwise engaged. Or hadn't they told you they plan to cut off my head?”
Terian laughs, and Revik’s eyes flicker back to his.
“I told you, sir.” Terian smiles, looking at Revik like he’s his favorite new toy. “He will be well worth our time...once we’ve honed the snarl a bit.”
The faceless man acts like he doesn’t hear. “I think we can help you with your little problem, Rolf,” he says. “Or should I just call you Revik? Living amongst us hasn't made you forget yourself entirely, I hope?”