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“Hard to explain to the other prisoners if you, a fellow inmate, got one of the better rooms, don’t you think?” Tus said.
“I might be able to come up with something.”
Tus chuckled.
“I suppose you could.”
A moment of quiet passed between us. Tus was the only member of Krial’s personal guard I truly felt safe to be myself around. He was a good man and always did his duty. There were certain topics we never discussed. I don’t know why we didn’t. They were the things that had the biggest impact on each of us.
“How do you keep doing it?” I said.
He didn’t need for me to specify what the “it” was. He must have asked the question of himself as many times as I had.
“We’re duty bound,” he said simply.
I pulled my legs up and turned them so I was sitting on the edge of the sofa.
“I thought I was the only one to think about it,” I said. “Do you think the others do too?”
“Annas? No. She’s too much like Krial to think that way. I think she enjoys it.”
“Rarr?”
Tus shrugged his muscular shoulders.
“Possibly. Who knows what he thinks. Or if he can even think at all.”
“I’m not sure I can keep doing this,” I said softly—so softly it didn’t even sound like my own voice.
“What else would you do? And where would you go? Do you think there’s anywhere you could go that Krial couldn’t reach you?”
“I guess not.”
“The way I see it, there’s only one thing you can do.”
“What?”
“Quit whining like a baby and do something.”
“I’m not whining.”
“Yes, you are. It doesn’t matter what you do, so long as you do something. Get your head straight. Think about the bigger picture.”
I couldn’t say Tus’s words gave me much inspiration. “Just do something,” wasn’t exactly the kind of advice I needed right now.
Then Tus sighed and picked up a small vase that came with the room. We never had enough space to carry unnecessary items like that. He hesitated a moment before picking it up and upending it.
Something rattled on the inside and landed in the palm of his hand. He clenched his hand shut and replaced the vase on the tabletop and turned to me.
“I was planning on keeping this for a rainy day,” he said. “But seeing as your rainy day is already here…”
He opened his hand, revealing a coal black pill. I looked at him and took it.
“What is it?”
“It’s a pill. For… removing mistakes. Don’t ask how I got it. It’s… a difficult memory.”
I looked at him and wondered what he was referring to. He was always so in command of his emotions that I never even considered the idea of him losing his cool.
