Learning the Hard Way 2

by H. P. Caledon

  “What? Uhm, you mean... on him? You want me to hit him?” Danny asked.

  “That’s a possibility,” Keelan said.

  “I can’t,” Danny said in a small voice and backed away.

  “See, Walter. He’s a good kid who can show you mercy even though you’ve tried to hurt him on numerous occasions. Look, no lust for vengeance in his eyes.”

  “I’m gonna grind his face anyway!” Walter yelled. Danny finally looked angry, but not enough, in Keelan’s opinion.

  “Why?”

  “Fucking man-whore putting out to anyone with something to give him!”

  Danny sped toward them and kicked Walter in the groin. For a second, Keelan was sure Danny’s foot was going to hit him in the nuts, too, but it didn’t. Danny wasn’t done, even though the rest of the assault on Walter was verbal. Keelan learned a lot from it. Like the fact that Danny hadn’t eagerly tried to seduce Keelan to pay for protection but because he had growing feelings for him. Keelan felt strangely... honored, and therefore let go of Walter, who fell to his side, cupping his groin.

  “Come on, Danny, we better take a shower. You’re all sweaty,” Keelan said and took, as always, the wedge.

  “What I said in there,” Danny said in a small voice after Keelan had locked the door to the shower room.

  “About me?”

  Danny nodded and looked away. “You’re not mad about it, are you?”

  “No.” Keelan smiled at him, and Danny got that look in his eye that usually resulted in numerous attempts at physical contact of a certain nature. And he never gave in. Keelan sighed.

  “I know you don’t love me. I mean, if you did you wouldn’t ignore Walter taking me once in a while anyway.”

  “What?” Keelan bellowed and held Danny at arm’s length.

  “You didn’t know?”

  “You could have told me this before we took a shower.”

  “Why?” The lustful look in Danny’s eyes was gone—replaced by pain.

  “Because now Walter is going to bleed a lot, and that usually means I have to shower again.”

  The pained expression was replaced by so many others, changing so fast that Keelan didn’t have a chance to figure any of them out. One seemed dominant, though. Relief.

  Keelan put his clothes back on, but stopped Danny from doing the same.

  “I don’t want you to see this. Stay here and lock the door. I’ll come and get you,” Keelan said, pulled the wedge from the door, and handed it to Danny.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Danny said, taking hold of Keelan’s arm. “It doesn’t happen that often now that you take me with you sometimes.”

  “There were several reasons for this, just never one good enough,” Keelan said, and watched Danny’s burdened expression. Keelan reached up to caress his cheek, and Danny rewarded him with the small smile he needed. He left the shower room and heard Danny lock the door.

  Walter had gone amok in the cell and was destroying Keelan’s two sets of clothes.

  One more reason.

  Keelan pulled the machete which he kept out of sight behind him as he closed the door. Walter turned to look at him.

  “Good thing you’re about my size. You won’t be needing clothes where you’re going,” Keelan said and contemplated alternative methods, since he didn’t want too much blood on the clothes Walter was wearing.

  Walter attacked, and Keelan drew out the machete, knelt, and swung—the pants got their first cut to becoming shorts. Keelan felt confident that he could patch those, though. Walter fell over, screaming and holding onto his legs. Keelan jumped him and led with his forearm, which he aimed at Walter’s throat. A crunching sound was accompanied by a short but feeble fight from Walter’s side. With a crushed windpipe, the battle was already lost, and the clothes wouldn’t suffer any more damage.

  Keelan pulled the clothes off Walter and wrapped the body in the most worn blanket he could find in the cell. He tied the gashes in the legs tightly so the body wouldn’t leak in the cell. He brought the bloody pants to the shower so that they would be clean when he had to sew them.

  Danny was more quiet than normal when Keelan returned from the transit doors. His focus wouldn’t leave the stains on their cell floor.

  “There’s so much. Did he bleed to death?” Danny asked.

  “There’s barely a liter, and people have about four to five, so no, that wasn’t the cause of death,” Keelan said. Danny sent Keelan a look that made him shut up. Danny hadn’t asked because he wanted to know. “He died quick.”

  Danny kept silent and reclined on the bed. Keelan plopped down on a chair and stared at the blemish. He’d tried to clean it up.

  He wondered about the guards just staring at him and asking if he’d finally found Jasper’s killer. Isolation as a punishment was probably too big a risk for the guards, as it would mean they had to be in contact with the prisoners to transfer them. And here he’d thought that the guards in Delta Zeich were indifferent. It was much worse, but ultimately easier. He wondered if that was why these guards weren’t as ruthless. All they had to do was watch and feed the prisoners.

  How much security would there be at the exit? Either all of it or none. Where would it lead to? Out onto a desolate planet with too little oxygen and sandstorms? He wouldn’t be able to get to the docks under those conditions. Yet another good reason to keep the prisoners under cryo on approach—they wouldn’t know anything about the layouts of the dock or the landing or departure procedures.

  “Don’t you feel something when you kill?” Danny asked, propping himself up on his elbows. Keelan looked at him and thought something in his eyes had changed in the way he looked at Keelan.

  “Depends on who I kill. There usually has to be a reason. Like survival.” Keelan moved to sit closer to him. But Danny didn’t seem interested in him right then. The horny look in his eyes was gone, and Keelan felt a bit safer. But also a bit cheated.

  “Was I the reason?” Danny asked meekly.

  “There can be either a lot of reasons or one very good one. You know I never liked him.”

  Danny sat up and flung his arms around Keelan who felt how tense he was. Keelan put his arms around him and wondered why he watched out for him. He couldn’t answer it, as the revelation of Mike having survived gave Keelan something new to think about. What did his presence in the dreams mean then? That he was hunting ghosts and not an exit?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Another early morning, Keelan sat in the dim light and looked through his notes.

  Danny slept. Over the past six months since Walter had died he slept longer and heavier. He felt safe—a luxury Keelan didn’t have. He tried to remember a time where he’d felt safe when he fell asleep and woke up. He didn’t find such a memory.

  Enjoy it while it lasts, Danny.

  Keelan looked at his notes again. Something clicked in his brain, and he tried to get a handle on what had just happened. But it made sense, and he went over the result again and again.

  “Danny! Up, now!” Keelan shouted and ran to him.

  Danny flailed his arms, drunk from sleep, and finally managed to focus on Keelan. “What? Food?”

  “Food, sleep, and sex are the only things on your mind,” Keelan said, smiling. “Put some clothes on, we’re going out.”

  “Food, sleep, and sex. Are there other goodnesses in life worth my time?”

  Keelan cupped his face to look him in the eye. “Yeah, freedom.”

  “You found it?”

  “Maybe, let’s go look. But we have to stop by Johannes first. You’re staying with him while I check it out.”

  “Why?” Danny demanded, pulling on his clothes.

  “Because if I’m not right, or the place is heavily guarded, then I can’t escape them running with you. I’ll check, you wait for the all clear.”

  “You love me,” Danny stated as he pulled on his socks. Keelan stopped his gathering of notes and looked at him. Danny just grinned and blew a kiss at him while pulling o
n his shoes.

  Maybe for your blind faith in me. And then it hit him why he’d protected him. Trust. Keelan had always thought that trust was something to be earned, and there sat Danny with eyes full of trust.

  Keelan felt a pang at the memory of Mike’s eyes. They had shown trust once, even though it hadn’t been the same kind as Danny’s.

  Johannes looked at them tiredly as they barged through his door.

  “If I found the way out, do you want to know about it?” Keelan asked.

  Johannes suddenly didn’t look tired anymore. “Have you?”

  “Maybe, but I need help. If I’m right, I’ll check whether the coast is clear. You watch him in the meantime.”

  Johannes looked at Danny and nodded before he got up, dressed, and followed them out the door. Keelan took them to the octagonal rock and looked up.

  “Here’s his sign.” Keelan pointed to the window.

  “No one drew on the windows,” Johannes said.

  “No, the window is the sign. Here’s the exit.” Keelan tapped his foot on the octagonal rock. “The center stone. The Mining-steps on Verion four have one, too, but it’s no longer in the center. They always make an extra way in and out. A safety.”

  “How do you get it up?” Danny asked.

  “We lift in each hole,” Keelan said.

  “The holes indicate the original ends to the labyrinth,” Johannes said.

  “Maybe,” Keelan said and pulled out three ropes he’d made from old blankets. In one end, he tied a short piece of pipe.

  “These blanket ropes aren’t strong enough,” Danny said. “They’ll snap.”

  “Yeah, but only if they’re dry.” Keelan pulled out a flask and soaked the fabrics in water. He then inserted the pipes into the holes and pushed them through before pulling the rope taunt—the pipe locked on the back of the stone. Finally, he handed the rope to Johannes and did the same with two other pieces of rope, one for Danny and one for himself so they could help each other lift the stone free and step to a side to place it on the floor. Beneath was a dark hole, which Keelan shone into. They smiled at each other.

  “Good thing you woke me up so early. You have an hour, tops,” Johannes said as Keelan dumped another rope into the darkness.

  “Yeah,” Keelan said and looked at Danny’s nervous expression. “If I find the way out, I’m gonna come back for you. If I don’t come back, then I’ve been caught... and lobotomized.”

  Keelan sighed heavily and shook the thought from his head before he jumped in. Another blanket wrapped around the machete and a glow stick gave him the light needed to see the walls. Even here there were symbols, but just one—the same one the old man had drawn on the walls of all the hallways upstairs. Keelan followed them and found a new piece of wall made with bricks and mortar, and it just happened to be the size of a door. Keelan growled and managed to pry a stone out. Behind it was one more. He knocked at the newly revealed stone with the handle of the machete, but it didn’t sound right.

  Shit!

  He ran back to the hole.

  “Hurry, someone could come any moment now,” Danny said. “Did you find it?”

  “Yes,” Keelan said as he hauled himself up through the hole. “They closed it up with bricks and mortar. And it sounded like they did so thoroughly. Without knowing what’s on the other side, we can’t waste time knocking it down. It could lead right into a guardroom, for all we know.”

  “Which way was it, could you tell?” Johannes asked.

  “There,” Keelan said and pointed it out on the center stone.

  “They rebuilt that area twelve years ago,” Johannes said.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Twelve years.”

  “Let’s get this back in its place,” Danny said. They lifted the stone back, and Keelan cut the ropes, letting the pipes fall to the corridor below. They packed up and went to Johannes’ cell to wait for the food bells to go off while talking about alternatives. None of them believed in any, though.

  To pass the time, Keelan continued to teach Danny to defend himself, but he also knew that Danny’s only interest in the lessons was to have close physical contact with Keelan. Keelan wasn’t too thrilled about that, but the adoring look in Danny’s eyes warmed him anyway. Spending life with Danny wasn’t the worst sentence in the worlds, since he’d finally learned to live with the fact that Irgang was one he couldn’t escape from alive.

  Almost three years had gone by since he’d been dropped off there.

  Johannes had, despite his belief in the teachings of the Fallen Disciples, turned out to be a good friend, at least to Keelan, as they had both grown up at Churchburrow. Why Johannes was in Irgang, Keelan didn’t know. He’d asked once, but Johannes had just looked at his wringing hands and said that he had sinned. The codes on his arm told of murders, but Keelan knew there were lots of reasons to kill someone... even good reasons if you didn’t restrict your view of the matter by only using the law’s definition on legally excused murders.

  Danny’s tattoos offered up a few codes Keelan didn’t know. He didn’t want to ask, though.

  Keelan sat at the table and read a book he’d swapped for Walter’s shoes. Danny came to stand close behind him.

  “You dreamed again last night,” he said and gently massaged Keelan’s shoulders.

  “They’re annoying, because I can’t do anything about it. Not from in here.”

  “I have a reoccurring dream, too. But it’s just colors, like liquid colors. They’re incredibly beautiful, and sometimes I see them in the day, too. Like daydreams I can’t control—”

  “Keelan Hunter, prisoner ID four, six, seven, two, come to transit gate number three. Pack up, you’re being transferred. Keelan Hunter, prisoner ID four, six, seven, two, come to transit gate number three. Pack up, you’re being transferred,” a voice blared over the speakers.

  Keelan turned and looked at Danny, who looked like a flogged puppy. Keelan got up but sat back down. Then he got up again and looked around the cell.

  “I’ll help,” Danny said and looked away, but Keelan could clearly hear the strain in his voice—he was devastated by the news. Keelan was ecstatic, because maybe the new place didn’t have a closed off escape route. But he was also scared, because he didn’t know what kind of new sick rules he’d have to learn.

  Danny packed Keelan’s clothes with slow movements, and Keelan used the time to write a short but sweet note for the young man. Something for him to hold onto.

  “Danny, can you find your way up there?”

  “No.”

  “You gonna stay here, then?”

  “Congratulations, Keelan.” Johannes stood in the doorway. “I’ll show you the way.”

  “You wanna come? Johannes can take you back.”

  Danny nodded and took Keelan’s bag.

  “Keelan Hunter, prisoner ID four, six, seven, two, come to transit gate number three. Pack up, you’re being transferred.”

  “Coming,” Keelan grumbled and let Johannes leave the cell first. “Wait two seconds.” Keelan shut the door, so he was alone with Danny. “I’ve spent more than half my life in jail. My time with you was... good.”

  Danny gave him that lopsided smile of his, but it didn’t hold a lot of sincerity. “You love me,” he said and laughed half-heartedly.

  “Maybe a little,” Keelan said and felt that he wasn’t being completely truthful, but Danny’s smile brightened. Keelan had never wanted to kiss him, not even the times Danny had managed to seduce him, but before Keelan managed to get his guilty conscience under control, he’d put an arm around Danny’s shoulder and pulled him in for a kiss on the lips. Danny flung his arms around Keelan’s neck and tried to deepen the kiss, but the speakers saved Keelan from having to stop him.

  “Keelan Hunter, prisoner ID four, six, seven, two, come to transit gate number three. Pack up, you’re being transferred.”

  Keelan smiled at Danny, stroked his cheek, and left the cell.

  A guard sto
od restlessly and tapped a foot on the floor while Keelan watched him, wondering what would happen. Another guard came their way in a hurry.

  “The ship transferring him doesn’t have a cryo-coffin with an insert that fits ours,” the guard said and pointed to a contraption similar to the one Keelan had been wheeled into prison on.

  “What? So we have to transfer him without sedation?”

  “I’ll play nice.” Keelan offered a smile to the tripping guard.

  “Ha, yeah, I’ve heard that before! His idea of nice wasn’t the same as ours.”

  “How much do you weigh?” the other guard asked.

  “One hundred twenty-five kilos last I weighed in,” Keelan said.

  “Under no circumstances am I hauling around one hundred twenty-five kilos of dead weight if he’s being transferred unconscious,” the other guard said and pointed at Keelan.

  “Me neither!” the other one said and left with the first in his wake. Keelan sat and reclined against the bars so he could see the guard room. About fifteen minutes later they came back with another guard.

  “Shacked, and I follow with this.” The new guard held out a gun for Keelan to see. “There’s a sleeping poison in here powerful enough to make a varanuide drowsy. You’ll be out for three days and then suffer a week with the worst fucking hangover you can imagine if you make me use it.”

  “I think my idea of behaving is very similar to yours right now,” Keelan said and looked at the first guard, who chuckled and nodded.

  “Come here, back to me, and kneel.”

  Keelan did as asked, and after following another few instructions he was securely fixated with his hands behind his back and his legs shackled together by less than half a meter of chain. The two guards held Keelan back against the bars by his arms while the third grabbed a fistful of hair and pulled his head back to place the bit in his mouth. Keelan was sure he lost a handful of hair in that process, but they were finally done and opened the door to let him step out. They pulled a hood over his head and led him away. It took a while, with such a short chain between his feet.