by Lisa Henry
Ciaran could see no more than twenty people in and around the camp, but there was evidence of others: blankets and mattresses underneath tarpaulins and inside old cars. More than enough for this small group. The rest must have been out hunting, or robbing. The nature of the camp made Ciaran wonder if the group was transient. Maybe people came and went as they pleased. It had that sort of feel to it. A collective, rather than a hierarchy, for all that Rabbit had called Garvan “boss.”
He didn’t look very boss-like to Ciaran, wandering through the camp with a few small kids trailing eagerly behind him.
Women and children. A community. This was nothing like Dublin, Boru’s twisted colony of lost boys and brutes, all struggling to come out on top, each playing his role in Boru’s hyper-macho power fantasy with Ciaran at the very bottom of the pile. Raped. Humiliated. Abused. Debased. And all so Boru could feel like more of a man.
Well, he wouldn’t feel like a man for much longer if Ciaran had any say in it.
But have I any say in it?
To hell with his doubts. He’d get back to Dublin and do anything and everything in his power to help Maureen and her Milbourne Avenue rats bring the bastard down. He’d destroy Boru’s kingdom of boys, and then he’d stick around to see it replaced with something better, something healthy and wholesome and healing. Women. Children. They could plant crops, recover some of the stolen art, free the slaves that hadn’t yet left Ireland’s shores. Maybe Dublin could become a permanent home for these vagrant bandits.
And then, one day, Ciaran would return to the North, not as a pawn or a bargaining chip, but as a man and an advocate, and they would reopen the borders and let the refugees return home to rebuild. He had to believe it was possible. And the dream seemed more alive to Ciaran than it had in months as he looked around the bandits’ camp. No brutality here. No slaves. No men reduced to their most base urges. A community.
Movement caught his eye. He turned his head to watch as a child came running into the camp from the surrounding trees.
“Garvan! Garvan!”
The bandit leader walked over to meet the child. They were too far away for Ciaran to hear what was said, but Garvan nodded, patted the child on the head, and glanced at Ciaran.
That short, sudden stab of fear was unaccountable.
Ciaran drew a deep breath to steady his frayed nerves. “Rabbit—”
“Sorry, Danny.”
“What?” Ciaran could hardly hear his own voice over the sudden roar of blood in his skull. He tried to stand, and Rabbit gripped him by the hand and pulled him back down.
“Don’t give us no trouble,” Rabbit said.
Ciaran tried to wrench free, but Rabbit wouldn’t let him go. Ciaran pushed at him, attempting to get an elbow between them, and found himself sprawled on his back on the grass with Rabbit straddling him. Rabbit was skinny, but he was strong. Stronger than Ciaran after his months of captivity, but maybe not as desperate. Ciaran shoved him, and almost succeeded in pushing him off, except suddenly he was outnumbered. All around him, shadows loomed. The men who had been tending the fire, the one who had been skinning the animal, even the women were there.
“I really am sorry,” Rabbit said, sitting on Ciaran’s chest now, his rough hands pinning Ciaran’s wrists into the dirt. “I wish you were really Danny. I wish your man hadn’t come after you. I wish we didn’t have to play nice with the madman from Dublin to keep our babbies safe.”
“Please,” Ciaran said, squeezing his eyes shut. “Please don’t send me back to him!”
From free man back to begging slave in a heartbeat.
“Tie him up and gag him, Rabbit,” Garvan said, his voice clinical and cold but not cruel.
Please, not cruel.
“Please,” Ciaran begged again. “I’ll do anything. I will. Anything you want. I can send Darragh away. He wants us both, right? Boru wants us both? What if I send Darragh away?”
Above him, Garvan shook his head solemnly. “Can’t be done, lad. If word gets out you passed freely through my territory, my people will not be safe. Sorry. It’s the price we pay.”
“Wh-what about the price I pay?” Ciaran asked. His chest heaved against Rabbit’s weight. He was hyperventilating, now, the panic overtaking him. “He’ll hurt me. He’ll torture me. He’ll kill me. Please. Please, please, mercy. Nobody will know I was here. I’ll leave, I will. I’ll leave right now.” He knew it would have been nobler to offer himself up, to give his body in protection of Garvan’s people, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t, not knowing what was waiting for him in Dublin. Boru would be furious.
“Do you know how long it takes to kill a man?”
“Gag him,” Garvan repeated and pulled a long, oil-splotched wad of fabric from the front pocket of his coveralls. “And put him somewhere safe, where the other one will know we have him. We can’t risk him passing us by, but he can’t know it’s a trap.”
The other one. Darragh. Why couldn’t he stay away? Why couldn’t he just have gone home with his broken heart?
Surely it wasn’t because Darragh wanted Ciaran’s ransom, or even revenge for Ciaran’s betrayal. If he wanted those things, well, he’d get them now, at the price of his own life. But if it was something else he wanted, something different, something that Ciaran had seen in the longing in the man’s eyes … Well, that, too, was out of the dumb culchie’s reach.
Darragh wasn’t supposed to have followed him. He was supposed to have gone home.
Rabbit took the length of fabric from Garvan and stretched it taut, wedging it between Ciaran’s teeth and behind his head. It tasted awful, and it tripped his gag reflex, bringing back terrible memories. Boru’s cock stuffed in his throat, riding him until he was raw, until he nearly puked. Boru’s men all taking turns while he was tied up and helpless.
He’d be going back to that.
The tears streaked down his face. His nostrils flared as his panicked lungs tried to take in air. Rabbit grabbed him by the shoulder of his shirt and hefted him to his knees. Someone pushed him forwards then, face-first into the dirt.
“Hey!” Rabbit cried at whomever loomed behind Ciaran and was now wrenching at his hands and feet, hog-tying him. “You don’t have to look like you’re enjoying it, so.”
Ciaran whimpered. Maybe the presence of women and children didn’t ensure anything at all. Maybe it was human nature to hurt and rape and dominate. Jesus, he could even see the kids watching. Curious, not afraid, as though he were nothing at all.
Rabbit touched his shoulder. “Don’t cry, little birdie. No use in crying.”
No, no use in it, but Ciaran didn’t think he could stop. Didn’t think he’d built up enough hope to have it broken all over again, but that’s exactly what had happened. His hope was such a fragile, tremulous thing, and they’d ripped it away and shattered it. He stared up pleadingly into Rabbit’s eyes. Please, you have to know this is wrong. You have to realise there’s another way. You can’t let them do this to me. Please.
But maybe this was the answer after all. The only answer. Ciaran had wanted to help people, hadn’t he? This wasn’t what he’d had in mind, but maybe he should stop being so selfish. Take Boru’s brutal punishment so that these children didn’t have to.
He was still scared, though. So, so scared.
Please, he thought.
Rabbit looked away. “Come on and help me get the birdie into that car boot over there.”
Hands hefted Ciaran off the ground, carried him awhile, and dropped him again into a musty-smelling, carpeted boot space. There was still a rusted, old wrench left over from whoever had last driven the car.
Rabbit’s voice sounded from behind him. “You won’t have to wait here long. They say your man’s less than an hour’s walk. He’ll find us pretty easily, I think.”
Was that supposed to serve as a comfort? Ciaran didn’t want to see Darragh again, not ever, especially not if their reunion would end at Boru’s feet again. Because however much Ciaran told himself he hated the man
, Darragh didn’t deserve that. Nobody deserved that.
The boot slammed shut.
In the dark, in the quiet, it wasn’t so terrible. No, if Ciaran could have stayed safely locked in here forever, he could have been happy about that. Because happiness, it turned out, was nothing but freedom from pain. And he had that, even in this moment, if only it would last. He was bound and gagged, but he didn’t hurt. He wanted it to last forever. Ciaran didn’t get to ask for the things that other people did: love, wealth, a long life. If he’d ever had the chance for those things, he’d squandered it along the way. All he wanted now was not to hurt, and that was a hopeless wish anyway.
Boru would make it hurt.
Ciaran fought against his rising panic.
“Do you know how long it takes to kill a man?”
No, no, no. He whined, moaned, arched, thrashed. The rope bit into his wrists and ankles. At least he was still clothed.
Not for much longer. Boru would have him naked. Would parade him through Dublin’s streets that way, make an example of him, and the worst thing was, after these scant few days wearing clothes again, Ciaran would feel the shame anew. He’d already lost that barrier he’d built up, that acclimatisation to humiliation that had allowed him to bend over for men in public, had allowed him to walk the halls of Boru’s stolen palace with cum dripping down his thighs, had allowed him to suck Boru’s cock while Darragh watched. Had allowed him to tell Boru he loved him.
It would all be gone, and he’d be back at square one, the same scared, terrified young man Boru had taken over the bonnet of their aid van and fucked until he was hoarse from screaming.
Boru would strip him down to nothing, down to his nakedness, down to his scars and goose bumps and rope burns. He’d want to cover himself, but Boru wouldn’t let him. His face would burn. Men would laugh and taunt him. He’d be no better than a cowering animal. Maybe he’d cry. Maybe he’d beg. It wouldn’t make a difference.
Boru wouldn’t grant him mercy.
“Do you know how long it takes to kill a man?”
In the darkness, Boru’s face seemed to appear. Those black eyes, that cruel, delighted smile. And his voice, gleeful, mocking Ciaran every single time.
“Do you know how long it takes to kill a man?”
Ciaran whimpered and squeezed his eyes shut.
“As long as I fucking like.”
Darragh headed warily in the direction the child had indicated, wishing that he had a weapon of some kind. He didn’t like the idea of walking straight into a bandits’ camp with only his fists to defend himself. Maybe he could bargain with them for information and safe passage with protein bars and his first aid kit, but there was probably nothing to stop them from robbing him of whatever took their fancy. That was what bandits did, wasn’t it? It seemed silly, now, the way he’d told Boru that he was too big for bandits to bother. Dublin had ruined Darragh’s naive pride. The world, and the people in it, were much more terrible than he had ever imagined. And much more complicated, when he considered Ciaran.
The more he thought about it, the more he realised he couldn’t just go bumbling into the camp. Once, he could have believed that the people would be safe and civilised enough to approach and reason with.
Not anymore.
He’d stay here, he decided. Watch them, try to get a feel for who they were and their habits. See if he could spot Ciaran among them. And then, at nightfall when most—if not all—of the camp was asleep, he’d sneak in and get Ciaran back, whether he wanted to leave or not. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d kidnapped Ciaran in his sleep, after all. And then Darragh would drag him all the way north before he had a chance to go back to Dublin and get himself killed.
The day was drawing to a close already, the sky softening into dusk. Darragh walked on, reaching out to run his fingertips along an overgrown blackthorn. They grew at home, and the faint, familiar scent flooded him with sudden homesickness and a sudden flash of memory: playing hide-and-seek with Aiden when they were both small, before Aiden was too sick for games. Aiden had crawled under the blackthorn hedge in the bottom field. Darragh hadn’t even thought to look there because of the spikes. Aiden had been brave like that, always more reckless than Darragh.
Darragh was too big now to even think about squeezing into a blackthorn. He moved on until he found something else. He took his pack off and pushed his way into the bushes. It was difficult to get comfortable. Twigs and branches stabbed at him, but he ignored them. He reached into his pack and pulled out a protein bar. He brought it to his mouth with difficulty, the branches snagging and tugging.
After he ate, he waited for dark.
He heard footsteps once. Too heavy to be a fox or a dog. It must have been a person, passing very close. Then, just as the first stars appeared ahead, he heard a low, angry murmur of voices. He must have been close to the camp.
He waited until it was dark, until it was quiet, before he moved again.
He could smell smoke on the air, and something being roasted. It made his mouth water, and on this cool, windless night, it was easy enough to trace the smell. He saw the flickering firelight in tiny flashes between the trees first, as though through tightly knit lattice.
Yes, much better to have waited for night. This way he would see them long before they saw him.
What he saw—a sprawling camp made up of rusted cars and makeshift tents—didn’t interest him as much as who he saw. Or didn’t. There were men, mostly, with some women and children. But there was no sign of Ciaran.
Had he been and left already?
Or had they cut him up for the cooking fires?
Darragh had no idea if the notion was fanciful. He’d heard stories of bandits before. Even Boru’s madness hadn’t extended to cannibalism, though.
Maybe, knowing he was being followed, Ciaran had hid also.
Or maybe the bandits had hid him. Against his will?
Darragh watched cautiously from behind the trees that encircled the camp.
He saw a large redheaded man with a beard sitting by the main fire with a child in his lap. The leader, by the way the rest stopped to speak to him. Occasionally men appeared at the edges of the camp, stepping into the faint glow of lights from the nearby fires, approached the leader, and vanished into the night again. All serious, all armed with clubs or sticks. Darragh couldn’t see any pattern in the arrivals and departures. Once, a man passed almost within reach of Darragh. He froze, but the man didn’t notice him crouched there.
He thought he saw the same child who’d directed him to the camp, but he couldn’t be sure of it.
A youth with wild dark hair spoke with the leader next, his gestures wide and expressive. The child on the leader’s lap tugged at the lad’s pants, and Darragh watched as he drew something out of his pocket. Darragh was too far away to see clearly what was going on, but the boy put the thing on the backs of his fingers, his palm held out over the fire. A coin, maybe? Whatever he did, it made the child laugh and the leader smile. The lad finished off his routine with a shuffle of his feet and a quick spin as graceful as a dancer’s.
The child clapped.
Darragh watched as the graceful lad dipped a cup into the large metal bin beside the fire and brought it, dripping, to his mouth. Then he refilled the cup and headed out to the edge of the camp alone, out to the shadowy shape of an old car propped up on cement blocks. The lad fumbled through his pocket a moment, then pulled out a set of keys, one of which he put to the lock at the boot of the car. The boot’s door lifted.
Someone was inside.
Darragh’s breath caught in his throat, knowing, even before he saw that familiar golden head, who it was. The bandit lad reached into the boot, and then Darragh heard Ciaran’s voice, although Darragh was too far away to make out the words.
He sounded distressed, practically hysterical.
The bandits were keeping him prisoner.
The lad half hauled him out of the boot, and Darragh winced. Ciaran was tied, hands to ankle
s. The lad dragged him up until he was propped against the edge of the boot, taking his weight on his stomach. The lad hooked the gag out of Ciaran’s mouth, then held the cup and tipped it back until Ciaran had no choice but to drink it or wear it. Then, patting Ciaran on the head, the lad shoved the gag back in his mouth and pushed him back down.
The lad slammed the boot shut again, and Darragh’s gut clenched at the sound.
They’d gagged him, the animals. Somehow that made Darragh even more furious than everything else. That they’d gagged that beautiful, clever mouth, stolen Ciaran’s words and his voice, the most precious parts of him.
As furious as Darragh was with Ciaran, he didn’t deserve this. He was probably terrified and hungry and in pain, and every ounce of Darragh’s body ached to save him, help him, make him safe.
He watched the lad thread his way back through the camp, towards the leader by the fire. He couldn’t let the lad out of his sight because Darragh needed that key. All he had to do was wait for an opportunity.
For the next while, Darragh watched as the camp slowed down. The bandits tamped their fires and retreated into their shacks and tents to sleep. Only a couple of men stayed by the fire, chatting and drinking. The dark-haired lad with the key was among them. Eventually, what felt like hours later, he said something to the other men by the fire and headed for the edge of the camp.
Taking a piss. Now was the time. Darragh rolled his aching shoulders and crept from his hiding place.
He’d have to be quick and quiet. Grab the lad from behind and cover his mouth so he couldn’t shout. Take the key. Get into the camp and out again as quickly as he could. At least Ciaran wouldn’t fight him—wouldn’t be able to the way he was bound—but wouldn’t want to, either. Better the devil you know.
