His vision was blurred and his eyes barely opened , he remembered where he was when the pain in his head became piercing .There was a lot of blood beneath his feet and two guards were standing next to the door watching him.
They had stricken him repeatedly on face and on his abdomen, he had been branded with cigarette butts while the guards had laughed satisfied for burn marks that were visible on his back.
They had stripped him and at one point slashed him leaving him naked and chained legs and hands in the center of the cell for days
Red knew he was going to die and very soon. He didn't bother trying to bargain with God, he had never answered his pleas, anyway.
In the years he'd been father and criminal and a warrior . A protector also : her protector, her sin eater . He had always known that he would die some way or another ,preferably in a quick way without a way that would be worthy a tale around a fire.
This wouldn't be that sort of death unfortunately.
He would either be executed in whatever great event that the Director had planned to make the most of his demise ,or he would die down here in this putrid ,damp cell for the infections that were slowly and surely destroying his body.
It had started off a small wound in his side ,courtesy of the fight he had two weeks ago when that man, Mr Solomon had tryed to kill him and Lizzy.
He'd hiden the slice along his ribs from the guards who looked over him ,hoping that he'd either bleed out that it'd consumed and kill him before the Director could use her against him , his Lizzy.
His execution had to be a trap for her , a way to lure her into risking an attempt to save him,because she cared about him and they knew. He 'd die before he would allow them to do it .
He just hadn't expected it to hurt so damn much.
He concealed the fever from the sneering guards who fed and watered him twice in a day,pretending to slowly fall into dark silence ,feinting that the prowling ,cursing man had broken.
The cowards wouldn't get close enough for him to reach and they had not noticed that he'd given up trying to snap the chains that allowed him to stand and walk few steps but no more.
He couldn' stand very much at all exept when forced by his body 's needs ;the dagradation of that was something that had already been experienced in other situations, but nothing that he could get used.
At last he hadn't been forced in one of those collars he had seen in the first cell they had dragged him that night everything went to shit.
He would bet money that ,that form of torture was reserved for someone he cared for and he prayed that whoever that person was , had died before the Director was allowed to lead him/her like a dog.
Red shifted on the wall behind him and tried to resist the agony at the pain exploding along his ribs , worse day after day.
The memory of her was the only thing that had kept him alive this long ,trying desperately to heal him ,but soon even the last drop of blood in his veins would bow to the infection.
It would be such a relief ,a blessed relief to know she couldn't be used against him ,and that he would soon seen those he had carried in his broken heart all these years . His family.
So he hold back every spike of fever ,every incoming fit of nausea and pain . Soon death would arrived to take him .
He just hoped she was safe ,he just hoped death arrived before she eventually did.