Chapter 35 – The damages after the storm

"They wanna send him to Briar Ridge?" Brutus repeated. "Isn't that the mental hospital?"

Paul squinted in the bright afternoon light and nodded. "If there ain't any improvement by tomorrow, that's all they can do. According to Hal Percy has slipped into some kind of catatonic state of mind. The doctors can't get him to speak or react or anything."

"Gosh," Brutus muttered.

"Yeah," Paul sighed and stared out through the fence, onto the fields surrounding E-block's yard. The prisoners from the other blocks had been relieved from work just minutes ago and the fields had been left empty and covered in fine reddish dust that shivered in the wind. This was his and Brutus' first break since morning and he felt exhausted – dog-tired as Coffey would say. When he hadn't been scrubbing Whartons blood of the raw brick wall in his cell or filled out paperwork, he had retold the same falsehood to the police and curious guards from other parts of the prison over and over again. The more time he told the cover story, the more did last night seem like something out of a twisted nightmare: Parts of it were still clear as glass when he thought about it in the light of the day, but other parts had fainted completely. He couldn't remember for the life of him what they had been doing in the time they had called Hal until the Mile had been clamming full of cops and guards and medics. Just waited perhaps…

"You think Coffey made him do it?" he asked.

Brutus looked at him. "Huh?"

"Shoot Wharton. D'you think Percy knew what he was doing or do you think Coffey made him do it?"

Brutus shrugged. What difference did it make anyway? Wharton was dead and Percy had gone raving insane.

"Don't know," he said. "But I don't see the point whoever did it. Wharton was going to die anyway, so why shoot him? I don't get it."

"Revenge?"

"For what?"

"I don't know," Paul responded absently, but Brutus knew he was lying. He did know something – he just wasn't ready to share his thesis with the rest of the world. And to be honest Brutus couldn't care less at the moment. His mind was a foggy blur. The hours he should have used to regain some of the lost sleep, he had spent next to Ellie in his bed, fully dressed on top of the blankets. They had been talking. He couldn't remember the exact words, but in the end she had fallen asleep in his arms and he had just been left lying there, not even able to doze of, because of the guilt of letting a man get shot right in front of her eyes.

"You know what, I don't think Percy did it out of his own free will," he heard himself say out loud.

"Why?"

"Because Percy hated us all," Brutus responded. "He had six bullets. He could have killed all of us right there easy as a walk in the park. But he only went for Wharton."

Paul gave him a long look.

"You really think he could be that inhuman?"

"He grilled a man alive, remember? And we had done nothing but humiliate him the last couple of days, so he would have done it with the greatest plesure."

"True," Paul responded thoughtfully and then he went on mumbling, more to himself than to Brutus: "I've seen his result from shooting practice. He wasn't half bad. He could have done it no doubt."

"Exactly," Brutus said though the word rang a bit hollow in his head. He wasn't really sure he believed it; perhaps he was just trying to convince himself that Ellie had never been in danger of getting shot too…

"But," Paul said, frowning, "if Coffey made him do it, he must have had his reasons."

"Why don't you ask him then?"

"You know as well as I that it won't help a damn thing," Paul groaned and rubbed his tired eyes. "We can't get a straight answer out of him even if our lives depended on it."

Brutus smiled involuntarily, when he remembered Coffey's own word on the subject: Dunno, boss. Tell the truth, I don't know much'a anything. Never have. The man sure knew have to make their lives a lot more complicated…

"So what should we do then?" he asked his superior.

"We go home," Paul said plainly. "And we get some sleep, end of story."

And then what? We continue like nothing happened? We try and forget what we have witnessed here on the block and at the wardens house? We move on like good little soldiers, because that's the easiest way?

Paul looked at him like he had heard his thoughts.

"Finish your shift and go home, Brute," he repeated softly. "What gonna happen tomorrow is not always clearest in the light of today."

"Damn, that was deep, Paul."

"I might have stolen it from somewhere else." Paul glanced at him. "But I mean it: Go home and get a good night's sleep. I'm sending Ellie home too, as soon as she return from the infirmary if that's what you wanna hear – though I would recommend the two of you to sleep in separate rooms tonight."

"What's that s'pose to mean?"

"I need you both well rested here tomorrow, when I'm taking the day off."

"You think we're at it like bunnies, don'ya?"

"Sure, ain't that what men your age do, when they finally get their hands on a pretty, young woman?"

He chuckled when Brutus took a swipe at him and pushed him off balance and it felt good to laugh again, even if it was only for a second, after the night from hell.

oOo

Half an hour later when the Mile had been cleaned from the last blood and empty shot shells and the night was nothing but a memory in their minds, Brutus left E-block and headed towards the infirmary. The ward was unusually empty, almost a desolated as it had been around four o'clock in that same morning when they had moved the corpse of William Wharton to the prison morgue. Only a handful of guards circulated among the beds. One of them was Barry Goodman and he greeted Brutus with an aloof nod. Although he knew it was a punch below the belt, Brutus smirked back at him in the smuggest way possible.

Alice had been left to herself in a curtained bed. She looked relieved when she spotted him.

"I heard about what happened last night," she said gravely. "What a horrible, horrible outcome!"

"How are you?" he asked her.

"A bit shaken." She watched him carefully with her dime-colored eyes. "But it could have been a lot worse, I suppose."

"It sure could. At least Percy saved us from a huge electricity bill."

"Mr. Howell!" she exclaimed, but her eyes were not that censorious and he smiled.

"Where's Ellie?"

"She's talking to the doctor. They're pretending everything is fine and I play along, but I know they are still worried about the murmur on my heart."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Alice snorted. "I have to die of something someday. I don't know what you people expect at my age, but I certainly do not intend to live forever."

Brutus smiled and patted her shoulder. It would be hard to see her leave the prison, she was one of those inmates that made this job worth it and he had really come to like her. Especially after the day where his relationship with Ellie had been exposed to the public. She had just looked at him with her know-it-all eyes before declaring in her elegant voice: Well, that was about damn time, Mr. Howell. He could only agree.

The door to the doctor's office was open, so he knocked on the frame before entering.

"Hey doc, I'm here to kidnap two girls, Paul's orders."

"Howell," the doctor greeted him. "Please do so. You E-block fellas bring nothing but trouble to my infirmary. First poor Mr. Stanton and now an insane guard and a dead body."

Doctor Briscoe looked tired, almost as tired as Ellie who gave Brutus a warm, but exhausted smile. Screw Paul's orders, Brutus thought, all he wanted to do when his shift ended was to throw her over one shoulder, carry her back to New Roads, stuff her in bed and watch over her until dawn just to make sure she at least got a full nights sleep.

"Long day?"

"Long day and night," the doctor responded dryly. "The police wanted me to do an autopsy on William Wharton, just in case those six bullets to his chest and stomach weren't enough to kill him. I told them it was a God damn waste of my time, but the time it took to convince them I might as well have done it."

Brutus didn't even dare look at Ellie. If Briscoe had done a full autopsy on Wharton he would have discovered that the boy had been drugged to unconsciousness just hours before his death.

"And Alice?" he asked instead.

Briscoe frowned. "Her heart sounds like a worn out bellow, but there's nothing I can do about it.

An operation would be too risky considering her state. But since she has lived this long I believe she still has a couple of years left, before her body gives up on her."

"But she needs a calm, stress free environment and the right care," Ellie said quietly. "That's not exactly what a woman's prison is notorious for."

"She's a strong woman," Brutus said. "I think she'll surprise you."

"Perhaps," Ellie responded, but she didn't look convince and Brutus knew what she was thinking. He had pondered about the same since the day she had been pardoned: Maybe it would just have been for the best, if Alice had just died during her seizure. It was a gruesome thought, but it sure would have ended the old woman's suffering of being moved and locked up for all eternity.

Ellie thanked doctor Briscoe and left. Her quietness made Brutus reach out for her the moment he had closed the door behind them.

"You a'right?" he asked, moving his hand to hers and squeezing them gently.

She smiled. "I'm fine. Just as I was the last twenty-two times you have ask me this morning."

"You saw a man get shot, it's okay to be… not fine."

"So did you."

"Yeah, but…" He stopped himself, before she could give him that careful-now-look. "I'm used to it. You wouldn't believe what I've witness during my years here."

"Well, let me tell you something," Ellie said. "ER isn't exactly a pretty picture after a gas explosion or a tornado. I'll get over it, just like you'll do, so stop treating me like a rookie."

He pretended to sigh heavily.

"Why can't you just let me worry about you?" he rumbled and kissed her forehead.

She looked up at him with a significant half-smirk.

"Barry's here."

"Oh, I know," he responded in a casual tone and she chuckled lightly and wrapped her arms around his back, when he pulled her in for the hug he knew they both needed.

oOo