"Blood," Ben repeated flatly.
The midwife had left, disappearing down the darkened corridor, leaving father and son alone momentarily for purposes Ben could not fully glean. He had his suspicions, however, a bothersome feeling that she would return too soon. He had his shock and horror over the wet blood still clinging to his eldest son's mouth.
"Blood," he said again, as though the reiteration would suddenly implore him to understand what he witnessed or heard. It was his blood marking his son's lips, something that bothered him deeply and did not seem to affect Adam at all.
Even with the midwife's absence, Adam still would not look at him. Even with his hands and feet unbound, he made no effort to move from where she had left him. Sitting in near darkness, Adam was sparsely illuminated by a stunted candle with less than an inch of its braided wick remaining; it had reduced itself to a globular puddle of liquid and congealed wax which would eventually harden to the floor of the cave when the wick finally gave out. The flickering flame cast his son in an eerie hue, making his usually tanned skin seem ashen, paleness intensated by the thin layer of sweat clinging to his face. Even Ben had to admit, Adam did not look well. The nefarious sheen in his eyes had quickly vanished, but it left a disturbing hollowness in its wake.
"Blood," Ben said for a third time, contorting his bound wrists so he could clench his hands. He needed to hold on to something, lest everything he regarded as veritable and unassailable slip away from him as he struggled to understand how their circumstances had so drastically changed. The elders said they intended to hang Adam, instead he had been taken and hidden here, in a secret, imperceptible cavern that only tremendous frustration and the midwife could have allowed Ben to stumble upon.
The elders were nowhere to be seen in the dimness of the cavern. On the heels of his maddening interaction with the midwife, it was all too easy for Ben to question if the trio of men had simply disappeared. Or if they had really existed in the first place. It was as though he had become stuck in a terrible dream, a nightmare from which he could awaken from if only he willed himself to. If only he could wake up and find himself safe behind the sturdy walls of the home he shared with his boys. Donning his robe and slippers, he could walk down the hall, peek his head into three respective bedrooms, verifying that his three sons were also safe in their beds, unknowing of and unaffected by a strange town called Malice. Hoss would not have ever been possessed by inexplicable anxiety; Joe would not have been injured; and Adam's lips would not be smeared with blood.
"Blood," he said flatly, the proclamation decidedly involuntary. He no longer wanted to repeat it; he simply could not stop. His son's lips were stained with blood.
"Adam," he tried, struggling to make sense of what was going on, the things the midwife had said—all that both she and Adam had inadequately explained. He did not want to think Adam had been guided to this place by sinister, unseen forces. He did not want to believe he attacked Joe. He did not want to consider that he had somehow been involved in Malice's nefarious plans from the beginning. He didn't want to speculate about any of it. Not anymore. He was through posing questions—obvious or otherwise—only to be denied clear answers.
"Adam," he repeated a little firmer this time, desperately hoping that the dense, rigidness of his tone would be enough to command the attention of a son who seemed enrapt by and trapped in the midwife's invisible grasp. She had licked Ben's blood from her fingertips, blood that was still streaking Adam's lips. "Tell me about the blood," he commandingly added. "Tell me how and why we've ended up here. Tell me what has led us to this place and where there is to go from here."
Adam did not immediately respond. Attention set on some unseen thing on the ground, he finally, graciously, moistened his lips with his tongue and then swiped his dirty sleeve over his mouth, cleaning any evidence of what the midwife had done. "I told you to leave," he said finally, his quiet voice carrying a deep, dangerous edge. "I warned you."
He was angry, that much was obvious, but, to Ben, he still did not sound right. Something was off. Something had changed. His son was neither happy nor relieved to see him; given the current circumstances, he simply could not reconcile such a thing.
Ben thought about Adam's disinterest when presented with Malice's request for stock, his despondence when locked in the jail cell, his passiveness in the midwife's company; these were all bothersome things, the latter of which worried Ben the most. Adam was passive in the midwife's company; now that she was gone, he was affronted. Shamefully, atrociously, Ben could not help wondering what his son was really upset about: her absence, or his own sudden yet lingering presence? When the midwife shared with Adam his father's blood, he did not fight or pull away. He accepted and ingested it without a hint of disgust.
"What's going on here, Adam?" Ben asked, yet another question he had no other choice but to pose.
As Adam finally looked up and cast his gaze across the cavern, Ben could see nothing familiar in his son's hazel eyes. They were narrower, duller somehow. Still glazed, they shone not with an unholy glint rather something else. What was it? Anger? Resignation? Fear? Ben was unable to attribute its unfamiliarity to any of these things. He was helpless to stifle his growing unease, an overwhelming sentiment that felt an awful lot like apprehension transformed into pure panic. If given the choice, somehow allowed control over the emotion governing the moment, he would have chosen annoyance over fear, displeasure over panic. He was familiar with outrage, comfortable with being irate. He wanted to be angry, to allow a fury-laced tongue to propel him forward into a purposeful conversation with his oldest son—or the midwife when she returned. But he was not angry. He was afraid. Afraid of the remains of a forsaken town someone had dared call Malice. Afraid of the trio of men who lurked in it. Afraid of the midwife who could choose to return at any moment. Afraid of the son who was before him, his eyes gleaming as he sat, his arms and legs uninhibited by rope, not even trying to help free his father or attempting to escape.
"You should have listened when I warned you," Adam said darkly. His voice was maddeningly contradictory to his demeanor; his expression was one of absent-mindedness, but his voice was apoplectic, too deep and dangerous to be one his father wanted to identify as belonging to him. The Adam he knew could be formidable if pushed; even raised or deepened for effect, his tone of voice often dwelled in the domain of authority and virtuousness. It was never downright hostile, minacious, or menacing. The Adam Ben knew was confident speaking firmly, but he never spoke with such a bitter corrosiveness; he never looked or sounded like this.
"This place, those men, and that woman," Ben whispered breathlessly, "what have they done to you?"
Adam did not answer. Looking at the darkened corridor, he stood as the midwife re-emerged and extended her hand, prompting him to join her where she stood in the shadows.
"Adam," Ben tried as hand-in-hand the pair began to walk away, quickly disappearing into the blackness of the passageway. "Son."
Finally reaching the end of its wick, the flame of the candle flickered violently before extinguishing, leaving Ben to sit in the cold darkness alone.
TBC