A/N: Finally, Silver's secret is revealed! How is he tied with Orochimaru? Is he as sexy as I think he is, or am I just crazy? Why is he suddenly talking so damn much?
Find out right now on today's earth-shattering chapter of Oro's Jail!
The cavernous room smelled foul. It reeked of rusted blood, sweat, and the overpowering stench of defeat that accompanied men who had lost everything. It radiated from every chakra induced crack in the thick stone that surrounded the prisoners and was more noticeable with every despairing moan and groan that rumbled out of dry throats. Manacles weren't necessary here; the wardens made sure that misery stopped the men from saving themselves.
It was in this desolation that Silver found himself, arms crossed across his lean chest, glaring stubbornly into the darkness. Here, in his little corner of the cavern, the misery fought hard to enter. Silver wouldn't let it in. Inside his mind, his being trapped in Orochimaru's multi-prisoner cell was only a temporary situation; he'd find a way out just like he'd found a way in.
As he sat there pouting about the circumstances he found himself in, he began to think back to how he had gotten himself trapped in this bleak place in the first place. In retrospective, it didn't seem all too smart; breaking into a high-security lair by one's lonesome and expecting to get out unscathed and with a weak body in tow was almost comical. It would have been more comical if he hadn't been caught by the gray haired bespectacled assistant and thrown into the cell like so much discarded trash. That had been what he'd hated the most. The least they could do was treat him more respectfully. After all, how many guys could say they'd broken into Orochimaru's lair? But apparently, nothing impressed the likes of Orochimaru. The man had seen it all.
And now he was locked up like some common criminal. This upset him. He was not some common criminal. He was a criminal of the uncommon persuasion. He specialized in breaking into prisons, not breaking out. Mostly because he'd never really been put into prison. Usually, he was hired by other rogue ninja who needed team members out of their jail cells.Though, he figured, the principles of breaking out were pretty much the same.
Now he faced this new challenge; breaking out. Forget the job he'd been sent to do. It was clear that there was no guarantee of getting out, let alone finding the high-security cell, breaking through the set obstacles, and escaping with the heavy body over his shoulder without being noticed by the prison guards. No, now his focus had switched over to himself. Rogue ninjas like him only cared enough to save their skin, so he felt very little remorse for the man awaiting salvation inside his closet of a cell.
Silver peeled his eyes, attempting to see through the ever-present gloom that kept men from seeing each other. If he tried hard enough, he could almost discern shapes through the darkness. But it was more painful to try and such a waste of time too. It's not as if any of those men could help him out anyway.
He decided to stand up and try to walk around. He laid his hand on the grimy stone wall, sweeping his hand along it for support as he made his way around the large room. The wall was rough and jagged in places, scraping his skin. It was so gloomy and dark that he'd often bump into the men sitting around on the floor. They would let out a moan and he'd mumble an apology.
However, no matter how much he walked, the stone never seemed to end. It continued on and on, without a single break in the stone, and no signs of bars or doors.
What the…? How do they put men in here if there is no entrance?
He thought back to how he had been dumped there. A quick racking of his brains produced no memory of ever having come through any doors. He remembered falling, seeing two faces, one of Orochimaru and another he didn't recognize, peering down at him from what seemed like very high up. Their lips had moved, but the words had been distorted, and before he could concentrate on the sound, he had blacked out. Eventually, he'd woken up here, surrounded by grime, prisoners, and solid rock.
He crouched down and searched with his hands for a person. Eventually he found one, a jittery man with skin like leather.
"Hey," he whispered, tapping the man's shoulder.
"Do-don't hurt me," said the man, cringing away from Silver.
"No, no. I just want to ask a question. Where's the door here?"
"Up th-there," stuttered the man. There was a whoosh of air as the man flipped his arm up to point toward the ceiling.
"How the hell is the door up there?"
"On a platform," the man said.
"Oh. Of course." How hadn't he thought of that?
So the door's up there. In all his wall feeling, he hadn't come upon a single ladder, or any indentations in the rock that could allow him to climb. Did they just throw the men down here?
He supposed so. It would explain the giant bruise on his left side.
There must be a weakness…Pressing his hands against the stone, he attempted to channel his chakra through the rock.
Nothing. It was almost as if he had no chakra at all.
He slid down the rock, folding his arms back across his chest. He didn't like this one bit. There was no way he could get out of here, he was sure of it now.
How he hated Orochimaru.
"Kabuto," said the hissing voice.
"Yes, Lord Orochimaru?" The assistant was currently bent over the Lord's medicines.
"That one we caught earlier today, the one with the silver hair. How did he get in?" He said it casually, but there was an inquisitiveness that even the smooth Orochimaru could not disguise.
"I have no idea, my lord. I'm guessing our guards weren't paying close attention…or he's just very good at what he does."
"No. Our guards must have not been paying attention. Nobody could just waltz in here the way that one did," muttered Lord Orochimaru.
"I suppose they can't," Kabuto said, peering down at the many bottles before him.
"Could it be that the lair has a weak spot? Like a blind spot, that we think we can see, but we really can't?" asked Lord Orochimaru, tone slightly worried.
"I wouldn't preoccupy myself with thoughts like those, Lord Orochimaru. You know as well as I that there is not a single place in the entire lair where one rock meets another. I oversaw the construction, and there was not a single spot that was overlooked, I can assure you. Most likely, the guards were negligent," answered Kabuto as he raised a glass of red liquid to eyelevel, shaking it slightly.
This seemed to appease Orochimaru. He lay back down on his pillows, shifting his head to get more comfortable. For a while he laid there, eyes closed and hands clasped together on his torso as if in death. Then, quite suddenly, his eyes opened and he shot up.
"If one young brat can get himself in here, what's to say the Leaf won't be able to? And if this kid could get in, what's to say he won't be able to get out and tell the world where we are? And perhaps he was sent to get caught and gather information from inside and then escape again… Kabuto, bring him to me immediately," Orochimaru demanded.
"Lord Orochimaru, you're overthinking this. He's just some kid. It's one thing to infiltrate the prison, but it's a wholly other thing to break out of it. Chakra repellant doors, reinforced hinges, an entire layer of chakra coating every wall, floor, and ceiling in the place maintained constantly by teams that work around the clock. He's not a threat," Kabuto reassured him. He had finally turning around to face his master, and was now eyeing him analytically.
"You know Kabuto; it starts with ignoring possible threats. Then, you begin to get lazy and ignore everything coming in and out of the lair. Your subordinates see how lax security gets and decide to go along with it and neglect their jobs a bit. Eventually they leave, because who wants to work for a master that doesn't care about his fortress? Nobody. They leave, the prisoners manage to escape, and we're in a load of trouble. All because you overlooked something," said Orochimaru, his bony face illuminated by the dim candle at his bedside. "Now," he continued, "do you want this to happen, Kabuto?"
"Well… no."
"Then bring me the boy."
"As you wish sir."
Grudgingly, Kabuto walked off to do his master's bidding.
"You know, I should've just become a fisherman. Yes, a simple fisherman. Those men have everything," Silver said, turning towards the man with the leathery skin. He was staring at Silver as if he was some sort of man-eater, his eyes wide and his body pushed as far away from his as the limited space allowed.
"I mean seriously," Silver continued. "They wake up by the sea every day, their wife cooks them a nice meal before work, then they go out to fish. They fish a bit, bring their catch back in, sell it, done. There's no danger of getting locked up in some snake's lair. There's no running from every government on the face of the planet because they're all out to get the prison infiltrate-artist. There's no having to sleep on dirty stone floors, never knowing when your next meal will be. None of that."
He turned to his companion. "You know exactly what I mean, don't you? Wouldn't it have been great to have been a fisherman? They've got it all. Only rogues like you and me get in here, eh?" Silver grinned and gave the wide-eyed man a playful shove that nearly sent him tumbling.
"Um… well, actually-," stuttered the man. Silver cut him off.
"You know exactly what I mean," he said, nodding slightly. "So… what'd you do to get in here?" He looked at the old man expectantly.
The old man stared back at him. "I was fishing when Lord Orochimaru took me prisoner."
Silver raised his eyebrows. "Never mind then…"
There was a creak of a door opening from overhead. All the men squinted their eyes against the bright light. After his eyes had adjusted to the brightness, Silver looked up, wondering what the hell was going on.
The light was suddenly blocked by a body, and then another, the second one gliding in like a snake.
"Gentlemen," said an unctuous voice coming from the second body. A mutter went through the crowd of prisoners. "Lord Orochimaru," mumbled a nearby one-armed man, awed.
"We're looking for the man caught earlier today. Young, lively thing, with silver hair and a strange tattoo on his face," Orochimaru said silkily.
The prisoners turned their drooping eyes in the direction of Silver, who continued to glare up at the platform where Orochimaru stood.
"Ah," said Orochimaru softly, his slit-like eyes turned towards the infiltrator. "There you are. Bring him," he ordered Kabuto.
Before he knew what was going on, Silver had been dragged upward and through the door as if by a pair of invisible hands, and the same hands wrapped themselves around his wrists to keep them together and behind his back. Then, as if something had possessed his body, his feet were now shuffling along behind the gray haired man in front of him, turning corners at the end of hallways and navigating their way through narrow corridors. He tried to keep up with the turns, but they were so complex and so frequent that he gave up. As if it wasn't hard enough to try to remember the turns, he was still fighting against the ninjutsu that was controlling his footsteps, and at times felt as if he was about to slam face-first into the ground.
Eventually, panting and sweating from exertion, he arrived at a noncommittal looking door at the end of the labyrinth. He was lead through the doorway into a room much darker than the hallway outside of it. Kabuto retreated into the shadows in the corner. Here, the only light came from a flickering orange candle on a stand, and Silver's eyes again had to adjust to the change in light.
At first glance, it had looked as if the room was empty. But as he grew accustomed to the limited light, he began to notice a simple stool at the foot of a futon whose sheets covered a skeletal body. Orochimaru. He lay there, face gaunt, thrown into sharper relief due to the candlelight. It was eerie, and there was a strange odor inside the chamber as well. It smelled like… decay.
"So you're the young one who managed to infiltrate our prison today," said Lord Orochimaru slowly.
Silver gave a single nod, his panting slowly dissipating.
For a long while, Orochimaru didn't say anything, just continued to stare curiously at his newly caught prisoner.
"You know, I'm impressed," he began. Despite his unctuous tone, he sounded like he meant it.
Silver only raised an eyebrow.
"Please, sit down," said Lord Orochimaru, gesturing towards the stool at the end of his futon.
"I can't," said Silver gruffly.
"Why not," questioned Orochimaru, clearly confused.
"Because I'm sort of not in control of my body at the moment. Perhaps you'd like to call back later," said Silver sarcastically, rolling his eyes.
As soon as these words were out of his mouth, a terrible pain shot through him. He fell to the ground and writhed in agony.
Meanwhile, Orochimaru's sardonic grin grew wider, and his eyes danced in the candlelight, excited.
"I won't stand your insolence, boy," he said it calmly, but there was a hard edge to his words.
"Now," said Orochimaru, standing up in a single motion. He glided over to his prisoner, eying him like a serpent eyes a particularly large mouse.
"It seems as if you don't know who I am," said Orochimaru, getting closer and closer to Silver, and the force that possessed him forced him to move backwards.
"I'm Lord Orochimaru, one of the great Sannin and previously a member of the organization Akatsuki. Didn't your mommy and daddy ever teach you to respect those more powerful than you," he hissed, poking a finger into Silver's forehead ever so slightly. But that little push was all it took to send Silver tumbling backwards onto the stool.
He now leaned in closely, so close that Silver could feel his arid breath on his skin.
"I don't call back later for anybody," assured Orochimaru, mocking smile gone. "Especially not for some young punk like you." As soon as he said "you", another sharp pain shot through Silver, shocking his bones and tearing through his skin. He squirmed on the chair, grinding his teeth to hold back his screams of pain.
Satisfied, Lord Orochimaru stood up again, sardonic smile back in place, gazing at his prey with his head cocked slightly to the right.
"Like I said before, I'm impressed. And it's not often that things impress me," said Orochimaru.
"Really, I had heard of escape artists… but never infiltrate artists. That's a new twist, isn't it?"
He began to pace around the room, forcing Silver to follow him with just his eyes.
"Not only that. But you managed to infiltrate a lair that's protected 24/7 to the most advanced techniques known to shinobi… and even some that are not," he added.
Silver continued following him with narrowed eyes when quite abruptly, he stopped pacing.
"How did you do it," Orochimaru asked, smiling slightly.
Silver said nothing. Orochimaru chuckled.
"Perhaps that's not important," mused Orochimaru. "Perhaps what's more important is… for who did you do it?" He was no longer chuckling, but looking at Silver intently.
Silver looked intently back. He grinned as he said, "Because I'm really going to tell you that. I may be young, Oro, but I wasn't born yesterday. I'm very far from stupid."
Orochimaru gave a chuckle, seeming completely unsurprised by his captive's answer.
"It appears that you are not as far from stupid as you believe. You see, I run this place. And unless I give the word, there is no way that you are ever leaving here. So perhaps you should tell me everything, or you may find your time here very unpleasant."
Silver smiled crookedly.
"Oh, but I don't need you to give the word. I can break out of here myself, thank you very much," contradicted Silver calmly. "Though I do appreciate the offer," he added.
"I really don't have time for this, Silver," chided Orochimaru, crossing his arms. "I'd like to know who sent you, for what purpose, and how exactly you got in.
"Yes, and I'd like to know exactly what kind of powder you buy to get your face so pale and gaunt looking; I have trouble finding the right kind, see, my cheekbones don't stick out enough? But I don't think you're going to tell me that. Oro, we don't always get what we want. Didn't your mommy and daddy ever teach you that?"
He smiled, even though he knew that he'd gone too far. Now there really was no way of getting out of here. But he was totally ok with it. Better than being treated like some little kid by an animated corpse.
Orochimaru just stood there, arms still crossed across his chest.
"Fine," he said crossly. "We can just throw you back in until you're ready to share with us."
"Kabuto," he called, still glaring at Silver. Kabuto materialized from the shadows.
"Take him back. I've had enough of this today."
Silver could feel the invisible bonds pulling him towards the door. He resisted against them, grinning crookedly at Orochimaru.
"How is it that the great and powerful Orochimaru is living like a mole?" asked Silver, eyes bright and excited.
Orochimaru merely continued scowling at him.
"You must not be as great as you say. Buried deeper than most corpses, you are," Silver grunted, still fighting against his bonds.
He laughed as his invisible bonds drew him away.
Orochimaru had not been kidding when he'd said he'd persist in trying to get information out of Silver.
For several days, he continued, at first being patient with his prisoner. After that first day, he attempted to control himself better, forcing himself to keep his calm demeanor and vague smile in place as he interrogated Silver.
But Silver refused to answer his questions.
So Orochimaru had to tweak his methods. He decided to go with the tried and true method of mind games.
But Silver never fell for his tricks.
Eventually, after several weeks of trying, Orochimaru began to lose his patience.
"You've got to talk sometime," he murmured as he paced around a Silver entangled in strange wires. Silver eyed him warily.
"What the hell is this," he asked, wriggling slightly in his wired chair.
Orochimaru shrugged. "A little contraption I came up with. Puts you in something similar to a genjutsu," he said carelessly.
Silver continued following him, his eyes angry and with a hint of panic that no amount of bravado could conceal.
"This can't be ethical," he told Orochimaru, feigning casual annoyance.
"And when have I ever cared about what's ethical and what isn't?" Orochimaru answered tersely.
He glanced at Silver for a second, and then he flipped the switch.
For the next 24 hours, Silver was locked in a world so unusual, so unreal, so cruel and painful that by the time he was finally pulled back into reality, he was exhausted.
He panted heavily, glaring at Orochimaru, who stood with the same indifferent expression on his face as he had 24 hours ago.
"Glad to have you back, Silver. For your information, that lasted exactly one second."
Silver was not surprised. He managed a humorless grin.
"You're evil," he said dryly.
Orochimaru gave a wry smile. "So I've been told."
"Now," said Orochimaru ominously, "would you like to tell me who sent you?"
Silver gave a tiny shake of his head, still out of breath.
"Then prepare for another 24 hours," Orochimaru said quietly, making for the switch.
"And that continued for…roughly 10 days," murmured Silver, eyes staring blankly at the opposite wall.
Sasuke glanced at Silver briefly, then continued idly spinning the bottle cap he'd managed to sneak from the dinner table last night. He waited for him to continue.
"Eventually Orochimaru got tired of it. I wouldn't talk. Nothing he did could make me talk; not the kind interrogations, not the mind games he plays, not even the torture he executed," he said with a slight shudder as he remembered.
"So he gave up, deciding I wasn't much of a threat as nobody had come to look for me in all the time I'd been there. He threw me into different cells as time went on, each one getting worse and worse until finally I ended up in one of the deepest cells with men," he smiled bitterly, "sorry, skeletons, that had probably been down there for years. It was the dirtiest cell I'd been in so far. It smelled like rot and was completely filthy… and it wasn't filthy because of dirt," he grimaced.
"We got food every once in a while. That guy… he's got torture down to a science. He knew exactly how much to feed us and how often to keep us just barely alive. No. Not alive. Existing. He knew how to keep people existing."
"I don't know how long I was down there," Silver said quietly, his eyes dead, the fire that Sasuke had previously witnessed gone. "At first I thought it was a temporary thing, that I'd either be brought out for questioning again or I'd find a way out. I would try to talk to the other men in there, keep my spirits up, you know? But they just stared at me with their bulging eyes like I was nuts. At one point I actually started to go crazy, without anyone to talk to, and I just started saying out loud, to nobody in particular that I had already found a way out of there, that I was safely outside in the sun, by a pool of crystal clear water and all the food I could ever want. That's when one of them finally said something."
"'You're never getting out of here,' he said. And that's when I stopped trying, because I realized that what he was saying was true. There was no way I was ever getting out of there," Silver said dully.
"Eventually, I just lay there, too weak to move. Whenever I thought about anything, it was about food. It wasn't even getting out of there anymore, just about food. Whenever I'd sleep, I'd dream about food. I conserved my energy for when the food came. Even then I got a tiny scrap of some maggoty trash. It was never enough to feel good, but enough to keep me alive."
"So much time passed. One day I realized that I was probably exactly how the other men had looked to me when I had arrived there; a skeleton, almost no longer alive, laying there waiting for my body to finally give up its losing fight. I no longer knew when was day, when was night, how much time passed, if months had gone by or years. Eventually I stopped eating altogether."
"Around that time, the door opened. I didn't pay any attention to it anymore, since I was trying to kill myself I was pretending that there was no food and there never would be food. Which means that I tried to pretend that nobody ever opened that door, of course. But this time was different, because instead of just tossing the food like they usually did, someone walked through the door and stood on the platform, looking over the edge into the pit. As if in a dream I remember a voice saying, from very far away, 'Where's Silver?' And I vaguely remember raising a single finger."
"And then it was black," Silver said impassively. "And I remember waking up again, and I was lying in the softest bed I'd ever been in, surrounded by tubes stuck everywhere in my body. I looked down at myself for the first time in years and practically fainted from what I saw."
He suddenly turned silent and Sasuke had to press him further.
"What did you see?"
"My skin was see-through. I could see my veins and the blood pumping through my arteries. And my bones. There was no muscle left. I brought new meaning to the term 'skin and bones'," he chuckled humorlessly.
"But I was clean. Pale and corpse-like, but I could smell soap on me. And for the first time in a very long time, I wasn't hungry. And I could see, even though my eyes were unused to seeing and I had to squint through even the dimmest light of the machines around my bed."
"Had this been where they'd put me in the beginning, I would have escaped like that," he said, snapping his fingers. "But there, I couldn't even consider escaping. I was too weak. It took all my strength to stay awake just a few seconds to check out my surroundings."
Silver smiled slightly. "I fell asleep immediately after. Best sleep I'd had in years."
"Slightly ruined when I woke up, though. Kabuto was there, messing with the machines and checking me over to make sure I wasn't dying. I asked him how long I'd been in the cell. He said 2 years, 9 months. He said it was a shame that I was so sickly and weak. He started bragging about how his medical skill had been what saved me from death."
"As if he hadn't also been the one who put me in that condition in the first place," he said sourly.
"After a few weeks of lying in that bed, I start getting some color, feeling better and such. Eventually, I was well enough to leave the room, but only in a wheelchair. It was at that time that Kabuto told me what had brought about the sudden change of heart."
He paused for a second as if knowing that this would be the part that interested Sasuke most.
"Apparently, Orochimaru had been caught by the Leaf during one of his many illicit activities. He was put into the Konoha jail, which, as you can imagine gave me much pleasure. Finally, a taste of his own medicine, though this one was cherry flavored… what he gave his prisoners tasted like shit. Anyway, Kabuto had managed to escape, abandoning his master at the time of capture." Silver snorted. "They are so good at loyalty…"
"Of course, I had never suspected they'd let me out of the dungeon just cause they felt it was the right thing to do. No, obviously they would want something from me. Kabuto wanted me to break out his man. What was in it for me? Freedom. They'd only give it to me if I gave them something in return. They no longer cared about who sent me, but I had a service that they required. I was finally of use to them."
"Kabuto knew I could get into a jail with ease. He knew I had the skills. But as he told me what he wanted me to do, I started laughing. 'Because I'm totally in the physical condition necessary to break men out of prison,' I told him. Ridiculous that he'd believe that I'd be able to do that after my body had practically eaten itself alive from lack of food."
"He told me that obviously we weren't going to do it right away. First he'd bring me back to the level of strength I was at before… within a year. This made me laugh harder. 'It took me nearly three years to get this way, and you expect to bring me back fully in a single year? You're delusional.'"
"He just smiled at me and told me that I was the delusional one for thinking he'd do it by conventional methods. I mentally did a face-palm. Clearly, he was willing to break the laws of nature to get what he wanted," he said, an angry edge to his voice.
"And so it began, my regeneration. I imagined that nothing could be as terrible as being trapped in that black hole that they called a cell. I was wrong," Silver said quietly. For the first time, he looked Sasuke straight in the eyes. There was unmistakable fear in his purple pupils, and it seemed as if inside his mind he was reliving those moments. "Pain like I'd never experienced... it felt as if my skin was being pulled from my bones, as if every bit of tissue inside me was being sliced over and over, as if my very soul was being ripped from my body. It felt like I was being pulled apart everywhere, reduced to the most fundamental bits of life. Which is funny, because after it was all over, Kabuto told me I wasn't being torn apart, but built up. It felt the other way around."
"It lasted for a year. When it stopped, I wondered if I'd died and gone to heaven. My body felt…perfect. I had muscles spread tightly over my bones, and my skin was there, pale, translucent, and very much alive. It was like being born again."
"And there was Kabuto, smiling stupidly as always, acting like I hadn't just gone through hell by his hands. 'Now you're ready,' he said. 'Your body is perfect, and we will soon rescue Orochimaru. And then… then you can have your freedom.'"
"We set out for Konoha," Silver continued monotonously, the blank stare back in place. "We got here, easily entered the village, easily infiltrated the prison. Found Oro's cell, started breaking him out." He smiled wryly. "Let me tell you, Konoha doesn't notice a thing when you break in…but they sure as hell notice when you break out."
"We were almost done. We weren't worried about being discreet about it; Kabuto just wanted Orochimaru out and didn't care if the Leaf knew it. So basically we decided to break straight through the wall. As soon as it was tumbling down, the guards came out. Unfortunately for me, I got distracted by them rushing towards us, and the wall came down on me. By that time, Oro was already out. I yelled for them to help me out… but they just laughed and Oro said,'I thought you said you could break out yourself.' I can't believe he actually remembered that far back, more than three years back. I knew then that they were going to leave me there. They rushed off, still laughing as the stone continued to crush me."
"So, the guards caught me a few days back and stuck me here with you. And that is how I'm tied to Orochimaru," said Silver, finishing his recount bitterly.
Sasuke was still spinning his bottle cap, watching its path pensively. After a while, he cleared his throat.
"Well…that's certainly an interesting story," he said quietly. He abandoned his makeshift top.
"Sorry to hear you had such a bad time of it with Orochimaru. Can't say I had it great… but, judging by your story, I was living well in the Sound."
Silver raised an eyebrow. "It's good to know somebody was…"
They were silent for a while more, Sasuke thinking over everything Silver had told him.
Then, Silver said, "Now will you tell me what you did to get in here?"
Sasuke turned to look at him, his face expressionless.
"I'm curious to know," Silver elaborated. "I know you were with Orochimaru. At the time when I first got there, the men in the first cell spoke of you sometimes. And during the early interrogations, Oro and Kabuto would mention you too. Just casually, you know, but often. I'm very curious to know how you got to be in here."
He sounded sincerely curious.
Sasuke glanced at him. He resumed the spinning of his bottle cap.
"It's sort of a long story," he said quietly.
Silver gave a chuckle. "I have no plans for tomorrow evening. In fact… I may be here for a while."
"Hmm," muttered Sasuke. "I guess I'll tell you then…later. But don't say I didn't warn you. It will be long."
Silver grinned and said, "No problem."