Page 35 of The Hangman's Rope

“Hey, fair,” he said leaning back into his seat, pushing his plate away from him. “We are hypocritical,” he confessed. “We’re also criminals…”

I blinked at the raw confession stupidly, “I guess that sort of trumps the hypocrisy when you put it like that,” I said gently and I felt almost as confused as I did afraid in that moment.

“We stopped caring what people think a long time ago,” he said quietly.

“I’m so confused,” I confessed and he nodded.

“We have that effect on people.”

I rubbed my lips together and didn’t really know what to say, so I took a stab at it with the truth.

“I just want to feel safe again…”

“Safety is an illusion,” he told me, “But I understand.” He sighed and licked his lips, looking me up and down before saying, “I know it sounds stupid, but just go along with it and with us for right now, and I promise you – you’re the safest you’ve ever been in your life. Cross us, and it’s a totally different matter. You understand?”

I nodded, and for the moment, that initial fear of Hangman made a reappearance. He must have seen something in my face, because he shook his head.

“I know you don’t have a fuck of a lot of reason to trust me, Sweetpea. I’m working on that, slowly but surely… but believe me when I say; I got your best interests at heart. The only thing you have to do right now is stay in your lane, rest, and recuperate. Try to remember and enjoy the peace and quiet around here. It’s a reprieve for now, but it’s a limited one. Eventually, you’re going to go back to your life before if I have anything to say about it. When you do, shit’s going to get… weird for a while.”

I thought about what he said, falling silent and introspective for a time. Wondering if I was being too complacent. Wondering if I was being too cooperative… but then I would catch Hangman looking at me in that way that was raw and unfiltered that screamed he genuinely cared about my wellbeing.

I couldn’t tell you what it was, but I believed him. I believed in that look wholeheartedly. Even knowing I should likely never trust another person ever again, or at least having the feeling that I shouldn’t… it didn’t take remembering all the awful things to know that. It was just enough to know what awful things likely took place or happened…

In the end, as I finished what was on my plate, I figured that I could give him a little longer. After all, where else did I have to go? He was right, I could see it, my eventual return would be fraught with questions that I didn’t have any answers to.

I would need to come up withsomethingbefore that happened…

Ugh. It was all so goddamned complicated and confusing. I just needed more time… time I wasn’t sure would honestly help in the slightest, but rather was just delaying the inevitable.

I found myself feeling sorry for Hangman and his friends by the time we’d returned to the kitchen with our plates and breakfast leavings.

I occupied myself with rinsing them and loading the dishwasher and such, as Hangman occupied himself with making up another waffle for the man whose drill whirred in the hallway, screwing in the new eye in the sky to watch me continue to be bored out of my mind up here.

“Req! Food!” Hangman called and I jumped at the suddenness and loudness of his voice. He stepped up behind me, a hand lightly on my back as he reached above my head to pull down a plate out of the cabinet in front of me.

“Sorry, Sweetpea,” he muttered. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

I nodded, and didn’t say anything, accepting the apology mutely.

In the end, I could see that he was trying; walking a tightrope between me and his friends – people he’d known forever and aday as opposed to me who had what? Only been here a day or two?

You are being impatient when you frame it like that,I thought to myself and even though it likely went against anyone else’s better judgment, I decided to trust my gut which told me to trust Hangman, that he knew what he was doing.

Time would only tell if I would be glad that I did…

Chapter Eleven

Hangman…

Requiem wolfed his breakfast and immediately got back to it while Lorelai curled up in what was becoming her customary corner of the couch. She didn’t bother with the television but rather propped her elbow on the back of the couch and put her chin in her hand, staring sightlessly out the window along the back of the couch, the dappled sunlight through the trees out there casting wild patterns on her auburn hair.

She was silently introspective, lost deep in thought, and I couldn’t help but think the way she looked right now, she reminded me of some lost and captured forest nymph out of Greek mythology. Captured for her beauty, longing for home…

To be honest, I didn’t know what the hell she was thinking. At all. Curiosity gnawing at me relentlessly, I shoved her and all my questions out of my mind to see what kind of damage fuckin’ Requiem was doing to my fucking apartment.

The building was a historical one, and I pretty much lived in this place at the discretion of the Bonaventure Historical Society who owned it, met here on the first floor, and who was workingon making a giftshop to rival the one Lainey worked part time atoutsidethe cemetery gates which wasn’t affiliated at all with the cemetery nor the historical society, but was a third party, purely for-profit venture that was cooked up by some unknown.

There were a lot of clashing bodies when it came to the historic cemetery, and yet they all seemed to work in a fair bit of concert with one another – who the hell knew how they did it, they just did it; it was hard.

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