I groaned as I rolled off Mr. Rodwell's horizontal body. My arms, having slid down to his chest during the shock of freefall, now lay squashed painfully under our combined weight, small pebbles digging into the skin. I slowly released my hold on the opposite wrist and tried to drag them out from under him, the friction causing several long scratches to rip into the flesh. I persisted though, and soon had them out, causing him to flop a little on the ground, and then go still again.

"Alex?" I called softly, cradling my limbs close to my chest for comfort. It seems only natural to use his name.

The only sound from him was a low moan, followed by a faint cough as dust probably tickled his throat.

I laboriously pulled myself up and turned to look at him, lying with his cheek pressed firmly to the ground. In the light from the glaring floodlights on the fence, I could see his dark jeans and white shirt. Slowly I let my gaze travel down his legs to where his left foot lay at a slightly awkward ankle. I immediately everted my eyes and swallowed for strength.

"Alex, come on, get up," I urged, putting a hand lightly under his side and pulling up, as if contriving to flip him over with my own brute strength.

Of course my power did not help much, but after a few seconds of lying still on the ground, he stirred. An explosion of breath escaped his lungs as he placed his arms under him and, inch by inch, pulled himself up. Then he slowly dragged himself to the side, to the wall of the building we were currently present alongside, and let himself collapse against the bricks.

I scooted forward immediately and looked closely at his face.

He was trying very hard, it was as clear as day, but the brightness in his eyes spoke volumes about the pain he was in. His face, always pale, was now the colour of bad milk, and his lips were clamped shut so tight I could have bet he would have groaned a little if he had been alone.

I placed a hand on his cheek and brushed the small pieces of gravel embedded there. "Are you alright?" I asked lamely, scrubbing energetically, almost as if when I got him clean, he would magically get to his feet again.

In a swift moment, he grabbed my hand. I looked at him in concern to find those too-bright aquamarine eyes fixed on me. "Don't."

That got my blood boiling. What exactly did he expect me to do? I was only trying to...but what was I trying to do? I looked at his foot in frustration, and then at the gate that was so deceptively close. If I crawled with all I was worth, along the sides and out of sight, I might just be able to reach it.

But I couldn't leave him, could I? Of course I couldn't, devil take the stupid man! He was in pain, and I knew from experience how bloody painful a broken ankle could be. My leg was a different case here. All I couldn't do with said limb was walk; there wasn't any pain included, not now after so many years. But that wasn't the case with him.

There was another question here, though, wasn't there? Did I want to leave him? It didn't even take me a moment to think about it.

No.

Adrenaline was running crazy in my body, and I didn't want to let it go to waste, so I rounded on him with eyes flashing. "What do you mean 'don't'?" I hissed. "I am trying to help you."

For a moment he just lay there, looking at me. Then he blinked and grimaced, pulling himself up slightly, maybe seeking a more comfortable spot. "Yes, I know," he acknowledged. Then, "I am sorry, I don't know why I am being like that."

I stared at him for a moment, understanding. I felt the same way myself, aggravated, exasperated, and all other synonyms there were to the word. Why did this have to keep happening? Why did everything have to work against us, all the time? I mean, surely the world could spare us a bit of luck? Surely it wasn't too much to ask for?

I shook my head, hard. There was no time to think of such things. It was of no use. We would have to make do with what luck we did have, minimal as it was. If we got out of here alive, I could take all the time in the world to have a severe one-on-one with God.

"Here," I said, placing an arm around his shoulders and helping him up. It took considerable energy on my part, but somehow between us we got him sitting more comfortably. Then, I grabbed the hanging front part of my kameez and pulled, ripping it with a rending sound across my abdomen till I had a wide square in my hand, about two foot two.

Mr. Rodwell watched me silently as I put the piece of cloth in my mouth and made a small tear with my incisors, about two inches from one corner. Using that tear, I ripped out a strip of cloth. Satisfied with it, I proceeded to tear the rest of it into small strips too, working industriously, not looking at him and trying to make as soft a sound as possible with the tearing.

"I am sorry," Mr. Rodwell said suddenly. I looked up to find him studying me, a slight sheen of sweat on his brow.

"What for?" I asked. Strips in hands, I slid over to where his leg lay motionless, foot lying dizzyingly not-right.

He snorted slightly to himself, like he couldn't believe what it was he wanted to say, but knew he had to say it before time ran out. "For all of this. It's all my fault. If I could have saved you, I wouldn't have felt like such a--" he stopped himself fiercely, like he couldn't figure out a word bad enough to call himself. "I should have dealt with Frank on my own. I shouldn't have brought you in. When I found out who you were, I should have let you go." Pause. "You should go before they get here."

I had been listening silently to him all this time. When he was done, I still didn't respond. Instead, I grabbed his foot, making him suck in a breath, and turned it sharply. He gasped outright at this, but I didn't stop. It hurt, did it? Good. Instead, I looked around for something solid to bulwark the limb. On finding nothing suitable, I proceeded to wrap the strips of cloth around his foot regardless, one by one, securing it in place.

I didn't know if I should be doing this or not, or if I was making it worse instead of better by manhandling it, but I had to do something, and this was better than the other alternative I had in mind which, in my current state, was too gruesome to state.

I didn't look up at him while I worked.

When my work was done and his foot bound as securely as possible, looking like a grotesque giant's limb in a thick sock, I brushed my hands on my leggings and scooted over to where he sat, breathing shallowly through his nose, lip jammed firmly between his teeth.

I grabbed his collar then, viciously and suddenly, turning his green face sharply towards mine.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, but when they did, they also widened simultaneously on finding mine so close, on the edge of turning us both cross-eyed. "Mr. Alexander Rodwell," I hissed slowly through my teeth, pronouncing each word carefully, not giving him even a little quarter as he tried to move his head back. "Don't you dare give me that crap. It does not matter at the moment whose fault it is that I am here. But if you insist on saying that it is yours, then you will get me out of here as penance. You will not give up on me, do you understand? I absolutely forbid you from doing that. And," I said, my grip tightening, "I am not going anywhere."

His eyes, those expressive oceans, flickered between mine silently. Then they flared up like someone had switched on a button inside of him. He ripped his collar out of my hand and grunted, pulling himself away. And then he started to pull himself up the wall.

I watched his progress with interest, waiting till he was propped upwards again, his face alternating between a deadly white and nauseating green, with the red of exertion in the middle. Then I asked, "You are not much for pain, are you?"

I knew pain myself, of course. A lot of it. For some reason, stupid as it was of me, I had expected him to be above it all.

"It's not the pain, really," he muttered, not deigning to look at me as he gathered his scattered self. I started climbing up the wall too, as he said, "It's the broken bone."

"What about the broken bone?"

"I have a very vivid imagination."

It took me a moment to understand, but when I did, a smile involuntarily sprang up on my lips. But I refrained, with considerable effort, from commenting. "I see. So, you said Christopher would be here?" I asked as the two of us industriously started to move forward, using the wall for support in almost identical motions, like little ducklings separated from the mother's brood but still adamant to follow.

"He's around. But I can't know what he decides to do. I told him explicitly to keep the rescue as quite as possible and leave it to me. We can't afford to make such a racket that it gets attention. People will dig if it gets loud, and we don't want that."

Damnation. "I see."

Mr. Rodwell was just craning his neck to look around the edge of the building, to gauge if the way forward was safe, when a shuffle in the opposite direction caught our attention. Our heads whipped around simultaneously, almost like marionettes pulled on strings.

A man, boy even, of about twenty stood there, holding in his scrawny hands a pistol. His eyes were wide as he stared at us and we stared back, silently gaping. His colour, red in the blowing wind, bled out of his face in one quick motion.

Then he slipped back from whence he had come and vanished.

Mr. Rodwell cursed in very colourful words, devising interesting combinations about the boy's mother and the devil. "Come on, we need to hurry."

I had been having a silent panic attack while he vented his anger, but turned around immediately on hearing his voice. Without question, we slid down to our knees and crawled, Mr. Rodwell hissing at every slight bump his foot suffered.

Reaching the other side and eventually the fence took way, way longer than it would have if the stupid rock hadn't been in its stupid place in the middle of the stupid path. I gritted my teeth to myself and cursed as well, using about the same terminology Mr. Rodwell had indulged in, not stopping to think a rock couldn't have a mother. Damn it to hell if it didn't!

I don't know why we even bothered.

We were almost to the gate when the inevitable happened.

Under the blinding floodlights, a soft voice reached our ears, mocking in its concern. "Oh, Alex, I hope you haven't hurt yourself."

Mr. Rodwell froze in front of me and sighed. I didn't have enough breath to do even that. Suddenly, the gate looked so far away it might as well have been built on the moon.

Frank was standing quite casually in the centre of the path, between a building and the fence, his hand on the head of his cane gentle and light. Beyond him stood about five or six of his men, including the three that had been there with him in the room. The boy who had ratted us out stood further back, hovering at the edge like a fly, almost like he wasn't sure if he could stay or not.

Frank was smiling profusely, looking almost his old self, before Mr. Rodwell had come.

There was no way around for us, cornered as we were like cockroaches, except to meet him head-on and see what happened. As far as the moment was concerned, it wasn't very hard to imagine what the immediate future held for us.

"Frank," Mr. Rodwell acknowledged, almost in mockery of the time we had been caught not so long ago.

Frank chuckled, seeing it too. The wind picked up slightly, carrying his voice to us in hypnotic waves. "I told you, Alex, it won't have worked. You should listen to me."

"You didn't sound so sure when you were practically shitting your pants back then," Mr. Rodwell pointed out, a slight strain in his voice only one close to him could have picked up. That would be me, in this case.

"And now the situation seems to be reversed, is that not so?" Frank was quick to point out, not ready to be out-smarted again before him men.

Mr. Rodwell didn't answer. Rather, he took the time to turn around fully and position himself so that he addressed Frank much more directly.

Frank didn't seem to like not being able to provoke him. "So, what do we do now?" he mused, stepping closer to where we leaned against the diamond-shaped chains of the fence, like a cat toying with a mouse. "I am not tying you up and leaving you again, that's for sure."

"Perhaps you could let us go?" I put in helpfully. I didn't know why those words escaped my lips, but in my desperation it seemed important that that option be on the table too.

Frank looked at me and favoured me with an angelic smile. He hurried forward quickly, cane clicking precisely on the ground with each step, till he stood close enough for me to feel his body heat. "Is that so, sweetheart?" he asked softly, pressing a finger lightly to my chin. There was a slight shake apparent in his touch, relaying to me quite explicitly the level of explosive energy trapped inside him. "Could I in fact do that?"

I was regretting opening my mouth already. But this once I was loath to let Mr. Rodwell take up all the pressure of this encounter. I might be weak and one-legged, but I was here too, and damn me if I didn't do something. Furthermore, Frank was done playing with us, so the chances that he might use me to make Mr. Rodwell do anything were limited, to say the least.

I was free here, as wrong as that word sounds, and for better or for worse, this would be our last encounter. I was going to make it count.

"You could, I am sure," I said. "It seems a distinctly necessary choice for you, seeing as if you kill us, Christopher will release the all-so-important information against you in the news." I smiled so-very-sweetly at him.

Frank looked sharply into my eyes for a moment, the smile soar on his lips. Then all of a sudden it brightened up. I felt something cold settle in the pit of my stomach.

"It might be that you are indeed right, my dear. But won't you also see it the other way? He might be thinking this very second, if he is any the wiser about your predicament, that if he does release the information, then I will kill you. He won't want to risk that."

"Then it seems we are at an impasse," Mr. Rodwell interjected.

His voice sounded like cold water on Frank. His eyes, growing hotter by the second as he stared at me, swivelled over to where his brother stood, leaning heavily against the wall, the sweat on his brow twinkling in the light.

"You stole the words right out of my mouth, brother mine. So it would seem." Frank shook his head slightly then, like one might to dislodge a fly. "This is quite a puzzling situation, I confess. I have no intention of letting you leave here, though. Certainly not alive," he added hastily, so as we might not think of him entertaining the idea.

He frowned for a moment, still standing depressingly close to me, but paying me no heed. His head was bend down, thoughtfully sieving through the multitudes of plans he had to find out which one would be better for us.

"Perhaps..." he muttered, "I shou--oh, Alex, you have hurt yourself!"

His head was still bend down, but now his gaze rested upon where Mr. Rodwell's foot lay tentatively against the ground. He stared at it in mock-concern for a moment, forgetting all about his dilemma as he regarded his brother. "Why didn't you tell me? I thought only to taunt you before when I saw you trudging along. I never expected to actually see you hurt," he explained, a savage glee vibrant in his red eyes. "I hope you are alright?"

Mr. Rodwell was leaning tiredly against his support, his eyes closed. He had straightened when Frank had come closer, the moment made apparent to me somehow, almost as if I was unconsciously aware of his presence not matter how or where we were. Now, seeing as Frank's attention was back on him again, he succumbed to the pain once more, eliciting a jiggling sound from the metal web.

There was silence for a moment, during which Frank continued to appreciate the magnificent sight of his brother before him, not only helpless and at his mercy, but momentarily crippled to boot.

I expected Mr. Rodwell not to answer, figuring he would see the question for what it was, nothing but mockery. Instead, to my immense surprise, his eyelids lifted to regard Frank with a cool gaze. "I am perfectly fine, Frank, thank you for asking."

This statement, to anyone else, would have been nothing but a sufficiently polite response, but Mr. Rodwell knew what it was to Frank. Frank didn't want him to be fine, so what would he do when he so blatantly said that he was?

Which, in reality, he wasn't?

All these thoughts danced around my head, one after the other, but even I wasn't ready for what happened next.

Frank stepped further away from me, his cane held casually to the side, and regarded his adoptive brother with curious amber eyes. "Fine, are you? That doesn't sound very much like how I remember it."

"It--" I opened my mouth to start, but Mr. Rodwell rode over me.

"I still am fine. I don't know what you are talking about."

Frank was momentarily speechless with thought. Then he said to me, "You must excuse my confusion, my dear. Its only that I seem to remember quite well that my sweet brother here has never been one for the sight of injury to himself, be it of any kind. If my memory does not deceive me, once he cried for a whole night over a sprained wrist. And that," he motioned towards my crude job at first-aid, "That, I think, is broken."

This piece of information was very interesting, and something I hadn't expected at all. Suddenly his weird behaviour over the pain became much more understandable. For a moment, I felt a funny warm glow in my heart as I realised that he wasn't in fact the hunk of rock he showed himself to be. He was vulnerable; and since he was vulnerable, he was human too.

"I am fine, Frank, thank you. You needn't tell all of my childhood stories out loud."

I stared at Mr. Rodwell, the warm glow in my heart fading. Suddenly, I realised what the chivalrous bastard was trying to do. He was trying to draw Frank's attention away from me and to himself alone. The douche, I thought bitterly. Why won't he think for a moment before action? Frank wanted him, not me. So, of course, common sense dictated that we distract the predator away from its prey and to more neutral grounds, right? Which was me.

I gave myself a second to grit my teeth in exasperation, and then tried again. "Fran--"

But Frank was too far gone in Mr. Rodwell to even notice me. All he did was raise a peremptory hand and press it to my mouth, effectively silencing me off, while he continued to gaze at his brother with his head tilted to the side. "You have changed, haven't you?" he asked.

I, not being one to shut my mouth when told to, opened the said appendage again, but once more, to not effect. They didn't hear me.

"It's been a long time, Frank," Mr. Rodwell said softly.

"But you are still the same," Frank protested. "The tricks are the same, aren't they? The fake bomb, the getting out of cuffs, the bloody girl? I bet Christopher isn't here too, is he? You are nothing but a pretence, aren't you Alex?"

Mr. Rodwell returned this with a soft smile. "I woul--"

But Frank didn't stop to hear him out. Suddenly, his cane shot out and slammed against Mr. Rodwell's injured leg, twisting slightly to hook around the curve. When it did, he pulled it in one swift movement.

A scream of shock and pain tore out of Alexander Rodwell's mouth; and mine. I watched as if in slow motion as the big man convulsed heavily and then fell inelegantly, sprawling on the ground in a heap.

His breath was coming in loud gasps now, and his hurt leg shook violently. He tried to pull himself up but his trembling arms refused to hold the weight of his body for the first time and he fell again, the air shooting out of his mouth as his chest contacted the ground.

Frank was watching this with interest, a curiously blank look on his face, his head tilted to the side as if he watched a fascinating specimen of animal do something surprising.

I was shaking like a leaf myself, my eyes wide. But Frank wasn't done yet.

Before I could open my mouth or go to his aid, Frank pressed a foot down on Mr. Rodwell's ankle.

The scream that pierced the sky this time was worse than the one before on so many different levels, but if one asked me how, I won't have been able to say. It was the kind that wastes no time in tearing into one's heart and ripping the said organ out of the open chest, maybe. It was the kind that kills one incessantly on the inside, over and over, even. Or, it was the kind that one hears repeated in nightmares, night after night.

"NO!" I screamed, throwing myself on Frank without thought and digging my nails into his arm. "No, let go!"

He was too far gone with blood-lust, though. He pressed down further, not noticing me hanging on his side. I saw, eyes drowning in involuntary tears, Mr. Rodwell's foot turn in its wrapping till it was almost in right angles with the leg, in a way it wasn't supposed to be.

"Stop!" I screamed again, ripping my eyes away from the ground and pushing my fingers into Frank's hair. I pulled and tore with all I was worth, and when that didn't seem to work, sank my teeth into his neck. Through the flesh in my mouth, I kept screaming, "You fucking bastard, let go! Let go! Stop!"

Slowly, after what felt like ages, I finally seemed to get the man's attention. He stopped leaning heavily on the foot under him, the foot of a man breathing like one dying, huge gulps of air squeezed between strangled screams.

I was just biting down harder than even on his neck when he wrapped his hands around my waist, ripped me bodily away from him, and tried to throw me to the ground like filth. Only, my hands in his hair were not as easy to dislodge, and I was loath to do it anyways. All I could see was blood, and there was nothing in all the wide world that could get me to let go of him till he was dead.

Nothing except for a punch in the abdomen, it seemed.

All the breath got knocked out of me and my nerveless fingers loosened over his head. The ground hit my side as hard as an avalanche, showing how much energy Frank had used to push me aside. My arm, feeling the force of first the ground on one side, and then my body's momentum on the other, lost no time in going completely numb. For a moment, my vision went black.

Through the rasping sounds of me trying to breath in, I heard Frank come closer. What made it more clear that Frank was near? The kick he aimed at my abdomen wasn't very hard to miss, you see.

I curled into myself once again, like a shrimp on fire. Tears of pain slithered down my cheeks and into the dirt in rivulets, one after another.

"There!" I heard Frank billow through the ringing in my ear. Opening my eyes just a crack, I noticed him walking in agitated circles through the film of water over my vision. "There! See what I can do? I can do this to you! I can kill you, and you won't even know what hit you. It's me who has the power! I can do all this! Father, look at me and see what I can do!" He stopped to puncture his statement with a kick to Mr. Rodwell's head. "See what I can do, Arianna? Arianna, look!"

I didn't know if he even realised what he was saying. But for the first time in my life, I saw what madness was, what it was like to lose your mind. Frank was so far gone in his hatred for what he perceived was a grievous injustice done him that he saw nothing further than his next move, his next step. He was out to get revenge. And he didn't care what came in his path. The more the better, so he could smash it all to smithereens. Destroy and ruin it all, leave nothing.

As my vision cleared slightly, I noticed that he was crying. Huge, wracking sobs shook his shoulders as he slammed his foot to Mr. Rodwell's head, again and again, one after another, shouting, "Look, Arianna, look! Look, Father, look!" between each of his kicks. Mr. Rodwell wasn't moving anymore. All he did was roll to the side a little with the force of each hit, and then move back like a rolling pin for the other.

"Stop..." I croaked through a raw throat. "Please, stop. Stop!"

It took a long moment. But finally the force of his hits reduced. Gradually, so slowly that for a moment I despaired of him ever stopping, he gathered control of himself again. His exclamations reduced to a murmur, and then descended into silence altogether.

He stood as still as a statue by the body of his fallen brother, a dark shape against the glare of light. His shoulders were humped and his head hung low.

And then he reached for the cane on the ground, where it must have fallen during the struggle. I watched in horror, transfixed as one is during a nightmare, as he pulled at the eagle head.

"NO!"

I don't know what made me move. My brain had nothing to do with it, that was for sure. It was like all the conscious nerves in my body were burned out suddenly, and any and everything I did was my body acting on its own, doing what it thought was best, in any way it thought possible.

The bang sounded just as I hit Frank's side.