Days of Love and Blood

Let me go!”
    Someone grabbed him and held him back.
    “No, Carson!” he screamed. “Don’t do this, Carson! Don’t let them do this to you! This isn’t you! This isn’t you! Carson!”
    I kept walking. There was no hesitation in my gait, no pause mid-stride, and I ignored the desperation in his voice. I became deaf to everything behind me, now only open to what was in front of me. The barn. And Cooper.
    Cooper glanced at me once when I turned around and from the distance I couldn’t discern the look on his face. He looked down at the ground after, puffed casually on a cigarette and threw it underneath his step. He turned around, unlocked the barn door and opened it just enough, then took several steps forward, looking straight ahead instead of at me. Without words between us, I slipped by him and stepped inside the barn.
    The sunlight streamed into the darkened space and ended in a bright patch on the dirt floor. Swirling dust made the light seem brighter and the stream blinded my view until I stepped through it. Willie and Anand were bound together with rope encircling them both, tethering them to a giant wooden beam holding up the hayloft. Their arms were lifted high, bound at the wrist and tied to metal hooks. Willie’s head rose slightly at my appearance. His face showed the recent wrath of someone eager to give punishment but he still looked better than I did. Anand’s head was still bowed.
    “Who the fuck are you supposed to be?”
    I didn’t respond and quietly studied him for a few seconds. My silence must have jarred him and he twisted and jerked under the ropes.
    “What the fuck is this?” he yelled. “Who are you? Say something!”
    Anand moaned and his body vibrated from Willie’s movement. I shook myself and held up the bottle of water. Willie stopped his thrashing and licked his lips, finally nodding his head. I uncapped the bottle as I walked to him and slowly lifted it to his lips. He tilted his head back with one eye on me and drank half the bottle in three large gulps. I pulled it away and motioned to Anand. Again Willie nodded.
    I lifted Anand’s head by the roots of his hair and his eyelids parted slightly, the pupils rolling back behind the lids. His right cheekbone was sunken far lower than his left and dried blood covered his chin, neck and shirt. Cooper’s beating had taken its toll. I put the bottle to his lips and tilted it upright, letting water flow down his throat. He coughed it away at first but it roused him enough to keep his mouth open on his own and his tongue plunged outward, waiting for more. He depleted the bottle and squinted at me. His lips pulled back and a slight laugh escaped his lips. I pulled out my small knife and brought it up to his face.
    “Hey!” yelled Willie as he began to squirm. “Hey, what are you doing?” When he saw me cutting away at Anand’s ropes, he stopped struggling. Anand fell to the ground in a heap and I walked slowly back to the barn door. I stopped just before the sunlight and reached behind me to draw my sword.
    “ Anand!” cried Willie. “Anand! Get the fuck up! Get up! Come on, man! Get me down from here. Anand, get up and look. What the fuck? What’s going on?”
    I planted the tip of my sword on the ground and stepped backwards, drawing a line on the floor from one side of the barn to the other. I walked to the middle and stood just past the line, on the side where the door stood, my sword still in hand. Anand had finally made it to his feet and held onto the beam which once held him captive. He looked confused and weak on his knees as he tried to assess the situation.
    “You can leave, Anand,” I said. “You can walk right out that door, right there. All you have to do is cross this line.”
    “It’s a trick, Anand. It’s some kind of twisted game.”
    “There’s no trick,” I said back to Willie. “But you’re right about it being a game. Anand, do you want to leave?” He shook his head as much as he could without looking back at Willie. “Good. You can. All you have to do is cross this line. If you can make it across, you can leave. You can walk right out that door.”
    Anand stumbled toward me without question, his eyes fixated on the line I drew in the dirt. His hunched form meandered forward with both arms pulled up into his chest, his hands hanging limply out from the wrists. He stopped a foot before the line and tilted his head at me, breathing in gasps of breath and showing me his wildly uneven