Dog Blood

me taking it off any other way), then start to wash. There’s an inch of disinfectant at the bottom of the other bucket, and its purpose is obvious. I drag it closer to the wall, turn my back on Mallon, and squat and shit. I wipe myself clean on the torn clothes I’ve just discarded.
    I wash myself as best I can, then dry off with a blanket that Mallon throws over to me. I pull on a pair of trousers that just about fit, then wrap the blanket around my shoulders to keep warm. I walk toward Mallon until the chains are at full stretch. Bastard just sits there and looks up at me. He knows I can’t reach him.
    But then-to my complete amazement and disbelief-he throws a bunch of keys and some other stuff out of reach and stands up. He waits, psyching himself up; then he walks closer, so close we’re almost touching.
    “All we need-” he starts to say, but I shut the fucker up. I grab his collar, spin him around, and slam him down on the floor. He tries to fight me off, but I brush him aside. He’s had this coming for too long. I drag him nearer to the back wall, his stumpy, pudgy, pathetic limbs flailing, then take up the slack from the chain around my right wrist and wrap it around his neck. He splutters, showering me with foul Unchanged spittle, and his already bulging eyes grow wider still. I pull tighter, feeling his life slipping away, focusing on the image of him lying dead at my feet.
    “Kill me,” he says, his breath a hissing, choked whisper, “and you’ve lost everything.”
    I pull harder, feeling the chain digging into his neck, constricting his windpipe and cutting off his air supply.
    Then I stop. What did he say? Is he right…?
    He flops over onto his front, gasping for breath, and starts to crawl away. He’s barely gone a yard when I snap myself out of this stupid malaise. I reach out, grab his leg, and drag him back, feeling myself getting stronger by the second. I roll him over and form my hand into a chain-wrapped fist. I’m ready to smash it into his face when he speaks again.
    “Break the cycle.”
    I punch him, just catching his jaw as he turns his head away. I straddle his out-of-shape body, a knee on either side to stop him moving, ready to end his miserable life. My left leg is wet. He’s pissed himself with fear.
    “Now who stinks of piss?”
    I lift my fist again, and he raises his arms to cover his face.
    “Please, Danny. Show some control. Kill me now and they’ll leave you chained up here to rot.”
    I pull my fist back even farther. If I hit him this time I know I’ll finish him.
    “Think about your family. Think about what you could do if you got out of here.”
    Bullshit.
    Is it?
    He’s right about one thing-I’m still chained to the wall and I can’t escape this room. And I know he only mentioned my family for effect, but how can I do anything to help Ellis if I’m stuck here and left to starve? I can see the keys on the floor, well out of reach.
    Against my better judgment-against everything I feel and believe-I stand up and step back. Mallon scrambles to safety, holding his mouth and spitting blood onto the floor. Is the fucker going to leave me here now? He staggers away, then stops. Still rubbing his jaw, he turns around and grins, blood covering his yellow-white teeth.
    “You did it! I knew you could!”
    “What?”
    “You did it, Danny. More to the point, you didn’t do it.”
    I don’t understand. He sits down, exhausted, breathing heavily. I walk as far as the chains will let me.
    “I gave you a chance to kill me, and you didn’t take it. You almost did, but you stopped yourself. You held the Hate.”
    “Only because-” I start to explain. He holds up his hand to stop me talking and washes out his mouth with water from my bottle. One of us must have kicked it across the room in the fight. He spits red-tinged water out onto the dirty carpet.
    “Doesn’t matter why,” he says, “fact is you did it. Takes a person of intelligence to do that. Someone who can look beyond all this hatred and fighting and see what’s really important.”
    Patronizing bastard.
    “I made a mistake and you got lucky.”
    He shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”
    “I do.”
    “No,” he says, his voice suddenly more serious, “you’re wrong. This is what happened-I gave you an opportunity to kill me, which you instinctively tried to take. But, before you could do it, you stopped and weighed up the pros and cons. And you realized your choice was pretty stark: