Reckoning Point, стр. 72

Together they look down at the man in the chair.

All he can see is the blood, this man has been stabbed in a frenzy.

“Who is he?” Alex asks.

“His name is Roland, he was …” but he tails off. How does he even begin to describe this man who everyone in Scheveningen knows, and his torrid past, and his mistakes, and his ongoing sweet, simple nature, despite everything that has happened to him?

But no longer, Erik thinks grimly. And it is strange, but it feels like the end of an era.

And then, just as he thinks he is looking at Roland’s dead, slashed body, a wheeze erupts from the man and Erik sees the red spittle flying towards his face.

“Dear God,” he cries again. “He’s alive!”

But what can he do?

Stem the bleeding, Naomi’s calm but firm voice comes into his head and Erik blinks in surprise that he should hear her, now, after everything.

And he would, he has had first aid training, of course he has, but where would he begin? Because as he casts his eyes over him it is clear that Roland has been stabbed repeatedly, all over his body.

“He’s bleeding out,” Alex mutters. “We can’t do anything.”

“Roland,” Erik begins as he gets a hanky out of his pocket and dabs fruitlessly at the poor man’s face, “Roland, who did this to you?”

Roland is still breathing, and crying, and it’s an awful sight to see. It’s worse than the girl’s bodies he has seen recently because they were dead, and this man will soon be dead, but right now, right here, he’s just … dying.

“C-c-c-colonel,” stutters Roland, and Erik tries to ignore the blood that pours out of the man’s mouth as he speaks.

“Colonel?” Alex says into Erik’s ear. “You told me about him, you said he was a legend, that he disappeared.”

Erik didn’t care for Alex’s accusing tone and impatiently he elbows him out of the way. “He’s hallucinating, he doesn’t know what he’s saying,” he says, and in spite of the blood that still leaks out of Roland’s mouth, he leans closer. “We are in the doctor’s house, did he do this to you? Or did someone hurt the doctor too?”

Roland, the light already fading away, fixed his eyes on Erik. “The doctor is …” he tailed off, seemed to lose consciousness for a moment and then snapped his eyes open again. “He looked after me, the last time. But he’s …” Roland sniffed as his voice wavered. “He doesn’t like me anymore, he doesn’t like anyone anymore, he hurt me, he tied all of us up down here.”

Erik plants one hand on the floor as Alex comes back, shoving his way in. “You said all of you, who else was down here? Roland? Roland? Where did they go, who else was here with you?”

Roland turned his dull eyes to Alex.

“Lev, my friend Lev, and Ellie.” At the sound of her name Alex feels the blood freezing in his veins, before it heats up and his heart beats in double time.

“Where are they now?” Alex asks, and his hand is clutching Roland’s, and he doesn’t care that the man’s hand is covered in blood, because this man has seen Elian, and he needs him to stay alive long enough to tell them where she is now.

Roland’s head jerks his head to the left. “Into the tunnels, she went first, she was going to get help, then Lev escaped too.” The tears finally spill over, saltwater mingling in with snot and blood. “He followed them,” he finishes.

And he was finished. The blood stopped leaking, the chest stopped mid-rise, and the final exhale never came.

As one, Erik and Alex stand up, and together, with a mutual, unspoken agreement, they make their way to the little trap door in the wall.