Second Saturday Stories

The scowl deepens and I think he’s going to protest, rebuking me with a technicality or theory the way he used to. When he meets my eyes I see the curiosity that pushed him through medical school battling the stubbornness that pushed him out of my life.  “Alright.” He muttered. “But he goes into a cell. Do you hear me Percy? I want him to rot until he’s an enfeebled and desperate old man.” 

Percy feels as though the hand of fate is finally going to crush him when he spots a familiar face leading a group of police into the throng. But with a trail of bodies behind him and an active fire at his back, will Percy be seen as a master criminal and thrown in a cell? And what of Doctor Carruthers, the man fated to destroy himself for Roger's twisted cause?

The blast is deafening under the rail car. A thick ringing fills my head making it feel like it’s stuffed with gauze. Joey stumbles. I watch him tap a charred hole his sweater with his left hand.

Percy manages to corner Roger only to find he's been effected by psychological torture as much as the good doctor. Roger begins to bend Percy's will among the speeding chaos of the train yard while Carruthers moves ever closer to his explosive endgame.

My hand is on my Webley as soon as my heel touches gravel. Cocking the hammer sounds like a tidal wave to me and I feel a tremor as I draw a bead on the tallest of the three men. There’s no mistaking him in that stupid fur coat. I grab my wrist with my left hand. As soon as I let the shot off I know I’ve pulled instead of squeezed.

Percy almost convinces the doctor to run, but the psychological barbs Roger planted begin to surface, and Percy finds out just how dangerous Roger and his crew of soldiers really are. 

I register the cannon she’s got aimed at my gut before she changes her mind and introduces the stock to my cheekbone. She connects and my legs decide they’ve carried me long enough. The world doesn’t gently swim away like in a whiskey drunk. Instead darkness falls as fast as lead and I’m in dreamland before I hit the ground.

When Percy gets caught with these secrets he's confined to a cell and subjected to the merciless, conniving side of Carson that kept him alive on the battlefield.

I feel the panic skitter just below my throat. from above me I swear there’s movement. Like someone standing just beyond the reach of my vision. I lick my lips to call out, sure I can see the crown of someones head, wisps of brown hair sticking up. I think of my dream. I hear the slap of tarot cards on my desk. I move to take another step, and an explosion of sound makes me jump. 

Percy realises the goal they have directly aligns with revenge he's wanted to take against Salvitore Collisetta and his organised crime ring for months. Counteracting his bloodlust are increasingly realistic dreams of his dead wife warning him against trusting the charismatic Roger Carson and his band of hellbent soldiers.