"Ssh."
"There's no one around."
"How would you know? You can't see them."
"No, but I'd hear them."
"Just like you think you'd be able to hear a car coming?"
"From miles away. And if there were any people about, I'd smell them---nasty, grubby little things. Most of the people in this area seem to think bathing isn't just rationed, but illegal."
Who didn't know His Majesty himself had been the one to mark the baths in Buckingham Palace at the five-inch line to ensure a set amount of water was used at bath time and no more?
"Now you're being foolhardy and cruel."
"I told you. Come and get me."
I took a step closer and could have sworn I heard him laughing.
Maybe he did have supernatural hearing after all. Or extraordinary night vision. Some way of sensing that I was seriously thinking of doing what he asked.
I gasped; my head flicked up, even though I couldn't see anything. It was a case of my unseeing eyes automatically searching for the thing I'd heard, somewhere in the distance.
"Adam, get out of the damn road. There's a car coming."
"I know, I know." Playful again.
But it all happened too fast. My feet turned to concrete, preventing me from moving any closer to him. I wasn't sure what I could have done even if I had been able to see him clearly. The car's driver had no sense of decent speed, and with its approach came a jolt of adrenaline through my system, that flash of horror that made me croak out Adam's name, unable to shout or do anything useful.
That horrific thud, and no further sound but the car's momentum carrying it forward. No broken glass, no wail of alarm from Adam as he flew over the vehicle. Nothing.
It was only then I was able to move. I didn't care about the risk of another car speeding around the same corner; what were the chances of lightning striking twice, within seconds or even minutes?
I must have thrown myself halfway across the road, groping around in darkness while along the road, while who knew how many yards away, the car screeched to a halt. Eventually, gasping, I made contact. A leg, seemingly unbroken. I hoped my helpless groping wouldn't cause Adam any more pain than he must have already been in.
"Adam... Adam..." Still unable to speak properly, I couldn't raise my voice above a whisper. He was lying too still for comfort---far too still. But it had only been a bump, surely? That thud I heard was the car merely clipping him. That had to be the case.
"Adam?" The only sound I heard was my own breathing, made shallow by panic. I'd thought about touching him, but never like this. His chest didn't rise and fall, and I prayed that was down to my inability to detect his breathing. He'd merely been knocked unconscious, right?
"Hello? Hello? Is anybody there?" The driver had evidently felt something, stopped, and climbed out of his car, anxious to know if he'd made himself an...what did the Good Book call it? An "accidental manslayer."
"Adam, you idiot." I thumped his chest, willing him to breathe. "Why did you have to...?"
Answering the driver's call didn't matter to me now. Adam was the important one.
"Anyone? Is anyone there?"
I just wanted him to shut up. Or go away.
Lord knew how I was going to deal with this. And at work? At work. Oh, God. Having to explain to my superiors what the hell I'd been doing with this man who'd taken it upon himself to be standing in the middle of the road after nightfall, and they'd investigate and find out who he was, and if he had a criminal record, they'd uncover his black market activities, and I'd be in so much trouble, I couldn't see straight, and if they so much as suspected what I felt for him, what our association was all about...
"Breathe, Nathan. Breathe." Unusual that I was telling myself that.
"Get the torch, darling; I should have a look and see."
"Oh, for goodness' sake, Harold. It was probably just an animal."
"Bloody big one, if you ask me."
"A dog, then. People can't afford to feed them anymore so they just let them roam free."
"Just get the bloody torch, will you?"
"What about the wardens? They'll---"
"Jennifer."
Presumably, Jennifer did as she was told. I hoped...I didn't know what I hoped. That she'd find it, wouldn't find it, that we'd get away before we were discovered. What was I thinking? That I would get away. Adam was in no fit state to---
Bloody hell, Stephenson; call yourself a sergeant? You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
Pity that bullet went through your leg and not your useless brain.
Shamed by my own selfishness, I lowered my burning face to Adam's, listening closely. Heard nothing. Tilted my ear to his mouth, but nothing still. One hand on his chest, I couldn't detect any signs of life.
"Oh, fuck. Adam, why did you have to..."
There was no wind, no sounds masking his breathing, because his breathing simply wasn't there. I didn't want to say the word, nor even think it, but in a few short seconds, the bottom had dropped out of my world, and I had no idea at all how I was going to deal with all this.
"I did it for fun, you bloody idiot."
I gasped, turning to face him again. "You...?"
And in the distance, "It's in the glove compartment, where it always is. What do you mean you can't...?"
"You weren't breathing," I said.
"I know. I never do."
"You idiot. You bloody, bloody, damned idiot; what the hell---?"
"Oh, stop moaning; I'm still alive, aren't I?"
His shoulders shuffled a little in a horizontal shrug.
"Kind of."
"Adam. I couldn't..."
"You couldn't what?"
"I couldn't hear; you weren't..."
"Oh, it's not this breathing nonsense again, is it? Well, I guess you had to find out
