La Mort et ses Merveilles ✔

25. Tancred de Hauteville

La Mort et ses Merveilles

Chapter 25: Tancred de Hauteville

Throughout the few days Bradley stayed over at the convent, I was waiting for Leslie. For him to say no, for him to come up with an excuse not to go. For him to tell Bradley that we weren't going to go.

But there we were, on a Saturday morning, sitting in silence in the blue pickup truck. We hadn't talked much ever since that argument that evening after the events at the infirmary.

I wasn't really in the mood to talk to him after whatever transpired that afternoon, but he showed up at my door anyway, knocking away like it was the end of the world.

"Look," he told me, barging into my room the moment I opened the door. "You don't understand."

"What is it that I don't understand, exactly?" I asked, folding my arms. "That you're too scared of saying no."

"You don't know him," he shot back. "A-And he's my friend, and he helped me a lot before."

"So that means you'd just tag along to kill some more people?" I retorted. "You know, at the very least I expected you to give a lame excuse or something. But I guess even that's too much too ask."

"I panicked okay?" he blurted out. "I know what I should've said-"

"Then why didn't you just say it?" I countered. "You scared he's going to make fun of you? Call you chicken?"

The young man only hung his head in shame.

"How are you going to convince that you've changed if you go back to your old ways from the slightest nudge of peer pressure?" I continued, giving him a piece of my mind.

"Look," he told me. "I owe him, and you really don't want to get on his bad side."

A part of me wanted to sympathise with him, remembering how helpless and vulnerable he seemed next to Bradley's domineering character. But I was overwhelmed with anger and frustration to care about how he felt.

"You're almost thirty," I told him, as I ushered him out of the room. "Grow a pair for once."

With that, I slammed the door behind me. We didn't talk much after that, ignoring each other, avoiding one another as much as we could. Until Saturday.

I almost decided to stay that morning, maybe tell Bradley I was sick or something. But I figured that if Leslie was going, I had to be there. There wouldn't be anyone to keep him in check otherwise. And I figured, if there was anyone who could do anything, it was me. No matter how small it was.

I was the first one to break the silence.

"Where are we headed?" I asked, my voice piercing the heavy, oppressive atmosphere.

"Bradley told me we're going to meet up with the rest of his people near Black Hills," the young man responded, somewhat hesitant. "You know, the place where I brought you hunting."

"Oh," I muttered, not knowing how to respond.

There was a short silence as the truck continued heading north on the deserted freeway.