All the Colors of the Dark — Chapter 215

215

Patch ate his breakfast with Tug, the noise too much, the heavy chewing and teeth meeting, the hollering and laughing as food sprayed from mouths.

There were a few stares because he had handled the Brand a little too well, but most were used to it; two against one wasn’t always decided by math alone.

At three Sammy came and the two sat in near silence. Sammy made no jokes, didn’t grouse about Blackjack or the guards, the journey in or the heat in the visitation room. He didn’t ask about Patch’s hands, still cut, the blood dried dark between the lines of his knuckles.

And when it was time, he moved forward and gripped Patch tight.

“I never had a son. I think it was God’s way of protecting the world.

But, if I did, then—”

“Then you’d hope to hell he turned out nothing like me, Sam.”

Sammy smiled.

“I owe you…my tab. A real man settles his debts,” Patch said.

“Consider it settled. I’d have paid it a hundred times over, just for the honor of knowing you.”

Sammy hugged him, the only time in his life.

Patch slipped the envelope into Sammy’s inside pocket.

“You’re the boy that saved the Meyer girl,” Sammy said.

“The only good thing I ever did.”

“There’s still time.”

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