Page 11

11

LéON HAS OTHER IDEAS

L éon crouched at the base of a tree, arms wrapped around himself, shaking.

He was too stunned to give in to the emotional overwhelm and let himself fall apart.

Too dismayed, but also too desperate for action.

There was no chance he’d leave his little brother alone with a deranged villain like that.

He looked back over his shoulder at the cottage, half expecting the curtain to be twitching, or for the kidnapper himself to walk out, waving his knife in the air like a lunatic.

But not a sound emanated from the place—not a movement was to be seen.

He edged over onto his hands, then skirted the cottage at a distance, staying low and keen like a hunter.

He made his way around to the windowless back of the small building, and, measure by measure, from tree to tree, he crept closer, then pressed himself against it, listening.

The floorboards creaked within, a slow pacing, heavy—that of a full-grown man.

Another crunch here and there, lighter.

émile? Or someone else?

Léon pressed fingers to the wall, his ear to the wood.

There was clinking, as bottles being moved around.

Banging, but not the aggressive sort.

Something being pushed into the very wall he leaned against. And voices.

Voices soft and not angry.

He heard the loud crack of the footsteps moving fast and a sound from émile like…

laughter?

It couldn’t be.

The boy had been terrified only moments ago…

Léon was no fool, and émile was a certified scamp—he was under no illusions about that.

But this dawning idea…

It couldn’t be possible.

There was no way émile was enjoying this…

No, the only answer was that the poor child was playing along.

Trying to calm his attacker.

Fighting for his life, with all the wiles Léon had raised the boy to have.

He strained his ears for the voices, trying to make out what words he could, but it was all a muffle and a mumble.

Dropping to the ground, he searched for a gap between the floorboards and the walls through which he might observe them.

A strange sound ran along the wooden floorboards, a whirring sort of noise, familiar, but odd from his vantage point.

Throwing caution to the wind, Léon worked his way around the cabin to the nearest window and eased himself along the wall beneath it, hoping the glass might allow him to hear better.

It still wasn’t enough, and that whirring vibrated along the floor again.

Another laugh ripped out of émile, then the sound of the kidnapper’s voice, just as deep and resonant as it had been the night before.

Then émile squealing, but not as though he were scared.

Léon’s heart beat like a drum, care and curiosity turning into compulsion.

He found himself back in front of the cottage, sliding under the first window, and to the only spot he knew had a crack he could hear or see anything through clearly: the front door.

Down he crept, keeping enough distance that he wouldn’t cast a shadow through that opening, hoping he was close enough to get some idea of what was going on in there.

And indeed he was…

A set of wheels went whirring past, émile’s feet running by not a moment later, and then the kidnapper after him, and another happy shriek from émile.

Then the man’s voice, jovial, “You can’t keep it if you can’t catch it!” Then the smaller footsteps again, followed by a cracking sound, then tears.

émile’s cries loud and sending Léon into near panic.

Before he knew what he was about, he’d rammed his shoulder hard into the door, and with the work he didn’t realise he’d already done on the hinges the last time he’d hit it, the entire piece of wood burst out of its fastening and came crashing down on the floor with an enormous bang.

The sight he beheld unsettled him perhaps a thousand times more than whatever he might have been expecting.

There knelt the kidnapper, little émile on his thigh, a hand on his sore knee, and the other arm wrapped around him.

Léon’s stomach turned in on itself at the sight of the man with his hands on his brother, and his body moved more efficiently than a well-oiled guillotine as he stepped forward, grasped émile and wrenched him behind himself with his left arm, raised his right, and knocked Henry flat on his back with a fist to his jaw.

Léon leapt on him, readied his fist again, and got another great blow into his cheek before émile’s full body landed on him, pushing him off target and onto the floor, where he was forced to use his arms instead to prevent his brother smashing into the wall, such was the volition of the attack.

Léon pushed the boy off roughly, clambered halfway to his feet, then copped a kick to the chin that sent him flying back against the wall.

He barely registered the pain as he grasped at the rough wood to steady himself, ready to murder the man who stepped towards him now, fists clenched, only for émile to slam two hands into the attacker’s chest and shove him back.

Fear of the man’s retribution for the act took place of Léon’s anger, and he leapt forward to move émile aside, but the man had stopped.

He’d taken three steps back, breathing hard, eyes like knives, but he stood well away.

A tense quiet ensued, the two men breathing hard, looking daggers at one another, then he moved to a wash basin.

Léon kept one eye on him, and another, astounded, on émile, who almost immediately rushed into Léon’s arms to be pulled close against his big brother.

Henry held a wet cloth to his bleeding cheek, his hand shaking, watching the pair.

His distance allowed Léon some small idea of the kind of room he was in.

It was, all things considered, a nice room.

Nicer than the shack he and émile lived in.

It had a fireplace, tidy and warm.

It had comfortable-looking beds.

And it had food. It took Léon a few moments to even grasp what he was seeing, because it had so much food.

Foods Léon had barely set eyes on since he was a child.

Foods produced for people who weren’t Léon, who weren’t of Léon’s class.

And Léon searched over the man’s previously tidy dark hair, his shirt, open across a fine chest but embroidered with a care and elegance about the collar and cuffs, and his breeches, made of some material rich and clean, then a ruby ring glinting on his little finger.

This man… This man was wealthy.

And exactly what sort of sick bastard was he, with his food and his toys and the way he’d befriended émile?

“What did you do to him?” The nauseated words spilled out of Léon’s mouth, tears at his eyes with the enormity of the idea.

“Nothing.” Henry’s head shook, his spare hand raised, and he spoke, for the first time in Léon’s presence, gently and seriously.

“I didn’t touch him.” He moved a hand to indicate a toy cat, wind up and flat now, lying on its side.

“He slipped. He slipped. I didn’t… I told you I wouldn’t.”

Léon would kill him.

He’d beat him to a pulp.

When he was done, not one shred of his once-handsome face would be recognisable.

But he wouldn’t do it in front of émile.

He’d take him home, then return with some men and take care of this situation once and for all.

He grasped émile’s wrist and walked to the door, only to hear the words over his shoulder, “I’m sorry, I can’t let you leave.”

Léon turned back with the sort of smile that was thanking the man for making trouble, so he had an excuse to pulverise him right then and there.

But that smile slipped, slowly and irretrievably, on sight of the pistol that was aimed directly at his face.