Page 106 of The Man Made of Smoke

The man turns his head in the darkness.

And then the snoring resumes.

There’s no reason to hesitate. James walks across the front room. He doesn’t need to tell himself that he’s lighter than air right now, because it feels like he really is. He walks past the man, into the small porch at the front of the house, opens the door just enough to slip out through and then—his heart giddy now, euphoria coursing through him—closes it quietly behind him.

It’s a cold night. The sky is clear and the moon is full, and the farm ahead of him seems so much brighter than the house behind. There’s no need for him to be quiet anymore—not out here. He runs as fast as he can across the hard ground, heading all the way down to the wooden pen at the far end by the trees. James hasn’t run this quickly in years, perhaps not ever, and he can’t remember ever feeling so alive.

The boy chained to the post is awake and alert. Perhaps he’s too cold and miserable to sleep, but it feels like he was expecting him. As James skids to his knees in the dust, he can see the boy’s bright eyes, and the terror there just makes the resolve in him fold over upon itself, becoming sharper and more defined, like the edge of a blade.

“What are you doing?” the boy whispers.

James takes hold of the padlock on the chain.

“It’s time to leave,” he says.

He works the first key on the ring into place. It doesn’t turn, so he tries the second. He feels untethered from the world now. Triumphant.

“Where are we going?” the boy asks him.

“We’re going home,” James says.

The second key doesn’t turn, so he moves onto the next. Three more to go. Glancing up from the lock, he sees the hope in the boy’s eyes now.

“Do you promise?”

“Yes,” James says. “I promise.”

The boy smiles at him.

And then everything is suddenly brilliantly lit, as though a cameraflash has gone off, and the image of the boy’s face is burned into James’s mind as he winces and closes his eyes.

When he opens them a moment later, the brightness remains.

The whole compound is flooded with light.

“Oh God,” the boy whispers.

Still kneeling in the dirt, James turns his head.

The man is standing on the decking at the front of the house.

The two of them stare at each other for what feels like an age, and then the man shakes his head and taps down the steps. James feels the hope die inside him. It was a trap, he realizes. All along, the man was setting him one final test. Just to be certain he had him. Just to be sure he had broken him.

And now there’s nowhere to run.

The man walks slowly across the compound toward him, turning the knife in his hand around.

And as he gets closer, he begins to whistle his tune.

Thirty

Fleming walked me back to reception.

“You nervous about this fucker?” he said.

“No.”

“Because I’m short-staffed, but I can probably have someone stop by and keep an eye on the house.”

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