The Devil's Labyrinth

CHAPTER 9

HE WAS BACK on the floor of the boys’ restroom at Dickinson, curled up in a fetal position, bracing himself for the next kick. Only it wasn’t just Stan Wojniak and Bennie Locke this time. Frankie Alito was there, too, along with three other guys, and all of them were kicking him, their shoes thudding into his sides and smashing his face. Even the walls seemed to be closing in on him, and there was no place to hide, and more guys were around him, and then he saw the knives.

First in Alito’s hand, and then in Locke’s, and then they all had knives, and they were closing in on him, and his heart was pounding so hard he could hear it, and he opened his mouth to scream but nothing came out and—

— and Ryan jerked awake in the darkened hospital room. Its silence broken only by the pounding of his own heart, and the groan that escaped his lips as the pain of his convulsive awakening broke through the narcotics and threatened to tear his chest apart.

He lay perfectly still, willing the spasm of pain to break. The beating was over — he was safe. Safe in the hospital, and tomorrow he would go home.

Tomorrow or Sunday.

The wave of pain finally began to recede, and he turned over onto his good side, wincing at the new pang of protest from his cracked ribs. He held still again and closed his eyes, but after the nightmare he didn’t really want to go back to sleep again, at least not until the last remnants of the dream were completely gone.

Besides, he wasn’t sleepy, and what he really wanted was someone to talk to. But not his mother, who would only start crying, and certainly not Tom Kelly. And he didn’t want to call any of the nurses, either. They’d just give him some more pills.

The person he really wanted to talk to was his father.

His father would know what to do, would tell him how to handle Frankie Alito and all his friends when he went back to school on Monday. But his father couldn’t help him, because his father was dead, and wasn’t coming back, and Ryan was just going to have to figure out what to do by himself.

A single tear rolled out the corner of his eye and he quickly wiped it away. Then there was a soft knock on the door. As Ryan fumbled with the controller and found the light switch, the door opened and a dark-haired man stepped inside.

A dark-haired man who was neither a nurse nor an orderly.

Ryan gazed at him uncertainly.

“Ryan?” the man asked. “Ryan McIntyre?”

Ryan nodded.

The man stepped fully into the room and let the door close quietly behind him, and without the brighter lights of the hallway behind him, Ryan could finally see the clerical collar the man wore.

A priest.

“I’m Father Sebastian Sloane,” the priest said, lowering himself onto the chair closest to the bed.

Ryan frowned. What was a priest doing here? Had his mother sent him? But maybe he was just the chaplain at the hospital or something. Before he could ask, though, the priest spoke again. “I think you know a friend of mine. Tom Kelly?”

Ryan’s expression darkened. “Why’d he send you here?” he asked, making no attempt to keep the hostility out of his voice. “Is he hoping I’m going to die and wanted you to give me last rites?”

The priest didn’t even flinch at the harsh words; instead he chuckled. “Not too fond of him, hunh?”

Ryan shook his head. “Why should I be?”

Father Sebastian spread his hands dismissively. “No reason that I can think of. Knowing Tom, he’s probably trying to act like your father. Anyway, he sure sounded like it when he called me an hour ago.” He leaned forward slightly and dropped his voice. “So how bad is he?”

Ryan shrugged. “He just keeps acting like he knows what’s best for my mother and me. Like we can’t take care of ourselves.”

“Sounds like Tom, all right,” Father Sebastian sighed. “He tries to run everyone’s life. In fact, that’s why I came over here tonight — it was easier to just do what he wanted me to do than try to argue with him. Although I’ve got to say, sometimes I’d rather just—” He cut off his words and jabbed the middle finger of his right hand high in the air. “You know what I mean?”

“Jesus,” Ryan blurted out without thinking. “What kind of priest are you?”

“Actually, I’m a counselor at St. Isaac’s,” Father Sebastian said. He grinned, and when he spoke again his voice was tinged with sarcasm. “Is it all getting clearer now?”

Ryan groaned. “Oh, great — so he sent you here to wake me up in the middle of the night just so you could talk me into going to St. Isaac’s? What’d he think — I’d be so drugged up I wouldn’t know what was going on?”

“Probably,” Father Sebastian agreed. “But in all fairness, you weren’t asleep, and if you had been I’d have gone away quietly. Granted, getting up this late and coming over here wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do tonight, but as I said, it beats arguing with Tom Kelly. So what do you think? Want to hear the pitch, or should I just go home and tell Tom you were asleep?”

“You’d really do that?” Ryan asked.

“Try me!” Father Sebastian rose to his feet. “It’s almost one in the morning and this past evening wasn’t really great. So just say the word, and I’m out of here and back in bed in half an hour.”

“What if I want to hear the pitch?” Ryan countered.

Father Sebastian rolled his eyes. “Then I give you the short version, hope you don’t have any questions, and I’m home and in bed in maybe forty minutes.”

Ryan started to laugh, felt a twinge of pain in his ribs, and cut the laugh short. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll listen.”

The priest smiled. “Beats lying here in the dark thinking about next week, doesn’t it?” he asked, voicing Ryan’s thoughts almost perfectly. He lowered himself back into the chair. “The main thing I’ve got to tell you is that things like what happened to you don’t happen at St. Isaac’s. We don’t let them happen. If anybody there is going to give you a hard time it’s going to be the nuns, not the other students. And while some of the sisters are tough as nails, I don’t think they’d actually kick you.” He winked at Ryan. “But don’t hold me to that. I’ve only been there since the fall, so what do I know?”

“Tom Kelly doesn’t really care that I got my butt kicked yesterday,” Ryan replied. “He just wants me out of the house so he can put the make on my mother.”

“From what I know of Tom, which I’ll grant you isn’t all that much, he’s probably going to do that whether you’re there or not,” Father Sebastian said. “But you know, it’s not such a terrible thing that he has feelings for your mother.”

“It still doesn’t make him my dad,” Ryan insisted, and hoped his words didn’t sound quite as sullen to the priest as they did to him.

“No one can replace your father,” Father Sebastian. “Tom and your mom are just trying to do what’s best for you. Like your dad would, if he were here. And right now, they think that the best thing is for you to get out of Dickinson High.”

Ryan stared at the ceiling.

Father Sebastian put his hand on Ryan’s shoulder. “It’s up to you, of course. We don’t tolerate the kind of stuff you’re going through at Dickinson, and I can tell you that a diploma from St. Isaac’s on your college applications doesn’t hurt.”

Ryan’s attention instantly shifted back to the priest. For as long as he could remember, he’d been determined to follow his father to Princeton, but Princeton could take their pick from literally thousands of kids with 4.0-plus GPAs and perfect SATs, and after what had happened yesterday he couldn’t risk blowing any more tests, let alone waste all his time watching his back.

“Any of your kids go to Princeton?” he asked, trying to sound a lot less interested than he suddenly was.

“A couple,” Father Sebastian replied. “And Harvard. And M.I.T. The best of our bunch go pretty much wherever they want to go.” Ryan made no reply, but Father Sebastian felt fairly sure that the message Tom wanted delivered had finally been received. “Just think about it, okay?” he said, standing up. “Now go back to sleep and get some rest.”

Ryan nodded. Then, just as Father Sebastian opened the door, he spoke. “Hey.”

Father Sebastian turned.

“Thanks for coming.”

The priest smiled, his eyes roving quickly over the hospital room. “You seem like a pretty good kid,” he said. “You deserve better than this. Think about it.”

The door swung shut, and Ryan switched off the light, gazing sightlessly up at the dark ceiling. But the last remnants of the nightmare were gone, and Ryan was sure they weren’t going to come back.