“M’ Tired.”

+ #BLEAKSUMMER …  a collection of ill-fated misfits crammed in a little Irish town crushed into the cliffs by the sea since the 14th century; narrow passageways carry irish folk-horror, insipid melody and debauchery. A place where nothing is what it seems, and the unexplainable claw through the veil at its mortal inhabitants. SPIRIOD, IRELAND is just outside Donegal, and underneath it’s picture perfect postcard exterior, is a hairy underbelly of family warfare, 𝖆𝖓𝖈𝖎𝖊𝖓𝖙 𝖌𝖞𝖕𝖘𝖞 𝖒𝖆𝖌𝖎𝖈𝖐𝖘 and where bloated aristocracy leaks out over the cobbles.

𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐬: the roster, guidelines

+ an exploration of : earthbound gothic horror, parapsychology and clairvoyancy, the victorian approach to death, familial dread and yearning, severe feelings of loss and betrayal, dream weaving, the effect of money and power on a psyche, the rot and crumbling at the centre of british aristocracy, Irish Catholicism and catholic guilt, creatures of the night in all of their forms, damp earth and mossy knolls and perhaps the odd seance.

These characters are original and are often involved in themes including but not limited to:  𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐎𝐑, 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇, 𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐘 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐔𝐌𝐀, 𝐃𝐑𝐔𝐆 𝐀𝐁𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐋. If this will be triggering for you, please proceed with caution and ask all the questions you may need to feel comfy if you wish to interact with my muses.

This tale follows three families.

𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔖𝔥𝔢𝔞𝔰: bound to the earth the town was built on, the Shea family have occupied land in Spiriod since the beginning. Ancestry derived from fortune tellers, mediums, witchcraft and gypsies. Travellers who ground to a halt at the moor side and have settled here ever since, their modern day descendants are rotting from the inside out. They are everything their forefathers would have despised, new money, drug running and cheap tactics. That is, except for Orla, who tries her best to remain faithful to their roots; she, her son and her niece are the three threads holding it together.

𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔏𝔬𝔠𝔨𝔢𝔰: sin takes it’s form in the Locke family, old money and more of it than god. So why here? At first it was a quiet playground, a holiday home - walls left to creak in the cold winter months. They are everything the british aristocracy breeds at Eton and spits out to torture those less fortunate. The untimely, and suspicious deaths (depending on which side you stand on of course) deaths of their mother and father meant the Locke triplets could have a go at playing empire themselves, with Philip at the helm (he used to laugh more, life now is less funny) and Spiriod seemed the most unassuming place to start, with it’s close links to Belfast, Dublin and it’s British cousins, they are spreading their poison anywhere that will listen. 

𝔗𝔥𝔢 ℌ𝔦𝔩𝔩𝔦𝔢𝔯𝔰: common as all muck, and have island hopped from Merseyside, UK to try their luck at a new life over the puddle. Law and order, working class woes and family values hold them together. They haven’t had the best luck, but it’s starting to look up, and they’re shaking hands and working with the most influential people in town. Will it last, or will their efforts make hairline cracks into chasms?

In another life, Sundays are slow, waking up to peer through fogged windows at the morning frost, warm brew prickling red blotches onto alabaster skin. A white carpet of prickles, succumbing to morning warmth, the scent of expectant snow on the air and the hush of sheets and tangled bodies. They could be unassuming and undone. Nowhere to be. No business to attend to, no one needed them. A law unto themselves, as it should be. 

In another life, the warm glow of Christmas lights is accompanied by hot breath on cold air, cinnamon spices rushing over hot tongue. Mulled wine and laughter. Coins in charity buckets for local rugby teams dressed as Santa Claus, festive cheer given too generously, papercuts from wrapping too many presents and midnight mass, Irish lilt in community buzz, Gavin and Stacey Christmas specials and too many brandys. Still faces scan over joyous children, anxiously awaiting morn, Christmas lists fulfilled. Cerulean gaze watches his wife potter at the stove, pulled away only by the jingling laughter and giddy feet of his daughters, clumsy clambering into his lap. Hands that held them steady, free of the quiver he has become so used to, tremors he is told God has gifted him as punishment for being a cunt. 

In another life, she gets to feel the fattening swell of life in her womb. Of growth. Tiny hands and feet and thick dark curls. The piercing cry they so desperately wanted to get up for in the wee hours. Tiny life. Tiny perfect life. He dreamt of daughters that were every bit their mother. Daughters that would crawl into bed between them after bad dreams, daughters who craved to be held, . He had always wanted daughters, too aware of how most sons he had met had turned out. 

Slow living is what he thinks of, simplicity, of nights sprawled in front of the television, rain on the windows and salty air on long beach walks. Beautiful chaos in blissful weekends, Sunday roasts and teaching his kids to ride a bike. He wished for hard working hands, callouses from honest work, to plunge sore knuckles through morning ice, feel the burn of ice water. Philip liked to be outside, as a wee ‘un had seen himself working with animals, or in farming. It was something just beyond his reach, the promise of another life, of a stronger bond - whispers and dreams that had never come true. Except for one. Her. 

He had her to be grateful for, among all the mess and destruction. He still prayed. Still a god fearing man, adopting the good and forgiving parts of Catholicism at least and he really did recognise the irony seen as he was far beyond saving. He had tried - when he was younger, when the harsh realities of the world they had moved into became apparent, so culturally different from blighty, where hidden putrefaction grew like a mould instead under the banner of conservative catholicism, stringent godliness - to do the right thing. A sort of exchange in his head, for every rotten thing he did, he would attempt an act of good. 

The Magdalene laundries had been a culture shock, and something that twisted his gut, an ugly bleeding wound on the landscape he had come to call home. The cruelty of those nuns, the coldness in their eyes - and the way those girls exhibited fear had been something that still haunted him. Part of his bond with the Sheas was the understanding on both sides, that to better oneself, they could no longer be privy to ugliness and still stick to the status quo. He thought, selfishly perhaps, that if he could save them, it would cancel out what his family had done to their parents. 

Every now and then, he would let himself slip into the life he could’ve had, doing all the things he had been made very aware he was above. His privilege was one built on the sacrifice of others, and in a funny sort of way he felt he should honor them. And so he cleaned, built, grafted - mucked out Blair’s horses and shovelled coal for the fires, donated to church and the local schools. He thought everyone should be humble, even in the face of overblown wealth, on god given rights, on power - and so he enjoyed every second he and Orla spent in those places…putting the fear of god where they thought right, those feckin’ wizened nuns.

His woman was, though he was biased, everything a woman should be. Soft at heart, and giving in nature, a true mother without the children she so deserved. They had had their indiscretions, and been unfortunately cruel to one another - pain did ugly things to people - but their love had never waned and to him that counted for something. 

He still hoped for that other life, and would do everything in his power to give it to her.

Now, he watched her, listening to the turning pages as she read - nimble fingers creeping over the paper's edge. He had things to be doing, but he wanted to watch her, to be kept suspended within the fleeting moments they had at the moment. He had counted down from ten, and told himself five more minutes for over an hour now. The only sound the fire, muffled voices from the television he now only used for noise to pierce the quiet and her, as she moved, existed, breathed life into their home. She would never understand, he suspected, how much he depended on her presence, on how much he truly needed her. Needed her to be there, to be alright, to have the things she deserved. 

She noticed him, then, a smile crackling over her calm visage and she pulled herself upright from her perch, gliding across the room to thread long fingers through his hair, resting at his scalp and without a word, she pulled him to her chest. 

“I know that look.” She knows.

“M’grand, bird. I love you, I do.”

They had moved a long way from exchanging bad for good, the balance had tipped some time ago and he reached desperate claws out to pull it back. He swore it. 

“You need to slow down, love - does too much ill to have a finger in every pie nowadays, some greedy bastard will eat everyone. Remember tha’.” 

Her voice is like bird song and he sinks into her, raising his arms to pull her closer, inhaling her scent. 

In another life.

There’s a light, and it flickers - philip watched his wife circle it, a look of exasperation mottling her face, and yet the image let solemn lips crack open into a smile. Be it that his gut tells him she is his wife, but the commitment says otherwise…or be it the idiocy he finds in watching her struggle rather than her asking for help, it curls the corners of slack maw all the same.

The hallway lightbulb, it was another something he had promised and not gotten around to. He watched her turn it on and off, each glow of the bulb illuminating a new line of frustration. Their house had so many knocks and notches now from a variety of fuckery and now it bore the scars of their life there. In truth, he liked it that way, in every crack lay a memory.

Both of them had the money to fix it and then some, but there was an unspoken understanding that they’d get around to it, the thin veneer of perfection was undone with a closer look, but it was them. It was their space and it illustrated every fight and every make up. Every kiss, every shag - the 𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 in the oak floor, the creak in a floorboard set free the laughter they forgot about when times felt too tough to bear.

Albeit it was a ‘man’ way to think of things. For his wife, it was merely something else for her to bleet at him for. It ignited the ever present need in her; to nest, and home make, regardless of whether or not there were children present. Their lives had never been any different, even after all this time. It held the ever present guilt that he hadn’t been able to give her children; they both blamed themselves but took care not to dwell.

He watched her ferret from room to room, and knew by now the exact moment she’d snap and call him out for the useless son of a bitch he knew he could be. Philip was his 𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫’𝐬 son, god rest her soul, and there was something in him that loved the banter, the opportunity to rise and fulfil the husband character he so 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲. To prove his point; to make it upto her and force them back into the small box in which they just were : in love with each other and each of their imperfections.

He knew the life they shared wasn’t perfect, it was hardly the shit fairy tales were made of but it suited them.

The smile grew wider over the lines in his face, and he relished in the ache. Philip rubbed grubby mit through the mop of inky locks at his scalp, stubbing out puthering tab end in waiting ashtray. Blair was made for him, and he her.

Crossing one boot over the other, he leant back in his chair, and he watched as his dainty wife shot a look over her shoulder, blonde tendrils tumbling past her shoulder blade, he wanted to 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐡 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐧, he thought.

𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞. Everyone said he used to laugh, and with her, with her there was still some cause to. To cat and mouse, to play house like children would.

Cerulean irises fluttered to the banal on the television, a ticking wheel of some bullshit American dream game show. “Feck me, Shirley, the answers fuckin’ 𝐛𝐥𝐮𝐞.”

It was just enough, a whisper of change in the air and he watched dainty palm make contact with the living room door. Blair crackled, an electricity to their coupling. To be sure, she was on the ceiling now and in probability rules she could have shorted the electrics in the whole house with her temper alone.

His eyes flickered again to meet hers.

“What’s wrong bird?” Door handle met drywall and slotted into the last fight hole it made. Long fingers reached for the next cigarette, running the filter over his lower lip, he lifts struck match to tobacco.

“Are ye’ yankin’ my fuckin’ dick Lip?”

He blinked, raising a playful eyebrow. Shaking the match out, he watches grey smoke meet the blue of his cigarette, curling around one another, and allows himself a moment to dwell on glowing embers.

“And why would I be doin’ that?” He inhaled, slowly, measured, turning his head back towards the tv. “M’ just watchin’ television, love.”

Anger meets television screen as she launches the laundry basket perched on her hip at blue glow. “Catch Phrase?! Ya kiddin’ love- you ain’t watched this with any degree of seriousness ever, n’ Stephen fuckin’ Mulhern turns me stomach the diddy wee cunt.”

She sighed, exasperated, and pottered to the hallway. He pressed his lips together, brimming with adoration for the fire in her, comical that her reactions were always gigantic even in the face of the smallest inconvenience.

This was it. The 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐞 - she’d make to do it herself, teetering delicately on step stool, he watched every curve of her and resigned himself to the fact she’d ruined him for all other women. To be sure - he was more than okay with that.

He sighed, hauling himself up off the chair on which he had sunk. “Baby.”

“Fuck off will ya? I’ll do it myself.”

“Baby.” He moves towards her. “Son of a bitch B, let me do it would ya? You’re gonna fall and snap ye chuffing neck, and then ye'd definitely be no use at all.”

“Philip, I mean it, go away.”

He laughs, a low chuckle; and she blows, swinging for him, but she stumbles, he grasps her hips. And he couldn’t be happier to be right it fills him with a warm glow, same as the one he feels at the crown of his head as flat palm meets it. Still - he clings to wriggling woman.

Slowly, he props her onto her feet on the floor, and moves to twist flickering bulb from its mount. “Let me do it, darlin’, a’ said I would didn’ I?”

She sniffs, resigned, an unexplained smirk on her face. For a second he thinks he’s won, before thumb and forefinger find the heat in the bulb.

“Mother fucker.” He spits and she crumples beside him. Shaking his hand he turns. “You little bitch.”

Laughter breaks and he scowls. “Ya fuckin’ useless with me even now love. Cmon, rinse ya fingers and do it with a rag next time.” She takes his hand in hers and leads him to the sink, tending to the growing redness on his fingertips.

Fuckin’ perfection. P’haps it was time after all these years to make an honest woman of her, neither of them even mentioned it much anymore.

She won, even when she didn’t. His wife. His Blair, she was a force of nature and would outsmart him even in 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡.

Down, down, down. Floor after floor held it’s secrets, pregnant with the promise of a hellscape should one dare to scratch the surface. Each Locke sibling was unique, Dermot was the eldest by a minute or two, and held his father’s temperament; reckless abandon and all the charisma of a python. Handsome enough to charm anyone just long enough to strangle the light out of them. Enia had come second - the middle sibling she held the grace in the family, her mother’s daughter. She tried, she tried so very hard to be the moral compass for the three of them. Though even the hand that pointed due north had been skewed for some time. She liked to tell herself that she had gotten out, she was her own woman, not woven into the fabric her brothers had sewn… and yet. 

Down Down Down. Pipes click, floorboards creak, music and laughter flow through the halls of Locke and Co. 

The hotel and casino was their baby, but it was Philip that had nurtured it, and grown it. Philip Locke was the youngest, and had torn his way into the world kicking and screaming. Philip was different. It had been a long time since he’d allowed the light to hit his skin, to feel like he fit into places. The hardest decisions, the decisions he took to protect his family had always been his burden to bear; and so the light in him now was only saved for private moments. For moments with Blair, his Blair - for the promise of a life between the two of them that would be legitimate. Away from the blood and the violence that knitted him together.

Philip Locke. The youngest, by five minutes. The doctors said he struggled, there had been a risk to life, and yet there he was. He tried to clutch at Enia’s moral compass, but threat to family came first and it needed snuffing out. The lad was gypsy to his core, born Irish, though his father was from over the puddle, and preferred the perks that particular brand of aristocracy brought to them. His mother had taught him tongues growing up as he was the only one that had taken an interest. An old soul from the moment he took air into his lungs. The way he conducted himself was witchcraft, no doubt, but those he was unable to charm would most certainly die at his own hands. 

His make up was such that it made sense to him that Blair had been presented to him as the only woman on this earth able to harness him. Why he consulted Orla on every decision he made, and with their whiskey, and Mickey’s drugs running through the veins of most of his clientele, he was as much family to the Shea’s as the rest of them. He listened when Orla would tell him of Gypsy curses, of ghosts that whispered in his ear to warn him of trust. 

For a while now, he had been tracking a mole, an informant to one Michael Shea. Philip and his siblings had enough on with their own family affairs - nevermind that of the Shea’s. He did recognise however, that the old heart in his tin chest had a few knocks in it yet, and therefore he needed to protect all of his kin - even the extended ones. 

Orla had warned him. 

Light in the room had been snuffed out, left instead with the yellowed glow of the security lights over-head. Ruben stood at his flank, alongside Aidan - two men he would trust with his life. The tick and hiss of the boiler in the basement the accompaniment to the thuds of revellers above. Another party of his brother’s making, no doubt. Ordinarily, he preferred silence for his exploits, but they had been under his nose and so this would need to do. 

It was fitting it was in the bowels of his business - the empire they had amassed was built on bones, without a doubt. The party his brother had held was crawling with them, there were two of them sat before him. A third lay dormant on the tile. Philip sniffed, the scent of iron, sweat and wine in the air. Wrapping his hands around his knuckles, he caught sight of himself in the mirror, white shirt mottled with red, the stain spreading. 

The heel of his shoe knocked the body at his feet onto his back, just enough to hear the gurgling in his throat as the light went out in his eyes. The other two sat fidgeting, leather bound palms holding their shoulders to cracked wooden chairs. The task at hand was bloody, but of the two, it was the woman he had been balls deep in only half an hour before that seemed to hold the most resolve. Her face twisted into a smile, white teeth flashing in the dim light. 

“Ay Mr. Locke. You still owe me a hundred for helping you grieve the loss of another kid. P’haps.”

There were many things he could hold his resolve to, a stony disposition, this was not one of them. It was as if the young woman held a mirror upto his own shortcomings, and reminded him that he was still only human. “ENOUGH, eh? You didn’ even come fuckin’ close.” He had flown at her,  grasping her face in stiff palm. “Think yourself nuthin’ more than a fuckin’ recepticle.” Her eyes strained themselves to meet his, though he pushed her head to the side, lips at her ear, the feeling of disgust sticking to his skin. “Micky Shea ring any bells to you?” He sniffed, rubbing the pad of his thumb over her lip. “Think you can flash your tits and solve my problems with a shag do ya, she’s my fuckin’ WIFE, and you, diddy wee cunt, will n’er match up?”

“Coulda fooled me.” Her drawl but a whisper, and the anger in him bubbled so hot he felt her teeth crack at his knuckle. 

“Lip.” 

Aidan spat, and he turned his head. There was a softness in the man he had at his side, but to Philip, anyone that betrayed him and his was no better than a rat. He loved Blair, she had been the only one in all his years that had shown him what love was. It didn’t, however, mean the two were always honest with each other. The pain they held onto for being unable to make a life of their own meant on occasion they found solace with another when the ire of looking at each other got too much. 

“Y’alright there Aidan?” 

“Just, lets get this over and done with, shall we?”

He stood upright, the male next to the woman he held onto shivered in his chair, no doubt he had been drafted and charmed by Mr Shea just enough to think walking into the vipers den and trying to get one over on them was indeed the right thing to do. He had a knack at doing that, but he may as well be sending lambs to slaughter.

Ruben however, though younger than Aidan was made in his image. The lad idolised him, and his brother, and therefore the more he got involved with, the boyish idioms bled out of him like a haemorrhage, a puppy dog no more.

“C’mon Lip, Blair’ll be mad as hell.” 

Eyes flickered. “An’ what do you know about hell eh Ru? Might find some joy in there sometime.”

Hand slid over her clavicle, leaving a trail of red behind it, and for the first time the woman’s demeanour cracked. Not long enough for her to speak, as he wrapped his hands around her neck and snapped it. A swan, grace and beauty, fell limp in his grasp and she slithered from the chair. A ghost now like the rest of them, cursed to be trapped in the dusty pipes of this hotel forever more. 

He was an animal, the wolf in him had stretched and jaws frothed. It had become so commonplace in his life that he rarely felt the shudder of his actions between his feet. It was a strange dichotomy, to think they were capable of the things they did. Spiriod knew the people they were, they were bad people - but to them, and those that earned the protection of the Locke siblings, they were their bad people.

The man in the chair had wriggled free of Ruben’s grasp, and knocked the lad onto his back, and Philip flew, striking like a python. He and Aidan dragged him up, freeing their apprentice. 

“I’ll fuckin’ kill him.” Ruben was quick on his feet, bouncing on his toes like young men did when prepping for a fight, but this was beyond a scrap in a bar. He slowed as he watched his boss.

Philip had him flat on his back, the man reached, his hands and fingers grasping at his face. Truth be told, Philip had planned to let him go, give him a new smile to show his boss on the premise that he would never darken their doorway again. Plans change though, don’t they? Clumsy hands reached for blade, Philip wouldn’t remember this after, his heart in his throat. It had become like a blood sport for him, a frenzied attack. The man became mulch at his hands, until he, like the rest of them fell still, the black masses grew where his eyes had been.

“The sooner Michael fuckin’ Shea expires the better.” He rubbed the blood from his eyes, the taste of it on his tongue. Breathless he hoisted himself to his feet, tossing the knife at the body. He flew at Ruben, knocking the wind from him as he pinned him to a post. “Yer won’t be killin’ anyone lad - you think what we do is ALRIGHT? Look at it. Your sister would have me hung.” He let him go. 

Aidan slid out of the dark to his side, the three of them stood, surveying the damage as trickles of blood ran into one another. 

“You’ll be a Gypsy Boy forever, Lip.” Aidan noted, patting his shoulder, his voice still tremored. There was silence again, except for the clicking of pipes, the smell of iron and the rising damp.  

“P’haps - call my brother would ya? Fuckin’ lump can help me sort this, and I can have a word with him about who he invites to our events, eh?”

Philip lifted a cigarette to his mouth, running it along his lower lip, smoke replacing the taste of blood. 

—--

Philip’s brother had always been a lighter figure than he could ever be. He tried, he had his mothers wisdom, but the full weight of his father’s ferocity. Dermot was much more a free spirit, lifted by the privilege their lives gave them. 

Philip was under no illusions that perhaps Dermot was not as desensitised as he was be to scenes such as this, but figured it was best he saw, and experienced, to know why and how he stood on the privilege he did. Lip had merely made his peace with who he was, and the business he dealt in. Youngest by a fraction though he may be, he was the brains and the brutality behind the operation. It was never a playground for him to revel in, it was a desperation to hang onto all he had built, to protect his kin in ways their parents simply neglected to do for them. 

Each sibling wore that boulder around their neck like a noose, and in a way - it was. They were not untouchable, and could only bolster their lives by surrounding themselves with like minded folk. With people they could put on the payroll. It was not greed that drove Philip, but wrath. It surged throughout his extremities and propped him upright enough to function. 

He was stony faced, eyes flickering from one body to the next, the gravity of the massacre settling into the lines on his face. What were three more? He thought of Blair, he thought of his siblings and resigned to matters he always did - it had been necessary to protect them. Michael Shea was a bastard, cold and undeserving of the empire he wanted to snatch, and he looked out for his own. It also meant Blair had less death to take on of her own, he needed her to go legitimate. He needed her to start to distance herself from the lifestyle they shared, the ills they involved themselves in. She was his crutch, all he needed to lean on to say he would get out of it, this time would be the last time. 

But it was always the last time, so he needed her to be the stronger one of the pair of them. He had a wife before Blair, she was still around, Hollin, a hard faced woman who had only been made as such by her husband. Another woman he had rejected normality with and for her he wasn’t enough, the life wasn’t enough and nor were his promises. He had fought her on the divorce - no one divorced a Locke man. Only they had the say so on it, or so he thought, until one sombre afternoon, after stumbling in on him finding comfort in Blair, he signed the divorce papers. 

The sound of the doors clicking behind him broke his thought process, the movement of the other men in the room and the entrance of his brother made him turn his head. 

Dermot was cocksure, always was, so very sure of himself. To his credit, he was never afraid to get stuck elbow deep in the animalistic actions of his brother, and without a question as to why. What he didn’t understand was how to help prevent things reaching boiling point. 

Philip blinked slowly, watching him remove the cap, his suit jacket, peeling off layers of grandeur to paint himself red like the rest of them. He exhaled, slowly. 

“Who’ve we offed?” He noted, sniffing, watching the light hearted exchanges around him as his core temperature bubbled once again. “Who’ve we fuckin’ offed?”

He took a step, stopping only to wipe blood from his visage roughly with the cuff of his sleeve. “More like, Dermot threw another fuckin’ party. Another show of look who tha fuck we are. Another event where I have to clean up fuckin’ SHIT, because Micky fuckin’ Shea’s crack team o’ twats are in here tryna get ta’ us, me, YOU, our fuckin’ sister – BLAIR?”

He stopped. “Who’ve we fuckin’ offed?” Dermot repeated. The question his brother asked about the disposal of corpses hadn’t crossed his mind, but he shot Dermot the same look he had shot him, concern at the inhuman and disconnect they had towards death. “Uh, I dunno.” He turned. 

“I need ta’ speak to Orla.”

ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ ɪ'ᴅ ɢɪᴠᴇ ᴜᴘ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴍɪɢʜᴛ'ᴠᴇ ꜱʜᴏᴏᴋ ᴛʜᴇ 𝖑𝖔𝖛𝖊 ꜰʀᴏᴍ ᴍᴇ ᴏʀ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ɪ ᴡᴀꜱ ᴏɴ ᴛʜᴇ 𝖇𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖐? ʜᴏᴡ ᴄᴏᴜʟᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ, ᴅᴀʀʟɪɴɢ, ɪ'ᴅ 𝖘𝖈𝖆𝖗𝖊 ꜱᴏ ᴇᴀꜱɪʟʏ?