Chapter 33: Tête-à-Tête

Most of the remainder of Beau and Ben’s conversation was quiet. There weren’t any loud outbursts. Beau drank. He lit one cigarette off of another. No exclamations. No scowled promises. Beau took swigs from his bottle of whiskey, punctuating the conversation. They talked quietly. The talking went on for about five minutes. Connard looked around a bit and then went back to sleep. And then, it stopped being quiet.

“You’re a goddamn coward,” growled Ben. “You use your fifth force stuff to save your own skin. To run. The rumors are that you used to stand for something, but from the looks of things, that got scared out of you before I was even born.”

“If you had any sense,” said Beau, putting out his cigarette and then leaning in close, “you’d never have been born.” He flicked Ben’s forehead and took a swig from his bottle. “As if it’s a bad thing to save one’s own skin. If I hadn’t saved mine for so long, where would you all be?”