Return 2: A story

The orange glow of the electric heater draws my eye.
Everything else is dark, it must be late.
I think I dozed off for a while.
We have been in here for what seems like forever. I can hear his stomach growling.
I look over.
‘Are you OK?’ I say.
‘No…’ he says.
This is the trouble with trusting others, hiding out with others. You have to worry about their endurance as well as your own. It’s risky.
‘What’s the matter?’ I ask him.
‘It’s horrible in here, I’m hungry and the tap is digging in my back!’.
‘We have the heater, I don’t know what you are complaining about’, I quietly stand up, take off my jumper, fold it and give it to him to sit on. ‘There’s a kit-kat and biscuits in the pocket.’ I say. ‘If you want a drink, get it from the tap.’
He digs around in the pocket and begins rustling the packaging. I roll my eyes. He gets the point and eats quietly.
I hold my ear to the door. I can’t hear anything. We turned off the light so they would think we were asleep. Now it’s dark I would normally opt for a window escape, the next building is close enough to jump onto, if your confident, but Jake is not and I have to take him with me.
I am thinking through our options, and trying not to pace. I can see him watching me.
The routes to exits are complicated, I have made it before but it was an extremely close call, even on my own. I had to employ some pretty strategic footwork on the loose floorboards last time.
I know our only option is defeat and I am starting to realise it.
Jake looks at me with a lopsided grin, he knows it’s almost over and I can tell he’s glad. But he doesn’t know at what price.
‘This is it’ I say. ‘There’s no escaping this one. He’s out there and we have to face it.’
‘Can’t we go and stay with one of your mates?’ he says, his eyebrows raised and hopeful.
‘Not this time mate, we need to surrender, but we aint going down easy, don’t you worry about that.’
‘Here’s the plan… no matter what happens, you laugh. Hysterically, look like you are really enjoying yourself, OK. He’ll get mad, but it won’t matter, that’s the point.’
Jake’s manically grinning already, as if he is practising. ‘OK, that’s a great idea’ he says.
‘Listen to me. He’s gonna get really mad. No matter what he says or does, you laugh, you laugh your arse off, ok?’
‘OK’ he says and we shake on it.
Here we are now, like two rebels of the wild west. Preparing ourselves for a showdown, preparing ourselves to go down in a blaze of glory. He climbs out of the bath.
We stand in front of the door and look at each other. I give him the spare newspaper I keep behind the sink to put down the seat of his jeans. ‘What about you?’ he asks, ‘Don’t you worry about me’ I say and pat him on the head.
‘Now you don’t forget to laugh’ I say as I ease the door open. I can hear movement already. Here we go.