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Kevin headed to the Generals camp like a lamb towards a butchers axe. In hindsight, McKinley was right.
“You can’t change how a crazy warlord thinks. That would take something incredible…”
Of course, Kevin thought he was something incredible, a force of nature that could convert The General and fix everything wrong in the village. Then, they’d throw a party all about him. He just had to make this about him, right? He could see how selfish he’d been now, tied up at the Generals camp with a dagger pointed at his jugular.
“Now, here is how we’ll do this,” The General dug the tip of the knife deeper into his flesh, which clammy and paper white. “I’m going to slit your throat like a pig, and send a message to the rest of your little missionary buddies to get the fuck out of Uganda! Do I make myself clear?”
Kevin suppressed a nod, because that would seal his fate, the General would gut him like an animal and drop his body off at the mission hut to traumatize the rest of the elders. And it’d be all his fault for thinking he was anything more than human against the devil.
Kevin’s faith had been sucked out of him as soon as those guards grabbed him, but if demons existed, the General had to be one. In his eyepatch and camo and holding a knife to his throat, not as a threat but a promise.
“I said, do I make myself clear? If you don’t answer, I’ll have to make sure you never can. Might even carve your tongue out. Won’t be able to proselytize after that, will you…” The General ripped his name tag off, staring down at the written Elder Price in bold white letters. He scoffed, or it might’ve been a laugh, but Kevin could barely hear anything over the ringing in his ears. “Elder Price? Elder?” Kevin snapped back to Earth when The General slapped him hard across the face.
“Yes…” He spat out. The ropes chaffed against his wrists, and he squirmed, hoping that by some dumb luck the bonds would go loose and he could book it back to the mission hut. As if he belonged there after everything he’d done.
“Perfect.” The General pulled a chair out in front of him, stabbing the dagger into the armrest, and sat down. “Now, I don’t feel like killing you, surprisingly. At least, not at first. I like to play with my food. So, I’m going to think about what I’ll do with you for a couple hours, and you’ll sit in silence like a good fucking boy. Will you, Elder Price?”
He mockingly shook his name tag in front of Kevin’s face before throwing it absentmindedly into a corner.
“Yes…” He uttered hopelessly. This was it, the end of the line. Didn’t the movies say he was about to have his life flash before his eyes? Where was that?
The General grinned, wide, teeth sharp like a wolf. Then, he hoisted himself up by Kevin’s shoulder and left the tent, leaving Kevin’s fate to the two soldiers standing by his sides.