Luke was asleep on the cot, his mouth slack and an open book splayed on his chest. His skin was pasty white, making the bruise darkening one eye and a cut on his lip look even worse. A fight with the guards? Other prisoners? Either way it was sickening, and Gray lowered his head to pray.

Dear Lord, what am I supposed to do? This can’t be your will.

No answers came. The cut on Luke’s lip was healing and the bruise looked old, so this couldn’t be a daily thing, but it still made Gray ill. He struggled to compose himself, then gently kicked the foot of the cot to wake his brother. It took a few nudges before Luke blearily awakened. A smile cracked across his face, but he made no effort to rise.

“Gray?”

Gray stepped forward into the cell. “Just off the boat.”

Luke braced a hand on the thin cot to push himself up. Sitting made him look even thinner, his shirt hanging open to expose a bony ribcage. Gray tossed a sack of beef jerky, chocolate, and almonds on the cot. He’d had to pay a fortune to get it past the guard, but the expression on Luke’s face was worth it as he tore into a chocolate bar, taking a small bite from the end. He extended it to Gray.

“Want some?”

Even starving, Luke instinctively offered him a bite of chocolate. Gray shook his head and asked the questions that were impossible to hold back.

“Fight with the guards?” He gestured to Luke’s eye.

Luke shrugged. “I’m not the most popular guy in here.”

That certainly had to be true. The soldiers staffing the jail were working in conjunction with the Americans, and anyone suspected of siding with the insurgency and potentially setting back the island’s reconstruction was in for a rough time.

“Is there anything I can do?” Gray asked, knowing it was probably a pointless question.

Luke batted his concern away. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine. There are a couple of guards who sometimes pull weekend duty who really don’t like me, but they hardly ever get assigned to this ward.”

“What are their names?”

“Forget it. Trying to interfere will only make it worse.”

Gray’s stomach clenched, because it was probably true.

Luke eagerly absorbed all the news from home, leaning forward with delight on his face as Gray spoke of Caroline’s work at the White House and of how Otis had just set off on his first voyage with Captain Haig.

Luke only ate half the chocolate bar, carefully wrapping the foil around the rest. He stood to put the entire parcel of food into a rope sack dangling above his cot. “Mice,” he explained with a reluctant smile. “Nothing gets left on the floor unless I want to share it with them.”