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That Good Friday was the first time Jud had blood on his hands in thirteen years, since his ears had rung, since his hands had shook like that, since his whole body probably did. He was surprised he didn’t have a full-blown episode like the first time. However, it had been thirteen years.
It wasn’t something you forgot easily. All of it, death, but chiefly the blood. The smell, obviously. The slip of it on tile and skin, the way you see it in places it isn’t supposed to be. That police station smelled of nothing but blood. Blood was all Jud was able to think about that night, and what exactly he had done–he couldn’t understand what he had done, he just knew that he did it. He killed a man. Guilt and emotions Jud had never experienced before made their home inside him. Deep down he doesn’t think they had ever left, even now.
He was silent. He didn’t have the words or the emotional capacity for such an awful, incomprehensible thing for him to do. Did he want this man dead? He thought he did. The prick was upstaging Jud. Showing off, kissing ass to people who were almost family to Jud, and how dare he take that away from him? For a multitude of reasons. But the consequences made him feel hollow. The aftermath was harrowing, as he had never, ever, done what he did if he knew it would actually work. He was gambling and praying to never land on green.
He was silent now, for what could there possibly be for him to say? He just wanted to be a priest for crying out loud.
At seventeen, he didn’t exactly have anywhere or anyone to go to. He was still young, and eventually crawled back into the real world. Sleeping outside that station and eventually his car became his norm–as his ring didn’t want to take back some killer anyways–as well as the blood and the way Jud's fist collided with that man's face more than it should have, at least, was a norm in his dreams. He had seen and heard of fighters dying in the ring, yes, he had lost a peer or two, but he had never been involved. He was never the cause. If you wanted to get technical about it–and Jud did–blood wasn’t even on his hands. He was protected. He didn’t understand why his opponent wasn’t. No, the blood was everywhere else. It was in his clothes and in his hair and probably in his mouth and mind. He couldn’t shower enough, wash his hands enough and cry in the cold of winter enough. Nothing could make that crack of bones breaking, that smell of blood and that horrible mixture of fear and shame in his gut go away.
God made things easier, as he did most things. Langstrom took him in and that became a blur. He hadn’t felt loved like that in forever, maybe at all. Jud felt like he had failed him–as disconnected as they were now–his social worker and most importantly God. Jud wanted to vomit and cry right then and there in that cold unforgiving closet if it weren’t for Wick’s lambish flock staring him down with more terror than he had ever seen directed at him. He was seventeen all over again. He wanted to admit defeat, fly his flag and go to sleep. But Martha and Dr. Nat had more terrorizing to do, and he was their priest. It was his duty to serve his people, wasn’t it?
He had willed the Wicked Old Man to die, and he had to live with the consequences. It wasn’t new to him.
None of this was.