“Richard!” He didn’t react. His hands were clamped over his chips, and his eyes were locked on a spinning wheel. “Hey, what are you doing gambling?” I pulled his shoulder back, but his eyes stayed locked on a spinning marble.

I’d never seen this game.

The pink marble kept spinning and spinning at the edge of the wooden wheel and crossed alternating squares of red and black. The sound of click-clacking bearings sounded through the dimly lit room.

Slowly the ball came to a stop on black 94.

No one spoke, the dealer split the money stacked in the middle of the table with a long stick and three winners grabbed a pile of chips.

Richard hadn’t won, but his eyes were just as focused and determined as when the ball was rolling. His hand grabbed his last white chips, but before he could bet them, I grabbed his hand.

“Hey, you gotta stop. Did you not learn anything?”

He yanked his hand back. “What are you doing here if you’re not going to play?” He placed his chips on red before looking back. Seeing I had chips in my hand, he jumped up and whispered in my ear. “Fast, put half on red. Trust me on this, it’s stopped on black for the past three turns. This is the one.”

“No.” I pushed him away. “This is why you ended up in that cell in the first place. If I didn’t happen to go there, you would have been shipped to who knows where to work in a field or die as a battle slave. And who knows what would have happened to Isabelle.”

Richard wasn’t listening, his eyes were locked on to the box in my hand. “Trust me put it on red. You’ll double it.” He looked ready to jump me.

“You have five seconds.” The dealer spoke as the last few people around the table put in their bet.

“Shit.” Richard looked back to the dealer. “Wait a second.” Before turning back to me, his forehead was damp, and his pupils dilated. “Fast. Please, put it on red and if you do, I’ll promise to stop. I’ll stop. At least for today.” His hands were reaching out for the box. I’d never seen him look so… I couldn’t find the words.

“Here.” I threw it to him. I couldn’t keep looking at him in this state.

“You won’t regret this,” he said and spun back to the table and slammed the box of chips on the big rectangle painted red.

The dealer didn’t react and spun the marble when his internal clock struck five.

At the start, the marble jumped up a bit before settling in the rhythm and buzzed passed red, then black, then red, and black, and red. So, fast it spun that it became a blur.

Eventually, it slowed enough for us to expect it to stop at any moment. It passed red, then black, then crawled on red, black, red, and black before it inched forward. My hands were sweaty, Richard clung to the table. No one let out a breath… the marble crawled a tiny bit more, it was on the middle between red and black, it still had some, I could see it. And it—

Stopped in between red and black. Dead middle. No one said anything.

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“Do not touch, I’ll judge.” It was the dealer. He would be the judge of it. Carefully perching himself over the roulette, he stared down the marble. “Red.”

“YES!” Yelled Richard. Jumping up, he turned to me. “See, I told you, this is my game. I won’t lose with this one.”

I shouldn’t have given him the money, or rather, it would have been better if the marble had stopped on black.

The dealer split the winnings between me and Richard, no one else had bet on red, perhaps they hoped we’d lose so they could have shared what we’d put in.

Richard quickly filled a second box with my winnings. Handing me back two boxes for the one I gave; he had a large grin on his face. I’d never seen him this happy.

“You don’t want any of the money?” I asked. After all, it was his tip that let me double my chips.

“No, it’s all yours.”

Did he not care about how much he made? What I just won was at least two days’ work if not more. There’s no way he couldn’t want any of it.

“I can see how you’re looking at me. Look, I just do this for fun, I don’t have a problem. You played one round, you know how fun this is too now, let’s go for one more round.”

…Maybe— “No! We have to go now; we made our money, and you promised me this would be it if I put in my money.”

“But now you know I can win. You could make so much more.”

“Then why are you broke?” I pulled him up, but the other people on the table’s faces soured.

“Hey new guy! You can’t just play a round and leave,” one gambler yelled.

“Ya can’t just leave with that beginner’s luck, trust me, you’ll make way more if you stay,” said another in a mocking tone.

I could smell their desperation to get their money back, but it wouldn’t happen. They too needed to stop before they lost everything. Everyone needed to stop. There was a reason gambling was the devil’s temptation. I wondered why the practice wasn’t outlawed straight out.

“We’re leaving.” I pulled Richard along and put my winnings on the chip dealer’s stand. “I want it back in coins, right now.”

“Of course.” He didn’t hesitate to take my chips and hand me back eight silvers and a few coppers. I was surprised by how easy it was. I was convinced they’d pressure me to stay, why else keep my money hidden with a guard on the side.

Checking the silver, it seemed like the real deal. “This is real silver right.”

“Of course,” said the man.

I don’t know why I asked the question; it wasn’t like he’d admit to them being fake.

Next, I had Richard get his money back. It was just a couple silvers. Still, his expression didn’t seem that of defeat, he had a large smile on his face. Was it because he doubled my money?

Regardless, I dragged him out of the basement and then through the bar.

Throwing him out into the streets, he fell on his ass on the cold, wet, mud road. Here, crickets chirped, and the wind whispered through the dead-ends.

“What are you thinking going back to gambling after seeing what it let to?”

“What it led to?” Richard looked up smiling. "What, it doubled your money. We should go celebrate, there are good women upstairs.”

“What?” This wasn’t the Richard I knew, no it wasn’t the same person, someone else was wearing his skin. The rage which had boiled all this time… it faded. Seeing him like this, I don’t know, I could see him amongst the other drunkards and jobless lying against a shop begging for a few coppers. “And Isabelle, you just don’t care about her? She’s probably waiting for you in your room. How can you—”

“Ha! Now you’re wrong.”

“What do you mean?” I’d never met a girl so obsessed over a guy in my life. “How can you say that! Do you know how she was begging for me to save your skin—”

“I know that!” Yelled Richard. Tears streamed down his face. “I love her more than anything else!”

“Then why would you even think of something like that!”

“The drugs… she doesn’t remember me. All the women. All their memories are gone. Gregoire, they took her from me!” He screamed, “They took everything from me! It’s those Northmen—” Sobbing, Richard crawled over to me. “Please, I promised I’d be your slave if you saved Leia. Would you do just this one thing for me?” He grabbed onto my pants. “Kill them all, kill all those fucking pigs with those noble hands of yours. Please, go see Isabelle. See with those two cold eyes of yours what they did to her.”

The little light bleeding through the bar’s blinders lit Richard’s face. His eyes—his tears, they weren’t fake. They were honest. I had to at least listen to him one last time. If they really had done something so heinous to Isabelle, I don’t know what I’d do.