Rogan the Detective ONC

The Secret

Never judge a wine by its label.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know most people do, but you know what I mean. You can never guess what something is like by only looking at the surface. The same is doubly true for humans.

I mean, take Thomas, for example. He looked like a good guy, if a bit slow on the uptake. Yet, there he was, keeping such a big secret, hiding such a dark side to who he was. That made me even more scared than the lunatic behind this life-and-death game because, at the end of the day, the crazy ones at least make it clear they are insane so you can look out for them. For these regular Joes, it's much more difficult to tell. That's what makes them more frightening.

I didn't even notice I was starting to slowly inch away from Thomas, almost cornering myself, until Elizabeth gave me a stern look, stopping my progress. Taking the hint, I stopped, taking a long sip of gin directly from the bottle my hand had somehow taken an unconscious grab of, carrying it with me even as I was retreating.

"Thomas, what exactly happened?" Elizabeth asked, not seeming as frightened of the guy as I was starting to be, never trusting those who looked nice and sweet until their ugly side ruined everything. "You need to be as clear as possible if we're to ever leave this place."

Elizabeth seemed to believe we could all escape unscathed, but I didn't think so. Whoever was behind the whole thing could have planned things for years, and even Sherlock Holmes couldn't have figured out this as quickly as we needed to if we wanted to live.

Okay, fine, I admit. Sherlock would have probably figured it out as soon as we entered the house, but that's beside the point.

"I told you I'm a doctor, right?" Thomas said, his voice shaking as if he were about to cry.

Elizabeth and I bobbed our heads, choosing not to interrupt the confession in any way in case the guy changed his mind about telling us his deepest darkest secret that we needed to know to make sense of our current predicament.

"Well, at one point, I was the best surgeon in my hospital, praised by many, with incredible results in the OR that none of the surgeons in our hospital had," Thomas said as he tapped his hand on his knee, his eyes wandering around the room. "I wish I could say it didn't go to my head, but it did. It inflated my ego so much that I was SURE I knew best, that I could do no wrong. It felt like, in my own world, I was God allowing people to live."

"Wow," I mouthed to Elizabeth, my eyes wide while I made shocked faces.

She just put a finger to her mouth, and that, combined with the strict look in her eyes, shut me down completely.

"One day, a patient was admitted to the hospital with severe injuries. There was talk of internal bleeding, even spinal injury," Thomas said, a grimace of pain crossing his face like a ghost of the past. "Because it was such an important surgery, they immediately called me in since I was the best. What they didn't know was that I was feeling under the weather that day and was hoping to do the simplest surgeries only."

"Why didn't you just tell them that? I am sure someone else could have done the surgery." I said, unable to stop myself from asking because it didn't make sense that he would take such a huge risk.

After all, he wasn't risking teaching people wrong grammar or something. He was risking their lives.

"I was too proud," Thomas said, putting his face in his hands. "It was a vital surgery, one of those that could bring national fame to the surgeon who performed it, and I didn't want to share the spotlight with anyone else."

"Wow, dude, that's messed up!" I exclaimed, forgetting for a moment how spooked I was mere moments ago or how I promised Elizabeth that I would behave.

"Rogan!" she said warningly, causing me to zip my mouth up and throw away the key.