I hate fainting. Actually, the fainting part isn’t so bad. It’s the waking up that sucks. You never know exactly where you are or when it is. Your stomach goes sour and your skin shakes.
Or maybe that’s just me having a terror response to waking up naked, on my back on Drew’s bed, my wrists cuffed in front of me.
John and Stellan are at the foot of the bed. Electric terror pours through me at the sight.
John’s on the phone. “She’s supposed to deliver the information. No line is secure, so we’re using mules.”
Voices have an extra layer of vibration you don’t notice until you’re completely naked in the same room with someone who is talking. All of the tiny hairs that dot my skin go on high alert, the flesh rippling like parachute cloth snapping in the wind. Every breath I take makes blood flow to my extremities, reminding me how much pain I’m in. My right butt cheek spasms. My knee aches. My thighs are tight with the anticipation of invasion.
Air brushes against my mons, my belly caving in, fear making me tense. They didn’t split my legs open, thank God.
I have a modicum of modesty left.
It’s fleeting, I know.
“Mules take too long. We’ve dragged this one out long enough. Time to do this right,” Stellan snaps at John, who holds up one finger, as if Stellan’s supposed to pause.
All the blood in my body shimmers in place, trying to figure out where to go. My breathing feels like a waterfall sounds as Stellan looks at me with cold eyes.
He doesn’t see me. Lindsay. His old high school friend.
He sees a fleshbag. A tool. A pawn in a game. My survival relies on remembering that. No plea for mercy will make a difference.
John gets off the phone, then pulls a SIM card out of it. He puts it in his mouth and bites. The sound is like dry bones cracking between the teeth of a troll.
Stellan doesn’t even blink at the weirdness of a guy eating electronics. I avert my eyes but wonder what the hell that’s all about.
Then John reaches into the front pocket of his jeans and pulls out another phone and SIM card, inserting it. He walks across the room and throws the old phone away.
I watch this from a detached place, like I’m at the movies and it’s all intrigue.
Except this is very real.
In this film, I bleed.
“Time to do it,” Stellan declares.
My stomach climbs into my throat, my pulse turning into everything.
“But she’s naked.”
“You’re very observant.”
“We were told to leave her half clothed. Staged. Remember?”
The fact that they’re talking about operational details for my actual death makes a part of my mind explode.
DREW! The rest of my mind screams, joined in perfect harmony with my heart. WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?
“Who cares what we were told?” Stellan walks across the base of the bed with an aggressive series of steps, getting in John’s face. Tension and anger vibrate off him.
John gapes at Stellan. “We’re following orders to the letter. I am done with this shit. No more having it all dangled over our heads.”
“Hey, man. The price of fame.”
“I wish I’d never let you talk me into this shit.”
So who was the brains of it all? And fame – all three of them have become stratospherically famous in their own fields. Blaine’s running for Daddy’s old House seat. John’s one of the top baseball players in the world. Stellan is a huge television star with a big movie career ahead of him.
The odds that all three could be so successful so quickly are impossible.
Impossible unless you realize someone very powerful has been helping them all along.
And in exchange for what?
For ruining me.
“Before you do it,” I say through a numb mouth, numb face, numb heart, “tell me why.”
“Why should we?” Stellan’s eyes are so cold, so dead. “You won’t live to process it. Analyze it. Understand it.”
“Humor me?”
He laughs through his nose. “This is a waste of time.”
“It really isn’t.” I force my shoulders to slump forward, giving him the body language I’m pretty sure he wants. Defeat etches itself in my body, and I fight to make sure it doesn’t seep into my mind. I have to separate what I know on the inside from what I exhibit on the outside.
“Who cares? Just tell her. Bet she already knows. It’s not like it’s a secret Corning hates her father’s guts.” John gives Stellan a look of challenge.
I just blink. I live in two worlds right now, two sharp divisions in my consciousness. There’s the part that plays along, dragging out time, trying to get information to help me understand and to give Drew enough time to find me.
The other part is having freakout emotional reactions to what I’m learning. One thousand terrified mouths are open and crying out inside the cage of my bones.
Both are important.
But only one will save me.
“Corning?” I lift the corner of my mouth. “Nolan Corning? In the Senate? Daddy hates him right back.”
This look comes across John’s face, an eagerness and interest that would normally make me cringe. I don’t, though, because I’ve hooked him.
And then I realize I still have some power.
“What do you want to know?” I ask in a neutral voice. I can hear the shake come out in my vocal cords, though. “I can tell you anything you want. I can give you information you can use.”
Stellan’s eyes narrow. He grabs John by the shirt and yanks him away from me. The two argue in whispers and seconds tick by.
My life is lived second by second. The chorus of terrified sopranos inside me just keeps singing. If I can make it through the obstacle course of my chaotic mind long enough, Drew will put an end to this.
I just hope he arrives before they put an end to me.
“She can’t know anything significant. They kept her in an institution all these years,” Stellan says in a loud voice.