It’s like having someone hand you their heart.
In the real world, where daughters aren’t used as pawns against their politician fathers and pro baseball players don’t kidnap women for sadistic pleasure, having your body invaded by an electronic microchip would be the epitome of hell, but no.
In my world?
It’s the best form of love.
Drew will find me. Even if he has to break out of jail, he will.
He’ll die trying.
The question is: will he find me first?
Or die first?
“Four years,” John says as a blissfully welcome coolness fills the sudden pocket of air between us. He pulls away, giving me a grin that is meant to make me feel sick. “Four years we’ve been waiting.”
“Don’t you have something else in your life, John? You’re a pro baseball player,” I say, my voice croaking, the words coming out in halting syllables. He smells like sweat and expensive men’s aftershave with a hint of fabric softener thrown in. It’s too much. My stomach starts to tighten and release, the bile rising up my throat.
I’m going to puke. I can’t stop it.
He grabs my hair at the back of my head and wrenches my neck, twisting me almost too far, almost enough to snap my spinal cord.
Almost.
I gag and vomit on the floor by the door, but there’s not much there.
My stomach keeps heaving until I’m completely out of control, body limp and tense at the same time, my mind clawing its way out of my skull, trying to deny what’s really happening to me.
I’m a human being these monsters are about to turn into a toy.
The toy stops being fun when it’s dead.
Until then?
They’ll extract their amusement.
And I can’t stop them.
The thick black hood over my head comes as no surprise, but it has a strange scent like sweet, freshly-cut grass. The odor makes it hard for me to keep my eyes open, turning sour, like rotten fruit.
And then I’m gone.
Gone.
Drew
“Foster! Get your fucking ass up if you want out of here.” The words come to me in a dream. I can’t move. I’m cold, encased in ice, and my hands are bound. After Mark left, they gave me a pair of orange scrubs, flip-flops, a nasty sandwich, and then cuffed me.
Then my gut seizes as someone kicks me, hard, right above my cock.
All the air rushes into me, then out, like a vacuum cleaner hose is attached to my lips. I cough and gag, but know instinctively that I have to stand. I open my eyes. No Mark.
Where’s Mark?
Wait.
I look at the cop, whose arms are crossed over his chest, a clipboard in one hand, banging against the wall as he shows his impatience in a slightly kinder way than kicking me again.
Did he say “want out of here”?
“You’re free,” he spits out, jaw set, impatience an odor he should patent. The cell door opens and he stands there, looking at the ceiling like it’s the Sistine Chapel.
I have just enough wits not to ask anything, shuffling out of the room, taking a deep breath. Hallway air is still disgusting in a jail, but it’s ten times better than cell air.
We walk down the long hallway, where someone in a suit hands me a manila envelope without a single word. It’s a man with a bureaucrat’s glare. He looks like no one and everyone. The human being equivalent of a beige wall.
All the hair on my body stands up straight, the pores practically seizing.
I know his type.
He’s a man the government needs.
And he’s a man the government doesn’t want you to know even exists.
He leans over, smooth and suave, his suit jacket flapping open and revealing a weapon as he pushes the bar on an exit door. I’m blinded by the sun. He shoves me out onto a small concrete landing attached to a set of stairs. Before I can catch my footing, my ankle turns and I’m falling, the envelope sliding down the stairs.
My hands are still cuffed with a zip tie, fingers fumbling to catch purchase on the thick pipe-like railing as my ribs crack against the edge of a cement stair, then another, my kidney bashed in, my hip screaming. Tightening into a ball and putting my hands behind my head to protect the base of my neck, I wrench something in my shoulder. The pop is so strong throughout my bones I can feel it in my inner ear.
Can’t count the stairs, but it’s a full flight. My body inventories that much. I’m defenseless without separate hands, my cuffed wrists making the fall down the stairs agony.
And then I’m down, flat, paused. Sand and tar and a cigarette butt, casually tossed aside forever ago, press against my lips.
And blood, of course. I taste copper and uncertainty as I open my mouth and spit, clearing it.
I look up just as the door clicks shut, a wall of gray metal, the outline of the threshold barely visible.
I’m free.
Wherever I am, I’m free.
Mark did his job.
I have no clue where I am, though. Rolling carefully, I realize my hip won’t move. It’s not that I can’t move it. The ability to pivot is gone. Blown out.
Not good.
Gingerly, I shift a different way, pulling myself up to a sitting position, sliding across the filthy asphalt, praying there’s no broken glass. I’m injured enough. I don’t need more right now.
It’s going to be a long day.
Once I’m propped against the brick wall, I exhale, willing my muscles to relax. They revolt. I try again. They give me the silent treatment.
I just breathe.
No amount of panicking is going to save Lindsay right now, but I need to act. In order to act, I need to get to a computer where I can track Lindsay’s chip. To get a computer, I need Mark or Silas or someone to help me.
Where the fuck is Mark? It’s dawning on me that I have to trust him. There’s no choice here.
Regroup. I need to regroup. Figuring out where I am isn’t as important as orienting myself. I look up at the sun. It is waning, but bright. I pull my right hand up to shield my eyes and realize I can’t.
Can’t move my right arm.