False Start

by Meli Raine

  This is anything but amusing.

  The room becomes a series of layers of sound.

  They all come inside my head, marching step by step like a regiment getting ready for battle. The ringing is still there, followed by the sound of the ocean. Underneath that, I swear I hear a baby screaming.

  None of it is real. I know that none of it is real, but it’s so real inside my mind.

  The doorknob beckons, as if it has a mouth that opens wide and calls my name. Lily, it says, pointing to the thin horizontal slot in the doorknob, as if I can shrink myself and climb through the gateway out into the hallway, slithering down to an open door, where fresh air greets me.

  Suddenly, I’m sitting back on the chaise, velvet everywhere. The cloth presses against my bare thighs. It's cool liquid, slush and vibration, heat and hum.

  I’m breathing, my belly moving up and down, but I’m not aware of it.

  Our bodies are machines. Duff jokes about being a robot, but he’s not far off. I’m not choosing to inhale and exhale. I’m not choosing to think about the exploded face on the floor next to my foot. I’m not choosing to think about what Romeo’s about to do to me.

  I’m not choosing any of this.

  But still, my belly rises and falls, rises and falls, giving my lungs the oxygen they need to keep my blood pumping through my heart and into my mind.

  The mind that is unraveling.

  It’s a trick, isn’t it? Sleight of hand. An impossible system created by a being with hands that molded and shaped unrelated puzzle pieces into patterns that sustain life.

  I’m not “churchy,” as Mom always says. We went on Christmas and Easter when I was younger. I don’t know if there’s a God. For twenty-five years, I was comfortable with the not knowing.

  As I sit here in this room waiting for an end that I have no say in, I find that my not knowing isn’t quite as comfortable.

  Nothing about this is comfortable.

  I let my eyes skitter down to look at the man’s face. There isn’t one. He’s dead. There is no not knowing left for him.

  The lingering feel of his fingers grasping my arm just above the elbow as he pulled me into him, sloppy and sour from alcohol and too much excitement, makes me cringe. My breast shrivels at the memory of his entitled grab. I look down at the same hand, now still, smeared with his own drying blood.

  Minutes matter. Seconds do, too.

  That thought is what makes me stand. My inner thighs quake, as if they can’t handle the gravity pulling them down. My calves can’t take the coordinated step forward. I grab the back of the chaise and ignore the cool chill of air that is congealing pieces of that man on my skin. I finally step forward once, twice, my right hand steady enough at the door to grasp the doorknob. I know what I’ll feel when I tell my wrist to turn to the right and open it, and it doesn’t move. I know that I can’t escape. But I also know this.

  If I never try, the not knowing will be even worse.

  The spider, though–the spider is trying.

  It crawls over a piece of red slime. That slime is chunky, and as each leg moves with aching precision, I realize what the spider is on:

  A piece of the man's brain.

  “This can't be real,” I whisper aloud, needing the sound of my own voice to ground me. I must be hallucinating this. The doctors said brain trauma can make people experience bizarre phenomena. Maybe I'm inventing this, neurons misfiring.

  Then the doorknob turns without me touching it, and I stagger back as Romeo comes in, eyes cold. I should get used to that. It’s his natural state with me now. But it’s still so jarring to see someone staring through you as if you’re an object.

  “Quit crying,” he orders.

  I can’t, though. How do you stop crying when you know you’re about to die? Telling me not to cry is like telling someone not to vomit or not to push a baby out of their body in labor. I have no control over this expression of emotion.

  The body does what the body does.

  The mind tries to catch up, but the body always wins.

  “We have everything here that we need, Lily,” he says to me, “for me to complete my mission. Duff is on his way.”

  Hope spikes through me. Duff is alive.

  I think the words to myself, because if I say anything I might give Romeo information that he can use against me or Duff. Is this a mind game? What if Duff’s really dead? What if he died back in the bed at his apartment, thousands of years ago?

  That’s how it feels. It’s been a thousand years since I saw him.

  Before I finally die, I have the feeling Romeo’s going to make it a thousand more.

  “He’s talked to you? Pillow talk, I’m sure,” Romeo says, his voice scathing. “What is he really doing, working at Alice Mogrett’s ranch and working protecting you?”

  “I don’t–I don’t,” I stammer, genuinely stuck on words that are in my mind but won’t come out of my mouth, and simultaneously too terrified to know how to give Romeo something safe while protecting anything he can use as a weapon against Duff and me.

  Duff’s alive, I think, rejoicing inside. If he’s on his way, he’s alive. If Romeo’s not lying, he’s alive.

  “Has Duff told you anything about his family?” Romeo asks.

  I give him a questioning look.

  “His family. His mother, his father, any siblings?”

  A cold, prickling sensation travels up the back of my neck, over my ears, pulling down on one side stronger than the other. He knows something about what happened to Duff’s parents and his little brother. What’s this about?

  I comb through the mental archive of what I remember Duff telling me. His father, increasingly paranoid, living off the land, going off the grid. His parents being killed. His brother gone missing. His Gran taking him in. Alice Mogrett leading an investigation to help find his little brother. What was his name? It started with a W. Wyoming? Wendell?

  “Wyatt,” Romeo says suddenly, as if he’s reading my mind.

  At this point, maybe he even has that power.

  “Duff’s little brother Wyatt went missing when he was four years old, after the unfortunate incident in which Duff’s parents were killed. But you know that, Lily.”

  “Yes,” I admit, sensing that it’s better to give him something rather than to hold every single bit back. The more he talks, the more there’s a chance that Duff will come.

  “What do you know about Wyatt?”

  I try to shrug, but only one side of my body succeeds. “Duff’s brother.”

  “That’s it?”

  The details that Duff told me about his brother’s port-wine stain on his neck, about people like Romeo who are stateless, attack my senses like a company of archers letting arrows loose.

  And then I get it.

  Oh, God, do I get it.

  Romeo knows that Duff knows, and that’s why he’s luring him here.

  He’s luring him here.

  I'm not an object for Romeo.

  I'm bait.

  Duff

  Being locked in a closet with a dead body is an occupational hazard.

  Even worse is being trapped in here with Drew and Silas, all of us standing on or around Busy’s body. No one is breathing. Waiting out Romeo and the guy with him is taking every bit of concentration.

  “Where should I put him?” the guy asks Romeo. They're stopped right in front of the door.

  One look down and they blow our cover. That blood isn't visible in the dimly lit hall, but if they step in it, they’ll open the door.

  “I don't give a shit, but I need to get back to her. Duff is on his way. You scan the place.”

  Footsteps. Only one set leaves.

  We’re well trained when it comes to waiting. No problem there.

  What I’m not trained in is caring about a client.

  Somewhere in this club, Lily is being held captive. Somewhere in the same building that I occupy, Lily could be in the middle of a torture session. Somewhere in the same buildi
ng where Drew, Silas, and I are trapped in a small janitor’s closet with a dead body, Lily is wondering why I’ve failed her.

  And somewhere in this damn building, Romeo Czaky wanders freely, enacting a mission that he thinks he’s about to complete.

  Successfully.

  You can’t hear our breath. We’re using techniques to make sure we go undetected. Instinct kicks in, but instinct honed by repetition and practice becomes a competition between rivals. Romeo and whoever that guy out in the hall is are well trained, too.

  We’re not saps. We’re not civilians. We’re not part of the naïve masses who have no idea just how bad people with power and evil intentions can be.

  This is a stand-off. The guy out there has no idea we’re in here, and we three have no idea where Lily is. It’s an elaborate game of hide and seek, only he doesn’t know that there are people to seek. And once we have the upper hand, he won’t be able to hide from us.

  Muffled steps outside make it clear the guy is walking away, headed in the same direction as Romeo. It’s Drew who acts first. He carefully opens the door so that it doesn’t make a sound, just a millimeter or two, enough to ascertain that the coast is clear. We tumble out fast. I grab the door and close it, shoving at the base so that Busy’s body folds back in. Before I finish, he places a hand on my shoulder, then bending over.

  Reaching for her pants, he pulls the waistband away from her body. I look away, closing my eyes, the sound of keys on a keychain rattling in my ears like old, dried bones.

  Silas looks down, running his fingers through his hair, pausing at the crown, then pulls away from me.

  I close the door.

  He looks at Drew. “She died in the middle of that voicemail. She died warning me.”

  Drew nods. I can’t say it, but I’m grateful to her. I’ll be even more grateful if I can get to Lily in time.

  “Based on the direction they went,” Silas tells us, “I really think he’s reenacting what he did to Jane.”

  “What do you mean, what he did?” Drew interrupts. “Nolan Corning did that.”

  “You still think it was all Corning?”

  Drew’s eyes move in the dim light, calculating, processing. “If he was in on it all along, then everything we thought about him and about Harry—”

  I cut him off. “I don’t give a shit about any of that right now,” I say, unable to keep the shake out of my voice. “If you think he’s reenacting everything with Jane,” I ask Silas, “then where’s the room?”

  He nods. “Down this way. But we can’t just go barging in. We could run into whoever that guy is working with Romeo. We could run into Romeo. We could put all of the patrons in the bar in jeopardy.”

  “How do you know they aren’t already?”

  Drew thinks through my question quickly, takes a deep breath, and says, “What tactical advantage do we possibly have in here? Our cellphones don’t work. All the radio options are out. What do you know that Romeo doesn’t?”

  “He knows about the passageway,” Silas says. “I don’t think there’s anything…” He pauses.

  “You realize Lily’s just the lure,” Drew says to me. “You’re the ultimate target.”

  “Me?”

  “He would have killed her long ago, Duff. Why would he kidnap her and bring her back here? He wants you.”

  “I don't care. As long as Lily comes out of this alive, I can take whatever Romeo throws at me.”

  “Why does he want you, though? What's so special about you?”

  “I don't know.”

  “Is it Stateless? Wyatt?” Silas's questions make my head hurt.

  “He wants me because predators hunt.”

  And right now, Romeo's turned me into a predator, too.

  Time to find my prey.

  Chapter 7

  Lily

  I can feel him.

  He’s here. In the building. Roaming the halls with a stalking determination that pulses in the halls. The air outside the door fills with the lightness. It contrasts with the heavy, thick, dragging feeling of the space inside this room.

  “Duff,” I whisper. “Sean,” I say, giving into the luxury of using his real name.

  Romeo’s not in the room. The man who seems to be helping him isn’t around. I’m alone with a corpse, in a room where any movement comes only from me and a spider.

  I can outrun it, though. At least there's that. I’m not a patient trapped in a bed, waking up from a coma.

  I can stand. I can squish. I can walk away.

  The corpse has no eyes, but they watch me anyhow. The room has no ceiling. It’s nothing but blue skies and clouds, but I’m trapped in it anyhow. Flickers of light and color shift in front of me. A whale. A unicorn. A series of animals running in a stampede across the Serengeti. All of it fires inside my head like fireworks exploding on the Fourth of July, except this is no celebration.

  I’m leaking. I’m fading. And if Duff doesn’t get here soon, if he’s even alive, then he really will have failed.

  He told me once that his mission was to keep me alive. He couldn’t even keep himself alive. Or if he did, then where is he?

  I can’t think this way. I’ve never thought this way, even through all of the hard recovery after I woke up. I had moments of despair, but I didn’t have waves of them.

  If I don’t look at the man on the floor, I can imagine that I’m just in a room with a broken lock, trying to find a way out. My mind has turned against me, creating scenarios that aren’t real. In psychiatry, they call them hallucinations, but they feel more like apparitions, as if the membrane between the dimension I know and some other dimension I don’t know has thinned.

  I’m on the edge, my toe across the line, the weight of me holding back but ready to tip over.

  I walk to the door again, pressing my palm against it. Covered in spots of blood, it feels like parchment paper that has been wet, then dried in the sun, folded with a papery dryness that isn't quite intact. Parts of my skin are lighter than others. The scent of sour tang makes me start to lick my lips, but I stop.

  Because where else is the man's dried blood? On my face?

  The heavy wood vibrates.

  “Sean,” I whisper, brushing my lips against the crack between door and frame, as if my words could escape through the tiny space, find him, and be heard. “Sean,” I whisper again. “Please come.”

  The scream starts just below my navel and rises up through my belly between my breasts, sliding back and up the narrow channel of my shoulder blades. It’s in my neck, caught at the base of my tongue, and now it pours forth, coiled muscle ready to release. If I scream for Sean, I invite my death. Romeo could hear me.

  In a sex club that’s soundproof, though, what’s the harm? On the off chance that the man who’s come to rescue me is here and alive, I could give myself that incremental chance of being found.

  And if I don’t scream, all I do is guarantee that I stay alive long enough for Romeo to have his turn.

  No, not his turn with me.

  His turn with Duff.

  Duff

  “The coast is clear,” Drew says to Silas. “You go where you can get a signal. We need to let the team know exactly what’s going on.”

  Silas walks down the hallway, the dark swallowing him. Drew grabs my arm and pulls me aside, constantly surveilling the space.

  “Listen, while he’s gone I need to say this, and I need to say it fast.”

  It takes me less than a second to realize that the “he” Drew is talking about isn’t Romeo or the other guy with him.

  It’s Silas.

  My hackles go up. Is Silas part of this? Is he some kind of mole?

  “You’re dead on about the Stateless Project,” he whispers, the words so quiet that I can barely hear them. Yet they’re so loud, they’re deafening. “It started about twenty-seven years ago. That’s all I’ve been able to figure out, but I know who the key players are.”

  “Who?”

  “Your father.”
r />   A chill runs through me.

  “And four other men. Harry Bosworth and guys with three last names you know: Gainsborough, Maisri and Asgarth.

  “John, Blaine, and Stellan’s fathers.” I let out a low whistle.

  “Right.”

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” I whisper, knowing full well he’s not.

  “Your father pulled away quickly once he realized what was going on. He went off the grid. He got paranoid, but it happened a little too late.”

  “Too late for what? You mean, when they were killed?”

  “No. Too late for your brother.”

  “My brother?”

  “Your dad didn’t record Wyatt’s birth. It was part of a test to see how that would work in American society. He was told that he was essentially a beta, just looking at all of the different permutations of what would happen if he didn’t record a child’s birth. No birth certificate. No Social Security number. What would that look like? But then the Stateless Project got greedy.”

  I know exactly what he’s talking about. “You mean, they wanted Wyatt.”

  “Yes.”

  “They wanted my parents to hand my little brother over to them?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re not kidding?”

  “I never kid. Look, Duff, this is serious shit. This makes the whole mess with El Brujo the narco-trafficker look like playing duck-duck-goose.”

  “How did you find all this out?” I press him.

  He looks around, as if Silas will appear, and I’m wondering why. Why would Silas’s return make Drew so paranoid?

  “I had no idea about this. No idea there could be some kind of connection between the Stateless Project and Harry Bosworth,” Drew confesses. “I feel like a complete idiot, but that’s neither here nor there. I knew about Stateless. Romeo’s Stateless. Plenty of guys on the team have been, on and off. I don’t like it, but it gets the job done.”

  “It gets the job done.” I repeat his words, wondering where the line is inside us, those of us who are good. How do you define your goodness when it’s so easy to take the same quality and turn it bad?