Farewell Apathy

by Jenn Hype

  We’re parked in front of the bank now, so he’s out of time. Reluctantly, he turns to face me, everything about him conveying an apology without words, and it has my gut knotted up tight.

  “You weren’t remembering fast enough for them. They didn’t want to have two men sitting on an assignment that wasn’t going anywhere, so they put things in motion.”

  “Two men?” I ask, but immediately it dawns on me. “Garrett.”

  “Yeah. He was always around, surveilling from a distance. Trying to catch anyone following you or acting suspiciously, but he wasn’t getting anywhere. They needed you to get your memory back.”

  “Quit stalling,” I bite out after a minute of silence.

  “Everything that happened to you...that mysterious phone call with the recording of you and Shaun, the fire in your building, the envelope full of pictures and news articles...all of that was planted by Wyatt. In his defense, he was only following orders.”

  “The break-in? When I was drugged?” I’m practically screeching, but I don’t know if that’s the reason for Bryce’s wince, or if it’s just from the anger radiating out of every pore of my skin.

  “No, the FBI had nothing to do with either of those things. Most likely whoever broke in to your apartment was looking for that SD card, but we can’t be sure yet.”

  I can’t bear to hear any more. This is it. My final breaking point.

  I can hear Bryce yelling for me to stop, and though he’s only a few feet behind me, he may as well be miles away. I can’t hear anything past the blood pounding in my ears. My vision is blurry with unshed tears as I run across the parking lot.

  I’m only a few feet away from the bank doors when the tears finally start pouring down my face. Tears flowing at such a rapid pace that my vision is entirely compromised, and I trip on the curb, landing directly on my right elbow before my right hip collides with the hard concrete.

  Hands grip my wrists, pulling me up from the ground, and they pull hard. So hard I yelp out in pain. Those hands shove me into a car, my face slamming into a torn leather seat. My leg is blocking the door, so when it slams shut, it forces my knee to jut upwards and connect with the console of the car. We’re moving, and the time to panic has come and gone, so I lay frozen in the backseat, trying to figure out what the hell I do now.

  ~

  I’m not sure how I passed out or how long I’ve been out, but when I come to, my abductor is humming along to the radio like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

  “Excuse me, um, you mind telling me where you’re taking me?” I ask, leaning forward slightly, hoping to get a look at his face. No such luck. He’s wearing a hoodie that’s covering too much of his face, and apparently I’ve been out cold for a while, because the sun has already come and gone.

  He doesn’t respond, but his body shifts and I hear all the locks on the doors clamp down, my natural reaction being to reach for a handle and jiggle it just to make sure. I’m surprisingly pretty clear-headed, given the shitstorm I’m in, so I figure lunging for the door isn’t going to do anything but show fear. I can’t jump out of a moving vehicle even if it is unlocked, and a stubborn side of me I didn’t know I had, keeps me from begging him to let me go.

  I mean, if I’m going to die today, I’d rather do it with my dignity still intact. Also, I’m pretty damn sure Bryce caught this jerk’s license plate number and probably got a look at his face, so it shouldn’t be long before the cavalry finds me. I hope.

  Figuring my best bet at staying alive for a while is to behave, I sit back and cross my arms over my chest, doing my best to discreetly watch out the windows for any sign that could tell me where we are or where we’re headed.

  Twenty minutes later, the driver reaches into the passenger seat and then throws something at me. It flutters down into my lap, and when I pick it up I see it’s a piece of fabric. He wants me to blindfold myself? Ha. Fat chance. If he wants me blindfolded, he can pull the car over and do it his damn self.

  I expect him to get angry or violent when I toss the flimsy fabric right back into the front seat, but he just gives a resigned sigh before throwing it at me again. Like the idiot I am, I lean down to pick it up off the floor, only to come face to face with a gun, the barrel so close it grazes the tip of my nose as I sit back up.

  Not wanting to make things any easier on him, I tie the fabric around my eyes with trembling hands while muttering “asshole” under my breath. I’m a bizarre mix of scared out of my mind and pissed off. I want to cry and run away, but at the same time I want to punch this guy in the nuts.

  Only a few minutes pass before the car comes to a stop. I know it was a few minutes because I’ve been counting in my head. All my other senses are heightened, so when the driver’s side door opens and slams shut, it feels so loud that I flinch. A second later, someone, I’m assuming the driver, is reaching into the backseat and yanking me out so hard my shoulder almost dislocates. When I make no effort to right myself or walk on my own, he pistol-whips me and I feel blood spray out of my mouth. I try to put my hand to my lip and feel how badly it’s cut, but he yanks on my arm again, dragging me behind him.

  It freaking hurts, and I would be wise to try and stand, but I want to feel what’s beneath me. Anything to give me a clue as to where I might be. At first the ground is just loose dirt and rocks, but after a few feet my hands graze tall blades of grass. The angle he’s using to drag me contorts my arm in a way that makes me yell out in pain, and suddenly I’m being dragged up what feels like wooden steps. They must be old because I feel splinters digging into my bare torso, my shirt having slipped up while being dragged.

  I bite down on my lip hard enough to draw blood, refusing to show him how much pain he’s causing me. After what I count to be five steps, he comes to a stop and based on his grunt, opens a fairly heavy door. He’s yanking on my arm again, pulling me over a concrete ledge that tears the skin off my already splintered waist, then drags me across a cold, smooth floor. Not tile, because there is no consistent pattern, but based on the pits and grooves I feel beneath my hand, I’d guess it to be an old concrete floor. Maybe an industrial building? A basement of some sort?

  Tired of being tugged around like a rag doll, I dig my nails into his arm as hard as I can, and I feel the blood rise to the surface underneath my nails. He lets go and my arm falls limply to my side, my shoulder too strained, rendering my arm completely useless.

  Suddenly, I’m being hoisted off the ground and into a chair, my hands yanked around the back of it, then being tied together with something. I consider trying to yank out of his hold or kick my legs, but his movements are too quick for me to react. Despite my lack of resistance, he backhands me hard, and my head snaps to the side. Searing pain travels from my jaw down my neck, and I hear him snickering to himself as his footsteps get further and further away.

  Total silence encompasses the room, and it’s maddening. My wrists are aching, my back is killing me, and I’m pretty sure my lip is busted, but it’s not until I feel like I have to pee that I start yelling. Quick, quiet footsteps approach me, then my blindfold is yanked off.

  “Shut up!” A female voice yells at me. Female? My eyes are trying to adjust to the lighting, so it takes a second before I can actually see her face.

  “Mayra?” I blink hard a few times, wondering if my mind is just playing tricks on me. But sure enough, there is Mayra standing right in front of me. “What are you doing here?” I ask dumbly. A more pertinent question would be to ask her why I am here, because she’s obviously here due to some kind of involvement in my kidnapping.

  “I’m here because you ruined everything,” she responds in the creepiest, coldest voice I’ve ever heard. I shudder so hard the movement rocks my chair a little. She takes that to mean I’m trying to escape, resulting in her slapping her hand across my face.

  “Dammit, that hurt, My!”

  “Don’t call me that! We aren’t friends. Only my friends call me My,” she says with a pout. Mayra is so twitchy and
spastic that I seriously think she might be on some kind of drug. Really looking at her, I notice she’s wearing the standard issue clothing Mayford gives all their patients, only hers are so filthy you can hardly tell what color they are. Dirt and grime are crammed underneath broken fingernails, and her wrists and ankles are covered in bruises.

  “What have they done to you Mayra?”

  Despite how hard I try to make my voice soothing and sympathetic, Mayra only seems angrier. “Oh, so now suddenly someone gives a shit about me?”

  The reality of what’s right in front of me hits me so hard I swear my chair rocks a little. “Mayra, have you been down here this whole time? Mayra, Bryce has been looking for you. He came here to find you right after you tried to call him. Mayford told him you’d been transferred, but he didn’t believe them. He kept looking-”

  “Shut up!” She screams in my face, her eyes empty and hollow. Mayra is just a shell of the person she was before. I don’t even know this person. “You’re lying. They told me. They told me no one cared and no one even asked about me. They said-”

  “Who, Mayra? Who said those things?”

  The anger seeps out of her, and I watch her visibly retreat inside herself. On one hand, I guess it’s good she’s no longer screaming or hitting me, but on the other hand, I can’t stand seeing her so broken. No matter how many times I call out to her now, she doesn’t answer. I’m fairly certain she doesn’t even hear me. Her back is to me, but she’s only a few feet away, her knees pulled into her chest as she rocks back and forth on the floor.

  From the dark recesses, a tall figure emerges and starts to approach Mayra and I with slow, deliberate steps. The only light in the room is from a low hanging bulb directly above my head, so it’s not until he’s only a few steps away that I see his face.

  “Mark,” I seethe.

  “Mayra,” he says in an oddly sweet tone before turning his attention back to me.

  “What am I doing here, Mark? Are you the one who grabbed me at the bank?”

  Mark throws his head back and laughs, and my fingers clench behind my back, my arms itching to break free of their restraints so I can claw his eyes out.

  “I’m not stupid, Brailey, of course it wasn’t me who took you in broad daylight in front of an FBI agent.”

  “How did you even know where I’d be?”

  “Your little agent friends are too busy fighting over you to do their jobs properly. I took advantage of their distraction. It’s amazing what you can learn online about how to trail someone without getting caught, among other things.”

  Of all things, the only thought I have right now is that if Mark’s smug face is the last thing I see before I die, then that is seriously one shitty way to go.

  “Why,” I bite out through gritted teeth.

  “I saw you coming out of Director Mayford’s office the day you lost your memory. I knew what you were doing; I’d been watching you for a while. I couldn’t let you and that agent find out where Mayra was, I had to stop you. I didn’t want to hurt you Brailey, but you didn’t give me a choice. I came to your house to find out what you did with the information you stole on Mayra, but you attacked me. I thought you were dead when you fell, there was blood everywhere and I panicked. I swear I couldn’t find a pulse, and I couldn’t risk getting caught. My fingerprints were in your house, probably on your body, so I set the fire. Your neighbors spotted the flames early and the emergency responders were nearby and they were able to get you out in time. When I watched them carry you out with an oxygen mask on your face, I knew I’d screwed up. I had to make it right.”

  “So why haven’t you hurt me yet? Once you knew I didn’t remember, why not go ahead and kill me then?”

  “I couldn’t risk it. They declared your injury and the fire an accident, and if something happened to you under my care then they might start looking into things further. I needed to let you put some distance between yourself and Mayford before anything else happened. You were supposed to keep in touch, Brailey. You were supposed to buy the story of our relationship so that I could keep you close, but you started pulling away and cutting me out. You became a liability I couldn’t afford. It certainly complicated things when I figured out who Wyatt was, but it’s amazing what you can accomplish when so much is on the line.”

  “So I assume that means I’m here because you plan to kill me?” My heart is pounding out of my chest, my hands have gone completely numb from the zip ties holding them to the chair, and breathing has become a laborious task, yet somehow I manage to put a little sarcasm in my question.

  “If you would have just let it go then I wouldn’t have to take such extreme measures,” he responds with a mix of anger and resignation.

  “What about that information I stole? Don’t you need me so you can figure out where it is? Whatever it is you’re trying to hide, Mark, they will find it with or without me. There’s no way to keep your secrets anymore, especially since you took me while I was under the supervision of federal agents. You’re either delusional or naïve if you think you can actually pull this off without getting caught.”

  When his hand slices across my face, busting my lip open, I’m not the least bit regretful for antagonizing him. If he’s going to kill me anyway, then he’s not going to get the satisfaction of making me beg for my life.

  “Mark,” Mayra interjects softly, and he turns his anger on her, though I swear even with the dim lighting, I can see his face soften just a little when he looks at her.

  “Go to your room and lock the door. Do not come out until I say you can,” he orders, and Mayra silently obeys his orders, never once making eye contact with me again before she leaves.

  After the door closes behind her, Mark crouches in front of me, so close our noses are almost touching. “You need to watch who you talk to like that,” he grinds out. Drops of his spittle land on my face, and I instinctively spit the mouth full of blood I have from my busted lip directly into his eye. This time when he backhands me, he hits me hard enough to send me and the metal chair I’m attached to flying sideways. My left shoulder connects with the ground with a loud crack, breaking my fall just enough to keep my head from taking a blow. I’m certain at least one bone is broken, but at least I’m conscious.

  From my vulnerable state, all I can do is watch as his foot comes swinging forward, connecting with my rib cage. On the third kick I hear another crack, and the fourth knocks the wind out of me. I know at the very least he’s bruised a lung when I start coughing up blood. My chances of defending myself, even if I weren’t still strapped to a chair, would be pretty much nil at this point.

  He’s yelling something over and over again, and it sounds like he’s blaming me, saying with each kick that it’s my fault he’s hurting me.

  Through my blurry vision, I see Mark being tackled from the side, then I feel tugging at my wrists for a few seconds before the zip ties are pulled away. I still feel like I can’t catch a breath, and each inhalation sends agonizing pain shooting through every inch of my body.

  “Brailey, you’re okay. You’re going to be okay.” I choke on a sob when I hear his voice. He came for me. I knew he would.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Bryce!”

  I only meant to help when I called out his name, wanting to warn him that Mark was about to slam a copper pipe against the back of his head, but instead it distracted him. Have you ever heard the sound of a heavy pipe colliding with bone? It’s sickening, and yet somehow, Bryce manages to get back up. He’s wobbly and doesn’t look like he’ll be able to stay upright for very long, but he stubbornly makes it all the way back up to his feet.

  Wyatt is cradling my head while I continue to cough up blood every time I try to breathe. Yelling for Bryce was a mistake, and it put undue pressure on my already straining lungs.

  Bryce stumbles and hits the wall hard, using it to hold himself up. Mark is holding a gun, pointing it directly at Bryce, and from my vantage point, I can see blood dripping down the back of Bry
ce’s head. Though he’s holding his hands up in surrender, Mark doesn’t look at all like he’s going to just let us walk out of here.

  After placing my head down gently onto the floor, Wyatt slowly stands while pulling his own gun from its holster on his side. Carefully, he points it at Mark before calling out his name, pulling Mark’s attention away from Bryce and onto himself. As soon as the gun isn’t pointed at him, Bryce’s legs give out and he slides to the floor, leaving a trail of blood on the wall behind him.

  “Think about what you’re doing, Mark. You’re aiming a gun at federal agents. The chances of you getting away with all of this are slim. We already have backup on the way, there’s no escaping. If you put the gun down now and surrender, then things will go a lot smoother for you. If you pull that trigger though and end up killing someone? That’s a much harsher sentence. Just put the gun down and I’ll make sure to let them know you cooperated.”

  Wyatt has been walking slowly towards the other side of the room while trying to calm Mark down. Mark doesn’t seem to notice that Wyatt’s just distracting him, and as soon as Mark’s back is to us, I make my way over to Bryce. I need to make sure he’s alive. I’m slow moving, and I have to practically bite a hole through my lip to keep from screaming out every time I drag my body another inch, but eventually I make it the few feet it takes to get to Bryce.

  His breathing is shallow and he’s barely conscious, but his eyes are open and he’s hanging on by a thread. I want to talk to him, tell him to stay with me, to fight to stay awake, but I don’t want to pull Mark’s attention again. Me causing a distraction is the reason Bryce is in such terrible shape to begin with.

  Careful not to jostle him too much, I manage to get Bryce’s button up shirt off of him. Wyatt is struggling to keep all of Mark’s attention, which he currently has. Mark is practically screaming at him, and I have to force myself not to worry about Wyatt and focus on Bryce, who needs me more right now. I have to wedge the sleeve between my thighs so I can tear with my good arm. On the first tug, there’s no give and my mouth falls open, a silent scream escaping.