Forgotten Luca (The Four 1)

But I didn’t see Remy in those big, beautiful blue eyes anymore.

I saw Billy.

“Remy,” I whispered, and this time I did reach for him.

Predictably, he jerked away from me. He pressed his head against the window for a moment, then lowered it. I watched him suck in a deep breath. His eyes drifted closed as the breeze fluttered through his hair.

My limbs felt heavy as I focused my attention on the scenery passing by my own window. But I didn’t see any of it.

Please, Luca, I just want to go home.

I’ll come back for you, Billy. I promise, I’ll come back.

By the time the car came to a stop in a small parking lot across from the busy Seattle waterfront ferry terminal, I felt like I was going to throw up. I almost didn’t notice when Remy practically jumped out of the car before it came to a full stop.

“Stay here,” I said to the two men in the front seat. I could tell neither man was happy about the order, but I wasn’t particularly concerned about my own safety. In the mood I was in, I’d probably be more than happy to run across any of my own enemies.

I hurried after Remy as he ran toward an old warehouse with more broken windows than unbroken ones. There was garbage and debris all around the hideous-looking building, and multiple warning signs about trespassing and the building being condemned were all over the place. I managed to catch up to Remy along the side of the building where there were several loading docks. A side door was half-open. I followed Remy inside. He glanced over his shoulder at me, but surprisingly, he didn’t tell me to leave.

He just continued to pretend I wasn’t there.

It was clear what the warehouse was used for the second I stepped into the darkened interior. The smell of rotting garbage mixed with various bodily odors had me trying to hold my breath. I didn’t even want to know what it was that was squishing beneath my shoes as I sidestepped piles of garbage and debris. As Remy and I worked our way farther into the interior of the building, we began encountering people in various states of incapacitation. Some were passed out where they’d fallen, others were asleep. But most were huddled over a lighter or some other heat source or trying desperately to find a usable vein in their arm. The few that looked up at us did so only for a split second before going back to what they were doing.

Remy would occasionally ask one of the more lucid individuals where Carla was, but most didn’t answer him. The ones who did just shook their heads.

There was more light on the second floor since many of the windows were broken. Unlike the first floor, there seemed to be more individualized living units made out of tents or boxes and scraps of weathered and torn fabric. But the state of the people were the same. However, the search for the mysterious Carla proved more fruitful because a woman wearing nothing but a T-shirt and underwear pointed up in response to Remy’s question.

Right before she went back to inhaling something from a piece of tin foil.

The third floor was different from the first two in that there was considerably more activity.

Of the fucking kind.

The floor had rooms that had probably been offices at one point but which had been converted into bedrooms… well, rooms with beds in them. Men and women were fucking and getting fucked in the rooms. Several were doing drugs while fucking. It was a sickening sight.

Remy seemed unsurprised by the scene as he glanced into each room. His moves were once again frantic like before we’d gotten in my car. He asked several of the johns and their tricks about Carla, but most told him to fuck off. It was about halfway down the row of offices that we encountered a young man who couldn’t have been more than eighteen. He was wiping at his nose while an older guy was snorting lines off a small mirror with a rolled-up dollar bill.

“Have you seen Carla?” Remy asked.

The kid looked Remy up and down, then turned his attention to me. “You guys looking to play?” he asked suggestively.

“We’re looking for Carla,” Remy repeated.

The kid’s interest evaporated instantly.

Until I handed him a fifty-dollar bill.

“Get in here, you little faggot. I’m ready,” the john blurted drunkenly. He was undoing his pants.

The kid’s dead eyes didn’t even flicker. He took the money from me, then waved his finger across the open space that overlooked the main floor of the warehouse. The opposite side also had a row of offices on it.

As the kid turned to go back into the room, I snagged his arm. I handed him a wad of hundred-dollar bills. “Go home, kid,” I said.