“There are fucking reasons why we don’t go out there. Mike knew it. You knew it. You had a way of talking with people in the decay when you agreed to renounce all contact. You broke that contract. Your sister’s life is trash and you are dead meat.”
Too many of them to fight so he had to endure; a hail of punches and kicks which forced him to the ground, curling in on himself to protect his face, gut and junk. Fuck’s sake, this was bad, but if they’d wanted him dead they’d have put a bullet in him and the saving grace—Rory wasn’t forced to watch.
The attack was shorter than he expected, bruising, some minor bleeding, no worse, but it wasn’t done. His body was ringing with hurt when they hauled him up, tied his hands and feet, blindfolded him, and shoved him in the back of a pickup.
An hour, maybe longer, bumping around. No one riding the tray with him was talking. When he attempted to, they stuffed his mouth with cloth. Another hour, hard to tell. He might’ve passed out for a while. It was colder. He was shoved out, down on the hard ground in the dust, his ankles untied, but his boots yanked off, a bottle forced to his mouth, a slug to the guts to make him swallow a bitter brew, foul tasting. They were drugging him, dumping him. Rory was on her own.
“Such a dumb fuck, city slicker.” The only voice he recognized, Chuck.
“You don’t need to do this. I’m not a threat to anyone. I only wanted Mike to get the care he needs. I’ve got money. It will buy you a new life, somewhere better than here.”
“You’ve got nothing we want, city boy. Too many black marks too soon. You’re nothing now. Just some idiot who wandered away from his work site, got himself lost.”
“And eaten by coyotes.”
“Or a bear. Bear could take him.”
“Ohh shit, that’s gonna hurt.”
“Hey city slicker, you wake up in pain and a bear is eating you, it’s not the drugs, man.”
Their laugher was like knives. It hurt his ears.
A hand to the back of his head, more of that bitter brew forced down his throat.
“You are going to go out of your tiny noggin, miles from anywhere. Things you never knew existed are going to fuck you up and then thirst is going to kill you if the wildlife or the sun doesn’t. And your sweet sister. She’s ours now to fuck with now.”
He couldn’t move his limbs, had they broken them all? He scrabbled in the dirt, managing to rub the blindfold off in time to see the truck departing. Rory would run. Get far away. He’d made a mistake encouraging her to come here. There were no bears. It was dark and cold, and his hands were stuck together behind his back and if he closed his eyes he saw swirls of color, and if he opened them they were still there, strange mists and shapes that were loud and fast and made him dizzy. He was tripping. What did they give him, something psychedelic? There was no time, just emptiness. He could hear voices calling him names.
Had to try to hold on to reality or fuck knows.
He was supposed to do something, something important, and he couldn’t remember what. His lips were numb, his whole mouth. He couldn’t feel his teeth. Tried to stand up and his legs weren’t there anymore. Neither were his hands. They were just gone into the swirls of color. Maybe they froze off. He was fucking cold. Shivering. And he was definitely seeing things.
“Did you swallow it all?”
Was that a bear? A talking bear. No. He peered at a shape that appeared. A cactus. Jesus, thorns like snakes. More trouble. He tried to get away, but without legs he was slow. He couldn’t remember what he needed to say to con his way out of this. “Could you repeat the question, Officer Cactus?”
“Did you swallow it all?”
Spit. Ah that’s what he’d needed to do. But maybe he’d already done it, because if his mouth and throat were full of foul mud he couldn’t be having a conversation with a cactus who sounded like Cal.
“I swallow. I am a swallower. Ask anyone, okay. People appreciate a swallower but right now, no sir, Office Cactus, I did not swallow it all. I spat that nasty shit out.”
“That’s good. They want you dead. They want it to look like an accident.”
“There is something wrong with my head, Cal. I can’t die. Aurora Rae is waiting for me. They are going to hurt her. I have to get out of here. Do you know where I am? How do I get out? Do you think there are talking bears?”
“You barfed, so you probably won’t die.”
“Did you know my legs are not there anymore? They’re just gone. And I’m talking to a fucking cactus. Maybe I’m dead already.”
“You’re not. You’re not going to die because Aurora Rae needs you to love her.”
Ah, that was rich. Those snakes of Cal’s could hiss at him all they liked, he wasn’t taking crap about Rory. “Don’t you call her that, Officer Cactus. You had your chance and you fucked it up. If anything bad happens to her I will turn into a bear and I will eat the whole world and everything in it until she is safe.”
He closed his eyes, didn’t want to look at Cal, or maybe his eyes were already closed. The sky was this enormous gaping wound. In places it touched the ground and created pools of blood. You could fall in there and drown. Don’t die. Don’t fucking die.
“Are you there, Cal? Don’t leave me alone.”