Ice cuts through my veins, stiffens my spine. Cold, so damn cold. Where the hell am I? What’s this place? Am I alone?
Faint voices. Muffled, as if behind a door. A TV playing somewhere in the building. Stale smell of mold and urine and sex.
The sounds and smells crash together, forming a picture, and I jerk as it clicks. I know where I am.
The Club. I’m at the Club, and as last night’s events rush back, I groan in despair, because this is worse than I thought.
Simon Gomez has found me again, and there’ll be hell to pay.
I climb to my feet and stagger into the wall, holding on to it for balance. Damn room is spinning, too fast. Bile rises in my throat. I have to get out. Escape before he comes for me.
Even as I stumble toward to door, I know it’s fucking useless. I’m inside the Club, in one of the basement rooms. There’s no way out that doesn’t go through Simon’s HQ.
I’m trapped like an animal waiting for slaughter.
But I try, with the same stubbornness that got me through a childhood punctured with black holes where my mind refused to hold
on to the memories. I reach the door, try the handle.
Locked. Of course.
I rattle it, jiggle and pull at it in the faint hope that the lock with give. But no such luck. “Come on, come on!” I slam my fist on the door. “Let me out!”
Knowing I’m locked up sends a shiver through me, and cold sweat breaks out on my forehead. My breaths go shallow and choppy. I can’t stand being locked inside, no doubt a souvenir of some childhood event I don’t want to recall.
Even as I’m banging my fist and shouting to be let out, I realize dimly this is the last thing I should be doing. Reminding them I’m here. Pissing them off. But whatever has been triggered in my mind is pulling my strings.
“Hey, open up! Open the fucking door, you assholes.” I’m howling like a crazy person, and I can’t stop. “Fuck you! Let me out! Let me out!”
Careful what you wish for, I guess, even if I have no control over myself right now.
With a bang, the door swings open, flinging me back. Christ. I hit the floor with my elbow, then my head bounces off the tiles, stunning me. I blink black spots from my eyes, and when I can see again, he’s there, leaning over me.
My worst nightmare.
“Jason Vega. You’re such an attention whore.” Simon Gomez chuckles, a sound that raises the hairs on my arms. “Whore. Did you catch that? Oh man, that was funny. Wasn’t it, guys?”
He straightens, and two tall shadows by his sides turn out to be men, his usual thugs, big and beefy and ugly as fuck. They laugh drily, at his command.
The door is open now, but my lungs still feel a size too small for my chest.
“What do you want?” I manage. I try to sit up, but Simon puts his boot on my chest and pushes me back down.
Shit.
“What I want. So nice of you to ask.” His boot presses down, cutting off my breath. I grab his boot, try to pry it off me. “Having a good time, Jason? Did you also have a good time last night, fighting off my men and defying my orders?” He presses down harder until I think my ribs will break. “You filthy whore. Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Can’t fucking breathe. I gasp, try to suck in air, and fail. My chest burns, my ribs hurt. I can’t get his damn boot off me.
“Fuck. Off.” It’s barely a hiss, the last of my air.
Holy shit, I can’t pass out, not with them over me. The thought of them manhandling me while I’m out is freaking me out just as bad as the locked door did before.
Darkness is edging in again, blurring the sides of the room.
“Why did you fight my men?” Simon asks, bending over me. “Who’s Chet Storm to you?”
Chet Storm? “Nobody,” I form the word, no breath left for sound. The blackness is spreading over everything, and the only thing left at the center is Simon’s ugly mug.