Fuck, no.
It’s not real, I tell myself, it’s all in my mind. This place really gets to me, no fucking idea why. I turn toward the door. I’ll check around, see if anyone else is here so I can officially return my stuff and leave.
Someone’s standing at the door. Two guys. They’re chewing gum, and the cinnamon smell is so strong I can’t breathe. One of them is holding an open can of bleach. He smirks as he walks inside and puts it down.
“Shane Tucker, right?” He blows a gum bubble, sucks it back inside his mouth. “Wouldn’t want to get the wrong guy.”
The blood is rushing in my ears like a rising wave. “What do you want?”
“Payback, little bitch,” the blond one says. “Did you think you’d get away so easily?”
I’ll make you pay. You know you fucking wanted it. You should never have talked.
“I don’t know you,” I say, taking a step back. They aren’t Christoph and Marco. I don’t know these assholes.
“But we know you, don’t we, Cole?” The blond winks to the other. “You betrayed our friends in prison, and we’ll be their hands out here.”
The fuck. I can’t draw a deep breath. My chest hurts. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Betrayed them,” the dark-haired one says, closing the door, locking it, and the snick of the key turning fires into my mind like a bullet. “Went and blabbed about them to the prison therapist. Don’t you know better, you moronic retard? You don’t tell on the prison kings and go on your fucking merry way. You pay.”
Oh shit. Even if I could get my brain to work, I don’t have time to reply before they’re on me. The blond grabs me by the hair, pulling my head back, and the other kicks my feet from under me. I go down hard, hitting the floor on my ass.
I’m on my back. The light dims. Everything twists. The walls are melting, the faces above me distorting.
No.
“Miss me, little bitch?” one of them hisses, and I’m slammed back into the memory with no way to escape.
Fear wraps icy finger around my spine. Pain lances my bones with fire. My skin crawls and burns.
“No!” I throw punches right and left, blindly. Randomly. Desperately. “Please, no.”
A heavy work boot hits my ribs and the agony strangles my words. “Your blabbing got people into trouble. Got Marco and Christoph into trouble. So this is their gift to you.”
Hands rip my jacket off, and when I fight them, I get a punch in the face for my trouble.
“Did you enjoy our little gifts?” Another kick in my ribs. “The cinnamon chewing gum, the bleach? Marco said you’d remember. He practically conditioned you with those smells. And this.”
A hard tug on my wet hair, sending spikes of fire into my skull.
Fuck.
“Thought you were losing your fucking mind, huh?” he asks, sounding pleased. “Well, guess what. You are.”
My vision is coming and going, blurry. Someone’s tearing off my sweater, and undoing my belt. I kick wildly, my lungs laboring but no air coming in. My chest hurts like a bitch.
A pendant. I had a pendant. I reach for it, but there’s nothing there.
No. This isn’t the past. I left the prison. I lived on the streets. I am training to be a tattoo artist. I met people.
I met Cassie.
Cassie.
She loves me. I need to talk to her. Need to get out of here so I can see her.
Though I can barely breathe, my eyes clear enough to see the desk, my helmet and jacket and boots on the chair, the two unknown men who’re beating me and doing their best to make me think I’m helpless, caught in the past.