13
ANDY
Andy glared at the little man sitting across from him. “Begin what?”
He was little.
Stocky.
Overweight.
But not very tall. Out of shape, for sure.
Andy wasn’t exactly some gym rat, but he did twenty push-ups every morning.
Some days, he even managed ten pull-ups on that bar Stash mounted on the bathroom doorframe back at the Quick.
Twice each week, he even drank those godawful protein smoothies from that stand on Calhoun, even though they were filled with green crap he’d never touch if they found their way to his dinner plate.
He’d kick the shit out of this guy if he wasn’t tied to a chair.
He was, though, tied to the chair.
Jerking on the ropes only seemed to make them cinch tighter.
The little man watched him tug at the ropes with a calm disinterest. “Why don’t we start with your name?”
“I told you, I’m not doing jack until you untie me.”
In the bowl, the rabbit grew still and watched him for a moment before returning to the glass. Sniff. Sniff. Sniff.
The cuff on Andy’s arm tightened, then released. The little man looked over Andy’s right shoulder, then made a note on his pad. When Andy twisted his head, he could see the corner of a monitor on a pole behind him, but he couldn’t read the screen.
“Your name,” the man repeated.
“I’m Robert Suckyourowncockyoupervertedpieceofshitbastard.”
Andy grinned at this because it told the man he wasn’t afraid. Not in the least bit. Fuck him.
The man scribbled something on his notepad, then set the pad on his desk and rose.
He crossed the room and disappeared somewhere behind Andy.
Andy could hear him moving around, but he couldn’t tell what he was doing.
When he returned, he was holding a cotton ball in a gloved hand.
In his other hand, he had a syringe. He plunged the needle into the cotton and depressed the plunger, saturating the ball.
He then lifted the glass bowl, slipped the cotton ball in with the rabbit, and quickly replaced the glass.
Calmly, he peeled away the latex glove and settled back in his chair.
“What the hell is that?”
The rabbit was curious, too. It padded over and gave the cotton a cautious sniff.
The rabbit’s body jerked. It jumped back from the cotton with such force, its rounded back slammed into the glass bowl with a hard thud. The small animal pawed at its nose, first with quick strokes, then with harsh swipes, claws extended. Frantic.
“What’d you do?” Andy managed, unable to look away.
“I didn’t do it,” the man replied calmly. “You did. When you lied to me.”
The rabbit’s nose was bleeding.
“It was a fucking joke! Make it stop! Don’t hurt it!”
“Will you tell me the truth?”
“Yes!”
“Because lying to one another is no way to start this journey.”
“Andy! Andrew Dickson! That’s my name!”
The man only stared at him for several moments, then finally rose and vanished behind Andy’s back.
When he returned, he was wearing another latex glove and holding a small dish of yellow liquid.
He lifted the corner of the glass bowl, retrieved the cotton, and replaced it with the dish.
The rabbit must have recognized the liquid or somehow understood it would make it feel better; it plunged its nose into the dish and held it there for several seconds.
When it lifted back out, the rabbit sneezed five times in quick succession, then appeared okay again.
By the time the man had discarded the cotton and returned to his chair, the rabbit was back to sniffing the glass as if nothing had happened.
The man retrieved his notepad and pen, wrote something, and pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “I’m glad we understand each other, Mr. Dickson. Or do you prefer Andy?”
Andy didn’t much care what this insane asshole called him, but he knew better than to rattle him.
This guy was nothing like the one with the hammer in Poughkeepsie.
That guy had been some animal, driven by instinct or some kind of deep-down desire, like some crazy rabid dog.
This guy was something else entirely. When Andy looked at him, he saw something in the man’s eyes far worse than some crazed lunacy.
The man was calm.
Who does this and remains perfectly calm?
The cuff on Andy’s arm tightened, held for a moment, then released with a low puff of air.
The man made a quick note and returned his gaze to Andy, his head cocked slightly to the side.
Andy swallowed. “Andy is fine.”
With a nod, the man wrote that down too. A quick scribble in the top corner of the page.
“Where were you born, Andy?”
“Toledo. In Ohio.”
“And your age?”
“Fifteen,” Andy told him. “I’ll be sixteen in November. The twelfth.”
A slight smile edged the man’s lips as he wrote that down. “See, that’s much better. You volunteered your birthday. A free exchange of information is far superior to pulling teeth.”
When the man said that, Andy got the distinct impression this man had pulled teeth.
He’d probably done far worse. Something else was very clear, and it might have explained why the man was so calm—he’d done this before.
He’d done it more than once. He’d done it enough times to be calm about it.
And hell, Andy didn’t want to think about that.
That was the point of the rabbit, right?
He’d had the rabbit ready before he grabbed and drugged Andy.
The little demonstration with the cotton ball?
There was no hesitation there; he just did it.
He had all of that ready to go because he’d done it before, and it was the simplest way to get Andy to go along.
How many others had sat in this chair? How many does it take to get to that point?
“Twenty-seven,” the man said calmly. “Twenty-seven others have sat in that very place.”
“How do you know . . .” The words trailed off before Andy could say something stupid like psychic or mind-reader, because those were the first words that popped into his head, but that’s not what the man said.
“I knew what you were thinking because people are horribly predictable. The first twenty-seven to sit in that chair were unable to surprise me.” He removed his glasses, held them between pinched fingers, and leaned forward slightly.
“What do you think, Andy? Do you think you can surprise me? I certainly hope so.”