Chapter 3 Modus Operandi
Modus Operandi
CORMAC
Seven.
Seven tattoos.
Most notably, of course, is the vampire bat, utterly terrifying, mouth open as if readying to take a bite from its victim, wings spread wide and wrapping around the sides of my neck.
My chest and ribs are littered with different mythological creatures. Some I can name, some I can’t.
My left hand has the first one I noticed before, but my right is bare. I even have a couple on my thighs, though I haven't had the time to thoroughly look them over.
I haven't had time to do much of anything.
Every moment of consciousness is co-opted by doctors poking and prodding or cops asking me questions that don't make any sense, and hours upon hours of physical therapy.
Every inch of my body aches like I've just run a marathon when all I've done is relearn how to fucking walk more than a few steps.
I can't lift my arms over my head without them shaking from the effort.
The PT says not using my muscles for months has basically caused every bit of strength they had to dissipate. I have to retrain my body just to do the work I took for granted every day.
I'm the weakest I've ever been in my life, yet the men surrounding me at all hours watch me as if I'm the threat here. Guns not so subtly aimed in my direction fill my every waking hour, and presumably even my sleeping ones.
I can't imagine what I did to earn this kind of trepidation, and no one will tell me. Instead, armed strangers are asking me where I was on this day or that. And if I've ever bought weapons from some local artillery supplier.
When did you start your company?
Where did you recruit your employees?
Can you vouch for their whereabouts on this date?
Do you have an affinity for hunting?
I think I've repeated the phrase Not that I can remember over a hundred times by now.
One of the officers loudly suggested to another that I'm lying about the memory loss to get out of the life sentence I'm guaranteed.
Every moment longer I'm here, pure terror creeps into my veins. I have no idea who they're talking about. But it couldn't be me, could it?
Could I have done something so terrible that I deserve to rot in prison for the rest of my life?
Nausea rears its ugly fucking head again, and I have to swallow down the sensation of my mouth watering while another man in a white coat asks me how my healing is going.
"You're the doctor," I laugh. "You tell me."
He blinks, his face completely blank, "I can't tell you how you're feeling, Mr. Fomori."
"Right," I sigh, my head sinking into the pillow beneath it. My eyes trace the patterns across the white ceiling, finding comfort in the only peaceful thing in this room. "I feel like shit. Everything fucking hurts."
"Well, you won't take the pain medication so that makes sense." His disdain for that choice is only barely hidden underneath the doctorly professionalism. "But, the pain is a good sign in this case. If you weren't feeling anything, I'd be concerned about lifelong lack of sensation.”
"And what about lifelong lack of memories?" I scoff.
"That's not my area of expertise," he shrugs. "I can tell you that, at this point, it's unlikely that the missing time will return. But that might be for the best. The trauma of what you went through might drive you mad."
More vague fucking non-answers.
I try my luck pressing, but I know what the response will be before I even open my mouth. "What did I go through? What the hell happened to me?"
"Nothing you didn't deserve," the cop sitting in the corner mutters. "If it had been me, you'd be six feet under."
"The fuck did you just say?" I ask, an unfamiliar rage bubbling up in my chest.
The doctor whips around to the officer, "Don't."
But the officer ignores him, never taking his eyes off me. "I said that if it was me, you'd be six feet under."
A wicked, loud laugh fills the room, his bravado falling as I cackle outright, "You're so fucking brave, huh? I'm strapped to a bed, you're waving around a gun and you're still so afraid of me your hand is shaking."
This guy is a fucking pussy. Hiding behind a uniform and a firearm he doesn't know how to handle. Talking to me like this only works for him right now because he believes I can't fight back.
But even half dead and more than half in agonizing pain, I could beat the fuck out of him, and he knows it.
So rather than gamble with his life, he shuts his big fucking mouth.
I hide it, but the truth is that I'm afraid of me, too.
I don't understand who I am right now. Violent thoughts swirl through my mind, constantly tracking every person who walks in and out of my room and how easy it would be to take them by surprise and escape.
It's taking immense effort not to rip these little straps off my arms and fight my way out of here.
I don't have any of my strength back. There's no telling how far I'd get before somebody manages to subdue me, bringing me right back here with even more security and possibly narcotics to keep me pliant.
A temporary reprieve wouldn't be worth the risk of being drugged into complicity.
But my good behavior doesn't change the constant ritual of plotting my escape.
I don't remember ever being like this.
Of course, a lot can happen in five years. I would imagine that none of it is good if the person it turned me into is a psychopath that laughs in an armed asshole’s face and tries to taunt him into pulling the trigger.
The officer doesn't take his eyes or aim off of me as the doctor continues his prodding at my sore muscles and barely healed collarbone.
A knock at my door draws all of our attention, and a mousy little man in an oversized suit lets himself in.
He clears his throat, looking around the room. "Mr. Fomori, I'm Clyde Hainswell, your court appointed attorney."
"No, the fuck you're not," I raise both my brows. "I have a lawyer."
Clyde takes in a deep breath, puffing up his chest as if steeling himself for the monster he's been warned of.
"The state has appointed me to your case.
You don't have to take my services but denying them won't do you any favors.
Unless you have the name and phone number of your lawyer on hand, once I walk out that door, you're without representation. "
Of course, I don't have a fucking phone number.
"Lacey Donoville," I tell him. "Her number is in my contacts at my office."
"We reached out to Mrs. Billings, formerly known as Miss Donoville, and were alerted that she resigned several years ago." He explains, not seeming happy about the prospect of dealing with me either.
"Why did she quit?" I ask no one in particular. No one in this room would know the answer. But the last I knew, Lacey was happy to work for me. I paid her well and fucked her even better.
Clyde shrugs.
"Can you just... can you get me a phone call with her?" I plead.
"She's no longer practicing," he explains. "So, no, Mr. Fomori, I cannot. I'm afraid you're stuck with me."
I don't even know what crimes I'm being tried for, and yet I know for fucking certain that I'm going to be found guilty with a lawyer this disheveled.
"If you'll please excuse us, I need to speak privately with my client," Clyde motions jerkily for the officer and the doctor to leave the room.
The doctor does so without argument or delay, but I can feel the officer's hesitance floating through the air. He doesn't want to leave me alone with this little man. Could I really be so much of a threat that he doesn't trust me with someone whose only job is to help me?
With a loaded sigh, the cop finally moves to exit, but not before dazzling me with his dramatic flair, tightening the straps tying my arms to my chest and the bed beneath me.
Resisting the urge to roll my eyes, I let myself stare him down instead, refusing to back down from his pathetic attempt at intimidation. If he were the threat he believes himself to be, he wouldn't need me tied down and defenseless to feel safe.
I watch the beads of sweat drip down his flushed skin, the evidence of his terror peeking through his tough-guy act.
Even through layers of deodorant and nauseating cologne, he reeks of fear. Sharp and potent, seeping through his pores.
As he walks through the door, his eyes land on mine one last time, a silent warning in them to behave.
I can only imagine that my replying smile is all teeth and no kindness.
The picture I must paint as I am now.
A neck tattoo that is all predator, eyes I've heard described as a scorching, fiery amber, almost certainly muddled with deep shadows beneath them now, my too-sharp canines reminiscent of a violent beast, the harsh, chaotic regrowth of a recently shaved head.
And above all else, something I've been both blessed and cursed with my entire life, a smile that screams of arrogance, of a dare waiting to be taken.
After he disappears into the hall, slamming the door behind him, my attention falls back onto the man who is responsible for doing his damnedest to prove my innocence.
He sinks into the doctor's chair, flipping through a manila envelope stuffed full of papers of varying sizes and shapes.
"Mr. Fomori," he begins, his face draining of color as he continues to traverse the file of my supposed sins. "What have they been asking you since you awoke?"
I try to shrug against my confinement. "Nothing I know anything about. Questions that make no sense."
"For example?" he clicks a pen, preparing to write down anything I might have to say of value.
"One of them asked me if I knew some guy named Skyler Beltran. Another asked about a Chance Michelson. Two came in and asked about some weapons manufacturer robbery gone wrong that happened back in September. Morris or something.”
With a quiet hum, he whips the pen across the page, jotting something down as he presses. "And what did you tell them?"
I close my eyes against the headache pounding a steady rhythm against my fucking eye sockets, "None of it sounds even remotely familiar."