Charlie
Everything feels wrong the instant consciousness claws its way back into my head. My skull pounds as if wrapped in cotton, thoughts sluicing in and out like they’re wading through muddy water.
My throat and chest feel scraped raw.
Cold seeps through my shirt and jeans.
I don’t understand any of it.
But then I look down at myself and see that there is duct tape tightly binding me from my wrists almost to my elbows. My ankles are lashed together equally merciless, the adhesive biting into my flesh in time with my pulse.
I start to hyperventilate, which is only made worse by the horrifying realization that I have more tape encircling my head, covering my mouth, stuck painfully in my hair, and cutting into my cheeks.
The floor beneath me is coarse concrete, flecked with dark stains. I lie on my side, immobilized, staring at a mottled patch of gray as terror burns the last haze from my mind.
The parking lot. The hand on my mouth. The arm around my throat.
No, no, no, no, this has to be a nightmare. It has to be.
I clamp my eyes shut, willing myself to wake up, wake up, WAKE UP!
Acid crawls up my throat, making it burn even more, but it has to be a bad dream. It can’t be real. It’s just… really, really vivid.
Please.
My eyes squint open to see industrial metal rafters high above me. The air smells of old motor oil, cigarettes, and mildew. Faint shafts of sunlight pierce filthy windows mounted near the ceiling. Okay, I’m in a warehouse.
I’m having a nightmare about being tied up in a warehouse.
A wave of vertigo nearly makes me sick. I swallow against the rawness in my throat, wincing. Then I hear voices.
Male.
Several.
Echoing in the cavernous expanse. I can’t understand what they’re saying, almost like they’re speaking another language.
I don’t think it’s Greek; it sounds different. I wrack my brain, trying to place it. Maybe Russian?
My gaze drifts across the large empty room to a battered folding table that sits under a flickering bulb, surrounded by four cheap metal chairs.
Three men lounge around it as casually as if they were just hanging out in a buddy’s garage.
Empty liquor bottles clink. Cigarette butts smolder in an overflowing ashtray.
And there, amongst the mess, are two glinting guns.
One of the men suddenly glances toward me, his head tilting in my direction. He mutters something, and the other two turn. I force my eyes down, heart slamming into my ribcage.
I try to tell myself again that it’s all just a nightmare, but with every word tumbling out of their mouths, every grunt and laugh, my fear builds.
Somewhere, a heavy metal door creaks open, the men’s conversation quiets, and footsteps come closer, closer, closer. My eyes are squeezed shut so tightly that I see a bunch of floating color behind my lids.
I have a sickening feeling that if I open my eyes, I’m going to die.
I’m going to die, because this is real.
This is real.
But then a familiar voice calls my name, and I’m questioning reality again.
“Charlie,” it repeats, louder the second time.
I force my eyes open in tiny increments and gaze at the two men looming over me. The one closest to me is Constantine. I have no idea who the other is.
“Constantine?” I try to say, but it comes out as a mangled string of muffled, instinctive sound from behind the tape.
I go lightheaded with relief that he’s here, that whatever this is, there’s a plan. People get kidnapped all the time in shows and movies, right? If Constantine’s already here, maybe Nikolaus is somewhere just out of sight, negotiating my freedom.
Some sort of deal will be struck, I’ll be untied, then we’ll be on the way home. I feel unbelievably lucky that I’m already being rescued, just moments after waking up. I bet Constantine saw the tail-end of what happened in the parking lot and raced after me.
But… Constantine’s eyes don’t hold comfort; there’s guilt there.
His mouth is set in a hard line, probably from the stress of the whole situation.
I want to tell him that it’s okay, that I’m uninjured, and that he arrived just in time, but the tape doesn’t allow me to.
I try to convey it through my eyes, but he only grits his teeth.
The man behind him—burly, dark stubble, lips wet from a drink—leans over my head, grinning in a way that makes my blood chill and my skin prickle.
Okay, so he’s clearly the bad guy.
I try to scramble backward, but the effort only jostles me slightly on the rough concrete, friction burning my cheek and the skin of my hip through my clothes.
Constantine crouches, grips where the tape is digging into my cheeks, and tugs just enough to make my head jerk in sharp pain. My nose floods with the harsh smell of glue, sweat, and panic.
He waits for my eyes to focus on him, then speaks. “I’m sorry, Charlie. You don’t deserve this. You were just the best choice.”
My brain is slogging through a swamp. The words barely manage to make it through the sludge, but I think they make sense. Sort of. Maybe.
I make a questioning sound, and the man with stubble laughs, jostling me with his boot. I twitch away, even as every muscle in my body is screaming to freeze.
Constantine holds my gaze, like he’s trying to will his words into my skin.
“I wish we hadn’t gone to that club. Or that he’d picked someone I wouldn’t feel so guilty doing this to.
But here we are, so try to stay calm. It’ll be over soon; then you can go back to New Mexico or wherever you want, start a new life.
Some of what’s going to happen will hurt, I’m not going to lie to you.
But they’ve promised you’ll get out of this alive.
How much pain they give you will depend on Niko. ”
My head shakes before I can control it. That can’t be right. I try to say so, but the tape snags what should be my voice and turns it into a mewling whimper.
Constantine—if he feels anything about this, he hides it behind his eyes—stands and says something quietly to the other man, who nods and disappears toward the folding table.
With one last glance, Constantine leaves, and I’m left staring at his back as he goes, trying desperately to will him with my gaze into turning and changing his mind.
He doesn’t.
One of the men begins to whistle, tuneless, broken, a sound I know I’ll hear in nightmares for the rest of my life.
Something changes in the room.
Maybe it’s my senses rebooting, or maybe the men just get bored waiting for whatever’s supposed to happen next. One of them says, and then they’re all moving in my direction, boots against concrete, the scrape and clatter of a chair being dragged across the floor.
I whimper as they crowd around me, casting long shadows, blocking out what little light there is. The guy with the stubble is first—he squats close, his breath sour and thick with whatever he’s been drinking.
He says something to the others, gesturing at my face, and the closest man—older, bald, wearing a faded sports jersey—laughs, showing broken teeth.
“Sorry, sorry,” the stubbled man says, chuckling. “I was just telling these boys that we need to speak English so that we are good hosts to you. We wouldn’t want you feeling left out, after all.”
Someone behind me cracks their knuckles. My body’s begging me to shrink away, but there’s nowhere to go. I’m just a heap on the concrete, jerky and helpless, and every instinct in me is ringing out that I should run, but all I can do is make pathetic, squashed noises behind the tape.
The stubbled man’s hand closes around my jaw and squeezes, hard, until my eyes water and my ears ring. “Don’t worry, Charlie, we’ll take good care of you.”
He slaps my cheek lightly, then harder, his palm a hot sting against my skin.
It’s more than enough to completely snap me out of any hope that this is just a nightmare.
He leans so close I can see the individual capillaries in his eyes, then, with unhurried precision, he cocks his fist and drives it into my face twice.
The sound is wrong. Wet, sharp, and echoing inside my own skull, as if someone’s popped a water balloon in my sinuses.
For a split second, I’m not sure I even feel it.
The world just blurs, then pivots around the axis of my nose.
And then—then the pain comes, sick and white-hot, a detonation that washes my vision into static.
I can’t breathe. There’s blood, thick and coppery, crawling down the back of my throat. I can feel it with my tongue, wet and slimy behind the tape. My eyes are streaming so hard I can barely see, but I hear them laughing.
Someone shoves a phone right in my face, forcing open my swollen eyelids for the picture.
“Smile for sugar father,” a man with long, greasy hair coos mockingly.
In the haze above me, I see my own face reflected on the phone screen—lopsided, red with blood that’s already soaked through the tape and spattered my shirt. My nose is smashed crooked, instantly ballooning, the skin split open in a line that drips onto the floor.
“No, no,” the fourth man says, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses, and his thin lips curled into a mean smirk. “Is more like ‘daddy,’ not ‘father.’”
The bald one laughs and says, “This is why they didn’t want to speak English. They sound dumb.”
Stubble rolls his eyes. “That’s because they are dumb, not because they speak broken English.” He wipes my blood onto the back of his jeans, then is handed the phone by Longhair. “They’re just as dumb in Russian.”
“You see?” he says, holding up the phone, waggling the screen back and forth so that my reflection blurs into a red smear.
“This is how your boyfriend will know you are here. We send this to him, and if he is a good boy too, he comes to pick you up. If not—well.” He shrugs, spreading his hands wide. “We have more fun.”