Chapter Six
Phoenix
Fuck, had I really been complaining that yesterday was boring? Jesus, what I wouldn’t do to go back to nothing happening right about now. But no. My whiny, impatient ass apparently sent some sort of bad juju out into the universe, kicking the forces of karma into gear, because now, right now, something is most definitely happening.
The same average, nondescript, Latino man stands in front of my cage again. But instead of environmentally destroying Styrofoam with this morning’s ration of sludge, he’s gripping strips of black fabric in the hand not holding his gun.
He shoves the fabric strips through the gaps between my cage’s bars. I watch as he lets go of them and they fall to softly thump onto the plywood bottom of the cage. I’m wondering just what the fabric is for, other than being a decoration for my undesired habitat that could be accurately and facetiously titled “Pile of Poo, Black Fabric,” when my captor barks more words at me, making me twitch in place and my eyes jump back up to look at him.
“Seus olhos. Cubra seus olhos.”
The corners of his mouth turn down in a scowl when I don’t do whatever it is that he’s wanting me to do. Clearly, he’s annoyed by my lack of understanding, but really that’s his problem. I hadn’t understood him the last time he spoke to me in his native language and I’m not suddenly anymore conversant in the language now.
An impatient and imperious pointing at the puddle of cloth has me rolling my eyes at him, then giving him a droll look that wordlessly conveys how much I blatantly understood at least that much. Even a complete dolt could’ve figured out he wanted me to do something with the damned things, or else why would he shove them so unceremoniously into my enclosure; I just had no idea what the hell that thing was.
“Seus olhos. Ent?o as m?os. M?os .”
Huh. Apparently, it’s a universal thing to attempt to get somebody to understand what you’re trying to tell them in a language they don’t understand by talking louder and slower. And by repeating what you’ve said, as if that repetition will suddenly unlock the meaning within their brain.
When his loudly and emphatically enunciated words yield no action on my part, other than my continued sitting and eyeing him in befuddlement, my captor heaves a weary and frustrated sigh. Then he begins the most high-stakes pantomimed game of charades I’ve ever been a part of. He points to the fabric again, then raises his hand in the air with his index finger still extended, indicating the number one. He then proceeds to point the finger toward his eyes before circling it around the circumference of his head.
The glare he aims my way hints that he’ll be quite perturbed if I haven’t taken the meaning from what he just acted out.
But before I can take up a section of fabric and wind it around my head in a makeshift blindfold, as I’m clearly meant to do, his hand raises again, this time with two fingers raised. Once more, he points at the fabric, then he raises both his arms in the air and crosses them together at the wrists.
He must not have much faith in my charade deduction abilities because he also gruffly rasps out a heavily accented, “Eyes e hands. You block eyes. You tie. Hands.”
They’re heavily accented and halting, but I have to give the guy credit for managing to translate his command into English for me. Fuck knows my Portuguese, or whatever, is completely nonexistent. And I’m thankful that I won’t have to rely solely upon my ability to interpret his pantomimed actions to know what it is he expects me to do.
I wait to move, just in case he has a third set of instructions for me. But no, two must’ve been his max, because my inaction causes his eyes to narrow even further and I see him begin to lower one of his arms and point it in my direction—the one that has the hand attached to it that is holding a gun. I’m not exactly looking forward to being blindfolded, but I’d also prefer not to have to see a gun aimed at my head again.
And, hey, being blindfolded will turn that little white lie I told Jackson into a truth. So, there is that.
I slowly reach my own hand out—no sudden movements to freak out my captor for me—and snag the first of the two lengths of black cloth. The edges of it are jagged and frayed, as though somebody ripped a strip off a larger swath, and a few of the stray strands tickle my nose as I wind the fabric around my head, covering my eyes.
In a twist of irony— is it irony or subtle cruelty? Or maybe just a dose of unpremeditated mercy—the piece of fabric smells fresh and clean. Certainly it smells a hell of a lot better than the grungy, dirty, sweat soaked, and food spattered clothes I’m stuck in. For a man used to wearing a few different sets of clothing within the span of one day, having the same shirt and same pair of shorts adorning my body for five straight days is nearly intolerable. Not that the body those clothes adorn is all that sweet smelling and clean anymore, either.
After wrapping the cloth around my head a couple times, I tie the ends in a knot to hold it in place. The dim and gloomy space I’m in is now almost completely dark, some weak light filters in through the fabric’s weave, but not much. If it’s their intent for me to be unable to see anything at all, from now until the blindfold is removed, they’ve succeeded.
I carefully reach out until I can snag the second strip of black cloth. And then… Okay, how the hell am I supposed to bind my own wrists together? Especially now that I can’t even see what I’m doing. But even though I can’t see it anymore, I am aware that the otherwise not very scary, scary figure of my captor is outside my cage, holding a gun. I guess I’m just going to have to do the best that I can.
“Okay, this is… No. Nope, that’s… Yeah, that’s not going to…” I quietly mutter to myself as I circle my left wrist with one end of the fabric. But that still leaves my right hand holding the other end of the strip, with no good way to get it wound around that wrist. Even bringing my right wrist close to my cloth-bound left wrist and transferring the end of the fabric to my left hand doesn’t help.
I can get some of the fabric wrapped around my right wrist by hooking it and then looping it around a few times. But the whole thing feels loose and I have no way of securing it in place with any knots. In fact… Yep.
Not knowing how to tie a knot one-handed, the binding around my left wrist was only held in place by the multiple passes of fabric around it and now it’s coming loose. The cloth around my right wrist already felt sloppy and slack, but now that restraint feels like it’s about to completely unravel too.
“Dammit.”
Huffing a frustrated breath, I pull the barely clinging piece of fabric from around my right wrist, and wad it into a crumpled ball, squeezing it with both hands.
“Okay, okay. I can…I can do…”
At any moment, I expect to hear a matching hint of frustration from my captor. Either words yelled at me, whether in English or his native language, or a click, snick, or…whatever sound a gun makes when it’s cocked and about to be fired. Do guns even make a noise to warn you of its imminent firing or have we technologically progressed past that? Maybe the only clue I’ll get that my captor has lost his patience with my attempt to follow his orders is when some portion of my anatomy is punctured by a bullet and my blood and flesh is splattered against the metal bars and cement wall behind me.
But until that point, I guess the best I can do is keep trying. There has to be some sort of solution to this puzzle of how to tie myself up. A soft, short hum vibrates from my throat as I ponder the problem.
Grasping one end of the fabric strip, I make a loop and knot that into place. I then insert my left wrist into the loop and try to snug that as tightly into place as I can. It’s not very tight against my skin—I’d made it large enough that my fist would fit through the hole—but at least this end should stay in place now. Once more, I wind the fabric around my left wrist several times, making sure to bury the initial loop and knot underneath the multiple windings.
With my left wrist bound again, it occurs to me that maybe I should’ve also tied a loop into the other end of the strip for my right hand to slip through. Because now I was pretty much in the same situation I was before—I could get the rest of the strip loosely wrapped around my other wrist, but it would all unravel again without some way to keep it secured.
“Son of a…”
I start unspooling the fabric from around my left wrist again.
“Pare.” I freeze, completely still, as gruff, foreign words are spat in my direction. “O que você está fazendo?” Thankfully, that’s all that comes flying at me, though. No bullets. At least, not so far. “Caralho que idiota.”
There’s a soft scraping noise and then another noise that I’m more familiar with—the jangle of his keys. And then I can make out the clanking snick as he unlocks my cage, followed by the grating squeal as he opens it.
“N?o se mexa. Stay. No...no funny job, está bem? Or...or... boom .”
I only understand about half of what he said, but that doesn’t stop me from frantically nodding my agreement. I’ll go along with anything that isn’t “boom”.
Rough hands grab and yank on my arms, pulling them out away from my body. Two hands. And if my brain weren’t as frozen as the rest of me in fear, I’d use this moment as some sort of opportunity to try to overtake my captor. Both of his hands are on me. Which means, wherever his gun is, it’s not in his hands, ready to shoot me with.
But I just got done blindfolding myself and I can’t see for shit. And he’s holding onto my arms. I’m frozen in place, letting him move and manipulate and do whatever he wants with me. Fight or flight is nowhere even close to being on my radar as options. Nope. I’ve opted for freeze.
And now my captor is successfully completing the task he ordered and that I was unable to do—he is wrapping the strip of fabric around both of my wrists. Briskly and efficiently. Tight, snug, secure.
Once my wrists are bound, he even gives his knotted handiwork a tug just to make sure it’s good and tight. And absolutely without any possibility of coming loose or for me to work my way out of the restraint.
“Venha. Come,” he barks out as he pulls even harder on the fabric tied around my wrists. “You come. Agora. Uh, now .”
I’m dizzy and disoriented when I land on my feet after tumbling/falling/getting dragged out of the cage I’ve spent the last six days in. My feet and legs barely feel connected to the rest of my body, taking those first stumbling, wobbly steps as he uses his hold on my bound hands to pull me behind him.
I don’t even need the use of my eyesight to know he’s enjoying this. It’s there in his voice, and the gleeful chortles that intersperse his words, as he says, “Look at you. Rich filho da puta. Tied like um c?o. A dog.”
My left foot hits something sticking up from the uneven and rough floor, causing me to trip. With a grunt, my captor pulls even harder on my restraints and the cotton fabric digs into my skin. A few stuttered steps and I regain my balance.
With the blindfold on it’s hard to tell, but something... Does the floor feel slightly different under my shoes now? Is the quality of the light struggling to seep through my blindfold different? Does the air feel different, or the echo of our steps, as I resignedly play follow-the-leader, sound different?
Whatever it is, I have the feeling that what I tripped over was a threshold, from the room my cage was in to a different room or a hallway. Now I just have to wonder where I’m being led and what is waiting for me there. Possibly, who.
The level of continued enjoyment in my escort’s voice as he states, “Things happen. Next part. Finalmente,” doesn’t inspire a whole lot of confidence in me that I’m going to find as much pleasure in whatever it is that’s coming next.