Chapter 44 #2
‘Who has the time for umbrellas and pineapples?’ Cam said, playing along.
‘Exactly!’ The Blade pointed both the knife and the gun at us, just in case we’d forgotten that he was armed with more than one weapon.
‘And then once you’ve drunk them, you’re going to tie each other up.
Hands behind your backs, ankles bound together, no cheating.
And then . . .’ he smiled thinly, ‘you’re going to climb into that cupboard over there. ’
He gestured towards the closet, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. It had all started in a cupboard, and now it was going to end in one. How poetic, in a way. Or was it ironic? Or was it just really shitty?
‘Don’t worry, though,’ he added, as if this was all just some polite misunderstanding, ‘the drink won’t kill you.
It’ll just knock you out for twenty-four hours.
Long enough to keep you out of my hair. And when you wake up, I’ll be gone and we can all pretend this never happened. ’ He tapped his head with the gun now.
Cam and I locked eyes, then we both turned and looked at him.
The Blade sighed. ‘Don’t give me that look. I’ve won. You’ve lost. It’s not a big deal. Happens to the best of us. Sometimes there are winners and sometimes there are losers. As my mom would say, it’s how you play the game that really matters.’
‘I don’t lose,’ I muttered.
‘I figured you’d say that.’ With a lazy flick of his hand, he gestured towards the window, where another gun barrel had appeared.
‘That’s my associate, Vasha. I told him I had some difficult guests.
People who don’t like losing. He’s here to make sure you drink your medicine and tie each other up nicely. ’
‘Asshole,’ Cam spat, which surprised me. Cam never got rattled in situations like this.
‘I know, that’s what my wife tells me all the time.’ The Blade burst out laughing.
‘So she’s not really dead then?’ I asked.
He let out a long, slow sigh. ‘Sadly, she is still very much alive. But what can you do, eh? Women . . . can’t live with them, can’t kill them either. What do you say?’ He looked at Cam, who didn’t say a word. But Vasha did.
‘You can divorce them,’ I heard from the window.
‘True, true.’ The Blade nodded. ‘Vasha over there has four ex-wives! Four! Now drink.’ He pointed with the knife and gun at the side tables.
Cam and I looked at each other again, then slowly, reluctantly, we both reached for the shot glasses.
‘Hurry, hurry, we don’t have all day and I’m a very impatient man.’
We put the glasses to our mouths and then both paused at the same time. I sniffed the liquid. It smelt like nothing. But clearly it wasn’t.
‘And don’t you dare think of tossing it away, because if you do, I’ll have to use the hypodermic needles I have in my pocket, and that dose is much, much stronger – maybe too strong, hard to say.
I mixed it myself and I’m not a chemist.’ The Blade leaned in conspiratorially.
‘It was Vasha who brought me the drugs, and between you and me, he’s not a very good dealer.
I heard he gets his ingredients from Temu. ’ He burst out laughing again.
I risked another glance at Cam. He was looking more shaken than I’d ever seen him. But also angry, like he was about to explode. I shook my head at him, urging him not to do whatever the hell it looked like he was thinking of doing.
‘Listen to your fake fiancé. She knows what’s good for her, and you,’ the Blade said, sitting down on the bed.
It was a very strange and twisted intimate moment that we were all sharing, and a part of me wanted to laugh.
But I didn’t. ‘Go on, it’s not going to kill you, I promise.
I used it on someone just last week. He woke up a day later, said it was the best sleep of his life. ’
I raised the glass to my lips again.
‘Lizzy . . .’ Cam said in an attempt to stop me.
‘We don’t have a choice, Cam. Please,’ I begged. The thought of him getting hurt suddenly pumped fear into my veins. It was a very unfamiliar feeling, and I didn’t like it.
He sighed, gave a small nod and then downed the shot in one go. I followed suit and started to gag.
‘I put a bottle of water on the table for you so you can wash it down,’ said the Blade. ‘Don’t say I don’t take care of you.’
I grabbed the water bottle, twisted the lid off and took a gulp.
‘You remind me of my niece. Whenever she has to take medicine, she spits it all over the place. And then who has to clean it up?’ He tapped the knife to his chest.
I looked up at him. It was hard to imagine that the man holding a gun and a knife to our heads had a niece. Or a wife. Any family, for that matter.
‘Now what?’ Cam asked.
‘Now you must tie each other up.’
‘Uh, slight problem with that. I can’t exactly tie Lizzy up if she’s already tied my hands.’
‘I know, it’s a dilemma. I thought you could start with each other’s feet, easy enough.
Then Lizzy can tie your hands, and when you can’t move and Vasha has his barrel pointed directly between her eyes, I will tie her hands.
And if you so much as twitch . . .’ He pointed his gun at me and made a fake shooting sound. ‘Bang.’
So that was what we did. I tied Cam’s feet together, he tied mine, and then I tied his hands behind his back. I stood dead still while my own hands were being tied, and when it was over, the Blade stood back to admire his work.
‘I hope you can both hop?’ he said, and pointed his knife at the cupboard. Cam looked like he was fuming, like he was about to explode with some emotion I’d never seen on his face before. It totally unsettled me.
‘When I’m out of there,’ he spat, ‘I am going to come after you and I’m going to fucking kill you.’
‘Cam!’ I scolded.
But the Blade just laughed again. ‘Now hop, my little bunnies. Hop.’
‘Let’s do what he says,’ I said. Cam was usually the one having to cool me down, but for some reason he was acting very not Cam.
I started hopping towards the cupboard and he followed.
When we finally got there, calves aching – it’s harder than you think to hop when your legs are tied together – the Blade opened the door for us.
‘Come on, bunnies,’ he said, tapping the side of the cupboard with the knife. The sound reverberated around the room as if it were the loudest noise ever made. Cam and I climbed inside with difficulty and settled in as best we could.
‘Nice and cosy in there,’ the Blade said, and slammed the door shut. Everything went black. I heard a locking sound, and then a chair scraping across the floor and being pushed up against the door.
And that was it. Cam and I were in the closet . . . again.
‘Well,’ I muttered. ‘That didn’t go to plan.’
‘No.’ Cam shuffled, trying to get comfortable, but with our arms and legs bound like this, no amount of shuffling would help. We were both quiet for a moment. And that was when I started to feel the fog creeping in. Thick. Heavy. Sludgy.
‘Ironic, isn’t it?’ Cam said.
‘What is?’
‘That we find ourselves back in a cupboard.’
‘Cam . . . I don’t feel good.’ I couldn’t hide the panic in my voice. I hated being out of control. And this was the ultimate loss of control.
‘Best thing to do is not fight it. Close your eyes, Lizzy.’
‘I hate this feeling.’
‘I know.’ His voice was soft and sincere. ‘You hate losing control. It’s your worst nightmare.’
I sighed. He knew me so well.
‘Come here,’ he said, trying to shift closer to me. ‘Put your back against me.’
I wriggled awkwardly until I found him in the dark.
I tried to turn around, but it was almost impossible in this tiny space.
Finally, though, I managed, and I just let go.
Let my body flop onto Cam’s. My back connected with his chest and I leaned in as far as I could go, until I felt his chin on my shoulder.
‘There,’ he whispered. ‘Now imagine I’m wrapping my arms around you. I’ve got you. You can lose control with me. You’re safe here.’
‘Am I?’
‘You’re always safe with me.’
The darkness began swallowing me. It came at me in steady waves, each one bigger than the one before it. And each time the wave retreated, it seemed to take more and more of me with it. Until it was mostly just black and fuzzy inside my head.
‘Did you really not cheat?’ I asked, my words slurring together.
‘No, I didn’t,’ Cam said, and for the first time ever, I totally believed him.
‘So . . . misunderstanding,’ I managed to get out.
‘I know, and see how one stupid misunderstanding fucked it all up.’
‘It all up,’ I mumbled. It felt as if my lungs were trying to expel all their air, getting smaller and smaller and smaller. Shrinking down to nothing. And then blackness.
‘I should have come after you, I should have kept telling you until you believed me,’ Cam said. I could feel his warm breath on my neck.
The blackness was closing in faster and faster, and then Cam said something else. It felt important, but my ears refused to work and my brain refused to stay online.
Black.
‘Lizzy . . .’ I whispered.
Her head lolled a little.
‘I love you,’ I said into her hair. The words felt so right coming out of my mouth, as if they’d been waiting inside for years. Which they had. ‘I’ve always loved you.’
‘I love, mmm, yes, love.’ And then a sound came out of her mouth. A snore.
Seriously?
‘Hey, Lizzy.’ I tapped her, but her head just slumped back. ‘Was that an “I love you too”, or a—’
She snored again. She was out cold.
My head was starting to float now too. Pressure was building behind my eyes and my thoughts started becoming slower.
The blackness was closing in.
If this was it . . . if this was how it all ended . . .
Then I’d go out with her in my arms. Or at least against me.
Not a bad way to die really.