Then Breathing Underwater
THEN: brEATHING UNDERWATER
( Two years, three months earlier )
They say you can’t breathe underwater. That’s not true. You can’t breathe and survive underwater. But until the moment your brain screams for oxygen and your heart chokes out its last stale beats, you can suck in liquid and debris with abandon.
When you truly can’t breathe is the moment a foot crashes into your side and leaves you gasping on a cold concrete floor. And when that foot slams into you again and again and again, you know—like the rush of putrid water flooding your lungs—you are going to die. In fact, that truth is all that matters in that cosmic speck of time. You don’t even feel the sting of the zip tie cutting into your wrists or the throbbing burn scalding the left side of your face. Not until the death strokes stop and air finally wheezes back into your throat do you realize you’re going to suffer before you die.
Then you feel it all.
“Who sent you?!”
His fist balls to hit me again, but I can’t draw in enough air to give an answer.
When I don’t respond, he releases it to do more damage.
I don’t groan when I hit the floor. I don’t do anything except writhe in slow involuntary movements. He says something, but all I comprehend is the brassy taste of blood. Pain. Fear. Panic at my inability to organize my thoughts enough to fight for survival. I’m going to let this happen. Just like everything else.
It’s a fitting death for a man who’s never been brave enough to live.
A door opens behind me. Footsteps. Rustling.
“He won’t talk,” my assailant grunts, confirming the presence of a new monster.
“Get him up,” the intruder says, not unkindly. Gentle, like a true angel of death.
Hands clasp my arms and drag me to my knees.
“Look at me, son,” the man says.
I try. I want to. My brain issues commands but my broken body rebels.
“Look at him!” the violent one growls.
When his fingers dig into my hair and wrench my head up, I do.
My scalp burns from his grip, but I barely feel it as I squint at the new man through swollen eyes. Short, dark hair littered with silver. Thick brows suspended over piercing green eyes. Piercing, but not vibrant. No, there’s a dull pallor to his irises that chills the recesses of your awareness more than cold lake water on a sticky June night.
His eyes hold the opaque sheen of a soul already dead.
“They tell me your name is Roman Shaw and you’ve worked at my Liberty Palace Resort as a bartender for just over a month.”
I nod, and the man behind me jerks my head. “Say it,” he snaps.
“Yes, sir,” I stutter from lungs still weak with trauma.
His eyes narrow on mine, then track my body in a slow perusal. When his gaze rests back on my face, I shiver at the change in his expression. “Pleased” isn’t the right word for the glint in his eyes. Opportunistic. Sadistic.
Machiavellian.
“But your name isn’t Roman Shaw, is it.”
It’s not a question.
I avert my gaze as a response.
“So now I’m left asking myself, why would an intelligent, good-looking young man such as yourself make up a fake name and try to steal from me. Why would you do that, Roman?”
I swallow thick air, flinching at the pressure of hard metal against the back of my skull.
“Tell me why.” His casual tone is the mark of a man comfortable with violence.
“I…”
“Answer him!” The Muscle shakes me hard before resting the gun against my head again.
“I needed the money.”
“For what?” the man in charge says.
I shake my head.
“For what?” he repeats as the other one yanks my hair.
I close my eyes briefly. “Drugs,” I lie.
The man’s expression changes as he studies me in the silence. He liked that answer, which scares the shit out of me. The whir of an air duct becomes deafening, the scratch of concrete agonizing on my knees.
“Why the fake name?” he asks finally.
“It’s not fake. It’s who I am now.”
“And who is that?”
“A liar.”
His mask cracks for a second, revealing a flash of the eager demon inside.
“Brave words to admit to the man holding a gun to your head.”
“You already know I’m a liar.”
“True. But what’s valuable to me is that you do.”
I clench my jaw, refusing to be praised for a piece of me I hate.
“How did you know about our ‘side businesses’?” he continues.
“I didn’t.”
“Come now, Roman. Now is not the time to be a liar, trust me.”
“I’m not lying. I didn’t know about any of it.”
The next blow leaves me gasping on the floor again. Inefficient lungs press against my cracked ribs in sharp stabs of pain.
“This isn’t how you want to die,” the man says in a scolding tone.
Except, he doesn’t know that.
I’ve been dying for twenty-three years. In a lot worse ways than this.
But before I can respond, I’m back on my knees. Fingers dig into my arms as if even his grip needs to cause damage.
“You want to change your answer?” the boss asks.
I lift my gaze to his. “No. I swear I had no idea about the gambling and all that stuff. None of it. I was just a bartender.”
A fresh burst of fear trickles through me when his expression goes frigid again. I bury it with the truth behind my script of lies.
“No? So how did you know to steal from that particular safe?”
“I…”
“How, Roman?”
I shake my head, angry tears burning the crevice behind my eyes. They might even be real this time. I don’t know how to tell anymore.
“Who helped you?”
The weight of a barrel.
The click of a safety.
“Who helped you?!”
I close my eyes for relief. The soothing oblivion of darkness. I melt into the nothingness.
They say your life flashes before your eyes in the moment of death. Like breathing underwater, that’s also a myth. It’s not history you see. It’s the present, vivid and stark against the backdrop of a future that won’t happen. It’s a plea to a God you didn’t acknowledge until now. I imagine the echo of the pop that will be the last sound I experience. What will it feel like? Will I smell the gunpowder and blood before my consciousness fades?
Except…
The gun doesn’t fire.
Nothing disrupts the darkness.
After several seconds, I open my eyes to see the man staring at me with a pensive look.
“Not a talker. Good,” he says. “In that case, I have a counteroffer to a bullet.”
I can’t speak as I stare at him. My body is still holding steady, rigid with adrenaline that’s kept the terror at bay. The terror will come later.
That’s when your life flashes before your eyes—the moment you realize you didn’t die.
The man nods to the guy behind me, and the grip on my hair releases with a painful jolt. I will myself to remain upright.
“How about you work for me?” he says, eyeing me with greedy expectation. There’s a ruthless delight to his offer that twists my stomach, the triumphant glint of a decision already made.
“I do work for you,” I say. My voice wavers with defeat.
By his smile he sees right through my frail defense. “You know what I mean. The real business. Come work for me and enjoy every luxury this world has to offer. Money, sex, expensive toys, you name it. It could all be yours. Hell, I’ll even throw in all the substances you want as long as you keep yourself valuable to me. How much would it take to give you the life you want?”
I look away, my heart pounding as my head spirals. I’ve labored over that question for months. Years, if we go back to include every setback and lost opportunity I’ve experienced in the glow of a weak, old man who loved me but couldn’t save me. An existence branded by deprivation.
That’s the thing with money, isn’t it? It owns you with its absence. A month ago, I decided to sell my soul to finally break free.
I just didn’t know it would be to Montgomery McArthur.
“Bullet or paradise? Which will it be, Roman?”