“Ready, Thirty-Eight?” He gave me no chance to answer the question because I could already feel the needle entering between my toes and it was not a pleasant sensation. Thankfully, it didn’t last long. When he’d finished, Adie placed a cap on the syringe and put it back in his pocket. He then opened the door and walked away.
“Don’t leave me here.” It was another cracked and ragged sentence, but he’d filled me with hope only to immediately extinguish the tiny, flickering flame. If I was going to be left here to die, I’d rather he hadn’t bothered to come in and say hi. The last vestiges of my energy were spent banging my leg on the floor, so the chain rattled noisily.
“Relax. I’m sending in some people to take care of you. As soon as you’ve been cleaned up, then the fun and games can really begin." That sentence should have sent the fear of God into me, but by that time the heroin was already on its way into my bloodstream, and the sweet rush of intoxicating pleasure was upon me.
It's hard to describe the feeling, but it was, without a doubt, the most incredible high I've ever had to date. Now you're probably thinking I didn't have a lot to compare it to, and for the most part, you'd be right. The closest I'd come was after a bullet had ripped into me in the field, and a medic had given me a shot of morphine. At the time I'd thought it was pretty amazing stuff, but it had nothing on the shit Adie had just given me. Heroin must have been at least three times as strong as morphine, and that was no exaggeration. Heroin was also faster-acting because I remember the wait for the morphine to take effect and it was agonising. There was no such problem with this baby. All of a sudden I felt as if I was dancing in the sunshine, without a care in the world and all of my worries had disappeared in an instant. The cold feeling that had seeped into my bones from spending days sprawled out on a concrete floor magically disappeared, replaced by a pleasantly warm and heavy feeling. It was a nice place to be, and all I wanted to do was sleep. Of course, I was allowed no such luxury.
Slaves were all over me in a heartbeat, releasing the single shackle that held me and cutting me out of my suit. Rather them than me. After they'd done that, they virtually had to carry me, stumbling and lurching all over the place, until they'd managed to get me in a shower. After that, I have little recollection of what went on. I felt as if I were in a dream world, one moment in the land of the living and in the next I was laid back in a king-sized bed, bouncing up and down on Adie. What the hell was I thinking? The man was the devil, and he was my mark, but my opiate-laced brain didn't care. All it cared about was pleasure – intense, unadulterated pleasure, and for the moment I intended to live it to the full.
“Wake up, Lois.” I was being shaken awake, but my eyes felt like someone had glued them together. They were so heavy, they were almost impossible to open, and all I wanted to do was sleep.
“Go away.” It hurt to say the words, but if there was any chance I could get rid of the idiot who wanted to rip me off my place on top of Adie’s cock, I was going to take it.
“Stop dreaming about me and wake up, woman. This is serious.”
Two things made me decide that I should snap out of fantasy land. One was the fact that it was Adie's voice, and there was the distinct possibility that it belonged to Adie himself, and the other was that he had just called me ‘Lois.' The only things he'd ever called me before were ‘slave' and ‘Thirty-Eight,' so I needed to know why the sudden change? Hell, I was probably still dreaming. Another series of intense earthquake style tremors convinced me I was not, however.
“Why don’t you just kill me and get it over with,” I mumbled.
A straw was then placed at my mouth, and I didn't need to hear the instruction of ‘drink' to take long gulping sips of the fluid.
"Slowly or you'll make yourself sick." I paid him no attention, but after a few seconds the flow stopped, and I looked down to find that Adie had pinched the straw closed in front of me. "Don't make me repeat myself," he said. I sighed.
“Answer my question.” I waited until he’d released the straw before continuing with slower sips, although it killed me to do so. I could have drained an entire reservoir dry, and still been thirsty for more.
"We don't kill people around these parts without playing with them first." There. Those were the words I had been expecting and dreading. They weren't finished with me. They were just going to torture me in a different manner until I gave them what they wanted. "Which brings me to the reason I am here. We need to get you out, ASAP."
That caught my attention. "We need to what?" Obviously, the opium was excellent stuff because I could have sworn he'd just offered to get me out of here. You could see why people got addicted to the stuff. I decided to ignore what I thought I'd just heard and plough on with a few questions. Maybe I could figure out just how far down the rabbit hole I'd flown. "Is he dead?" The question had been burning a hole in the back of my head for some time. What I really wanted to know was if the old man was going to be the one to pull out all my fingernails. If he was, I was in trouble. Nearly being murdered did funny things to people.
"No. They got to him just in time. It was touch and go for a while, but we have a facility on site, and there's usually a doctor on hand at all times. If you want to kill that bastard, you need to get him alone."
Actually, I need to kill you, but that's by the by. “Wait a minute, that’s your father we’re talking about.” The heroin was seriously messing up all my neural pathways because nothing made any sense at the moment.
“Yes, it is.” Adie looked at me and frowned. “Now shut up because we don’t have much time.” He handed me half a tuna sandwich and a few apple slices. The mere sight of food made me want to cry, but I did not want to show any kind of weakness in front of this man. Take a deep breath, I quelled the emotion and focused upon what was important – eating.
"Eat those slowly. I've got some dextrose tablets to jump-start your metabolism, but you're going to need something inside you for what you need to do next."
"Which is?" I didn't wait for his answer to attack the food in front of me. My stomach had been bleating all kinds of obscenities at me for days, and just the smell of having something edible in front of me had my mouth watering.
“Slowly. The last thing we need is for you to be sick.” I tried to pay attention to his advice and chew each mouthful carefully, but it was hard. Having been denied sustenance for so long, all I wanted to do was gorge, but that was not going to be an option. It was probably for the best.
“Why are you helping me?”
"That's an excellent question, but we don't have time for that now." Swallowing the last bite of my sandwich, I then inhaled the scent of the remaining apple slices before crunching into one. Perhaps I should starve myself more often. Everything tasted incredibly good. "I'm going to show you how to get out of this place, and you're going to have to remember everything I tell you. Are you ready for this?"
No, I wasn’t ready for anything, but any chance was better than no chance, I guess. Even if it was a trap, what was I risking? They were going to slice me up into little pieces soon anyway, so I might as well go for broke. I was a pretty resourceful gal, when you fed and watered me, and didn’t pump me full of narcotics. Shit. This little stunt was doomed for failure.
“What do I need to do?”
"You need to pay attention. I've only got time to tell you this once, and this place is like a fucking fortress." He then pulled a set of blueprints out of his pocket and unfolded them. Coming to stand in front of me, probably obscuring the view from one or more cameras behind him, he unfolded it, but only enough that his body covered what he was doing. "There is only one possible exit that you are going to be able to take out of this place. Most of the doors are guarded, and all require computerised codes and key cards. There's no way you're getting anywhere near them.
“Have you got any clothes for me?” Interrupting his ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ talk, with what I considered a very important question, the man frowned at me.
“Of course n
ot. If you get caught, I had nothing to do with this and if you’re seen anywhere around here with clothes on people will immediately become suspicious. If you get free, that can be your number one priority. I’m pretty sure you’ll think of something,” he said tersely. I nodded, and he continued as if I hadn’t said a word.
“Right, the only way you’re getting out of here is by disguising yourself as something that is allowed out of here, and believe me, that isn’t a lot. The options are waste and laundry. Which one do you fancy?” Laundry, but I figured waste would be a better bet.
“Waste.”
"Smart girl. There's less chance of people rummaging through the kitchen scraps, right? I'm afraid everything is checked around these parts, though, and very thoroughly. Now, look at the map. We are here," he pointed to a square block labelled simply as 398. “You need to get to here," and his finger moved to another square block that read ‘Utility Room.'
“Is this going to be one of those fun rides down a long metal slide that ends up with me knee deep in shit?” I’d probably seen too many movies, but I was curious enough to ask.
"You're already knee deep in shit, and if you're not careful, you'll be in way over your head." He had a point. My eyes were now glued to the map, and they were quickly memorising every twist and turn that I would need to take in order to get where I needed to be. "Got it?" I nodded. "Good. You're going to have less than five minutes to get there, and it's a long way. It doesn't help that your body is recovering from having a shed load of opiates pumped into it, but I didn't have any choice about that. Unless you haven't guessed, I don't run this show." Adie carefully folded up the map and placed it neatly back in his pocket. He then moved subtly to the side of me, allowing the cameras a little glimpse of my face, before moving back to stand directly in front of me.
"When you get to the utility room, pick a dumpster and hide in it. They get wheeled out pretty shortly so you won't have to be in there too long. Okay?"
“Yes.” It wasn’t a great plan, but I didn’t have a better one, so I was going to run with it.
“Now I’m going to give you a shot of adrenaline to help you move a bit faster, else you’ll end up nodding off as soon as I get you outside.”
“This had better not be a Pulp Fiction moment where you shove that needle into my chest, else I will not be responsible for what I do next,” I warned.
“Relax. There’s not a lot of medical science behind that move these days. Besides, you’ve not overdosed, so it’s a moot point. I’m very good at what I do, Lois. That’s why they call me ‘The Chemist.’” My brain was already whirring, trying to work out what a shot of epinephrine was going to do after I’d been jacked up on heroin. It was a good job I’d been through narcotics 101 with James. Regular field training didn’t generally mention recreational drugs, and they were kinda frowned upon in my profession. Okay, so epinephrine would increase my sluggish heart rate and kick-start my breathing, and it might keep me awake long enough to do what needed to be done. I’d go with it – not that I had much choice.
"Ready?" There was an auto-injector in front of me, and at the moment, I could barely focus on it. I felt so nauseous, it was all I could do to stop myself from vomiting all over Adie's shoes. The whole world around me seemed to have been suspended into slow motion, and my body felt sluggish and weak. If I wasn't much mistaken – that was all about to change. I took a deep breath and nodded my head.
When Adie plunged the thing into my thigh, I didn’t bat an eyelid. As far as pain went, that didn’t even register on my scale. It made him smile.
“Oh, Lois, under different circumstances, we could have had so much fun together. When you get back to base, tell James I said hi, won’t you?”
Oh fuck. I blinked twice, stupidly, and whether it was the effects of the adrenaline or the knowledge that I had been well and truly made, my heart started doing all sorts of unspeakable, painful acrobatics.
"Well, I'd love to stay and chat, but I have things to do. Besides, you need to get the hell out of here. Bon voyage, adios, and move as fast as your legs will carry you." His hand then snaked around my neck, and he brought me close to him, my head resting snugly between his chest and his chin. He stroked my hair, which had miraculously been cleaned during my ‘trip' and his fingers then brushed gently against the pulse in my neck. Now that the adrenaline was beginning to work its way through my system, my libido was catching up, I felt myself clench in anticipation. Although I knew nothing would come of this, it didn't stop a girl from dreaming.
“If they catch you, Lois, I won’t be responsible for what comes next. That will be on you. Understand?” I nodded again. I was incapable of speech at the moment, anyway. “Good. Now when I open that door, you run past me as fast as your legs will carry you and don’t stop until your lungs are bursting and you’ve got where you’re supposed to be. I will leave it as long as I can before I raise the alarm, but you’ve got five minutes at best. Good luck. Let’s hope you’re as good as they say you are.” Turning his back on the camera and shielding me from view, I was given my first proper chance at escape, and the irony of the situation was, that for the first time since I’d got here – I didn’t want to.
Torn between indecision and need, my feet felt as if they taken up root in the ground. It took a hard, vicious shove from Adie to finally propel me into motion and after that, there was no stopping me.
Chapter Twenty-Three
When common sense finally kicked in, my feet began to pound the corridor in front of me with purpose. Choosing not to look back at Adie, I focused on the map that had been indelibly printed on my brain and tried to get my muscles to operate as quickly as they could, given the concoction of drugs I'd just been given. It was a tolerable effort, but certainly not one of my best.
I estimated that I’d need to run approximately one mile in five minutes. Considering the current world record holder’s personal best was four minutes, twelve seconds, it was quite a tall order. I’d just have to hope that I’d misjudged the distance by some margin.
Bizarrely enough, it felt nice to be running. I’d been cooped up for so long without any real exercise that my body was craving it. I guess it helped that the adrenaline was now thundering through my system, giving me that horrible excited/nervous combination that always did wonders at the start of a race. Run faster. I knew I wasn’t running nearly as fast as I needed to because everything felt disjointed and weak. The perks of not being fed for a few days, I guess. Still, I could do this. Years of intense fitness training had to account for something, surely?
With my lungs burning, I followed the map inside my head. I tried not to look behind me, to save energy, but every now and again I took a quick glance to see if anyone had spotted me. It must have been quite early in the day because I hadn’t met a soul yet, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t. The faster I got to that waste disposal room, the better. A naked slave wandering the halls would attract attention, and a naked, running slave would attract even more.
I expected every door I passed to open, but amazingly, none of them did. Pushing myself harder and faster, when I'd nearly reached my goal I broke into a sprint. As of yet, there were no alarms, but that didn't mean that there weren't any, or that I'd be able to hear them for that matter. They wouldn't want to disturb their ‘guests' after all…
Pushing the door to the utility room open a crack, I listened carefully. Any kind of noise would be bad. What I wanted was stone cold silence, and thankfully, that's exactly what I got. Slowly easing the door open and looking for signs of movement, I was relieved to find nothing. It was exactly as Adie had described – a waste disposal unit filled with dumpsters and cleaning materials. The scent of bleach was rather potent, and I wrinkled my nose up in distaste, but if I thought that was bad, climbing into a shed load of rubbish wasn't going to be very pleasant, either. Oh well. It was time to get on with it.
Opening up the sliding lid of the first black dumpster, the smell that greeted me was pretty unpleasant – it w
as kitchen waste, and it was disgusting. Now I'm not saying I couldn't have jumped in there, but if there was a recycling dumpster around here, that would be a much nicer bet. My head scanned the room, and I counted six dumpsters in total. Three were black, and three were green. I moved towards the green ones. This time when I opened the lid all I saw was cardboard. Perfect. I checked each dumpster to see which was the least full and settled on the one furthest from the door. Hauling my body up into the trash, I nearly had the fright of my life when the door behind me opened. Trying to flip into the thing as gently as possible, I did my best to gently close the lid above me. I didn't dare burrow down into the cardboard for fear of making even more noise. If whoever had just entered the room hadn't heard me, it would be a damn miracle. Fuck.
Holding my breath for what seemed like forever, I sat deathly still and waited to see if I’d been made. My heart was thumping so loudly, it sounded like the drums of a symphony orchestra in my ears, and it made listening nearly impossible. Calm down. It was easy to say, but not particularly easy to do. Gradually, with some deep breathing, I managed to get my heart rate down to an acceptable level, but I still hadn't heard a sound. Perhaps whoever had come in had already gone? The lid to my dumpster then flew open, and before I could get to my feet to grapple with the bastard, the distinct click of a safety catch being removed could be heard.
“I wouldn’t.” He didn’t need to add the warning, as the barrel of the gun was now pressed against my temple.
“I wasn’t going to,” I added dryly. The guy was large and stocky, and around six foot, five inches in height. I didn’t stand a chance. This was probably the point in my life where I should start sobbing hysterically and waving my arms around, but I felt strangely calm. It was now almost guaranteed that I would face a fate worse than death, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Adie had set me up. Still, what did it really matter? We were all going to die at some point or another, so what if mine happened a little sooner than most and was a good deal more painful? I winced inwardly. Why hadn’t I killed Adie when I had the chance? It was probably because I was still high on heroin and weak as a kitten. Oh yeah.
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