Darkest Perception_A Dark and Mind-Blowing Steamy Romance

by Shari J. Ryan

  I swallow my fear while trying to convince myself he’s being sarcastic. I’m not left with any other option other than to walk past him, down a metal-grated stairwell that leads into a warehouse-looking space. I’m surrounded by vast, empty space, and it feels like my breath is are bouncing off of the nearby walls. Awesome.

  We continue on into another area; this part has finished floors, but the walls are battleship gray, and there’s a lonely set of dark, modern furniture and a desk settled in the corner. I think this look is the result of alpha-male interior decorating. "Have a seat," Axel tells me.

  I point to the couch. "Over there?" I know I shouldn’t be giving either of them an attitude, but I don’t have much hope of leaving here alive tonight, so I refuse to give them the impression that I’m scared of whatever it is they have planned.

  "Do you see another place to sit?" he asks.

  "The ground looks just as inviting," I respond. "So, I figured I’d ask."

  "Please, have a seat on the couch over there," he says, agitated.

  With slow strides, I make my way over toward the couch but take a seat on the cold floor instead. I’m not a huge fan of commands, and if this is a job application, he should know I’m not looking to be used like a puppet.

  "Give me a break. What are you doing?" Axel asks, running his hand down the side of his face. "Are you always a smartass?"

  I shrug. "Are you always such an ass?"

  "Fine, sit on the floor. I don’t give a shit."

  Axel removes his suit jacket and hangs it up on a lone coat rack behind the empty desk. He rests complacently on the corner of the wooden framed workspace and carefully folds his sleeves up to his elbows, revealing sleeves of tattoos on both arms. The artwork looks similar to the bearded doorman's display.

  "Before we make things official, we're going to be testing your skills, and depending on the results of the test, we will discuss what's next."

  "What kind of test?" I ask. "I'm not up for anything illegal." I almost laugh while saying that. We’re underground, beneath a hotel. There is nothing legal about what’s going on here.

  "Desperation doesn't come with questions," Axel counters. "Also, definitions of legal practices are variable, so it’s hard to agree to your requirement." I’m not surprised by his statement. I’m also not feeling concern like I should be.

  "Well, you must be desperate too," I tell him. "An interviewer typically asks for the interviewee’s name. Oh, and maybe considers a non-disclosure agreement to protect whatever undefined practices we’ll be discussing."

  "We need to weed out the wrong people for this job, in hopes of finding the right person. Desperation has a different meaning to everyone," he says with a straight face. "Plus, your name has no relevance to this position." He stands from the corner of the desk and slips his hands into his pockets. "I don’t believe in non-disclosure agreements. We’ve never had an issue with anyone running their mouth, and I doubt we’ll have trouble with you."

  4

  Axel

  Current Day

  The short span of time between Everett's call from the empty store on Commonwealth Avenue, informing me about Harley’s impending interview, and six o’clock, crawled by in a measure of three-thousand-and-sixty pen clicks as I've held my gaze on a manila folder that contains information about Isabelle Hammel.

  Now that the woman who is nearly identical to Isabelle—if she isn’t, in fact, her—is sitting in front me, I'm more eager to get this "interview" over with. If Harley handles this test as Isabelle Hammel would, I'll be a step closer to handling my situation.

  Our test subject is waiting for her in one of the containment rooms, so I'll see about making this quick and easy.

  "So now what?" she asks. "Do you want to stare at me a little longer or what?" She leans back, pressing her hands into the floor, and crosses her legs. The sight of her torn jeans and worn black boots with broken laces causes another wave of guilt to wash over me. She already has nothing. "Hello?" Harley waves her hand in the air to get my attention. "What part of my body are you so fascinated with?"

  "Don't flatter yourself," I tell her. I need to watch myself. Part of me thinks if I stare at her long enough, I'll be able to determine whether she’s Isabelle.

  Her head cocks to the side and her long hair grazes the floor. "What is your doorman doing?" she asks.

  I turn around, looking down the dark hall to see what she’s looking at. What the hell is he doing? Everett is dancing to whatever tune is in his head I guess. We're two different breeds of people—that’s for damn sure—but we were brought together for reasons beyond our control, so we have found our common ground in life accomplishments as well as survival.

  "It looks like he's dancing," I say as if it’s a normal thing for a grown man in our business to be seamlessly pulling off Beyonce’s moves. "Do you have an issue with dancing?"

  "No," she says with a snarl. "I just usually listen to music while I'm doing so." For some reason, I can't picture Harley dancing or having any type of fun. She looks more miserable than I am.

  "Why are you so desperate?" I ask her.

  "Is this the interview part or are you looking for someone to date?" she asks while leaning forward and wrapping her arms around her tented knees. "Desperation is merely a side effect of being evicted from my apartment after looking for a job for the last six months. I haven't been able to find anything at all, and I’m pretty much shit out of luck. Does that answer your question?"

  "Sure, but if you need a job so badly, what’s with the attitude?" I ask her. "You do know I'm giving you a chance here, and yet, you're sort of pressing your luck." I take another few steps closer, closing most of the space between us. She doesn’t budge an inch, which tells me she isn’t intimidated easily. Intriguing. "Have you considered that your hostility might to be the reason you haven’t gotten a job offer?"

  She narrows her eyes as if she’s either studying me or analyzing my question before answering. I can assume her response will be snarky like the last few. "Like I said … if you were giving me a chance, you'd be asking me some questions about me and my skills rather than just staring at me like a perv."

  Maybe I am freaking her out. Good. I want to make her as uptight as I can before I send her into confinement. "So, what if I am a ‘perv?’"

  She leans forward and presses her elbows into her knees and releases a sigh filled with the sound of irritation. "Are you a cop?" she asks.

  "No," I tell her. She must have something to hide. So do I, though. "Are you a cop?"

  "Funny," she says.

  I'm not sure which part she finds funny, but none of it is. It seems safe to assume she's not a cop, seeing as I watched her skimming the streets for money a few days ago.

  "I suppose it is funny," I tell her. "Well then, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way—wait here. I'll be right back. I need to see if our test subject is ready for you yet."

  "Test subject?" Her voice falters, sounding as if the words got caught in her throat. There are the nerves I was waiting for. She tucks a loose strand of her hair behind her ear and stands up from the ground—all signs of apprehension.

  "Yeah, it's no biggie. Just give me a second," I tell her as I head down to talk to Everett. If I let her sit for a few minutes, it’ll massage more paranoia into her head.

  5

  Harley

  The ass finally returns after chatting with his buddy—the doorman, and my patience is starting to wear thin. "Okay, really … what is this job position? Oh, and before you give me another half-assed answer, let me just tell you that persistence can accompany desperation. So, I'd appreciate an answer."

  Axel straightens his posture and rests his hands on the top of the desk chair. "Once we know you're qualified, we'll go over all the specifications."

  "Awesome," I say with a huff. If I hadn’t needed to sell my watch to pay for another month of heat, I’d highlight my irritation by glancing down at my wrist.

  "Now that the questions
are out of the way, are you ready?" he asks.

  "Whatever," I tell him. I'm not giving him the satisfaction of thinking he’s freaking me out with his whack-job interviewing tactics. Just as he's been doing since we came down here, Axel takes another long minute to stare at me like he is trying to read every thought running through my head. It's creepy, even if he is one of the hottest men I've seen in a while. At least if this goes south, I could think of worse ways to go out. Maybe if my gut worked like any normal person’s, it would have prevented me from coming down into this hole, but it seems like I have no warning triggers left. So, here I am, waiting for whatever hides behind door number two.

  When Axel decides to break his stare from my face, he heads down the adjoining hall. "Let's go." The new hall looks different from the one we originally came down, but not necessarily in a good way. It has the feeling of a medical facility—clean, bright, and so perfect, it looks staged.

  Axel takes a key from his back pocket and opens a utility-looking closet door, then leans into the dark room. He flips on the light, which shines down on a woman who’s hunched over a table. It’s as if she’s on display in the center of the room. She doesn’t budge an inch, even with the sudden change of lighting. Her forehead is resting on her propped-up hand, and her pale complexion makes me wonder if she’s drugged. The woman’s shoulder length hair is stringy and absorbing the light, which makes it look wet. "Go on in," Axel tells me. "Harley, meet Shawnda."

  "What am I supposed to do in there?" I ask, looking back and forth between Axel and the Shawnda. "You're not locking me in there too, if that’s your little game."

  "Don’t worry. I’m leaving you in control of whether you stay or leave," he says.

  "I’m supposed to just take your word on that? I mean, don’t get me wrong ... you seem like the most trustworthy person I’ve met in the last five minutes, but how do I know you’re not baiting me into confinement with this other lovely lady?"

  "This is the interview. Are you going in or not?"

  Once again, I’m a magnet for trouble. Whatever. I have no purpose in life left. It is what it is at this point. I ignore the warning signs of entrapment and step inside the room, remaining close to the door, and Axel places his hand on the doorknob, obviously ready to lock me in like I figured he would. "Wow, you are a sneaky one, aren’t you?" I ask him.

  "I'm locking the door, but the door will unlock in ten minutes or less." He closes the door half way, then reopens it. "Oh, and only one of you can walk out of here, or neither of you are leaving. If you try to work together, neither of you are leaving. If you try to escape, neither of you are leaving." Without a clear second to process what he’s saying, Axel slams the door in my face.

  Shit. What the hell does he expect me to do in here? Shawnda lifts her gaze slowly, pinning me with her somber eyes that are surrounded by dark circles. I continue my assessment of her features, trying to figure her out, but everything becomes a little clearer when I notice the track marks lining the insides of her arms. "Are you okay?" I ask. She’s definitely not okay.

  With the strength she’s struggling to muster, her head lifts off her hand and she forces her eyelids open a bit more. "I've been sitting in this room for an entire day, detoxing," she says, her words sounding more like record scratches. "What the fuck did that asshole mean by saying one of us leaves or neither of us do? Are you detoxing too?" she asks.

  "I uh—uh. Um. Yeah." I decide not to answer her. Information about me isn’t needed in this situation. I may not be here to detox, but it seems obvious that Axel meant only one of us will leave here alive. I lean my back up against the wall, feeling a sickness grow from within the bottom of my gut. As I lose my focus and nod my head with confusion, I try and breathe through my stress. I don't know what she’s capable of, but if it’s between the two of us going down, I can't let it be me. Despite knowing I’m lucky to still be alive at this point in my life, this isn’t how I’m going out.

  "Wow, you're more screwed up than me … you can’t even speak properly," she says with a choked laugh. Her words penetrate slowly, pulling my attention back to the present. As I refocus on her face, I see she’s glaring at me with a look I can't decipher, nor do I want to figure out.

  "Yeah … " I tell Shawnda. How can I get out of this in one piece? I think for a minute, searching around the room, spotting a tin can on the table she is sitting at. How the hell does Axel expect this to happen? I’m not about to murder this woman. I’m already carrying around enough baggage.

  I know ...

  "I'm not doing this again," I groan, tugging at the roots of my hair. "God, I can't. You know? I just can’t keep fucking doing this." I circle around, pacing slowly as I inhale and exhale in uneven increments. "The pain, the suffering, and nightmares … no way … I’m not I detoxing again." I scratch my arms while wildly looking around the room to avoid eye contact with Shawnda.

  There was a time when I felt like I had the world at me feet. I was accepted into the university of my dreams, able to take the first steps toward a future I had planned since I was young. I was my parents’ pride and joy and they reveled in the experiences I was able to take part in. They made it clear they wanted nothing more than the best for me. They would call me with the sound of excitement in their voices every few days, wanting to hear what was new in my life, and what new theories I had uncovered within my studies. They were my biggest supporters until the day I managed to land myself in as much trouble as they were once in. My troubles were for a very different reason, though.

  "I can't go through another detox either," Shawnda seethes, bringing me back to the situation at hand.

  "Obviously. But most people in our situation wouldn't even be sitting up straight right now. That just goes to show we have more control over ourselves than they think we do," I say, stuttering for an added effect, while I slide my back down the length of the wall until I’m seated on the ground.

  Shawnda slams her hands down on the table, clenching her fists so tightly her knuckles turn whiter than the bland walls. "You're new here, which means I'm the one who's leaving this time," she says, looking over at me with an ominous glare—one she’s probably hoping will scare me. However, I see the weakness in her unsteady eye-movement, the unease and tension within her hiked up shoulders, and the nerves behind her pulsating vein protruding from her neck.

  "They're not letting either us out of here," I tell her with a hiss as I throw the back of my head against the wall. "All of this is just a trap to see how bad we are before they start the process." I take a moment, allowing the silence to stir up her thoughts. I observe her every movement as she fidgets in the seat, squirming with obvious discomfort. "Sometimes, I wonder if there is only one way out, you know?"

  "What do you mean, like hallucinating or some shit?" she asks.

  "Nah, I mean, taking myself out, out—like ending it all, kind of thing." I stand back up slowly, making it look like it hurts to pull myself up to my feet. With one foot carefully placed in front of the other, as if the effort is needed, I amble across the room and restart my slow pace.

  Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, feeling her anxiety emanate while she holds her peripheral stare at me.

  "Will you stop?" she shouts. "You're making me nauseous."

  "Oh … sorry, I'm just trying to make a decision."

  "What decision?" she asks.

  "What I said ... figuring out if this is all worth it—starving every day, waiting for the next fix—hoping the money comes in just so we don't have to feel like this." Shawnda lowers the side of her face down to rest on top of her folded arms, and her mouth parts as if she’s dying of thirst. "Oh man. Are you okay?" I ask her.

  Her lips close and I watch the effort it takes for her to swallow what sounds like sandpaper. "You know, you're so right," she says with a rasp to her voice before dry heaving over the side of the table. Once she stops gagging, she lifts her head and wipes the back of her arm across her mouth. "What's worse, is the bastard left
us with nothing to complete your plan. That's why he's just a plain old fucking bastard."

  I walk up to the table, refocusing my attention on the tin can. I already know this test was premeditated. I look inside the tin and find a small blade as well as a piece of string, so I dig my hand inside and retrieve both. "He left us this," I say questioningly, as I place the objects down on the table.

  "A blade with no coke. Not cool, not cool," she grumbles before another dry hack interrupts her thoughts.

  "We can use a blade for more than just dicing up blow," I tell her.

  What am I saying? I wanted to help people. I went to school for eight years to fucking help people. I don’t even know what’s coming out of my mouth at the moment. I know I’m fighting for my survival … I think, but God, is this worth it?

  6

  Axel

  "I thought Harley would put up more of a fight when I brought her to meet Shawnda," I tell Everett, who’s sitting next to me as we watch the live video footage of what’s happening in the confined room.

  "Well, it’s not like Harley knows Shawnda’s an ex-con who sold her daughter for heroin, killed her husband for coke, and almost died from an overdose two days ago. That might have pushed Harley to act a little quicker," Everett says while leaning back in the chair.

  "Whatever. I didn’t want her to know anything about Shawnda. I want to watch how she handles this without prior knowledge. For all Harley knows, Shawnda could be a tired mother with a few kids."