Darkest Perception_A Dark and Mind-Blowing Steamy Romance

by Shari J. Ryan

  A Year Earlier

  The metal cuffs around my wrists are tight and the one on my left is pinching my knotted bracket against my skin, which must be leaving a bruise, but I force the pain to disintegrate into the back of my mind as the man in front of me tries to manipulate my thoughts with nothing more than a heated staring contest. I hold my focus on his eyes, unfaltering without even a blink.

  The clamp around my finger is connected to a machine—one they think will determine whether I'm speaking the truth.

  I can control that too.

  The questions are endless and my answers are non-existent. "What's next?" I ask the man. "Are you going to rough me up until I give you whatever answer you seem to want?"

  The man pushes away from the metal table we're sitting at and paces the room, back and forth a dozen times, trying to cause paranoia. I visually follow his every step, grinning at his attempt to crack me. "We’re trying to protect you, but you need to cooperate. You can walk away from this."

  "I don’t have to do a damn thing," I tell him. "I know my rights." This isn’t my burden to bear. They can get this information from where it originated, not what they assume to be the weaker link.

  "Fine," he says. Walking over to the wall near the door, he messes with a small box that looks like a thermostat and turns back to me. "I'm getting a cup of coffee. Want anything?"

  I look down at my wrists, which are connected to the table I'm seated at. "No, I'm good."

  "I'll be right back," he says with a wink.

  * * *

  Six hours pass with no sight of this government agent. There hasn't been a speck of sound or action inside or outside of this small room since the man left, but the heat was cranked to a sauna level, and I know this is his way of making me sweat it out. The only thing he has caused, however, is a migraine and irritability.

  The door reopens and the man walks in with a cup of coffee in hand. "Anyway, where were we?"

  "You left me in here six fucking hours ago. That's where we were," I seethe.

  "I had to get a cup of coffee," he explains with a wry smirk.

  "Don't you have rules you're supposed to follow?" I ask.

  "No rules that specify how long it takes to get a cup of coffee."

  "Whatever," I sigh, leaning back in my chair as far as I can go without moving my throbbing wrists.

  "You're going to tell us. You don't have a choice," he says. "You're wasting your own time and creating your own pain."

  "I have nothing to tell you, like I said. I still don’t understand why I’m here."

  The man sits down in front of me, folding his hands on top of the table. "See, here's the funny thing … Dr. Phillips is behind bars already, and the rest of your worthless friends are dead. You're protecting no one, and this is all for nothing."

  "Dr. Phillips?" I ask.

  "Don't start," the asshole says.

  "You know, what you didn't consider is that I'm not who you're looking for, and that maybe the person you need answers from is dead, or, even worse, so close to you, you'd be sick to find out the truth. Maybe this ... Dr. Phillips … person you've mentioned had the ending to this exact situation worked out long ago, and you're just a playing piece in his game."

  The banging sound might be in my head, but I'm certain it's coming from the door of my hotel room. What the hell?

  I glance over at the alarm clock, finding it's only six in the morning. The sun isn't even out. Come on. I want sleep. "What?" I shout, gruffly.

  There's no answer. Goddammit. I pull myself out of bed, feeling a throb thunder through both my eyes. Oops. Opening the door, I'm greeted by Everett, coffee, and a bag of something. "Breakfast?" he asks.

  "Did Axel send you?" Nope. Axel did not send you. I'm quite sure about this.

  "Nah," he says. "I figured you feel just about as awesome as I do right now and we have somewhere to be in an hour."

  I'm in no mood to argue, so I turn back to the bed, letting him in. "Fall asleep with your bra on last night?" he asks with quiet laughter.

  "You have to be shitting me," I groan before climbing back into bed.

  "Axel's pissed, huh?" he asks.

  "That's putting it lightly," I respond, pulling the sheets over my lap.

  "We've been friends for fifteen years now and the guy literally has two different moods. Pissed or slightly amused," he explains.

  I don't find this shocking. Those are definitely the only two emotions I've seen him show over the past week. "So then, what's his story?"

  Everett hands me a coffee and a muffin. "That should soak up some of the alcohol," he says. As I begin nibbling on the sweet pastry, Everett sits down in the guest chair and lifts his feet, resting them on the edge of my bed. "Axel's story isn't a pretty one. We're all here for our own reasons, you know?"

  "Yeah, I know that. So, what's his?"

  "That's not my story to tell," he says, carefully sipping through the steam of his coffee.

  Everett and I quietly eat our breakfast and suck down as much coffee as possible before the hotel room door opens again. Axel decided not to knock, and instead, he just enters as if it's a normal thing to do. I could have been walking around here naked for all he knew. Maybe that's what he was hoping. The joke’s on him, though. I'm still in my clothes from last night. "You're twenty minutes early," I tell him.

  "Was I interrupting something?" he asks, glaring at Everett.

  "No, but I bet you’re glad to see I’m still alive this morning," Everett responds.

  Everett looks at me with a chunk of muffin hanging from his beard, lifts the back of his hand to his mouth and mutters, "He's totally not even slightly amused," Everett says to me with a mouthful while pointing at Axel as if he wasn’t listening. While I want to laugh at Everett's remark, I decide it's best not to piss Axel off more than he is.

  "The only thing interrupted this morning was my sleep," I argue.

  "Dude, I just brought her breakfast. I figured she'd need it after last night," Everett grovels as he stands from his chair and wipes his mouth again, this time on his sleeve, like the gentleman he is. I close my eyes again, trying not to laugh.

  "Hmm. Well, it looks like you've both eaten, so maybe now you can go get dressed, Harley," Axel says to me in an authoritative, scolding manner.

  I tear the sheet off my lap and grab some of the new clothes out of the bags I left on the desk. I feel both stare at me as I cross the room, and feel a sense of relief when I close myself into the bathroom. I can only wonder what kind of conversation they're about to have. Whatever the case is, my head hurts too much to care.

  I place my clean clothes down on the sink’s countertop and slip out of my clothes from last night, letting them drop to the floor. I pull the shower curtain open, feeling the squeal from the metal rod slice down the center of my head. Jesus. I crank the water on, knowing the ice cold will snap me out of my haze, but I want the steam more.

  After stepping inside, I drown my head beneath the powerful stream of water, rinsing every shitty feeling off my body before I grab the sample size bottle of shampoo. I dump the whole bottle onto the top of my head, inhaling as much of the steam-infused flowery scent as I can.

  I could stay here all day. Maybe I should. I doubt either would have the balls to come in after me. I don’t think. Then again, I shouldn’t put anything past either of them.

  Despite my desire, I’m not in the mood to be testing Axel’s patience today so I lather up, rinse and repeat before scrubbing my body with the bar of soap. If only my insides felt as good as my skin, the day ahead might not be so bad, but there’s no way of cleansing my soul.

  Stalling and all, I'm out of the shower within five minutes and dressed in the new clean clothes I had left on the sink. I run my fingers through my hair, tussling it so it doesn’t dry flattened to my head. Good enough, I think to myself while snarling at my reflection.

  As I step out of the bathroom, I find Axel and Everett in the heated discussion I assumed they were having. I'm no
t sure what the context is about, but I know Axel was pretty ticked at Everett last night. "I'm ready, whenever you two are done bickering like an old married couple," I tell them. "I told you'd I'd be ready by seven."

  Axel peers down at his watch and presses his lips together with what looks like defeat as if he were hoping to have something else to hold above my head, "Great, thank you for following one order," he says.

  "Stop giving out so many orders and you won’t have to suffer with so much disappointment," I retort.

  "Be quiet, will you?"

  I silently mock him as he turns around, and I’m probably lucky Everett was able to keep his responding laughter just as quiet.

  I follow the two men down to the warehouse and toward what I assume to be our "room of the day." I could seriously use some more answers to "why-the-hell" and "what-the-hell" we're doing. Is this it? They just fuck with people's heads every day? There has to be a reason for their actions.

  "What's the story, boys?" I ask.

  "Angie Broadmeadow murdered every member of her family—her husband and two kids," Axel says.

  "So, what's she doing here?"

  "Her husband was the chief scientist at a very secret and unofficial underground nuclear facility in Texas. We're here to get answers."

  "Why us?" I ask Axel.

  "We don't use the word, ‘why." He unlocks the door and shoves me inside. "Have at her!"

  After regaining my footing, I look back at Axel with a questioning, annoyed expression. "Get answers," he mouths.

  "What are the fucking questions?" I mouth back.

  He just smiles at me. That's what he does. He smiles like that's supposed to give me all the answers in the world.

  A decrepit-looking woman is seated on a chair in the corner of the room. Her legs are parallel to the legs of the chair and her plastic zip-tied hands are hanging between her legs.

  Axel stomps his foot once, and the surrounding area echoes with a thud. Her head snaps up and a dazed look coats her face. "Where the hell am I?" she asks as her dull, greasy dark hair falls over her face.

  "What are you doing here?" I ask her, trying to sound confused.

  "You fucking brought me here," she hisses.

  I glance around the room in thought for a moment. "But I've never seen you before in my life," I tell her, walking closer. What the hell am I supposed to ask her?

  "Don't try and screw with my head, little girl," she tells me. Little girl? She can't be more than ten years older than I am.

  I shrug. "I wouldn't know how to mess with you," I explain.

  "I'm supposed to be electrocuted today and I'm going to be electrocuted today without offering your pretty boyfriend back there any of the answers he's looking for." Oh, she's good, trying to get under my skin. This woman must think she’s skilled in holding information hostage.

  Nuke facility. "They found it. They know what you've been hiding—what your husband was hiding. So, we're not trying to extract information from you. We just want to know why he did it?"

  "You don't know shit," she tells me.

  "You're right," I tell her.

  I turn to Axel, who doesn't look as confident as he has the last couple of times we've been in this situation. "It's a lost cause," I tell him. "Can I have that spare phone? We can leave her with a little music while we talk in the hallway." I turn back to the woman. "I'd hate for this nice woman to hear anything we're saying."

  Axel tosses the phone and headphones to me, and I set up the YouTube video. She thrashes as I set the headphones in place, but with her hands tied up, she can't do much about it. I turn up the volume to a level above comfort and place the phone on the nearby table as Axel opens the door for us to leave.

  "That's it?" Axel asks as he closes us out of the room.

  "What?"

  "Explain where you got this knowledge from." He paces in front of me with his hands in his jacket pockets. I don't know what he's looking for me to say beyond what I've already told him.

  "What more of an explanation do you want? It's called Google."

  "You learned this shit from Google while you were living on the street?" he asks.

  "I wasn't living on the street, so why would you assume that?" I ask him, curious as to how much he really knows about me. It's true. I was hours away from finding a nice street corner, but it didn't happen.

  "No," he says, shaking his head. "You don't learn that shit from Google, and why would you be Googling that anyway?"

  For the first time in two days my heart is beating a little faster. He's getting better at causing me tension.

  I do my best to come up with a quick answer, but he's staring me down and I've lost some of my ability to push people like him away.

  "I had to write a paper on it for a class I took," I tell him.

  "What class," he presses.

  "Why does it matter?"

  "Just curious," he says.

  "Sociology," I lie.

  "Hmm," he says.

  Axel continues pacing, lost in a thought I want to extract from his brain.

  "Who do you work for?" I ask again, knowing I'm likely no closer to getting an answer from him this time than the last time I asked about his business.

  "Myself," he says.

  "I'm not buying it," I reply.

  "That's your choice."

  "Where are these inmates coming from?" I ask.

  "Prison," he says quickly.

  "So, you just walk into whatever prison they're coming from and tell them your name is Axel and you run your own company. Then, the guards just hand over the biggest asshole they have so you can brainwash them for no reason?" Except, I know he has a reason. The man he brainwashed yesterday confessed to a crime he didn't commit, which means he does have a boss.

  "Exactly," he says.

  "I don't think this is going to work out," I tell him. I’m beyond frustrated that I don’t have a choice on whether I stay or go. I’m homeless the second I leave Axel’s side, but I don't trust him and I don't know who the hell he's working for, which scares me even more.

  "I don't think this is going to work out either," he says.

  "I'll just show myself out then."

  "No, I'll escort you out."

  "Why? You don't want me to see something I shouldn't see?" I ask, keeping my reactions monotone.

  As our back and forth comes to an end, some piercing shrill echoes from other side of the door. Axel glances at his watch, and I peer over to see how long it's been, knowing it hasn't been nearly enough time for that stupid music to do much of anything except irritate the hell out of her.

  Axel opens the door and we walk in. I can’t help but recoil from the scream that feels like a knife running down the back of my spine.

  While keeping a distance, I bring myself close enough to see that her pupils are dilated, taking up most of the brown in her eyes. Her head is bouncing around and her breaths are erratic. I'm confused by her behavior since I haven’t seen this reaction before.

  I move around her and turn the music off before kneeling in front of the chair she's seated on. "In Texas, underground, your husband had a lab. The town of —"

  "St—st," she stutters. If Axel doesn't work for anyone, why would he want the information for an unofficial nuke plant in Texas?

  "Never mind," I tell her.

  "What the hell are you doing?" Axel asks, pushing me out of the way.

  "Where is the lab?" Axel growls.

  The woman stares through him as if he were a glass window before closing her eyes.

  "Fuck!" he shouts. Racing around me to the side table, he turns the music back on and rushes toward me, grabbing me by the arm. "What the hell was that? She was talking!"

  "You could be a terrorist for all I know. I'm done," I tell Axel.

  "She could be a fucking terrorist," he snaps back.

  The screaming commences, bringing our attention back to Angie.

  Her bloodshot eyes dart toward me and her right wrist tears at the plastic z
ip tie that’s holding her hands together.

  The next six seconds become a blur as blows from her knuckles hit my face.

  Blood is dripping down my throat, and my head is spinning at an alarmingly fast rate. When I force my eyes back open, Axel has already knocked her out cold, trying to yell something at me, but all I hear is a muffled, echoing ring. My vision is fuzzy, but I see Everett now too and they're dragging the woman out of the room. I feel helpless as if I can't move. I can't move.

  I close my eyes, and it feels like hours before I'm lifted from the ground and set down on a table.

  14

  Axel

  Harley has been out cold for ten minutes. I've moved her into our medic room, but she isn't responding to anything.

  Everett is restraining Angie … again … since the first time worked so well, and I'm standing here wondering why I dragged Harley into that room. I've been so obsessed with finding her throughout the last year that I'm the one who should be considered desperate. There’s still a chance I might be putting this innocent person into situations civilians shouldn't need to be in, but at the same time, I don’t see how Harley isn’t Isabelle. It all just adds up too perfectly.

  Harley’s face is pretty beat up—the red welts will turn into bruises, and I’m sure the cut on her eyebrow may need a couple of stitches.

  I slip my fingers through the ends of my hair as I clench my eyes shut while remembering how the hell I ended up here. Is this all I was meant to do? Torture the fuck out of people? It must be in my damn blood.

  The irony of being locked in the psych ward of a hospital, only to be offered this position by some random fuck who claims to work for the government, stirs around in my head daily. It has me constantly scrutinizing the reason why it was me he wanted. The classes I took throughout my sentence weren’t exactly high level or preparatory for a career. I’m sure there are people far more skilled at what I do, but maybe it's just that I'm so damn manipulative and heartless, it’s the only thing I was cut out for.

  "Open your eyes," I tell Harley for the twentieth time in the last ten minutes