Two steps inside the door I sensed someone else in the room. I turned my head to the right in time to catch a glimpse of a huge man—just before his gun butt slammed into the side of my head. I fell to all fours, dropping the toolbox and spilling hammers, screwdrivers, and wrenches on the rug.
Dazed, I grabbed a screwdriver and stabbed the thigh of the man who’d attacked me. He fell with a tremendous crash, shattering the coffee table behind him. I picked up a heavy wrench, intending to go after my attacker.
From behind, I heard the click of a gun being cocked and I froze. I tried to use my implant to call for help, but all I got was static. Shit! I prayed it wasn’t who I thought it was. Then I heard the voice I’d hoped never to hear again.
“Lose the wrench.”
I did as ordered.
“Nice dump ya got here, Sunrise. Thought ya got away, did ya?” Weasel snorted. “Fat chance. Mr. Scarpacci’s reach is a lot longer than you thought, ain’t it?”
I turned my head slowly and raised my hands. “Where’s Lola?”
“You mean ‘Geri’? Tom and Geri. Cute. You shoulda been more careful about who you paid for those forged papers. Don’t worry, you’ll be seeing your bitch soon enough.”
I heard a clatter to my right, as Tiny stirred.
“Oh, get up,” Weasel said, impatiently. “Take him.”
Tiny struggled to his feet after yanking the screwdriver out of his leg. He charged toward me with a roar.
Weasel chuckled. “Good night, Sunrise.”
Everything went black.
* * * *
I awoke tied to a hard wooden chair in a room I didn’t recognize. Shari was there in front of me, hands and feet tied to the posts of a four-poster bed. We both were naked. I looked around the apartment. It was small and spare. Tiny and Weasel were there, as was Scar.
Not again.
Scar sat in a comfy overstuffed chair, off to the side, with a good view of both the bed and my chair. “People like you make me laugh, Sunrise. You think you’re so clever. You think you’ll just hide out and no one’ll find you. Not a chance. You all slip up eventually. No one’s escaped me yet.”
I already knew the answer to my question, but I had to ask. “What are you going to do with us?”
Weasel spoke up before his boss had the chance. “Why, we’re gonna make ya suffer, smartass.”
A girlish titter came from Tiny.
“Look,” I pleaded, “you can do whatever you want with me, but Lola hasn’t done anything to you. Just let her go. Please.”
Scar spoke again. “Oh, believe me; I will do whatever I want with you. Lola’s cavalry won’t be comin’ to save you this time. You’ve been more trouble to me than you’re worth. But that ends here. Part of your punishment will be to watch Lola pay for your crimes.”
“What crimes? I told you, all I did was rescue Sara. I had nothing to do with her kidnapping. She must have told you that.”
“Sara has no memory whatsoever of anything involvin’ the kidnappin’. The doctors say she must have a form of hysterical amnesia. She’s blockin’ out the entire tragic affair. That just confirms how terrible what you did to her musta been.”
Or that she was unconscious the entire time.
“But I didn’t do anything to her!” I was panicky now. I knew nothing I said would deter Scar from killing both Shari and me. I had no bargaining chips, no leverage. I had nothing left but the truth, and I knew that was hopeless as well—but I tried.
“All right. I’ll tell you exactly what happened, detail by detail. You won’t believe me, but it’s the truth.”
I started from the beginning and told him everything. It couldn’t hurt Karsh and his people at this point. If there was even a one-percent chance that it would save Shari and me, it was worth trying.
Amazingly, Scar and his goons were silent until the end, not interrupting even once. Did this mean Scar might actually believe me? His face held an expression that I’d never seen on him before. Shock, wonder, rapture? I wasn’t sure.
Scar chuckled. “I have to hand it to you, Sunrise. That’s the most elaborate cockamamie story I’ve ever heard. You two must have spent months cooking it up, with all the details fittin’ together so precisely. I’m impressed. Too bad for you, I don’t believe a word of it.”
That was it then. Our last hope.
“Have at it, boys. Enjoy yourselves.” Scar leaned back to watch the show.
Tiny dropped his pants and dove onto the bed. The boards groaned.
I yelled, “Leave her alone, you bastard. I’ll kill you!”
Scar laughed. He knew it was an impotent threat.
“Forget it, Sunrise,” Shari called out in a flat, dead voice. “This ain’t nuthin’ I ain’t been through before.” She’d slipped back into her detached street-whore Lola persona.
Hearing the resignation in her voice was worse than listening to screams.
Weasel had a firm grasp on my hair. He jerked my head around and held it so I couldn’t look away. I tried to close my eyes. He shoved his fingertips against the eyelids above the eyeballs, keeping them open so I couldn’t blink. He pushed so hard that I thought my eyes would pop out of their sockets. At least then I wouldn’t have to watch Tiny hurting Shari.
No such luck. My eyes stayed put and focused on the bed. I couldn’t look away and I couldn’t shut out the screams and sobs.
God damn it I wanted to die.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, Scar said “Now.”
Weasel hit me in the head with something heavy, knocking me silly. After that, everything was a blur. I heard cries, male and female. I smelled blood and piss and shit. I felt bones break and skin tear. The threls must have been nearby, because I couldn’t distinguish between my pain and Shari’s. I knew what it felt like to be raped over and over.
I even felt Weasel’s rage and Tiny’s arousal. Not their words, but their inner emotions—the kind of mental connection I had with Shari. How was that possible? They were radiating hatred and lust, but how could I feel their emotions like that? It made no sense, but it was true.
Now and then Shari shrieked. As tough and stoic as I knew she was, she had to be in real pain to cry out like that. Her cries pierced my heart. The worst part was that there was nothing I could do to ease her torment. I wished I was deaf, so I wouldn’t have to hear her cries.
Now and then, Tiny and Weasel switched places. Occasionally, they paused to rest or eat. This went on for days. I know this only by the filtered light coming through the curtained window. I wasn’t lucid enough to guess at the elapsed time otherwise.
I lapsed in and out of consciousness, catching orders and fragments of conversation between Scar and his goons. Do this next, hurt him there, turn her over. Once, I caught a glimpse of my left hand. The three remaining fingers were bent at unnatural angles. My right eye no longer seemed to be working.
During one moment of semi-lucidity, I thought I heard Scar scold Weasel: “If you had just made sure he was drivin’ before you planted the bomb, we wouldn’t of had to go through all this bother.”
So that’s all this was to him? ‘Bother’?
Wait. Did he mean what I thought he meant, or was I hallucinating?
Not that it mattered. Even if I was sure Weasel had killed my wife and daughter on Scar’s orders, I was powerless to do anything about it. I was going to die and Scar was going to get away with it. That was the way of the world.
I should have learned that lesson long ago.
* * * *
I no longer heard cries coming from the bed, only moans and whimpers. Shari’s mind had curled up into a spiritual fetal position and withdrawn from the world. I don’t know why I hadn’t joined her. Every part of my body was either numb or on fire. I suspected that my legs and feet had been broken, along with my arms and wrists. My teeth were shattered, my jaw broken, and my lips torn. I wasn’t going to be fighting my way out of this one.
The only thing keeping shock at bay was a w
hite-hot firebrand in my brain pumping adrenaline to my body. It wouldn’t let me succumb while Scar and Weasel walked the earth. They had to pay for what they’d done to Jeannie, Cammie, and now Shari. I wasn’t going to let them get away with it. Somehow, some way, I was going to get them. I’d sell my soul twice over to Satan for a chance to get even.
But how could I? Satan himself sat in this room, barking orders at Tiny and Weasel.
* * * *
I awoke sometime later, with no idea how long I’d been out. I was surprised that no one was beating me, or jumping Shari. It seemed odd, but I wasn’t about to argue. Maybe they were stretching out the final act as a further means of torture. They wanted me yearning for the oblivion of death they wouldn’t grant me until I begged for it.
The joke was on them.
I didn’t care anymore. I was already dead. My body hadn’t quite figured it out yet, that’s all.
There was a commotion to my right. I tried to turn my head, but my neck wouldn’t cooperate. With my right eye blind, I couldn’t see the door, but I heard three thuds, one louder than the others. A trickle of blood snaking across the floor entered my field of vision. Was it a rescue? Who could possibly have found us? Shari’s friends? How?
It didn’t matter. It was too late for me. I only hoped they could help Shari.
As the final light faded from my eyes, I watched the trickle meander my way. I closed my eyes, hoping it was Scar’s blood. Could I be so lucky?
My last thought was, I’ll see you in Hell, you evil sonofabitch.
Chapter Thirteen
Hell wasn’t what I’d imagined.
I expected flames and pitchforks, or, if He’d taken pity on me, harps and white clouds. I got neither. Instead, I was enveloped in a gray cocoon. I couldn’t see or feel anything. I reached out to pull the cotton aside. Or, I thought I did. My arms didn’t move. I tried to turn my head, but that didn’t work either.
Dear God, I was paralyzed. Scar had managed to find something else worse than death for me. First Shari, and now this. The bastard was a genius when it came to inflicting pain.
But why couldn’t I see clearly? There was definitely vision, of a sort, even if I couldn’t make out details through the cotton. It now seemed to be more fog than cocoon. Then I relaxed at the realization that I couldn’t be in Scar’s clutches. I had to be dead. After all, I was blind in my right eye, yet I could see the gray haze just as well with my right eye as with my left—‘well’ being a relative term. Everything was still fuzzy.
If I wasn’t in Heaven or Hell, then I must be in Limbo, a waiting place between the two. Maybe I had to prove myself worthy of one or the other. But how? I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak either, I discovered. I guessed that some sort of test would be forthcoming. I just had to be patient—and ready.
I slept.
* * * *
I heard sounds, I think. It was hard to tell whether the clicks and pops and other sounds were inside my head or outside. Sometimes I thought I heard fragments of sentences. “…will he…?” “Once we…safety….” “How long…regain…?”
Nothing that made sense—simply sound-bites from ‘the other side.’
From time to time, I thought I caught glimpses of color or motion through the fog. A shadow, a ripple of water, a black hand. Like the sounds, there was no pattern to the images—just random bits without context.
I felt I should be doing something. Perhaps this was the test, to see whether I was worthy of leaving Limbo. If it was a test, I had no idea how to complete it.
“What do you want from me?” I shouted, or tried to. No one answered.
I struggled to solve the puzzle of my existence, without success. All I did was exhaust myself.
I slept.
* * * *
“…heard that….” “…know; however….” “…wake…?” “Not yet. Too….”
The fragments came more frequently now. I couldn’t shut them out and couldn’t make out enough to understand what they were talking about, or who was talking. There appeared to be at least two, perhaps three voices. Arguing. About what, I wasn’t sure.
I slept.
* * * *
“We must wake him. We may be doing his mind irreparable harm.”
“And if we wake him prematurely, we may do irreparable harm to his body.”
“We must do something.”
“Very well. I shall wake him. Only briefly. Perhaps he can tell us what is happening.” A pause. “I have lowered the stasis field to minimal. He should regain consciousness momentarily.”
The fog lifted. I could see clearly now. Above me hovered Karsh and Keldor. Each radiated concern for my well-being.
“You two can stop bickering like an old married couple. I’m fine.” I tried to sit up and found that I couldn’t. “At least, I think I am. Why can’t I move?”
Keldor expressed surprise. [A better question is why you are conscious at all. The stasis field has your biological activity slowed to nominal levels to stabilize your body during the healing process. Your mind should be just as inactive as your body. I have heard of isolated cases of patients dreaming in stasis, but never one that was mentally alert and capable of calling out.]
“Did I do that? I wasn’t sure how much was real and how much I imagined. I was pretty loopy there for a while. What happened back at Scar’s place? Where did you guys come from? What’s wrong with me? How’s Lola?”
Keldor again radiated concern, but this time tinged with amusement. [There will be time for all of that later. You were gravely injured. You must heal first. Sleep now.]
“But—” I didn’t want to go back to sleep. I wanted to know what was going on. Why had Karsh remained silent? Where was Shari?
The gray fog closed in around me again.
* * * *
Time passed. I didn’t know how much, but judging by the snippets of conversation I picked up, it must have been a week at least.
With each passing day, it seemed my ability to hear and understand the conversations around me increased. I no longer heard Karsh and Keldor only when they hovered over my stasis pod, I heard them everywhere in the ship. In fact, soon I was able to listen in on conversations between any Azarti anywhere on the ship.
In my fuzzy-headed state, it was a while before I realized what that meant. I no longer “heard” only what an Azarti projected at me. I was listening in all on my own. The overheard voices didn’t sound as stiff to me to me as the focused projections did. They sounded the same as if I were hearing them through my ears, normally.
But how? People didn’t suddenly turn telepathic just because they were tortured, otherwise we’d have telepaths running around all over Earth. I could see how wearing the threl and practicing projecting my thoughts to natural telepaths might strengthen mental pathways I already possessed but hadn’t been using, but was that the case? Perhaps all humans had the ability and didn’t know it. After all, we’re not born knowing calculus. Sure, we have some innate mathematical ability, but we have to be taught how to count, followed by simple math and then more abstract types, like algebra, as we work our way up to calculus, strengthening and expanding our mathematical ability along the way.
Suppose telepathy works the same way in humans? Perhaps this was the next stage in our evolution and we hadn’t yet learned how to use the ability—like early hominids right before they started using tools.
Once I got over the wonder of it all, I decided to experiment. It was soon apparent that while I could hear both sides of conversations to which I wasn’t privy, I couldn’t hear the private thoughts of the individuals—only what they projected at one another. It was like bugging someone’s office and eavesdropping on their conversations—except without equipment.
Then it occurred to me that I might be able to locate Shari this way. I hadn’t tried picking and choosing conversations to listen to before. It was all random. Now I tried to focus on individuals and see if I could pick them out of the crowd. I figured if my ears could pi
ck out a specific voice at a noisy party, then my brain ought to be able to do the same with mental voices. It took some doing, but eventually I figured out the trick.
Once I mastered that technique, I was able to filter out the non-interesting voices and listen for others. I heard nothing. Then a horrible thought occurred to me: what if Shari was dead? That would explain why Keldor hadn’t told me how she was doing.
Wait— When I asked, there was a hint of amusement in his voice, not sorrow. Surely that meant she was alive. I redoubled my efforts to locate her.
If she was talking to anyone, I sure couldn’t find her. Then I remembered Keldor’s remark about how most patients have little or no brain activity in stasis. This time, I filtered out all the other voices and listened for whispers, for dreams, for echoes.
There it was: the tiniest wisp of a thought. I sighed in relief. I still didn’t know her condition, but she was alive. That was enough for now.
I slept.
* * * *
I awoke. This time I found myself lying atop one of those bed-table things. I was in a chamber much larger than anything I’d seen aboard Galla. That told me I wasn’t aboard ship, but even if it hadn’t, the large window opening to my right would have given it away, as would the sound of waves crashing in the distance and the smell of salt air. I opened my eyes.
Immediately the right half of the chamber fell into darkness. Huh?
I closed my eyes again and I was able to see Keldor, Karsh, and a third Azarti standing to my right. I opened my eyes and they disappeared. I closed my eyes and they were back.
My jaw dropped. What the hell?
[Welcome back, Sunrise.] Keldor projected warmth. [It has been a long time.]
It was good to hear his voice. I sat up. “It’s good to be back.” I waved my hand dismissively. “But you don’t have to project anymore. I can hear you.”
I was just as shocked as they were to find that my lips hadn’t moved.
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