Perfectly Toxic

by Kristine Mason

  “Oh, God,” he whispered, then cried with frustration when he couldn’t close his eyes and block out the shame.

  What would you do for me?

  Madeline’s whispered promises of removing the tape from his eyes fueled his hatred. Why would she betray Roderick? And what kind of doctor was the man? He wasn’t foolish enough to believe the two of them were part of the agency he and the others were trying to stop. Madeline and Roderick hadn’t operated like any of the government employees he, Mitch and William had studied prior to deploying on their mission. Thinking of William had him longing to see his sister, Kiera. To be back in her house, sitting at the kitchen table talking about their day over dinner.

  When his tears wet his lip, he captured them with his tongue. Instead of tasting salt, he tasted irony. He’d been so damned close to helping stop the government from poisoning the minds and bodies of millions, only to be kidnapped and drugged by a sadistic couple.

  The drug. Other than the few acute side effects of what Roderick had called A-Line—tingling limbs, burning ears, heightened awareness, dry mouth—his mind remained lucid. God, he’d love to know what they were giving him, and why. That’s what he needed to remain focused on, he decided, as he stared at the guerillas tossing the dead into a large pit. Both Madeline and Roderick had said they’d planned to break him. Roderick had gone further and had claimed he’d fix him afterward.

  He swallowed. Then kill him.

  Would Madeline let him? Although he didn’t trust what he saw in her eyes—malicious mischievousness, cruel passion—she had made silky sweet promises and had defended him. Roderick would have let him urinate himself. According to Madeline, he’d also given him the extra dosage too soon.

  The shadow crept along the wall again. He shot his gaze to the left.

  “Liam.”

  He held his breath. His name had been nothing but a whisper. A trick of the mind. A shiver along his skin. Roderick had given him too much of the drug. That was all, nothing more.

  “Remain calm and do as I say.”

  Mitch? No, don’t let the drug get to you. Stay focused. Stay calm. Fight it.

  He took in a deep breath, then slowly released it, but he couldn’t slow his heart rate.

  “I don’t have much time.” Mitch’s shadow ran along the wall near the TV, before he stepped to the side of the bed. “We’re all in danger,” he said when he finally came into view. The man studied Liam’s forehead and eyes. “Torturous.”

  Liam gave his friend a tired smile. “You have no idea. Hurry, free my hands,” he said in a hushed tone, trying his best to contain his relief and excitement.

  Mitch looked to the closed door. “It’s not that easy.”

  “Sure it is.”

  The grave look crossing Mitch’s dark complexion sent dread to his core. “They’ve been drugging me. Are they part of the government operation?”

  He shook his head. “Worse.”

  “I don’t understand. What could be worse than the government poisoning our water supply?”

  Sympathy filled Mitch’s eyes as he gave Liam a small sad smile. “Finding out that this is reality.”

  “Of course it’s reality. I’m really strapped to a bed with my eyes taped wide open, and those two whack-jobs are really drugging me.” He fisted his hands. “Cut the bullshit and get me out of here.”

  “You honestly don’t know.” Mitch stared at him with mild fascination. “What happened after you got off the bus?”

  “You know. You were there.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  They didn’t have time to waste. “Fine, we went behind the depot. You told me we couldn’t take the transfer bus to Miami because the government knew our names and faces, and had men searching for us.”

  “And then?”

  “What the hell, Mitch?” When the man crossed his arms and said nothing, Liam let out a frustrated breath. “And then you told me to hide my wallet and backpack, which I did. We went in opposite directions with the intent of meeting at the diner five blocks northeast of the depot.”

  “But what really happened?”

  Confused, he shifted his gaze to the heart rate monitor and noted the lines moved at a rapid pace. “That is what happened.” Why was Mitch doing this to him?

  He chuckled as hatred burned a hole in his chest. The drug. The extra dose Roderick had given him because the man couldn’t stand seeing Madeline holding his dick. Mitch wasn’t really in the room. He was hallucinating, seeing shadows on the walls, hearing voices to block out Madeline’s.

  “Why are you laughing?” Mitch asked, urgency in his tone as he moved in front of Liam’s face. “This isn’t funny, man. You are in serious trouble. You need to think, you need to focus. Fight the drug. You have to fight it. Your mind can’t handle another break.”

  I am going to break you.

  He sobered. How could Mitch know what Madeline had said, or how Roderick had threatened him? He swallowed around the unease tightening his throat. “What do you mean by another?”

  “Think. When did we meet?”

  His mind raced. “Outside my office building.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “You contacted me,” he said, remembering talking to the man on his cell phone. “I was at my sister’s. I sat on my bed, phone to my ear. You told me you’d been watching me, that you and your people suspected my client was being paid hush money and wanted me to look into it. But I was already all over it. I knew something wasn’t right. You helped me confirm it.”

  “I never called you, Liam.”

  “Of course you did. I remember,” he said quietly, when he wanted to scream at Mitch.

  “Your sister was home. Did she hear the phone ring?”

  He thought back to that night…

  “Liam.” Kiera knocked on the door, then tried the knob. “Who are you talking to?”

  Worried for her safety—based on what the mysterious man had told him—Liam asked Mitch to give him a sec, then pressed the cell phone to his chest when she opened the door. “My cell phone provider,” he said. “I want to upgrade my plan.”

  “When you’re finished, come in the family room and watch a movie with me. I’ll make us some popcorn.”

  How could he sit on the couch, watching a movie and eating popcorn, knowing a sector of their government was conspiring to poison them? “Sure. I’ll be right there,” he said, knowing he’d have to spend the next two days pretending he was just as blind, deaf and dumb as the rest of the country. Mitch had told him that he and his colleague, William, wouldn’t be in Denver until then.

  “Okay.” She frowned and stared at his phone. “Don’t be long or I’ll start the movie without you.”

  He grinned. “Just don’t eat all the popcorn.”

  “What did you see, Liam?” Mitch asked.

  “I saw…” Liam stared at the man, wondered how he could know his thoughts. Or had he spoken out loud?

  “Go back to your sister’s house, to the bedroom,” Mitch said. “Look at the phone.”

  Mitch was being a prick. Maybe this was his way of testing him. Or maybe this was the drug screwing with his mind.

  The wooden floors groaned. Mitch glanced to the closed door. “Hurry. Look at the phone before he comes.”

  “Why is this so important?” Liam whispered, and pulled at his restraints. “Free me. We can take them down together.”

  Mitch shook his head. “You have to look first.”

  When Kiera left the room, his smile fell. Hoping Mitch hadn’t hung up on him he looked to his hand and saw the remote for the guest room TV. Confused, his hand shaking, he set it on the nightstand, then rushed from the room and into the kitchen.

  Kiera stood in front of the microwave, the bag of popcorn inside popping rapidly. She glanced over her shoulder, her long, wavy hair concealing part of her face. “Since I’m making our snack, you’re on drink duty. I’ll have water. Lots of ice.”

  “Sure,” he said, reaching for a glass. �
��Kiera?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Where’s my cell phone?”

  The understanding in her eyes chilled him. She pushed away from the counter, then gave his bicep a gentle squeeze. “You don’t have one.”

  A door banged shut, jolting him away from Kiera, and back to reality. Quick images rushed through his head. The doctors. The hospital. Sitting across from a man who played with the string of drool hanging from his lip. More memories slammed into him. The constant paranoia. Being afraid to open the door and leave the house, to watch TV because he wasn’t sure who could be watching him from the other side of the screen. The voices. So many of them. Telling him what to do, echoing over each other, contradicting what his doctors, sister and parents told him. His parents…

  He stared at Mitch, tried to blink away the tears, but couldn’t move his fucking eyelids. “Oh, my God.” His parents had died in a car accident—one week after he’d been institutionalized.

  “How were their deaths labeled?” Mitch asked.

  The man could read his mind. He shuddered. His skin crawled.

  He could read his mind because—

  “You created me, Liam.”

  Had he? “That can’t be true. People have seen us together. Seen us talking. If I was walking around a bus station talking to myself, people would have stared, I would have noticed.”

  “In your mind I was with you, but you never spoke to me. If you did, we were out of the public eye—either in the bathroom or behind a building.”

  “What about the taxi? The driver saw you. And when he dropped us at the bus depot, we talked on the sidewalk.”

  The pity in Mitch’s eyes had bile rising in his throat. He swallowed it down, along with the urge to scream. This couldn’t be true. This couldn’t be happening. Not again. Not when his life was on track.

  “Your life was never on track.”

  He clenched his jaw. “Get out of my head.”

  “You’re the only one who can do that. Now think back to the taxi. What did you see? Hurry, Liam, there’s not much time. You need to do this before they come for you.”

  This had to be a test. Mitch was assessing his strengths and weaknesses. Madeline and Roderick must work for Mitch’s people.

  Then how does he know your thoughts?

  Determined to prove Mitch wrong, he took himself back to his sister’s place. “I was in the bathroom…”

  He flushed the toilet, but didn’t tear his gaze away from the swirling water until every last pill had been sucked into the sewage pipe where they belonged. He could no longer trust his doctors, or even the pharmacist who’d filled the medications. They could have gotten to them, too.

  “Leave the bathroom and go outside,” Mitch ordered. “Hurry.”

  He shoved away from the counter, grabbed his backpack from the floor, then left the bathroom. He hurried down the hallway, ignored the family photos and rushed to the door. He quickly opened it and saw the taxi.

  “Do you see me?” Mitch asked. “Look hard, Liam. It’s important.

  The late afternoon sun reflected off the closed, back passenger window.

  “No.”

  “That’s because I don’t exist.”

  Liam went back inside his memories, and to Kiera’s house. He raised a finger to the taxi driver, indicating he’d only be a minute, then hopped off the stoop and jogged toward the hedges near the drive way.

  “I talked to William about watching over Kiera,” he said to Mitch. “He promised to get her to the safe house if anything went wrong.”

  “Did he?” Mitch asked.

  Liam reached the hedges, moved behind one and buried the empty pill bottles in the soft mulch. Once he was satisfied Kiera wouldn’t find them, he headed for the taxi. When he climbed into the backseat, he told the cabbie to take him to the Greyhound station, then glanced out the window. He leaned into the cracked upholstery and watched as his sister’s quiet neighborhood segued into a school, then a park. When the cabbie pulled into the bus depot, Liam paid the man, then exited the car.

  “In your mind, we met up on the sidewalk.” Mitch said. “But you didn’t say a word, did you? Years of fighting the voices told you never to trust yourself in public. So you nodded, then went and bought your ticket. The woman at the counter was real. The people entering the bus with you were, too. Do you remember where I sat?”

  His head ached as if someone were driving nails into his skull. “In the back, several rows behind me.” Despite the pain, he gave Mitch a sarcastic smile as he remembered something important. “And once we were seated and underway, you sent me a text telling me we had two days to rest, that I should take advantage because once we reached Miami, I’d need it.”

  Mitch cocked his head to the side. “How could you get a text from me when you don’t own a cell phone?”

  The past two days suddenly filled his mind. Memories twisted and tumbled over themselves, rotating round and round like a tornado eating up houses, pulling trees and cars from the ground. The stops made during the bus trip. Hiding behind the buildings of the various bus depots, seeing the giggling couple and snapping his mouth shut before they’d heard him. Sitting at a fast food restaurant staring at an empty booth while he ate. Becoming confused in Atlanta.

  “You left the bus depot to go to the diner, after you heard several passengers say that’s where they were going,” Mitch began, filling in the foggy memories his mind couldn’t capture. “But you stopped to use the bathroom first. When you were finished, the others had already left. Thinking you knew the way, you continued on, only you didn’t know the way. The crowded streets, people bumping into you…you became desperate, paranoid.”

  He shoved his hands into his pockets and avoided anyone near him as he frantically searched for the diner, for the other passengers in his group. Sweat trickled down his back and along his forehead. His mouth had gone dry. He should turn back and buy a bag of chips and a soda from the vending machines at the bus depot. He swiveled, began walking again and realized he had no idea where the bus depot was located, and that he’d stumbled into an area he shouldn’t be. Trash—cardboard, newspapers, plastic bottles and wrappers—hugged the sidewalk along old buildings coated in graffiti. A glass broke. He looked to the left. His heart hammered as a group of men approached him, telling him he didn’t belong here. Liam took several steps back, a white sedan drove by as he turned and hurried around the corner.

  The white car pulled along the curb. The front passenger window rolled down.

  A beautiful woman with long, blonde hair leaned across the seat. “Do you need help?” she asked with a smile.

  He glanced back. The group of men loitered at the corner, staring at him. He looked to the woman, and nodded. “I’m lost. I need to get to the bus depot.”

  “I’m heading in that direction. Hop in and I’ll drop you there.” She looked in her rear view mirror. “I don’t like the way those men are looking at you.”

  He gripped the door handle. “I don’t either,” he said, sliding into the seat. “Thank you. I know it’s not safe for a woman to pick up a stranger like this, so I appreciate that you’re willing to take the risk.”

  “Without risk, life just wouldn’t be any fun.” She looked into the rear view mirror again, and grinned. “Isn’t that right, sweetie.”

  Sweetie? Liam turned to the left to see who was in the backseat. A sharp prick pierced the right side of his throat. He stiffened, reached for his neck. A hand shot out from behind him, and gripped his wrist, stopping him from pulling out the needle. The woman beside him chuckled. The world around him grew fuzzy and gray. His eyelids drooped, then everything went black.

  He stared at Mitch. “You’re not real. No one is coming for me or knows I’m missing.” Mitch’s words clicked into place. No, not Mitch’s—his. Mitch, William, the rest of the team were in danger of being erased from his mind. Because this was reality. There was no government conspiracy. No source waiting for him in Miami. There were two sick fucks keeping him pris
oner and drugging him.

  “You need to stay strong,” Mitch said.

  “Go away,” he replied, disgusted with his imaginary friend, with himself. Why hadn’t he listened to his sister? Kiera would never lie to him. She was the one person left in the world he could trust. She had told him repeatedly that he’d needed to stay on his meds to keep the voices at bay. But a missed dose had been all it had taken for them to return and to blot out the truth. He wasn’t an accountant. He didn’t even have a job, but was on disability. Their father had been schizophrenic and had purposefully driven the car—with Liam and Kiera’s mom in it—off the side of a mountain. A murder-suicide, homicide detectives had said, and the medical examiner had confirmed.

  With his tears bathing him with clarity, Madeline’s recorded voice filled his head again. Mitch still stood in front of the TV. He spoke, but there was no sound—nothing but Madeline.

  The door swung open. Roderick stepped into the room, his expression angry, suspicious. “Who are you talking to?” he asked, his tone accusing.

  Mitch’s image dissolved to dust, leaving Liam looking at what he must’ve been watching the entire time: an autopsy of a woman who had been beaten and clearly stabbed. He should be disgusted. His stomach should be revolting. The water Madeline had given him a short while ago should be climbing up his throat. Instead, acceptance settled over him. Given the chance, he would fight. But he would be the one fighting, not a figment of his imagination. A part of him wanted to believe that he could be imaging his current situation. But he wasn’t imagining the tape around his head and holding his eyes open, the horrific video, the IV in his arm or Madeline’s voice.

  Or the hatred in Roderick’s eyes.

  “I suggest you answer me,” Roderick said. “Who were you talking to?”

  “My imaginary friend,” he answered honestly.

  A smile crossed Roderick’s mouth as he picked up a small bottle and an eyedropper. “Who was this imaginary friend?”

  “His name was Mitch,” Liam said, finding the autopsy fascinating. Either the filmmakers had hired topnotch special effects and makeup artists, or he really was watching the top of a skull being removed from a person’s head. “He was a mercenary hired to help stop the government from poisoning the water.”