21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

James

T he skin-on-skin noise of a palm hitting my cheek reached my ears in a quick tap-tap-tap-tap . My sight was blurry as I woke, the man before me having no significant features as he continued to usher me awake. My head lolled to the side, and I made no effort to right it in the moment, for my brain was… heavy.

Smacking continued on my face in a repetitive sequence of four, and I couldn't have been sure if the man had increased the gumption of his slaps or if I had finally begun to feel them as I came to. The left side of my face stung every time his hand met me. I groaned, and as I tried to cringe away from him, I realized that I was sitting in the corner of a small room.

There was little lighting to speak of—only a single overhead that lacked a fixture. The wiring was exposed behind it, and the bulb burned at my eyes. I swallowed through the dryness in my throat. The man's face was finally in focus as he squatted before me, and I instinctually leaned away from him. I was going to ask where I was—what was going on—what he wanted with me—but I didn't get a chance to gather my voice before he gritted out:

"Finally." He stood to his full, lanky stature, and the only thing that I could note about him was that he was dressed in policeman's garb as he stated, "Stay put."

There was no need for him to tell me to remain where I was. My attempt to shift my seat by pushing myself up with my hands was hindered, for I was shackled at the wrist, and the cuffs seemed to be attached to something hard and resistant.

The man turned on his heels to leave, his footsteps a noise that I could only describe as an odd, airy squish. I could feel beneath me that the flooring was padded—realized as I tried to sit up straight that the material under my sit-bones had eased the strain on my joints unlike a typical carpet or hardwood—and the slow-cranking gears in my mind struggled to catch up. I grunted, twisting to look at my wrists secured behind my back, and managed to catch a glimpse of the chain links—they were looped through a metal fastening that was screwed into the wall. Metal-on-metal clinked as I observed it, and one would think that that was what made profanities leave my mouth in a horrified exhale.

It wasn't—it was the sight of the room as a whole that shook me.

I was situated in the corner of a repurposed closet. Or, at least, that's what I assumed it to be due to the size of the room. My eyes scanned from floor to ceiling, and I saw that the same material that I sat upon spanned along the walls. It was a grey padding. A grey, textured, soundproofing padding that was all too familiar for I had seen it before—only through a camera's lens, but I had seen it nonetheless—and I knew that it was what had covered the ominous room in 2D.

The sight was chilling…and while my breath rattled with quiet curses, my mouth dried even further, and my hands shook within the cuffs, that reaction was nothing compared to when the man returned.

He stood in the doorway, tall, and seeing him jogged my memory to the point that I remembered it all. I recalled him pulling me over, his reasoning for doing so lacking substantiation, the pat down, the pinching in my glute and ache in my thigh, the feeling of handcuffs biting into my skin, and my inevitable drop into unconsciousness in the back of his car. Officer Dowler had sedated me—there was no doubt about that—and now that I had come to, he was eyeing me with purpose…and he wasn't alone.

Like anyone else, I'd experienced déjà vu before, and typically, it's a mildly unsettling sensation—one that makes me slightly shiver and wonder why the moment I was in was so damn familiar. The room alone didn't spring the feeling on me, but seeing her hit me like a freight train. She was the sight that I had seen in my dreams over and again—the one that had rendered me confused and attempting to piece the puzzle of premonition together. The blonde woman had bruises along her left cheek—from the tip of her eye to the bottom of her jaw—and her eyebrow and lip were both split. The injuries were no longer fresh, the blood appearing to have fully dried as it dripped down her face, and the discoloration along the swelling was a nasty purple.

In my dreams, I didn't know her. Of course, I didn't. Otherwise, I wouldn't have questioned her place within them. But the extension of the reality beyond the vision of her face snapped me into quick recognition, and I was choked.

"Skylar?" My voice was hoarse, as I had anticipated it to be.

There was no question that it was her. With slim and sharp features, skin akin to ivory, and dressed head-to-toe in black, she looked just as I remembered her aside from the wounds on her face.

Cringing away from the man as he held her by the upper arm, she spoke in a plea, "What do you want? I don't understand, I—"

"I explained this to her," Officer Dowler noted casually, shaking his grip on her. "Many times. You know this woman, yes?"

I stammered, "I—um—what—"

"You know her?!" he raised his voice, and Skylar flinched.

It ran through my mind to ask if he was the one that had hurt her—to yell regarding why he would do such a thing—but there was no room for questioning here. The situation that I was thrust into was one in which I was expected to be obedient…and I considered the need to toe the line of obediency and wit. Because I had already spoken her name, I replied:

"Yes. I know her."

"How do you know her?" he asked. I looked at Skylar rather than him. She avoided my gaze, and he admonished, "Don't look at her, look at me."

"Friend," I hesitated. "Friend of a friend."

Officer Dowler appeared to suck on the inside of his cheek. "Right. "

Skylar whined, "He doesn't know anything! I don't know anything—"

He looked down at her as if he were mildly frustrated. "If you don't know anything, then why the fuck are you spreading word about my shit?"

"I don't even know what your stuff is!" she cried.

"No." He sardonically spoke, "Of course you don't. You just… happened to say enough to scare your little stripper friends into up and quitting." His fingers tightened on her bicep as he pulled her closer, and she shrank downward as he towered above. "And I don't give a shit about that, but do you know how many calls I got about missing women? Ten." His narrowed eyes turned to me. "Ten. All of 'em crying about shit that they heard from a friend named Skylar. That's ten too many, and I don't need other officers questioning my authority and butting in on my shit."

"All I told my friends was that Delaney was gone," Skylar said, her voice strained. "I saw the article, that's all I know—"

"And then they saw the one for Taylor," he finished for her as if he had heard the story already. "And Casey. And Melanie. And they were all said to have overdosed, and it seemed so strange." Randy's tone warped into an odd, menacing coo upon the last two words, and a shiver rolled down my spine. "Strange because you have such a little fucking community, and you knew that no —none of them used drugs." He mockingly gasped. "They would never. And that made you nervous. And jumpy. And since ya make so much goddamn money ripping your clothes off, you quit. Seems like your friends quit, too. And then… I saw in your phone that someone had sent you that article about Delaney around about the same time as a phone call to the same contact…after that, you spam-called about fifteen different numbers—some picked up, some didn't…and the contact that had sent you the article said to plan on meeting the next morning at…" Randy turned to me, smiled, and said, "Your place."

"For coffee," Skylar interjected in a panic. "Just for coffee—"

"At your apartment," he continued. "Now, why in the world would she be running to your place to meet up after she gathers up all this lovely information?"

"Coffee," I agreed with Skylar. "Swear—swear to God, just coffee—"

"What do you know?" Randy asked me casually. "And who told you?"

"Nothing, I—"

I silenced myself when he roughly grabbed Skylar by the jaw, angling her face and all of the damage done directly toward me.

"Ah!" she yelped in a mixture of surprise and pain.

"Do you see her face, James?"

He squeezed his grip, and Skylar winced.

I exclaimed, "Stop! You're hurting her—"

"I asked if you saw her face," Randy repeated. "It's simple—you can either talk to me, or you're about to look very similar to Skylar here."

The options were laid out before me, and they were obvious.

I could lie. Tell him that I had no idea what he was talking about and I had only seen the article that Skylar had referenced.

I could say that it didn't matter how much he beat me. That he was scum. That I wouldn't tell him a goddamn word.

Or… I could obey his every command. Admit that I was acquainted with a man named Colton who knew of a trafficking situation, and he had spoken with us in an attempt to obtain more information. That it had outright terrified us all to hear the news. Cassie had alerted Skylar only about Delaney, and it was clear that the women had pieced together other information and that was what had caused the domino effect he had mentioned. Maybe he would appreciate the transparency. Maybe he would let me go.

I would be kidding myself if I didn't say that the last thought gave me a glimmer of hope…but would he? Would he let me go? The single sparkle faded away as I deduced otherwise—surely with the knowledge of who he was and the insinuation of crimes he's committed, I wouldn't be allowed to see the light of day. Not now and not ever…and my stomach sank slowly as I came to the conclusion that there was a large possibility that I would die here.

And if I were to confess all I knew…it was most certain that he would find Colton and end him, too.

The slim chance of survival aside, it felt like a coward's way out. In fact, even if I were to come out of the other side of this alive, by stooping so low to give him the information he craved, he could go on happily committing atrocities…and it was with that realization that I began to shake my head.

"Why…in the fuck… would I tell you anything?" I incredulously questioned. Randy's eyebrows rose, and I added, "Even if I did have exactly what you were looking for…" I scoffed, "You're a fucking monster."

He seemed to be assessing my sincerity for a moment, and then he nodded.

"Bold, James," he murmured. "Very bold. "

Randy then turned quickly to stalk away, dragging Skylar by the arm, and she yelped in surprise, meeting my eyes only briefly before they both disappeared from view.

"Where are you taking her?!"

It was clear that Skylar was fighting against him as he moved her, anxious calls of, "No!" and, "Please, no!" falling fainter and fainter on my ears until a thud from afar vibrated the air around me, and her pleas turned into a shrill scream that could have curdled blood.

"Hey!" I yelled, "She's innocent in this— let her go!"

There was no point to my movements, but I still yanked against the chains. They bit into my wrists harshly, and I frantically looked around the room for…something. Anything. I knew that now wouldn't be the time to attempt escape, but perhaps I could stow away the idea for later…fabricate a plan to get myself out of the cuffs and onto my feet.

There was nothing, though. Nothing but grey padding, a light above that continued to burn my retinas, and unyielding metal behind me that I knew would inevitably cut into my skin.

The sound of Skylar was abruptly cut off with the closing of a door in the distance and from then, I could only hear footsteps. By the time Randy returned, the air around me was thin, and though it ran through me rapidly, it seemed to do little good because I felt oxygen-starved. He watched me for a moment as he stood in the doorway, a small, wooden stool held in one hand and what looked to be a wash rag and a water bottle held in the other.

"Time to chat." He sauntered up to me, set the items down with care, and took a seat. Officer Dowler took a large breath in, letting it out as if it thoroughly relaxed him. "Where should we start?"

I had the urge to ask, ‘Haven't we already?' but instead, it just came out as:

"Start?"

"We can recap," he remarked. "Let's circle back to the beginning here, just to get the record straight. Here's the deal—my partner was an idiot."

I felt my expression pinch in confusion, for the word partner could mean several things—work accomplice, lover, and partner in crime all among them.

"Partner?"

"Mhm." He moved on without clarifying my internal thoughts. "Reckless. Obsessed. Balls-to-the-wall at a moment's notice. Had this crazy look in his eyes when he got an idea ingrained in him. And I thought…hell, he'd be an asset because I'm careful. I'm a strategic man. I needed a little… fire." Randy shrugged as he let out a sigh. "But fuck, his fire was too much. Started pin-pointing the wrong targets—went off of his own interests rather than ours as a team—I had to start covering his tracks because he was obvious. He acted like…like this shit was his own personal sex service. I mean, he was dramatic. Obviously dramatic. To the point that he went AWOL." Randy paused. "Fucking. AWOL. Swear to God, he had to have been high because he was running. Chasing after women to get his goddamn rocks off. The kid was a nut and a half, and that's my fuckin' bad, but my point," he locked eyes with me, "is that he was too close to making himself known—making all of our shit known, whether I was looped in on it or not. And it was clear that who I report to took him out…which was for the best. I didn't have to get my hands dirty." Bile rose in my throat, and as my eyes widened, he took the sight of me in with a tilt of his head. "Do you know what he did to him, James? He beat him in the middle of the woods so badly that when his body was found, you could see brain."

The mention of woods and brain made the image of Peter Milkovich flash in my mind. He laid face down in the grass, only steps away from where Zoey was cradled in Liam's lap after just having cracked his skull in with a rock.

I was unable to hold back my sickened, "Oh, fuck."

"Now, the boss didn't come to me and admit that he offed Peter." Randy's mention of his name hit me square in the diaphragm, and the noise I let out sounded as if the wind had been knocked out of me. "He doesn't tend to… admit to things because he's an under-the-radar type of man. But I know blunt force trauma when I see it. Peter was a threat, and it was far too easy for the rest of the PD to agree that the rocks in the river banged him up."

The connection was dizzying. Somehow, Peter met Randy and partnered with him in all of this. Peter targeted Zoey in his own manic way due to his tendencies that Randy had described as reckless and obsessed. The officer didn't know of Peter's actual demise. He thoroughly believed that because of Peter's recklessness, he had been killed by the man at the head of the whole organization—the head honcho, as Colton had once called him—and not only that, Randy had convinced the rest of the police department that Peter's death was an accidental drowning.

He had no idea. And it was all I could do to ask:

"Why are you telling me all of this?"

"Because if you tell me what you know, I won't do what he did to Peter. I'll make your death pleasant." Randy smiled. "I think we both know that you're not leaving here alive…but this doesn't have to be difficult."

My body trembled as he confirmed what I had suspected—he had no intention of ever releasing me .

I whispered, "Why do you think I know anything? Just—just because Skylar said she was coming to my apartment after she talked to all the other dancers?"

Wrinkles formed in his forehead…as if he were confused as to how I hadn't put the remainder of the puzzle together.

"I…know where you live, James. I've been there before. I met the previous tenant. Little blonde thing?" I attempted to keep my expression neutral, even with the mention of Zoey—I knew that I had done a piss poor job of it as my breath continued to rattle and it sounded like my heartbeat was audible, but I attempted, nonetheless. Randy pressed on, "I made sure I was the one to arrive at the scene because I was so damn sure that it was Peter with the detail she gave about a stalker on the call in, and I had to cover his damn tracks. I know you know her…and it wasn't hard to figure out you had moved in after I paid the place a visit." He paused, ensuring to hold my attention. "I let her go. She didn't fit the bill, she had too many personal connections, and Peter didn't get far enough for her to be a threat before he was done for. She never reported anything after that. She knew nothing. She moved on with life. I moved on with life. But now…you're a common denominator. Now, Peter's front door got busted in, the main course of action was directly for his room like this one, and I had to shut down his damn family questioning it. Now… you seem like you know more than you're leading on."

"I don't." I stated over and again, "I don't- I don't-I-don't—"

My panicked repetition was cut off quickly as something made contact with my cheek. Because I had squeezed my eyes shut as I began to rattle off the same words, I hadn't seen him move. I had only felt the quick, sharp impact of a solid material followed by radiating pain that made my ears ring. I grunted as my head swam, and once I stopped spinning from the force of the hit, I looked to see him standing above me. Officer Dowler had a gun—one I could only assume was police-issued—in his right hand. He held it by the handle like a club, and there was no question that it was the barrel of the weapon that had hit me.

The moment I had absorbed his appearance, he moved again. He swung his arm, finding the same position on my cheek, and try as I might to push myself away with scrambling legs, there was nowhere for me to go. I was stuck, backed into the same corner, and Randy was still there.

"You want to reconsider your answer?"

His question was forcedly calm, and I replied:

"Fuck you. "

There was no hesitation as he struck me again—and again— and again— and each instance that he stopped to speak was similar to the first. The pistol whipping rendered the left side of my face wet and bruised, my skin swollen and tangibly stretching across my cheekbone, and throbbing shot through to my skull in white-hot waves.

It would end, eventually.

I knew it would.

What I didn't anticipate was for Randy to squat down to my eye level, grab my jaw to force me to meet his eyes, and ask:

"What are you trying to do? Protect your girl?"

My chest panged as my heart attempted to escape its confines, and I exhaled, "What?"

Randy squinted. "What does Cassie know?"

Her name on his lips nearly made me vomit, and my response came from my gut in a visceral snarl:

"Leave her out of this."

"Ooo." His eyes brightened. "Now we're getting somewhere."

He was so close to my face that I could see his in high-definition, and I knew that the vivid image of him would be marked into my memory for as long as blood still coursed through my veins. The lines on his forehead and between his eyebrows were more prominent than his crow's feet—the mark of a man who rarely smiled genuinely. Though his gaze into me was now glowing with anticipation, I could still note his sleeplessness behind the dark circles and bloodshot red that surrounded the green and brown of his irises.

The thought that I would be cursed to see his face for the rest of my days made anger roar in my ears as if a plane were flying overhead, and as soon as I felt the urge, I spat.

He flinched as it hit him, and I watched with pleasure as the blood in my saliva dripped down the sharp angles of his nose and lingered in his stubble.

Face contorted into a grimace, Officer Dowler said nothing. He shoved me away with disgust, reached to where his stool was behind him, and snatched the towel on the floor beside it. Wiping my spit away with a frustrated grumble, he then threw it at me. It landed across my eyes, taking my sight from me, and despite my efforts to turn my head from left to right, it stuck like glue, for it was heavy and damp. I heard a single squish as he moved. He adjusted the towel to cover my entire face with rough tugs coupled with rage-filled grunts, he briefly shoved his hand in my mouth, and I tasted the material on my tongue.

"Ah! Wha—"

Any sound I made was muffled by the cold, wet fabric, and my breath, which had turned to a staccato rhythm, quickened further. Droplets from the towel dripped into my mouth—down my throat with every inhale—pulling air through my nose instead offered no escape, and the horror of oxygen being stolen from me made my chest heave to no avail. I screamed through the material. I tried to plead no.

Randy still remained silent, though, and all that reached my ears was the quiet cracking of plastic before the water hit me.

And I was drowning.