Chapter Fifty-Four

Garcia blinked himself awake, or at least he thought he did. His eyes felt like they were open, but he could see nothing other than absolute darkness.

But this wasn't a dream, this wasn't a nightmare – God knew he'd had plenty of those and in none of them had he ever felt physical pain, which was the only thing that he could feel right then… sickening, debilitating pain.

The back of his neck felt like it was on fire – as if a lit charcoal stone was just sitting against his skin, scorching and blistering it, as it burned through onto the flesh beneath. That agonizing feeling had forced his neck muscles to tighten to the point of spasms, sending shards of pain traveling down his spine until they hit its base, at which point they would break out in every direction.

Right then, the phrase ‘everything hurts' had never felt so real.

Zing.

There it was again – another explosive stab of pain coming from his neck, like fireworks shooting into every corner of his body, seemingly ripping through tendons and muscles to finally sear every nerve-ending he possessed, and some he wasn't even aware existed.

Reflexively, his hand tried to move up to the source of the pain, but it didn't get far. In fact, it didn't move at all, because both of his arms were bound at the wrist to something solid.

‘What the fuck?'

It seemed like the intense pain had shot its shards into his brain as well because Garcia couldn't remember much.

Where the hell was he and why was he there?

Every time he tried to think, it felt as if he had activated a kaleidoscope of sharp razors inside his skull.

Zing.

More fireworks, forcing him to clench his jaw and his body to convulse in place, but still, Garcia pushed his brain through what he could of the pain to try to remember. If he could remember what had happened, he would probably stand a better chance… of what exactly, he had no idea.

Think, man… think,he urged himself.

The kaleidoscope inside his head rotated again.

The sharp razors dropped like confetti.

More pain.

More convulsing.

But finally, through all the jaw clenching, fragments of something began to come back to him. And they came back fast – the school classroom… the support group… the late arrival who called himself George… the parking lot outside… the black pickup truck… sitting inside his car… and then nothing… until he woke up in this dark hell.

That gap in Garcia's memory, Hunter had explained to him once, was called ‘selective amnesia'. It was usually brought on by some sort of traumatic event. To try to shield the person from the kind of psychological fractures that the traumatic event could cause, the brain would then choose to forget just part of an event. That's why he could remember the entire night until just before the attack that had rendered him unconscious. All that was missing from his recollection was the attack itself – the most traumatic part of the event.

Garcia tried to move his hands again. As he did, he felt something dig at his wrists, but the pain already moving around his body was so intense that the digging at the wrists felt like a summer breeze.

Since Garcia couldn't bring his hands to his body, he simply moved them in place, using his fingers to feel around, trying to better understand his predicament. Judging by how tight and how thin the ligatures to his wrists were, he guessed that they were zip ties. What his wrists were bound to was hard and cylindrical in shape, like a metal tube, or something similar.

Garcia could also feel that he was in a lying-down position, with his legs stretched out under him and his ankles secured in place, probably by another pair of zip ties. The only conclusion he could come to was that he had been tied down to some sort of hospital bed or gurney.

Using all the strength that he could muster, Garcia pushed from the hips to jerk his body upward. The effort sent another spray of pain up and down his spine, but he was able to figure out something else as well. Only his body jerked. The bed that he was bound to didn't move an inch, which told him that it was either a very heavy bed, or it was bolted to the ground.

Flash.

All of a sudden, the lights came on.

Finally, confirmation that his eyes were really open, because as the light traveled through his pupils and reached his retinas, it felt like a needle had punctured his cornea and it was now scraping at his ocular globe. A whole new dimension of pain was created – and with the pain came a crazy explosion of colors, blurring his vision.

Instinctively, Garcia shut his eyes as tight as he could, but it made no difference. The pain was already traveling through his nerves and the colors just kept on coming.

He grimaced and winced, which only served to stretch his neck muscles even more, as if they were about to snap.

‘Is it too bright for you?'

The male voice caught Garcia by surprise, but he resisted the urge to look and kept his eyes firmly shut. He knew that if he opened them up right then, he wouldn't be able to see anything anyway. He'd been in darkness for God-knew-how-long, so even if he hadn't been sedated, which he was sure that he had been, his pupils would be naturally dilated. All that would happen would be that his eyes would devour the light in the room, and light would just add fuel to the already all-consuming fire of pain.

Instead, Garcia breathed in through his nose and tried to concentrate on the voice.

‘Would you like me to dim them down for you?'

Garcia had heard that voice before. He knew he had.

Still keeping his eyes closed, he nodded his reply.

Through the thin skin of his eyelids, Garcia sensed the lights dimming.

‘Take your time,' the voice said. ‘Don't be too eager. Your pupils will soon adjust.

Of course Garcia had heard that voice before. They had been sitting in the same support-group meeting – George, the late arrival, right?

Garcia began trying to open his eyes again. First just a hair… then a fraction… then halfway.

‘That's it,' the voice encouraged him. ‘Do it slowly, or the light will feel like a thunderbolt from hell.'

Garcia finally managed to get his eyes fully open. As he did, the man standing by the light switch rotated it back to full power, bathing the room in such brightness, it could've given Garcia a suntan.

‘Fuck!' Garcia shouted, immediately slamming his eyelids shut again, but it was all too late. Pain exploded behind his eyes, enveloping his brain and compressing it in a vice grip before expanding like a tsunami throughout every atom of his body.

‘Really?' The man laughed. ‘You think I'm here to make this a more pleasant experience for you? Would you like a fucking massage as well? I'm good at those.'

Garcia heard steps coming closer. A couple of seconds later, the man spoke again, but this time, his voice was right by Garcia's ear.

‘You better savor that little pain that you're feeling right now – and that is little pain – because what's coming your way will make your soul want to abandon ship and leave your body here to rot. Do you understand what I'm saying?'

The pain was so intense that Garcia felt dizzy… too dizzy, actually. He was passing out again, but there had been a delay… a hesitation between him opening his eyes and the man at the light switch bringing it back to full power again. It had been just a tiny gap, but a gap that had allowed Garcia to lock eyes with the other person in that room, and that was when he realized that he had been wrong.

The person he saw standing just a few feet from him wasn't George, the late arrival at the support-group meeting. It was Trevor, the caterpillar-eyebrows man.