Chapters 21-25

***

CHAPTER 21

If only I had been more adventurous in college.

Because if I had ... then I would have been much more comfortable waking up in a strange bed in a strange place, as I did in the wee hours of that morning when I had been sprung from my cell to attend that party.

Although, to continue that analogy, it would have started to fall apart in that I was waking up *alone* as opposed to how those hypothetical free-love folks would have woken up the mornings after their ... well ... let's call them ... "connections".

But ... strange bed ... strange place all the the same.

In another world, it would have been understandable had I found myself in that position because I over-indulged at said party ... a little inebriation-related passing out like happens to those of my age when they over-imbibe.

That was not this world. That was not my situation.

I opened my eyes and stared up at the ceiling fan I was seeing for the first time, doing my best to recall where I was ... and, more importantly, *how* I got there. I started to turn my head, but felt a sharp pain in my neck, and so I decided that my attempt to get a view of the room in which I had awoken would have to wait.

So instead, I decided to gather my intel by stretching out my hands to feel around me.

All I felt was bed. More bed. Still more bed.

And then, to the right, a nightstand. On it, a glass.

I grabbed for it, but it slipped through my hand and hit the floor.

I flinched as it broke ... I screamed when I heard the accompanying gun shot.

***

The gun shots were close.

The acrid smoke smell was directly overhead, so much so that I actually started to cough.

Even if I had wanted to leave the bed, I couldn't move my legs or body. Paralysis set in ... maybe from fear ... maybe from something else ... but it was just me ... staring at the ceiling fan, inhaling the smoke, waiting for the shooter's next move.

I coughed again ... and this time the phlegm was warm and sticky.

I ran my tongue around my lips and tasted the distinctly iron flavoring of my blood.

I started to hyperventilate, making it more and more difficult to breathe.

My arms and hands *could* move ... and so I quickly brought them up to my mouth, wiped them in the goo in the corner of it and held my fingers directly above my line of sight.

Red. Blood. Red.

In a panic, I ran my fingers all up and down my person, trying to locate a wound that my body didn't know had been created. I checked my sides, theorizing that a bullet must have gone in somewhere to render me unable to move ... but found nothing.

I closed my eyes, trying to become one with my body, thinking that somewhere ... at some place on it ... I *had* to be bleeding. There had to be at least one hole ... fluids had to be escaping and trickling down my skin on to the bedspread on which I was trapped.

I thought that if I could just concentrate hard enough, surely I could feel that trickling sensation.

But I sensed nothing. I found nothing. I coughed again, momentarily choking on whatever was set loose from the action within my lungs.

When I opened my eyes, there was Rodney standing over me, with a look of despair like none I had seen before.

***

Rodney's look of despair was accompanied by a wail ... and similar to that look ... it was a wail like none I had *heard* before.

"Moooooom! Nooooooo!"

I stared back at him, still unable to move my legs or body on the bed, but now ready to test whether my paralysis affected my ability to speak.

Turned out it didn't.

"Hey. Yo! I'm *not* your mom! I'm not *anybody's* mom!"

My protestations fell on deaf ears.

I thought that maybe he had been too close to the gunshots, and that maybe they were still ringing in his ears.

After having just searched in vain to try to find a trickle of liquid on my body in hopes I could pinpoint the entrance wound for whatever was paralyzing me, I was somewhat surprised to finally feel the sensation on my cheek.

I was even more surprised to realize that it was a tear from Rodney's eyes that had fallen on my face.

I watched as *his* face twisted with emotions ... the despair being quickly replaced with a searing anger. His eyes that were watery a moment before all but closed in a squint, forcing the rest of the tears to spill out ... and then I saw the clenched jaw.

I recognized the clenched jaw. I knew the clenched jaw. I remembered the clenched jaw.

Joey had had that same clenched jaw ... the same twitching in the lower muscle of the cheek as the teeth ground together ... a harbinger of violence to come.

Rodney turned to someone just out of my line of sight, grunting his instructions. "Keep an eye on her ... I'll be right back".

***

NOW it all made sense.

As Rodney left my line of sight, asking someone next to him to watch over me -- me whom he had called his mom -- I finally realized what was happening.

I knew then ... because the creature that stepped in to look over me was none other than one of those creepy beings I had named "andantes". The faceless mannequin-like apparition floated above me -- me trapped on this bed with a paralysis that I could not explain -- and it was soon joined by a second ... and a third.

There was just enough of my conscious fighting my subconscious ... while I was unconscious ... to recognize that I was reliving the most immediate memory I had absorbed from Rodney. It all came back to me quickly ... the gunfight in the store where his mother worked ... the fact that it was started by another gang member and wasn't planned ... the detail about how his mom had come running unexpectedly into Rodney's line of fire ... and the tragedy that he had shot her while trying to defend himself and the money he had stolen.

I knew I just had to bide my time and I'd wake up again back in the spare bedroom of Albert's apartment ... the place where I had been choked out by Rodney ... I just had to wait for the blood flow to be restored to my brain ...

It would only be a short time ... so I stared at the faces of the andantes hovering over me, unsettled that they couldn't match my gaze, what with them being without facial features, but certain that they were in my head and uncertain as to what power they might have over me if I interacted with them for too long.

Now fearful, I closed my eyes and started to count to ten.

I didn't make it past four ... because at the count of four, I caught my breath and opened my eyes, seeing yet again the ceiling fan above me. But this time I knew I was alone in the room.

And, with great joy, I sat up in the bed .. happy to have shaken off the paralysis that had accompanied my vision.

I swung my feet over to the right, gingerly standing up, and suddenly wincing with a *new* pain.

***

Well this ... *this* was real pain ... sharp and searing ... in my heel.

I lifted my foot up and crossed it over my leg, observing that a piece of glass was sticking out of the sole of my shoe.

"That's what I get for wearing my favorite sneakers until they practically fall apart," I thought to myself.

Thin soles ... thin enough for glass shards from a broken glass to easily pierce through.

Of course, that meant that the glass I knocked off the nightstand happened in the real world, as compared to my vision of Rodney and the andantes from which I had just awoken.

I took a deep breath and plucked the piece from my heel, and then took off my sneaker before it filled with blood.

Because this ... *this* was real blood.

I looked around the spare bedroom, trying to remember where it was that Mria had gone to get the cup of water that she had thrown on Rodney to wake him earlier. I was still a bit woozy, but I thought I remembered the door we had used to enter the room ... and so, when I spied a second door on a different wall, I theorized that maybe that was the bathroom ... or the half-bath, seeing as how this was the spare bedroom.

I grabbed a pillow from off of the bed, stripped it of its pillowcase and wadded that up to press against my bleeding wound. I used the excess fabric to tie it around my heel, hoping that I wouldn't leave a trail of blood as I hobbled over to the other door, trying not to put pressure directly on it.

When I reached that door, I was surprised to find that there was a latch on the outside ... from which hung a padlock. I began to lose hope that it was a bathroom on the other side.

***

I had hobbled all the way over here to the wall across from the bed, heel bleeding into the pillowcase I had wrapped around it ... so, even if it wasn't a bathroom, I felt somewhat compelled to investigate ... particularly since my curiosity had been piqued by the appearance of the latch with the padlock.

At first glance, it seemed locked ... but I tugged on its base, and, sure enough ... it slipped open.

I pulled on the door next, and stuck my head inside the space ... but I saw nothing in the darkness.

I felt along the edge of the inner wall but didn't find any switch.

Recognizing that I wasn't equipped with anything to solve *that* problem ... like a flashlight ... or a lighter ... or knowledge of this spare bedroom and its "attachments" ... I quickly came to the conclusion that I was going to have to leave unsated. I shifted slightly on my remaining one good foot to grab the door behind me to close it ... and that's when I saw one of those push lights affixed to the inside of it.

Voila! Through the magic of battery powered luminescence, I was going to get my way after all.

I pushed on the face of it, and determined soon enough that I'd have to step inside the space and close the door to get any kind of information, since the little-push-light-that-could wouldn't give off very much light.

Waiting for my eyes to adjust, I made sure that the door remained cracked so I could exit if I heard anyone come into the bedroom ... as the last thing I needed ... or wanted ... was to end up locked in this space ...

This space ... that was clearly once a closet.

Once ... because it had been recently gutted, with the bars and shelves removed so that I could easily stand up in it now that I was inside.

All but one shelf ... at the very end of the narrow space ... at the height of my head.

Eyes fully adjusted, I looked at each of the items on the shelf and I couldn't help myself. I shivered ... the kind of shiver that inspired that phrase about feeling like someone walked on your grave.

***

It was as clear as it could be, considering the circumstances ... namely, that I was in a relatively dark closet in the spare bedroom at Albert's apartment, where the party had wrapped up earlier that morning.

Although the only light I had to investigate was from the touch light on the back of the closet door, my eyes had adjusted to the point that I could make out the items in the dim light.

On the floor underneath the shelf was a rolled up sleeping bag with a small pillow. And on the shelf was a container marked "supplies", and an old plastic bucket. On it was written in magic marker, "Bathroom Bucket". I popped off the top of the container, and I saw a roll of toilet paper and some basic food items.

I instantly flashed back to the conversation I had had with Albert after he had beaten me. I recalled his words as if he was right there with me:

"... you shouldn't put too much stock in what she said about bus tickets home when we're done with you. I intend to move you from them and from here and keep you as a freak I pull out to do party tricks whenever I want."

Of course.

This was Albert's apartment ... and the space into which I had stumbled was to be my home *after* the heist.

I had gotten so involved with my task to get information from Rodney that Mario and Mria could use that I had started to feel like I was part of the team.

This was a stark reminder that I was a tool they were using for their own purposes ... and that Albert had his own plans.

His own plans ... on which he had clearly taken action.

***

I couldn't get out of there fast enough.

Despite being wounded from stepping in the broken glass with my sole-deficient footwear, I skedaddled like the winner of the gold at the Olympics (were skedaddling ever added to the list of sports in which the national community competes).

I tapped the touch light on the back of the closet door to return it to its dormant state, and reset the padlock so that it gave the appearance of being locked even though it wasn't fully clicked to be actually locked.

Making it back to the bed in the center of the guest room, and with all of my wits returned to me, I remembered to check on another development from the party and all that had ensued during it.

I reached into the pocket of Mario's sweatpants that I was wearing and confirmed that I *still* had his cell phone from when I had snatched it after the jeep accident that kicked off this most recent round of activity. It hadn't fallen out when I had been wrestling around on the floor with Rodney.

Before I could do anything with it, someone came to the door and stuck their head in to check up on me.

In the shadows, I wasn't completely sure who it was ... and my first thought was that Rodney had returned to finish the job he had started when he choked me out.

"Hey. You up?"

I recognized that voice, and I instantly felt at ease.

"Hey Mario," I replied. "I *am* ... but I'm bleeding."

He took another step into the room and beyond the doorway, asking a follow-up question as he entered.

"What did that guy *do* to you?"

***

"No, no. It's not like that. It's my own damn fault."

I pointed to the broken glass on the floor by the nightstand as a way of explanation.

"I knocked a glass over when I came to ... and then stepped in the pieces by accident. I'm fine. I mean ... Rodney did choke me out and all ... but that's it. Otherwise, this bloody mess is my own doing."

Mario nodded his head. "Yeah, Mria said he high-tailed it out of here. Didn't say much. Just ran toward the door and he was gone. Did you ... uh ... 'get anything' from him?"

Here it was. My big chance to report back to the big boss. Well one of the bosses. My instinct still was that Mria was the "big boss", even if Mario was the biggest one of the three in size.

"Yeah. I'd say so." I looked down at my hands instead of making eye contact.

"And?" Mario pressed for more information.

So -- I gave it to him. "Well ... you remember that robbery back in Chicago that he was telling you about on the patio?"

I got another nod from Mario as confirmation that he did remember.

I took a deep breath before continuing.

"During that ... I'm pretty sure he shot his mom."

Mario's initial reaction was to have no reaction. His face froze ... his breathing stopped ... only his eyes darted around ... like a poker tell disclosing that he was having difficulty processing the news.

"Isn't that what you wanted?" I asked. "Information to hold over him to get him to do what you say in the long run?"

***

"Yeah, sure. But no ... not really."

Mario finally stammered his answer to my question. He then attempted to clarify.

"I mean ... yes ... we wanted information on Rodney. But I was hoping for some minor misdemeanor petty crime stuff ... not that he murdered his own mother."

"Just to be clear. I only know that he shot her ... I wasn't conscious long enough to learn the end result," I explained.

Mario sighed. "Yeah, but I already knew that she was dead. He told me that's why he moved down here ... after she was murdered. He just left out the most important fact ... that he was the one that did it."

I wanted to reply with an admonition to "be careful what you wish for" ... but I didn't think it was my place to bring that up ... at least, not at this time.

Mario stood there a few moments longer, staying quiet as he internalized the sad sad news.

Then, like a dog trying to get dry ... or a Tay-tay trying to rise above all the haters ... he shook his head as if it was a necessary prerequisite to being able to shake if off.

With a step in my direction, he exhaled and said, "Let's take a look at your foot."

"Careful!" I yelled out instinctively.

He stopped in his tracks and looked at me, confused.

"You don't want to touch my foot .. or else ... you know ..." My voice trailed off, but his next statement let me know that he understood what it was I was really trying to say.

"Oh right. That. We've done enough of *that* as it is."

***

"Still ..." he said, "we should probably do something for it."

The "it", of course, being my bloody foot where I had stepped in the broken glass.

Mario wagged his index finger at me, which I took to mean that I was supposed to stay right there on the edge of the bed.

"I'll be right back. Let me see if Albert has any band-aids or something."

He didn't take long, returning with a bottle of peroxide and some gauze.

"Here. This is all I could find." He passed the items to me.

I dressed my wound by myself, dabbing at the cut with the gauze to wipe off the peroxide I had poured over it. It reminded me of how I had just recently been taken care of by Mria, after Albert's beating of me ... further proof that Albert and I just simply weren't meant to get along.

"So where is Mria? I mean, she was really good at this."

My question made him chuckle.

"She's passed out upstairs. Had a little *too* much to drink. I put her to bed before I came to get you."

I continued to sop up the blood with the gauze, applying pressure in hopes to get it to stop bleeding in the first place.

"You gonna be okay?" Mario asked.

I looked up at him to try to figure out the question behind the question ... or if there was a question behind the question.

In my analysis, he seemed genuinely concerned.

I didn't want to creep him out any further by staring at him any longer, so I just nodded my head and reached down to get my sock and shoe to carefully put back over my damaged foot.

"I'll be back in a minute. We have to make two quick stops before I take you back to the basement. So wait here."

***

I prepared myself for what I intended to say to Mario when he returned to take me back to the locked room in the basement of the bar (by way of two just announced stops about which I knew nothing).

I thought I'd start with: "So ... I have your phone. Grabbed it from you during the car crash and I was using it to text my own cell phone back home in hopes that my dogsitter might notice and somehow rescue me. I lied to you when you asked about it before ... but I wanted to be honest about it now."

And then I'd continue: "Also ... I need you to save me from Albert. In addition to not wanting him to beat me again, he's threatened that he's going to take me when this is all over and the heist is finished and that he's going to lock me up here in his apartment ... AND I just found the modified closet where he's going to execute his plan."

And for a grand finale: "Finally ... there's no need to lock me back up in that room at the bar. Despite it being so much nicer than that closet space, I've proven that I'm not going to run away until the task is finished ... and I want to feel more like the valued member of the team that I am."

After all, I felt *connected* to Mario ... like he was different than the others.

Maybe it was all in my head. I did meet him with him as my bartender, and I always felt connected to bartenders. It was how I liked to drink ... by myself, in the corner of the bar where I could observe everything happening, fancying myself as an extension of the bar staff, hard at work making sure that I was "in the know" about all the goings-on at the establishment.

Of course, as circumstances dictated, I had also interacted with him, as only I could, more than I did with any other person since learning of my talent. Maybe the long term effects of repeated downloads of someone's painful memories were that we would start to merge our psyches in some way.

But, in the end, there was just a humanity about him that was missing from so many others. Perhaps it was from having dealt with a dying sister ... but he seemed like he was more than just the outer appearance of a big, bumbling, friendly frat guy ... and that he had a depth and a soul underneath. As I had just determined, he seemed like he actually *did* care that I was wounded ... and that he had cared about treating me humanely before.

If I was going to come clean to anyone ... and to share my feelings about my situation ... it was going to be to Mario.

Mario who stepped back into the room just then. It was the proverbial "now or never" moment for me ...

***

"Let's go!"

I had so much to say ... yet all I could do was nod my head in agreement, stand up, and hobble over to Mario, who was standing in the doorway.

Everything I had just prepared was still fresh in my mind ... but I said nothing.

It just didn't seem like the right time. I was tired. He was likely tired. It had been a long night into morning. Opening up in such a way that was ultimately going to cause trouble and going to test how closely we had grown just didn't seem like the right next move.

Or maybe I was worried that it was all in my head, and that I was projecting what I wanted to be the truth onto him.

Or maybe I was doing what I had always done ... over-thinking, over-analyzing, and spending too much time in my own head.

"Let's GO!"

Yep ... it was definitely NOT the right time. I had already upset him by standing too long in the doorway ... so much so that he had to repeat himself, a little more forcefully, to get my attention.

I followed dutifully, because *that* was the true nature of my relationship with Mario to date.

We left the scene of the party, headed out to the parking lot and climbed back into his damaged jeep.

"So where are we headed first?" I asked.

"Back to the scene of the crime," he replied, rather dejectedly.

The crime. I didn't understand. We hadn't *committed* the crime yet.

***

"Wait, what? *Where* are we going?"

I didn't understand what Mario meant by saying that we were returning to the scene of crime.

"I need you to tell me how to get back to the intersection where we crashed. I want to see if my phone fell out there," he clarified.

His phone. His missing phone. His missing phone that was in *my* pocket ... which he didn't know.

Okay, here was another opportunity to come clean, presenting itself all but gift-wrapped.

But like Peter at Gethsemane, I was about to deny that I knew anything for the third time. I was half expecting a rooster to crow after I came up with my new strategy.

"Mario ... I don't think that's the best idea."

No rooster crowed. But Mario did glare at me for second-guessing his plan.

"And why not?", he asked me somewhat icily.

"First of all, I don't know this neighborhood enough to guide you *anywhere*. And, maybe more importantly, I peeled out of wherever it was because the cops were on their way."

He countered right away on my second point. "Yeah, but that was hours ago now. You don't really think the police are still there for just a minor fender bender."

I corrected him. "Well, technically it was a hit and run."

"Yeah, but you told me that we BOTH ran ... and we didn't run until AFTER the other guys ran."

I thought I was going to have to give in to his logic, and then the answer hit me ... the *best* answer .. the PERFECT answer.

***

"If your phone fell out at the crash site, and the cops showed up ... then there's a good chance they found it and have it in their possession."

*That* was my perfect answer.

It would scare him away from trying to locate the device ... and put a little fear in him that the cops knew that he was involved once they figured out who owned the phone ... and all the while, I could keep it in my room and use it as I wished.

I stared straight ahead, holding my breath, waiting to see if my logic had convinced him.

I soon got my answer ... not verbally, but through his actions.

He slammed the steering wheel with the palm of his hand.

"DAMN it!"

I took that as a sign that he was sufficiently tricked, but didn't want to press my luck. So I said nothing, and turned to watch from the side window as the Florida neighborhoods went past. In the early morning light, there weren't many people out and about.

It struck me that I had had a long night. I was tired.

Ironically, I wanted nothing other than my cot back in my locked room in the basement. I never would have predicted that outcome.

I'm pretty sure that my head nodded as I dozed off.

The warmth of the sunlight. The thoughts of my cot. The hours I had spent awake when I should have been asleep.

I felt so comfy ... until he woke me from my little nap.

"We're here."

***

It wasn't the bar, where I had been living (against my will) in a room in the basement.

It wasn't the crash site, seeing as how I had successfully talked him out of going there.

It wasn't the apartment complex where he lived with Mria, one floor above Albert, as that would have been foolish to go full circle and return from where we had just left ... unless, of course, he had had a change of mind and was finally starting to feel guilty about locking me up.

But, again, it *wasn't* that spot, so he *hadn't* had a change of heart.

What it *was* was a little cottage style house -- somewhere new to me, but not to him. He had pulled into the drive, gotten out of the jeep, and headed directly to the front door, where he let himself in with a key he had on his keychain.

He turned to me, and glared ... a look I was used to seeing as how I was always hanging back and watching him, trying to figure things out in real time as they occurred.

I doubled my pace to catch up to him, certain that I was in the dark about this location.

"Ummm ..."

That was all I could get out before he shushed me.

Well, "shushed" would have been the nice way to characterize what he did.

What he actually did, was to grab the oversized sweatshirt of his that I was wearing, and used it to spin me around while he bent down to hiss at me in a hoarse whisper.

"Shut up! I don't want to wake her!"

***

"Mario ... is that you?"

It was too late.

There was no way to know for sure if it was him coming in to the house, or me not modulating my voice, or her already being awake, but awake she was.

Of course, I didn't yet know who "she" was, in the first place.

"Mario?"

Again, a small quiet voice from a room around the corner. Just a voice ... no body had appeared yet in the darkened living room.

"You wait here."

I did exactly as he instructed me. Waiting in that spot, as he disappeared into the hallway and into another room. I could hear them talking to each other, but I couldn't make out what was being said.

I couldn't help but reflect on how many strange places I had been in so few days since being kidnapped and dragged to this town ... from the inside of that creepy white van ... to the room in the basement of the bar in which I had been locked ... to the apartments at the party ... and now this house.

All of them were awkward for me.

I was a stranger in a strange land. Ish.

***

"Ok buddy. I need you to do something for me."

Buddy. I'll admit ... hearing Mario call me that caught me off guard.

The cynical side of me should have known that he was about to ask a favor of me ... but the whimsical side started me thinking about whether the famed Stockholm syndrome was a two way street, and maybe Mario was finally seeing me as one of the team.

And, if that were true, then maybe he had brought me to this little cottage so I could stay here until we were done with the heist.

Cynicism beat down my whimsy as soon as I saw the serious look on his face, and then heard the serious tone in his voice.

"My sister is in the bedroom, and she's too weak to come out here."

His sister.

The one I had never met, except when I was downloading his pain the assorted times that he and I had made contact.

The one that was dying from cancer, and that was the reason he was in on the scheme to steal money from the drug dealer that ran the bar where he used to work.

The one whom he was taking care of, and who directly caused so much of the torment that he carried so close to the surface of his psyche.

The one who gave him "humanity", as I had recently decided.

When he spoke again, he was fighting back tears.

"I need you to help her."

***

"You know I can't *heal* people, right?"

Mario's request to help his sister who was dying of cancer was so straightforward, that I wasn't sure whether he completely understood exactly how my new skill worked, despite him being the person on whom I had "practiced" the most ... to date ... and so I had to ask.

He seemed embarrassed for having shown a bit of weakness, and he hurriedly replied, "Yes I know that. Of course I know that. That's not what I meant."

He worked to gather his composure, purposefully not making any eye contact.

After clearing his throat, he continued.

"But you can do *something* for her. You take away other people's pain with just a touch. Surely you can do that with her."

I quickly countered. "Yeah, but you don't understand. It's not that simple, right?"

"It was pretty simple every time you did it to me."

I remembered that we had had a similar conversation before ... about Rodney.

"It's just like with Rodney. I just can't walk up to someone and grab them and get all their emotions transferred from them to me. At a minimum, I have to hear a story ... to be partially let in to their experience ... to directly witness something happening ... or to have them open up to me. I can't just do it blindly ... to strangers."

He bristled as I completed my thought.

"She's not a stranger." Then, with emphasis: "She's my *sister*!"

***

I needed to seize the moment ... and so I reached out and seized his forearm.

Startled, Mario looked up at me, and the transfer started.

I instantly felt everything he was battling ... the frustration of not being able to help his sister ... the despair that accompanied the helplessness he had to endure ... the rising anger -- directed at me -- for not being willing to step in and to attempt to use my abilities with her.

I held on tightly, not wanting him to break away until I had made my point.

I absorbed all of the negative energy that was so close to his surface.

And then I saw briefly into the expanse of sadness in his soul. I was perched on the precipice of a grand canyon of emptiness, and I started to doubt the extent of my skills. Still in that moment, I remembered the night at the bar from my *first* trip to Florida ... the night I ended up hospitalized because I had taken on too much in too short of a time with too many individuals.

That warning flashed in my mind ... partially because the feelings from Rodney just a few hours earlier were so severe and here I was, piling on ... but mostly because I was uncertain if I could recover from exposing myself to the depths of Mario's depression, especially in this setting.

So *I* was the one who let go first, breaking the contact before I went down a path from which I could not return.

True to form, I felt a little woozy. I grabbed a seat in this stranger's living room ... Mario's sister's living room ... and closed my eyes to recover.

In what was only slightly more than a whisper, I heard Mario say, "The problem with you is that you make me feel good ... but it's only temporary ... and you never offer solutions."

***

"Well, that was kind of my point."

I had hoped that my actions had convinced Mario that I had little to offer his dying sister.

He still wasn't saying anything, though, so I continued.

"Lookit. I can only begin to understand what you're dealing with ... what you're going through. And I mean that literally, because I feel your pain every time we make contact. But I can't do anything about physical suffering ... what happens with me and the people I touch is all mental and emotional."

Mario perked up.

"But that's *something*. You can't tell me that there isn't some emotional side of her day to day existence that you can't make her feel better about. At the very least, can't you do *that*?"

I didn't know what to do ... what to say ... so I said yes.

"Well, I guess I can try it. But don't forget that she doesn't know me like you know me ... and that she's liable to get a little freaked out. So you better ..."

I decided to change my tone slightly. "So I *highly recommend* that you explain the basics to her somehow."

"I'll do that," he affirmed.

He looked at me again so earnestly, pleading with me with every ounce of his being.

"I have to do *something* to help her. I *owe* her that much."

***

We said nothing else and walked around the corner of the living room into his sister's bedroom.

The sunlight was streaming in from the side window, and I was stunned at first by the bright light.

To continue the theme, I was stunned "at second" by the warmth that filled the space.

True, this was Florida, and the rumor was that it rarely experienced much of any kind of a swing in seasons ... and my two trips there had proven that to be accurate ... but this room was cozy and inviting and comforting and ... warm.

Maybe it was the effect of the sun ... or maybe it was the way the room was set up, with bright colors and comfy cushions and plumped up pillows.

The pillows. They were everywhere. On the chairs, on the floor, on the bed.

And there in the midst of all the brightness and softness was Mario's sister.

It was such a contrast ... not of her to the warmth, because she was dressed in bright yellow sweats and seemed to blend right in to her surroundings ... but of her to Mario.

Mario, though admittedly not as big as the beast known as Rodney, was a tall, broad-shouldered, imposing person in his own right who commanded your attention with his presence ... characteristics that served him well behind the bar.

His sister was a tiny wisp of a creature, not even at first visible when you stepped into the room.

She reclined on her bed, her back propped up with even more pillows, and she greeted me with the smallest of a hand movement of a wave.

"Who's your friend?" she whispered in a tiny voice that matched her tiny body.

Mario whispered back to her.

"He's someone I brought along to help you."

***

I don't know what I was hoping for.

It's not like I traveled with my own announcer to handle my introductions.

But I DO know that I thought Mario would give his sister a little more information about me and what I could do.

He grabbed my arm and moved it toward hers, which I took as my signal that there would be no warm up act.

I looked at him and shrugged my shoulders as best as I could with one arm being controlled by another, but he just forcefully nodded his head to tell me to continue without any further ado.

Her skin was warm to the touch, and I surmised that she had been luxuriating in the sun since it had come up and shined in her windows on her sickbed. But there was no reaction to my touch.

Mario put his head close to my ear.

"What's wrong? Why isn't it working?" he whispered.

"I told you. She has to look at me. We have to make eye contact. It's the only way to start things."

Mario spoke gently to his sister, who had already closed her eyes in rest after we had entered the room.

"Hey. Sis. This guy ..."

His voice trailed off, and he used his hold on my arm to shake it, which then shook hers, as I was still holding on to her.

She opened her eyes, focused on me, and asked, "Are you a doctor? You don't look like a doctor."

As much as I thought I was ready, two things happened at the exact same time for which I was most certainly UNprepared.

***

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mario suddenly fall to the floor.

But I couldn't do anything about it, because the other thing that happened for which I was unprepared was what happened between his sister and I.

Unlike every other time I experienced a transfer of painful memories when I came into contact with someone, this wasn't about specific things that had happened that I was reliving through a special connection to the other person's consciousness.

It wasn't people and places in settings, whether known or unknown to me, as before.

What happened immediately was that I felt that same warmth that I had experienced upon walking into the bedroom ... but I felt it on the inside, slowly heating up all of my internal systems. Like a swig of hot chocolate on a cold winter day, or a shot of brandy in the evening after dinner, it started in my chest ... but the heat soon radiated to my extremities.

Wearing Mario's sweatsuit suddenly became very appropriate attire, as I felt sweat beading on my forehead, and trickling down my neckline, and soaking the clothing I was wearing.

It wasn't a painful burning heat ... it was warm and toasty and, quite honestly, it was lulling me to sleep. A warm hug ... the sun cradling me in its arms ... I basked in the glow.

In *my* glow.

Then, the room swayed. Or I swayed. Maybe I was so comfortable that I was struggling to stand up, and my knees were falling asleep before the rest of my body.

Shapes started shifting all around me and I began to struggle to remember what was where. Before I ended up completely lost in the moment and totally unaware of my surroundings, I stepped toward the bed and carefully sat on it.

Feeling safe, I gave in to the lack of focus that was overtaking me.

Then the colors. The pretty colors. So many ... so bright ... so prevalent. I was certain I was seeing colors that I didn't know existed.

I was content to sit still and enjoy the sights for as long as I could ... forever, if at all possible.

Such beautiful colors ...

***

CHAPTER 22

Oh the pretty pretty colors.

I was content to simply marvel at them, because, the truth was, I had never before noticed that the air itself was multi-colored.

The rest of the bedroom faded away behind the chartreuses and aubergines and saffrons -- sparkling and sheening in ever-changing hues as they floated past.

Sure, I was cognizant of the fact that there was bedroom furniture ... and walls and windows behind that ... with a sun shining through that must have activated all of the air-colors with which I was fascinated. But those things didn't matter. "Those things" were the background ... although I did notice that "those things" seemed to be vibrating beyond their shapes. like everything had a life force that I had never before noticed.

And the warmth. So toasty.

I had no idea if I had been swaddled as a little one ... back before I had been given up by my biological father, who had been a single parent since the birth of me and my twin had killed her ... but I imagined that *this* feeling must be the same as that which makes little babies so content.

I was so comfortable laying there on the bed next to Mario's sister that I didn't want it to end. In the back of my mind, I knew that I needed to keep a hold of her arm in order to continue these feelings.

I heard her voice, but it didn't originate from where I would have expected.

The voice was *inside* my head.

"WHY are you?" she asked.

***

"Alan."

That was my reply. Not that that meant anything to her.

Furthermore, it wasn't the question that Mario's sister had asked while I was in my haze.

"No. WHY are you?"

I didn't understand. I didn't know how to answer.

"Why am I *what*?"

Her response to that question of mine in reply made me start to feel a little bit like Abbott and Costello.

"That's right. I want to know *why* you are."

The conversation was as trippy as the ongoing onslaught of pretty colors and extreme warmth. I thought I'd try a factual approach.

"I am ... because of your brother. He brought me here. For you. To help."

At that point, I had no idea whether I was saying words out loud, or if this conversation was only happening within my head. After all, that's where I had heard her voice in the first place ... disembodied and floating within my consciousness, passing by almost as if it were just another warm color.


I *also* had no idea that Mario, who had collapsed on the floor at the same moment my connection with his sister had started, was lying there ... and that he was no longer breathing.

***

"WHY are you?"

Again with the same question that I couldn't comprehend. But I tried my best to answer.

"I'm ... I'm here to help you deal with your hurt. I have a gift. I can do that for people."

Mario's sister's voice continued the interrogation with a single repeated word.

"WHY?"

I finally realized why I was having such a hard time responding. Since discovering my new skill, I had been focused so much on *what* it represented ... the rules in how it could be used ... the way that I could execute my ability.

I had never really stopped to consider *why* I could take away people's pain with a touch. Was it a higher purpose? A calling? Or just a fluke?

I couldn't answer the question of *why* I was ... because ... I didn't have any idea *why* I was the way that I was.

I accepted my ignorance as truth, and didn't try to talk any more. I allowed myself to be mesmerized by the kaleidoscope of color free-floating in the air around Mario's sister sickbed, and I felt a contentment -- no doubt a sense heightened by all the comfy coziness of the glow of the heat that was also present -- a contentment accompanied by an understanding that now was not the time for me to know why.

Everything in good time.

Patience would have to become my virtue.


Then she coughed, and the world which I had entered into turned upside down.

***

It was all a facade.

Admittedly, a well-constructed facade.

But a facade all the same.

It was only when Mario's sister started coughing that my eyes were truly opened.

The pretty colors ... the comfy toastiness ... the feeling of wanting to stay in that environment for forever ... it was all masking the reality of the situation.

And when she coughed, I could see behind the curtain. The bright colors quickly faded and fell to the ground from where they had been hanging in the air. The toastiness was replaced with a chill that seemed to originate deep in the marrow of the bone.

Most importantly for me and what I could do, her coughing broke me out of my spell, and I turned to look at her in her eyes ... which kick-started the absorption of her emotions.

Because she hadn't shared any details with me, I didn't relive any specific memories of hers, but I quickly felt the deep seated sense of fear that permeated her existence, understandably so, what with her battle against cancer.

The coughing fit didn't last forever, though, and the colors and warmth returned as soon as she was finished.

However, that interruption was enough for me to figure out what was happening.

Mario's sister was so heavily medicated for pain, that I was picking up the drug haze as the predominant feeling, obfuscating the real issues underneath. The severity of her coughing fit must have served to interrupt the brain waves enough for me to pierce the drug veil.

I continued the eye contact, and also confirmed that her voice was disembodied as I had suspected.

"Hello", she said, without moving her lips.

"Hello."


Slightly louder and more emphatic for the third time ... "Hello!"

***

"Hello?"

The *fourth* time I heard it, I realized that it was more of a question.

I also realized that it sounded differently than the other questions Mario's sister was asking me in the midst of our time connected together "at the touch" as we were.

There was something new about the "hello"s ... and yet, at the same time, something oddly familiar in a throwback kind of way.

They felt so right in the surroundings ... the sickbed setting ... but they seemed like they were *my* memories, hazy as they were through the pretty color haze that had returned to my view.

"Is anyone in here?"

Again, Mario's sisters lips didn't move.

"Hello?"

"Hellooooo?"

"HELLO?!"

Then, in quick succession, a "what are YOU doing here?", a yank on my arm to break the hold I had on his sister, and a quick crash from the medicated fog I had experienced via my connection.

A face came into view ... a face I knew but didn't know ... a face from *my* past that was somehow here in *our* present.

A face that looked past me and saw Mario crumpled motionless on the floor next to the bed.

A face that conveyed panic as she screamed, "oh my God ... what did you do to him?!"

***

The energy in the room turned on the proverbial dime.

I shook off the haze, and put the pieces together as quickly as I could.

Piece one was Mario's sister, still reclining peacefully on her bed, the coughing fit now a part of her immediate past.

Piece two was Mario himself, who was indeed in a pile on the floor on the side of the room.

Piece three was the new woman in the bedroom ... the one who had broken the connection I was having and the one who was now at Mario's side, investigating his condition.

Piece four was me ... and I was standing there trying to figure out how it was I knew this new woman.

This new woman who was screaming at me.

"What happened?"

I answered honestly.

"I don't know. I didn't realize he had collapsed."

She went right into professional mode, and started the chest compressions that accompanied CPR efforts.

"He's not breathing," she said, under her own breath, so as not to alarm his sister. Then she turned to glare at me.


"You guys weren't crazy drinking like last time, were you?"

***

Crazy drinking like last time.

That's what she said.

Last time. *Last* time. LAST time.

The LAST time I was crazy drinking would have been the LAST time I was in town ... on my own accord ... on the spring break trip. There was the night when I got to town early -- which was when I first met Mario ... and angry texter (whom I now knew to be Albert) ... but I didn't remember anyone else from that night out drinking to excess.

Plus there was the night of the closing party, when everyone went out drinking. I did have a lot that night, and I did meet a few extra people ... like Mario's boss who had put him on probation (whom I now knew to be Mria) ... but I didn't remember this woman from those shenanigans. Of course, that night didn't really end so well, what with me going to the hospital from memory-absorption overload.

Crouched down as she was over Mario administering CPR, it was the first time I noticed the clothes she was wearing ... the scrubs.

Which, of course, is how I put it *all* together.

How this woman was likely Mario's sister's in home-nurse ... and how she was indeed from my past.

"Rochelle."

I couldn't help but say her name out loud.

Rochelle, my nurse from that hospital stay ... the one whom Joey was ... let's say "dating" ... when he picked me up and drove me back to college.


Rochelle, who knew me as the kid from up north who nearly did himself in from partying too hard during the most recent spring break.

***

I needed to act quickly ... and, in the end, to act contrary to my first thought, which was that my condition of being here against my will could be resolved now that someone recognized me.

"Rochelle. You can't tell anyone here that you know me."

She was too engrossed in her task of trying to revive Mario to stop the CPR, but she still managed to engage in a quick back and forth with me.

"That is the farthest thing from my mind," she hissed.

"I know. I get it. But still, you don't understand the circumstances. I'm here for a very specific purpose. And you can't blow my cover."

She didn't affirm whether she would or she wouldn't.

I tried good manners.

"Please," I implored.

"Sure. Whatever."

Her reply was short, because Mario's listless body started moving. She did her best to sit him up, but he was too heavy for her.

"Come help me!"

I did as she asked, hoping that would impress upon her that she should do as I had asked of her.


Golden rule and all.

***

"What the hell?"

Mario was indeed breathing again, and he was looking at the both of us, seeing as how we were right there having helped him to sit up.

Rochelle wouldn't have known the reason, but I was extra careful to make sure that I propped him up by grabbing on to the back of his shirt, to make sure that he and I didn't accidentally connect by touch in such a way that would initiate a memory transfer in front of her.

Rochelle was first to reply.

"I got here to check on your sister, and I found you collapsed on the floor. Have you fainted before? Are you not feeling well?"

Mario answered. "I'm fine. I mean ... except for what just happened."

He turned to me for assistance, but I felt somewhat hesitant to provide any information so as not to disclose my skill to Rochelle. Plus I didn't have any details to offer. The last thing I knew, he had grabbed my arm at the same time that I had touched his sister's arm.

Luckily for me, there wasn't a literal light bulb going off above my head at that moment to prompt further discussion.

Because it did suddenly strike me that perhaps what had struck down Mario was the fact that he was connected to me at the time I made a connection. I didn't know everything about what I could do, but it seemed somewhat logical that there would be an energy transfer of some kind. And, with him part of the "transaction", so to speak, the extra energy must had served to electrocute him. Kind of.

I just shook my head and muttered, "We can talk later".

Mario nodded knowingly, and turned back to Rochelle.


"So ... I guess you met my co-worker Alan?"

***

It was my moment of truth.

Which, ironically, was kind of my moment of *untruth*.

Rochelle looked me in the eye before replying.

"Not really. He was just in here when I arrived to take care of your sister."

I nodded my agreement ... and my approval for what she had done, as she extended her hand.

"My name is Rochelle. I'm his sister's nurse. And you are?"

Now was NOT the time for me to make contact with her. As I tried to think of something quick to do with my hands so I didn't have to complete the handshake, Mario bailed me out. It turned out that he also knew that now was NOT the time for me to make contact with her.

He leaned farther forward, and grabbed at his chest.

"Owww," he moaned.

She turned her attention back to him.

"You should get yourself checked out, though. Right away. On the way home even. You are too young to be having this kind of episode."

Mario took a moment to weigh his options, before agreeing. Kind of.

"Yeah ... we should get going. I don't want to interfere with your work here."

He got up and went over and kissed his sister gently on the forehead.

"I'll be back."

Then he did what he always seemed to be doing. He gestured to me, and said, "let's go!"

***

We made it all the way to the front door of Mario's sister's house before Rochelle called out.

"Wait. Mario. Hold up."

Mario looked back over his shoulder, past me and at Rochelle.

She continued, "I have a message from the agency for you."

Mario pointed to me.

"Hey ... you can go wait in the jeep."

I passed him, but stopped outside on the front porch ... because, you know, I don't always follow directions. Since there was a screen door, I could still hear the conversation happening inside.

First, Rochelle. "I'm sorry to have to say this. But I don't have any choice in the matter."

Then, Mario. "No no. I know what's coming. I know it's not personal."

"I can only do two more visits, and then they won't pay me for my work. Unless ..."

Her voice trailed off.

"Unless what?" he asked.

I couldn't see in the room ... but I could recognize a hemming and a hawing when I heard one.

"Uh. Well. Unless. Unless you take care of the balance owed."


Mario stated sharply, "Of course. I get it. I'm working on something. I promise. Just a few more days ..."

***

I was going to have to practice my eavesdropping skills, because Mario strode out of the house before I could move off of the porch.

He cocked his head and looked at me quizzically.

Although I wasn't the best eavesdropper, I was, at least, quick on my feet.

"The jeep was locked. I couldn't get in, so I was coming back to get you."

I was getting a little *too* good at lying.

Mario didn't bother to challenge me ... or to inquire as to how much of the conversation I had just heard about his overdue bills for the in-home nurse for his sister. He just went to his jeep, unlocked the doors -- meaning my gamble had paid off with the excuse I used -- and climbed in. He pushed the button to roll down the window, and leaned over.

"You getting in? Or are you gonna walk?"

I did NOT want to walk. So I got in.

For the first few blocks, he was his usual silent self -- which was fine with me.

But eventually he broke the silence. Without turning to look at me, he said, "Do you want to tell me what happened in there?"

I could have told the truth and said no. But, as it was, I was getting a little *too* good at lying, so I decided to proceed.

Not to proceed with more lies, though ... but to explain what I thought I knew about what had happened with our interactions, to the best of my ability to describe the truth about *that*.

***

"Truth, huh? Well ... truth is a funny thing."

I know. I know. I could have gone full Nicholson with a reply about the truth ... or, more accurately, full Sorkin ... except I was perceptive enough to recognize that Mario wouldn't have been in the mood for me to impersonate a famous line from a movie.

My read of the situation was confirmed with Mario's two word droll reply ... "Funny, huh?"

"I just mean that I'm not completely sure myself of everything that went down."

I was pushing him to his limits with my vague attempts at being evasive.

My first clue was how his grip tightened on the steering wheel. I could see his forearm flex every few seconds as he drove.

The second clue was how, in a very measured monotone, with his face forward, he quietly said, "just tell me if you think you helped her".

I didn't know how to articulate the complexity of what had transpired.

I sighed, in hopes that that sound would convey some of my message.

"I'm sorry, but I don't think so. I got into her mind space, but she was so heavily medicated, that I got sucked into experiencing her high and didn't really pick up on anything that I could take away from her."

I kind of surprised myself. I found the words after all.

The hardest question to answer came next.

"So do you think she's not in pain?"

***

"Mario ... I wish I could tell you what you want to hear. But I simply don't know for sure. I know that *I* didn't pick up on anything right on the surface ... but the drugs were *so* strong."

He said nothing in response, so I continued.

"Which, I guess has to be a good thing. They're working like they're supposed to."

I saw absolutely no reason to tell him that I glimpsed a bit of her fear ... if only briefly ... during her coughing fit. He seemed drained of the whole experience. Maybe it was the all-night party, or perhaps it was the news I had given him of Rodney's past, or likely it was the sum total weight he carried on his broad shoulders, magnified by his sister's condition.

Still no response from Mario, so I offered one other reminder.

"And don't forget I can't do anything with physical pain. I have no way of evaluating that when I come into contact with someone."

Not a nod ... not a sigh ... not a sound. He just stared straight ahead and drove his battered jeep through the town.

I was normally okay with awkward silence. It was usually oddly comforting. But on this drive, I found it unsettling.

I briefly considered reaching over to grab his arm to relieve him of his doubts and fears, and to provide some kind of comfort that I couldn't with my words. But then I had second thoughts, as the last thing I wanted or needed was for him to get distracted in some form and fashion and crash his jeep a second time within just a few hours.

Besides, there was that thing that happened in his sister's bedroom ... where he had collapsed to the ground when he had a hold of me at the same time I had connected with his sister. I had a theory that he had been shocked by some kind of energy transfer amongst the three of us ... but maybe I had a limited number of times when I could ply my special trade with the same person.

Maybe I was like a genie with only a few wishes ... and he and I had run out of opportunities to interact in that way.

So I kept my hands to myself and tried to embrace the silence once again.

***

Home. Sweet. Home.

I never quite understood the phrase -- probably because of my past in and out of foster homes.

Sure, by the time I was nearly finished with school, I had my little apartment in my little college town. The same one from which I had been kidnapped. The same one in which my little puppy dog had been spending the last few days with a dogsitter.

But even that was just a place to sleep and a place to be in between other commitments.

I didn't have a working concept for "home" beyond my place of domicile.

As we pulled up to the back alley behind the bar, I didn't feel like it was some grand return to any place special ... but it was the location where I had a cot to call my own.

Despite being locked in, and having to rely on my captors for food and drink and activities to pass the time, it was the closest thing I had to a home, sweet, home under my current circumstances.

So yeah ... I didn't have any warm feelings of security and comfort when he led me down the back stairs, and through the storage room and into my space ... but I will admit that my cot looked inviting, oddly enough.

I chalked that up to the events of the night ... having not gotten a full sleep in the first place, then the crash, and then choosing to go to the party after all, and then eavesdropping and learning about Rodney's past, and then the digression to his sister's place ... I knew that I would be content to just curl up on my cot and sleep the day away.

Before Mario closed the door to lock me in, he broke his silence to let me know one thing.

"Hey ... I'm going to need those sweats back."

The sweats of his ... that included, in its pocket, the phone of his ... that I had taken from him at the crash site.

***

I froze.

He didn't really expect me to disrobe right then -- in front of him.

Did he?

For a minute, I thought maybe he had a new skill of his own ... that of reading my mind ... because he made a face and said, "Not now. I'll get them next time I'm here. I just don't want you to sleep in my clothes. So change back into yours , won't you? *After* I leave."

And leave he did.

It had seemed like forever since I had heard the familiar sounds of the lock and the chain being drawn to secure me into my room in the bar's basement ... and the scrape of the liquor boxes being moved across the floor to block the door from any prying eyes.

I wanted to sleep ... which means I needed to get out of his sweats.

Since I had his phone, though, I decided to head into the bathroom closet space, where I was pretty sure I was hidden from the view of anyone that may have been watching through the camera that was still hooked up in the corner of my "cell".

I grabbed the clothes I was wearing when I was kidnapped, and regretted that my captors hadn't set me up with a small washer/dryer unit for my time being locked away.

Safely in the corner of the janitor's closet that was my temporary bathroom, I took off Mario's sweatshirt that I had borrowed. I reached in to the pocket of the pants to take out his phone ... and I was pleasantly surprised by what I found there.

***

There ... in the pocket of Mario's sweats that I was wearing ... was the flyer I had grabbed on the way out of the front door of the bar earlier that morning.

In the excitement of dealing with Rodney at the after-party in the apartment complex, I had completely forgotten that I now had the actual address of the establishment where I was being kept prisoner.

Plus the phone. Mario's phone.

Hidden as I was in the janitor's closet bathroom attached to my "cell", I turned on *his* cell, and prepared to continue my texting campaign.

In light of everything I knew now, I still felt uncomfortable calling 911. And since the only number I could remember was my own (everything else I regularly called was programmed into *my* phone, which I had left charging on the counter of my apartment back home the night I was kidnapped), I was hoping that all of the texts I had sent at the crash site would somehow be seen by my dog sitter Mattie.

I had previously explained that I had been taken ... and provided the names of my captors ... and asked that the cops not be called ... and that help be provided. I had also explained that I was using a stolen phone. And I had deleted everything I had sent.

Now I could finally put the last piece of the puzzle out into the universe in hopes that it would be seen -- my exact location.

Once the phone finished loading, I thanked Mario again (in my head, anyway) for not having a password protected screen ... and I started to navigate to the text message icon.

I was shocked to see the number of unread messages awaiting Mario. I was more shocked to see exactly what they were.

***

At first glance, I thought the dozens of text messages on Mario's phone was someone back home replying to the messages I had sent about my predicament.

Which, of course, would have been problematic seeing as how I had specifically said in my texts that the phone I was using was borrowed and that no one was to reply. I thought I was smart to have deleted them, and to have considered how someone might blow my cover were they to reply after Mario had regained possession of his phone.

And by "they", I really mean "him", seeing as how my only hope was that Mattie, my dogsitter, would somehow see my messages AND would somehow come up with a plan within the restrictions I had provided.

Turns out, though, it wasn't someone from home.

There were a few texts from someone in the phone listed as Komodo Dragon.

It didn't take long to figure out that was apparently a nickname for his girlfriend Mria ... although it would take many months for me to learn *why* that was her nickname. I could see multiple attempts from her to reach out to him to determine why he was late to the party ... and then again a few texts when she was trying to help him find his "missing" phone (that I had in my possession the whole time).

Those made sense.

What caught me by complete surprise were the ones that were accompanied by photos ... of our crash scene from three in the morning.

Picture after picture of the damage done to his jeep ... and photos of the car he had rammed.

And then, the spookiest part ... shots of him unconscious in the car ... and of me next to him in the passenger seat.

Viewing them reminded me that, after the accident, I had come to to the sound of girls giggling and the snap of photos being taken ... right before that car had driven off.

It was the *last* text in the series that made me realize what was really happening.

***

It was blackmail ... pure and simple. Or, black-"text", to modernize the concept to take into account the delivery channel.

"We know what u did"

In between each text photo of the accident site, was an actual text text ... with words.

"We know who u are"

I hadn't consider how much of the blackmail relationship was about power over the person being blackmailed.

"If you want to keep us from going to the cops, u will have to pay $2500"

So *that* was the going rate for surreptitiously taken photographs of someone kind of committing a crime here in Florida.

"We will be contacting u shortly with instructions for how to get the money to us"

Such a strange turn of events ...

"Take care xoxo kthnxbye"

... followed by a string of emojis that I simply didn't understand.

If nothing else, though, those little images affirmed my memories of *girls giggling* as I was coming to at the crash site.

Female blackmailers. So cutesy, I almost couldn't stand it.

***

I kept on returning to the photo in the text message of the crash site that showed the both of us ... Mario slumped over and me leaning against the window, head bloodied, still showing the wounds from my previous beating at the hands of Albert.

It was surreal ... seeing a picture of me in a moment when I wasn't conscious enough to actually be aware of it at the time.

Staring at the image, I began to reconsider the message of the blackmailers/black-texters.

Maybe when they said they knew "what he had done" they weren't referencing the car crash that eventually turned into a hit and two runs (seeing as how both cars fled the scene -- the "other" car first) ... but instead maybe, just maybe, they knew about my situation.

Maybe they were demanding $2500 to keep it secret that I had been taken across state lines ... actually, SIX state lines ... against my will.

Could someone know about me and my situation? But, if so, whom? Or was I just on the wrong track completely?

I inspected the image again, and that's when I noticed, in the reflection of the window, that I could see shadows.

If I could blow it up, I just might be able to answer some of the questions I had.

Before I could act, though, the phone started ringing.

I nearly dropped it in the toilet out of surprise.

***

If only quick reflexes were my superpower instead of my ability to take away someone's emotional pain with just a touch.

Then maybe I would have had an easier time trying to recover from dropping Mario's phone when it rang.

Komodo Dragon was calling, whom I had deduced to be Mria from reviewing the texts of his that I had just read.

I knew that *she* knew that his phone had gone missing the night before ... *and* I knew that she *didn't* know that I was the one who had grabbed it at the scene of the crash. Of course, I also knew that she had gotten quite drunk at the party a few hours before, and so either she had forgotten what she had learned and was just calling out of habit ... or she was actively trying to help locate the missing item now that it was the morning after.

Luckily, the phone did not fall into the toilet ... but it did clatter down next to it on the hard concrete floor. I knew before I picked it up that there would be damage.

And sure enough ... the screen was cracked.

I had never figured out for sure if the camera in the other room included audio or was just video, but I knew that I needed to hurry and complete my task in case someone was watching the amount of time I was spending in the bathroom/janitor closet in my "cell".

I sent another text to myself ... or, rather, to my cell phone that was on the counter back at home ... and reiterated my conditional call for help, including the exact address of the bar in whose basement I was being held, which I pulled from the flyer I had taken on the way out the front door on the way to that party.

Then I deleted the texts, turned off the phone and stashed it on the floor behind the sink.

My conversion to hardcore criminal was complete -- I was know hiding illicit contraband.

***

There is little so immediate as the crash that follows hours of running on pure adrenaline.

Walking out of the janitor's closet/bathroom, back in my original clothes, I felt that sense of exhaustion as soon as I stepped into the main room, with my cot in view.

Here it was only my fourth day of captivity, and that cot was calling to me as if it were the most comfortable hotel bed in the fanciest establishment which I could only imagine.

Except there was one problem ... the mid-morning sun was shining in so brightly that I feared I wouldn't be able to actually fall asleep.

I took the pillow case off of my pillow, and rolled it up, raising it before my eyes to test whether it would block the light.

And ... I was happy to discover that it did just that.

The safest bet would have been for me to have my sleeping pills ... or to be completely drunk ... especially coming off of the morning I had had interacting with both Rodney and Mario's sister. I knew that it was risky in that I might be visited by the ghosts of the memories as soon as my subconscious came out to play.

But exhaustion had been my friend in that kind of scenario before ... and I felt like I could count on it to help me again.

So I climbed into my cot, and did my best to make my mind go blank, closing my eyes to the bright light with the assistance of the pillow case.

I was asleep within minutes. Sound, sound sleep.

***

CHAPTER 23

It was *that* kind of sleep.

That kind when you wake up once, but for the sole purpose of rolling over to get to a slightly more comfortable position.

And then more sound slumber.

I had every reason to be thankful for the exhaustion that was clearly in my system, because it kept the "andantes" at bay, and I wasn't being chased by the ghosts of the memories of others while I rested.

Luckily, my time in college was so recent that I had no guilt about sleeping through the day.

It was just as if I was back in school recovering from an all-nighter in preparation for an early morning exam.

Not that I necessarily endorse that studying strategy ... but also not like I didn't do it time and time again, despite knowing the somewhat diminished returns.

But that's exactly what I was reminded of when I finally did stir again ... at dusk.

I had one goal ... to eat something.

I stumbled over to the mini-fridge and dug through my rations to make a mini-feast.

And then ... just like in my old school days, I seriously considered taking another nap.

Except I remembered that I actually had a *second* goal.

***

I had to get rid of the cellphone.

The longer I kept it hidden in the janitor's closet/bathroom adjacent to my cell, the more risk I was taking of it being discovered and of me burning through whatever good will I might have built up with Mario.

After all, my end game was still the same ... help out in the heist of the drug money from Papa Kalfu by using my special skill ... and then get the hell out of Dodge before Albert could claim me as his own for twisted party tricks by transferring me to the holding area he had built in his apartment that I had stumbled into by accident.

And by Dodge, I definitely meant southern Florida.

I had seen those conditions in Albert's apartment ... not much more than a sleeping bag in a closet ... and only a pot to piss in.  His plans for me there made my current situation look like a four star resort.

Besides, I had a puppy dog waiting for me at home, and although I had always prepared to be out of town for a fortnight due to my original travel plans -- hence the employment of Mattie the dog sitter back in Pennsylvania -- if I was away for any longer amount of time, I was going to go backwards in my efforts to bond with Gator.

Mria had promised me a one way bus ticket home ... and Albert had promised me that I would never get to use it.

Mario was my key to making sure that Mria had her way with me instead of Albert.

Which means, although his phone had potentially served its purpose, Mario could not know that I had taken it from him.

I had to get rid of the cellphone.

***

Had I fire, I could have burned it.

Had I lightning, I could have struck it.

Had I a driver, I could have clubbed it.

Had I a microwave, I could have nuked it.

Had I a sledgehammer, I could have smashed it.

Had I a blowtorch, I could have smoked it.

Had I water, I could have drowned it.

Oh, but wait ... I *did* have water.

I debated whether the easiest path to destruction of the phone that I had stolen from Mario was to flush it down the toilet.

Of course, as soon as I went down that path in my mind, I immediately began to second guess that as a viable option.

I could predict that the very next time I would have tried to use the facilities, they would have backed up ... and overflowed into my cell.  And, seeing as how I was being kept there surreptitiously, I doubted that they would have sent a plumber (in my hypothetical situation, anyway) ... and that I would have had to clean it all up.  OR one of them would have tried, and they would have fished the missing phone out of the commode.

In the end, I decided against the flush.

And then, just like that, my solution presented itself.

***

That was a little bit of a fib.

It wasn't so much that the solution to my problem presented itself right there and right then as a fully formed idea.

Instead, what *ended up* being the solution to my problem arrived.

I had a visitor ... but not of the human variety.

The kitty that I now knew to be named Jinx climbed her way down through the duct work from the grate in the alley into my janitor's closet/bathroom and announced her presence with a purr and a series of figure eights rubbing around my legs.

As much as I thought myself to be good company, I was smart enough to know that the warm greeting for me was just as likely to be her way of requesting me to share any of my rations with her than an uncontrollable desire of hers to make me feel like I was loved.

But I did feel loved ... and I did decide to see what I had in the mini-fridge.

I looked at the contents of what I had been given, and decided that neither milk nor catnip was included, so my best bet would be to share some of my lunch meat with her.

Sure enough ... my choice was a hit.  She scarfed down the pieces of chipped ham I held for her, trying to purr so hard while she ate that I was temporarily concerned that she might inhale some of the ham into her lungs instead of her stomach.

I scratched her behind the ears while she chowed down, rubbing my hand down to the neck under her collar, where I noticed a sand spur or two that had gotten stuck underneath it.

Very carefully, I picked them out of her fur.  She didn't flinch, so I assumed that they must have just been matted up there without puncturing the flesh.

And that's the exact moment that my idea started to form.

***

I had to be careful, knowing that I was on camera.

Of course, I could never know whether or not I was being watched at exactly what time, but better to be safe than sorry, I thought.

First things first ... I found Mario's sweatpants that I had been wearing, and pulled the drawstring all the way out of its spot along the top.

Second things second ... I had to wait.

Because my grand plan was to tie the cell phone securely to the collar of my little feline visitor, so she would carry it out with her when she returned to the alley and back to whatever life she led when she wasn't cuddling up with me and eating a good bit of my lunch meat rations.

Best case scenario ... the little boy who had been calling for her the last time would be surprised to find that his little kitty went out and signed up for cell service.

Worst case scenario ... my fastening attempts wouldn't hold, and the phone would fall off into the alley or somewhere beyond.

But either way, the phone would be out of my possession, and I would be in the clear without any way for Mario to trace the theft of the item back to me.

The challenge?

One can't exactly tell a cat what to do.

So for this scheme to work, I would have to wait until Jinx was ready to leave ... and then I would have to follow it into the bathroom and hold it down to tie on a cell phone.

I began to realize that my plan had a bit of a potential problem after all.

***

Now I just had to wait for the kitty.

Except Jinx was in no hurry to leave.

Belly full of her share of lunch meat rations, she headed toward the softest spot on the cot, and proceeded to make herself at home, settling in for a cat nap.

What else could I do?

I had to join her.

I watched her sleep, content and purring, just happy enough to have her basic needs met -- food, shelter, warmth.

Even if she had only met me once before, she was willing to trust that I was "good people".

Oddly enough, our previous one nap stand was turning into some kind of relationship.

I had to admit that I wasn't much of a "truster", and so I couldn't relate to her approach to life.  But maybe I could learn from it all the same.

Maybe I could just stop and rest and appreciate what I had -- food, shelter and warmth.  It didn't matter that I was basically a prisoner.  It didn't matter that I seemed to have so little control over my immediate future.  It didn't matter that I was being used by others for my special skill ... that I was only just getting to understand.

What mattered was just that moment ...

And *that* moment called for a human nap next to a cat nap.

***

I should have known better.

Taking a nap so soon after sleeping away most of the day was a recipe for inviting trouble.

The purr of the kitty next to me was hypnotic enough for me to doze off ... but I was a little too rested to keep the nightmares away.

It was only a matter of time before I was being summoned by one of them.

Jinx, the kitten visitor, poked at my face with her paw, and then, in a startling move, opened her mouth and started speaking to me.

"It's time for you to face the music."

Clearly the extreme amount of drugs that Mario's sister was on for her cancer treatment hadn't quite left *my* system ... or my psyche, as it were.

"Follow me."

She bounded down from the cot and headed toward the janitor closet/bathroom and disappeared into that space.

What could I do but follow?

"Wait for me!" I yelled and I rushed over just in time to see her tail disappear into the duct work.

"I can't fit in there!" I shouted to my new friend.

The echo of my voice made me think that the portal she used to get into the basement went on for miles.  Maybe all the way home to Pennsylvania.

In the distance, very very quietly, I heard her reply, "Just reach up to me.  I'll take care of the rest."

***

It was time for me to go through the looking glass with Jinx.

Or ... through the air duct, as were the circumstances.

I obeyed the voice of the kitten that was calling out to me, reached up over my head with both hands and found myself whooshed up through the same duct into which she had disappeared.

It didn't matter that the size of the duct was maybe as big as my arm ... I was shooting through the portal all the same.

Secretly, I kind of wished that Jinx had made me eat something to shrink, or choose between a red or a blue pill ... but I guess my nightmare wasn't going to be that sophisticated or have that much production value.

Other than a talking cat narrating my travels, of course.

I did not fall out into the alley, which is where my conscious mind *knew* that that duct work emptied out.

Instead, I found out the other end of the duct was a hallway ... and I was standing outside of a double set of wooden doors.

Jinx was nowhere to be seen.

I had to choose between navigating the rest of the hall ... or going through the doors.

I chose the doors.

But first, I noticed that my outfit had somehow switched back to Mario's sweats ... and the pants were without the drawstring (which I had back on the cot with my sleeping physical body) ... and were in danger of falling down around my knees.

"Great," I muttered to myself.  "It's going to be one of *those* kinds of dreams ... being in front of people pantsless."

***

I hiked up my sweats ... I mean *Mario's* sweats ... and opened up the double doors.

Jinx the cat had warned me I would be facing the music as a part of this dream ... and the scene of the "music" of which she was speaking was nothing other than a courtroom.

Yes, indeedy.  It appeared that I was going on trial.

I scanned the room, and the first thing I noticed was that Jinx was inside.  Thankfully, she wasn't seated on the bench ... or in the seats for the lawyers ... or the jury ... but was sprawled out in the sun shining through the courthouse window.

After guiding me here, it seemed that she was back to just being a cat again.

Funny how fickle dreams could be.

I felt the jury all staring at me, burning holes into my body as if to scorch my soul.  Of course, that sensation was nothing short of the height of irony, seeing as how each and every one of them was an Andante ... the name I had for the faceless mannequin-like beings that populated my nightmares ... remnants of the painful memories of others that I had downloaded -- faceless because they were characters in those stories whom I had never met directly.

I walked myself to the table in the front and sat down.

I debated whether I should ask for representation ... but I felt more than certain that trials during a dream state probably wouldn't follow criminal procedure.

A voice boomed out from the corner ... "All rise.  The honorable judge 'Alan's Mother' is presiding."

My mother.  My dead mother.  *She* was to be my judge.

***

"Alan ... you are being charged with not living up to your potential regarding the use of your powers.  How do you plead?"

My mother spoke from the bench with such authority.

Ultimately, it was a voice I did not recognize, as I had never met her, what with her having died giving birth to me and my twin brother ... a twin brother I had never met, what with him being given up to a different home by my father ... a father I had never met, what with him abandoning the two of us because he couldn't handle the responsibilities of being a single father.

Regardless, she and I were now meeting for the first time, courtesy of my dream.

"Innocent!"  I shouted in reply.

After all, had I decided to plead guilty, then the dream would have pretty much been over, and a waste of my time.

"Then let's get started and call the first witness.  Lee's grandfather, you may take the stand."

Lee's grandfather.

He was my first -- the older gentleman in the middle seat on the plane ride to Florida earlier in the spring when I had traveled to be a part of the hurricane clean up crew volunteer efforts.  The poor man who shared the horrific story about how his grandson had fallen and hit his head on the sidewalk at the school playground.

It was with him that I had first discovered I had a special skill.

***

Funny thing about dreams ... they don't take place in real time.

I don't know what had happened.  Had I zoned out of my own dream?  Was I starting to wake up such that I was withdrawing from the action happening around me?

It seemed like it had been a long time since I was put face to face with Lee's grandfather, aka the middle seat person from that turbulent plane ride to Florida that started me on my path to understanding I was different ... special.

Was I supposed to speak?

Or was he supposed to share his side of the story?

He was on the stand ... my dead mother whom I had never met was the judge ... Jinx the cat that had brought me here was still sprawled on the window sill in the courtroom.

I still had no representation ... but, then again, neither did the prosecution.

Maybe that explained the hold up.

You couldn't really have court without lawyers.

Could you?

I mean it was my dream ... so my rules.  I could shake things up and bring in Bugs Bunny if I wanted to.

Or turn it into a family reunion and have my father and twin brother play those roles.

Before this conscious part of my subconscious could finalize any plans, the back doors of the courtroom swung open ...

***

... and in strode the person I assumed to be the prosecutor.

In a mask, no less.

An elaborate black and white mask, topped with dark feathers of some kind.  It covered the whole face of the individual who had entered the courtroom, and all I could see was dark, dark eyes and a mouth with pursed lips.

I couldn't understand why this new character in my dream had to be masked.

It was MY dream.

What could I possibly be trying to hide ... from myself?

I thought maybe it would all become clearer when I heard the voice ... maybe if I was trying so hard to hide the visual identity, I could solve my own puzzle with an auditory clue.

There was no apology offered for the delay in the proceedings.  No explanation for why things had just been on hold until this person's arrival.

But there was a voice.

"Did he take away all of your pain?"

The masked one asked Lee's grandfather that question with no pretext.  Just a direct question.

And the voice was male.  But it wasn't a voice I recognized.

As such, we had nothing else to do but both wait for the answer.

***

"Funny you should ask."

Lee's grandfather, on the stand, continued.

"It was temporary at best.  For that brief moment when I was in physical contact with him on the plane, I felt better."

The masked one pressed him for more.  "And then?"

"And then.  And then I felt *guilty* for temporary not feeling the pain of having lost my grandchild.  And then the pain came back ... except this time it was worse because I knew that there was a way to be without it ... but that I would never be able to get there again."

There was a gasp in the courtroom.

Well, as much of a gasp as the andantes could make, what with them being faceless mannequins and all.

Lee's grandfather pointed directly at me.

"He made it worse!" he exclaimed.  "He thinks he's some healer ... with some special power ... HA!  He's a fraud."

The judge, my dead mom, banged her gavel on the bench in front of her.

"Order in the court.  Order."

The masked one spun around to look at me, even though he was speaking to her.

"I'm ready for the next witness, your honor."

***

"Albert ... also known as Angry Texter.  To the stand."

It was as I had guessed.

In my dream, those being called to testify against me were indeed the individuals on whom I had used my talents ... apparently in order.

"Albert!  Albert?  Where is Albert?"

The masked one didn't seem to have any patience ... which was ironic, as the "trial" had waited for his arrival to begin in the first place.

My dead mom, the judge, ruled.

"If he's not here, then we'll proceed without him."

The masked one countered.  "Respectfully.  I disagree.  You and I both know the true purpose of these proceedings, and we must have full and complete representation of the full spectrum of how Alan has caused unnecessary harm under the guise of healing."

With that, I finally had a better sense of the charges being levied against me.

By me.  Seeing as how it was all a figment of my imagination.

"I will summon Albert," boomed the voice of the masked one.

I decided to fight him on it, and, firmly planted in my special conscious parcel of my unconscious state, I willed Albert to not appear.

The masked one's dark eyes locked onto mine.

"Silly child.  You are no longer in control of this experience.  *You* are under MY spell."

***

Just like that, Albert materialized.

And just like that, I began to have a very uneasy feeling about my dream.

If it even was *my* dream any more.  I was beginning to have some serious doubts.

I mean I was aware enough to be in control of it ... just not aware enough to force myself to wake up.

Or so I thought.

But this masked one had just basically threatened me ... and I had no idea who this masked one was ... and I felt like this masked one knew something I didn't.

At a minimum, he knew how to make Albert/angry texter appear despite my attempts to will him away.

Speaking of which, the masked one began his questioning of Albert.

"And you have been on the receiving end of Alan's 'gift' more than once, haven't you?"

He said "gift" with derision.  He didn't think of what I did as a "gift".

I was not prepared for Albert's answer.

Through gritted teeth, Albert replied, "I need it.  I want it.  I've got to have it."

Once again, the masked one turned to face ... and glare ... at me, even though he was speaking to my dead mother judge.

"Let the record reflect that Alan has created an addict out of Albert."

***

"Mario ... you're up next."

The masked one was working right through the list ... which meant that Joey and Laura would be following in quick succession.

"Unless ..."

He walked right over to me now, and leaned down, resting his arms on the table.

He was close enough for me to see that he had black skin to match his black eyes.

"Unless ... you want to put an end to this."

I was seriously creeped out.  This was *my* dream ... yet it wasn't.  The masked one and I were interacting on some other plane of existence.  This was not just any other nightmare like I was used to experiencing as a side effect of my gift for absorbing the painful memories of others.

This was something different.

*He* was something different.

With a conspiratorial whisper, he said "All you have to do is explain how you fit into the plans ... and this trial can end .."

He snapped his fingers directly in front of my face.

"Just.  Like.  That."

The plans.  I repeated those words over and over again in my mind.

The plans.  The plans.

I was captivated by the feathers at the top of the mask.  I feared that I was being hypnotized as they swayed back and forth, in time to my internal chanting.

The plans.  The plans.

"Tell me what I want to know."

***

It was time to fight back.

I challenged him directly.  "Who are you?  And what are you doing in my head?  In my dream?"

The masked one didn't reply.

But Albert came down off the stand ... he *had* been dismissed after all, when Mario had been called to replace him ... and he stood by his side.

"Is there trouble, boss?" he asked.

To him, the masked one *did* respond, with a bit of a guttural growl.

"Nothing for you to worry about.  You're dismissed.  You may go.  You should go.  You will go."

It was time for me to do what grown men had been doing for years when faced with an insurmountable obstacle.

"Mom," I yelled.  "This guy's picking on me."

The judge, my deceased mother, didn't come to my rescue.  Looking around the imposing figure in front of me, I saw that she was gone.  That discovery prompted me to look all around, and it was then I noticed that even the andantes -- the faceless mannequin-like people from the painful memories of others I had taken on that haunted my thoughts -- were gone.

I couldn't really be sure that I was even in a courtroom any longer.

It was just me and the masked one, engaged in a stare down.

Even though this was all a dream, ostensibly, I thought that maybe I could make my skill work for me.

I reached out to grab a hold of the masked one, in hopes that I could figure out who he was and what it was that he was after.

***

"Silly boy.  You can't use your powers on me ..."

Although the masked one announced that to me, I did notice that he also stepped back and didn't let me grab a hold of his arm.

I thought to myself that perhaps he doth protest too much.

But it didn't matter.  He was out of reach, and we were still locked in a stare-down in the midst of what I had thought was my dream.

"I have other ways of finding out what I need to know."

I didn't respond.  I didn't want to engage.  It all felt like it was too much of a trap.

"Of course, I can't guarantee you that others won't get hurt in the process."

He continued with his threats, obviously trying a new tactic to get me to share information.

"If so, you'll have to carry that burden with you the rest of your life ... that you could have just shared the details with me and you stubbornly chose to stay silent."

Indeed, that is *exactly* what I was doing.

"Their pain will be on your head."

I almost chuckled.  Because, after all, I could take away their pain and have it live in my head anyways ... 'cause that's kind of what I did.

"Alternatively ... "

The masked one paused.  Perhaps for effect.  Perhaps because he intended to switch gears again.

"Alternatively ... you could just tell Papa Kalfu what he needs to know."

***

Papa Kalfu.

I'll be damned.

I knew that name ... because I knew that he was the local Haitian drug dealer who owned the bar where Mria worked ... *and* he was the one from whom the gang was preparing to steal some money that he was laundering through that establishment.

But the problem was that I *only* knew him as a name.  I hadn't met him.

As I understood the way that my mind worked out its issues, this Papa Kalfu should just be an andante, the faceless mannequin like creatures that populated my dreams ... and yet he had taken on a completely different form during this one.

Admittedly, he was "the masked one" in these interactions .. but still ... what was different about him?

And, for once and for all, was he really in control of all that happened in my subconscious since I laid down for a nap with Jinx the kitty?

I decided it was time to get all biblical.

"Get thee behind me Papa Kalfu!" I shouted, just as Jesus did when Satan was trying to tempt him.

For the second time in as many minutes, I had an "I'll be damned" response.

I saw Papa actually recoil.

So I continued.

"Get thee the hell out of my head."

I felt vindicated ... and he let out a shriek.

I had regained whatever control he had once had ...

***

No surprise ... the shriek I heard out of Papa Kalfu in my dream sounded nothing like what was actually happening outside of the dream.

In my dream, my ability to cast him out like he was a demon led to a sound akin to a wicked witch melting after being doused in water.

In reality, the actual noise was more like someone accidentally rolling over onto the tail of a kitty.

Because, in reality ... that's exactly what happened.

The yowl was enough to snap me out of the trance-like state I was in ... without ever learning whether I had put myself there or whether some other new psychological gameplay was afoot.

Jinx, the kitty with whom I had been napping/trancing jumped up and ran towards the janitor closet/bathroom to make a hasty departure.

Luckily, I was able to shut that door before she got in and up through the old air conditioning vent she was using to get in and out of this space from the alley behind the bar in whose basement I was imprisoned.

"Sorry.  Sorry.  Sorry.  I didn't mean to scare you ..."

I clucked and made soft hissing noises in an attempt to console the kitty.

Cornered as she was, she did not seem to take to my reconciliatory efforts, so I resorted to the one thing I knew would make us fast friends again.

I retreated to the mini-refrigerator and took out the last of my lunch meat.

"Here Jinxy.  Nice kitty.  Everything's going to be juuuust fine."

If only I sincerely believed that that announcement pertained to me and my situation as well ...

***

For a brief moment in time, everything *was* juuuuust right ... just as I had promised the kitty Jinx.

With her little belly refilled with the last of my lunch meat stash, she and I were friends again, so we headed to the janitor's closet/bathroom space, and she patiently let me tie Mario's cellphone around her neck, tucked into her collar.

Well, as patiently as a kitty getting a cellphone tied around her neck and tucked into her collar *could* be.

Luckily, my tying skills were on point, and as she bounded away and up through the old air conditioning system vent, I did not hear the clatter that a cellphone tied around a kitty's neck and tucked into her collar would make were it to fall off and come crashing down through an old air conditioning system vent.

Pleased with myself, I went back out to my cot in my cell and sat down, happy that my plan had worked.

And then I looked around at my conditions and played back the long long day that was finally coming to a close ... from waking up early after the bar closed to ride with Mario in his jeep to the after work party ... to the crash on the way to his place ... to eavesdropping on Rodney's story so that I could use my skills against him to get "dirt" that could be used to keep him in line ... to finding the converted closet in Albert's guest room where he planned to take me after the heist was over ... to meeting Mario's sister sick with cancer and being exposed to her drugged up hallucinations ... to the surprise of seeing nurse Rochelle again ... to using Mario's stolen cellphone to text my phone at home in hopes that dogsitter Matty would see it and take some kind of action ... to meeting Papa Kalfu within the construct of my own dream not knowing if he had done something to me or if I had made it all up ... to finally getting rid of the stolen cellphone via kitty messenger service.

That had ALL happened on my fifth day of captivity.  There was absolutely no way that I was going to be able to keep up that pace.

And there was absolutely no *wonder* that I needed as much rest as I could possibly get before whatever adventure was in store.

***

CHAPTER 24

I wish I had had alcohol.

Or pills. Sleeping pills.

Although, not both ... 'cause that's how celebrities die.

But either alcohol OR sleeping pills had both proven to be effective to keep away the nightmares, which were increasing the more and more people I touched and absorbed their painful memories.

Trapped in the cell on the night between the 5th and 6th day, I had access to neither one.

And since I had slept most of the day away after the marathon run of events on the morning of the 5th, I couldn't even count on exhaustion to help me keep the andantes away.

(Those andantes being the faceless mannequins that represented individuals in those horrific memories that I only knew second hand.)

The good news, if there was any, was that Papa Kalfu stayed away ... which means at least this time, the nightmares were of my own making, and weren't influenced by him in some magical mystical way that I had yet to figure out.

The bad news was that I slept quite fitfully, chased as I was throughout my attempts at slumber.

And the worst news was that, in these nightmares, I couldn't speak.

Literally, my lips were sewn shut. I couldn't defend myself ... or cry out for help ... or talk my way out of the scenarios playing over and over in my barely subconscious mind.

If I was going to be locked up here for much longer ... I was going to have to find some kind of relief ... some way ... some how ... or else I'd drive myself crazy.

***

The only thing that got me through that fitful night of sleeping/nightmaring was knowing that the sun was guaranteed to rise the next day ... the *sixth* day of my captivity.

I found myself drawing on the courage I used to summon back in my foster home days. One more rising sun always meant one more day survived under less than ideal circumstances.

And with southern Florida being the location where I was locked away, I could feel pretty good about knowing that it would indeed be sunny, as it was most days (not counting the occasional 3pm thunderstorm that I could also feel pretty good knowing *it* would happen as well).

It was all I could do to avoid bursting into a round of "the sun'll come out tomorrow ..." to distract myself from the thoughts from which I couldn't escape.

I pictured myself with curly red hair ... and Jinx the kitty by my side ... expressing my optimism that life goes on through song ...

Until the sun indeed shone through the little window up near the ceiling of my basement cell.

It wasn't long until I passed the 24 hour mark from when I had last been visited by a person.

Feeling overdue for someone to come and check on me, I decided it was the best use of my time to create another one of my now-patented list of "demands".

First on it ... more lunch meat. I had been sharing my rations with the kitty when she visited, and this being the sixth day, I needed a ration refill.

Second for the checklist ... sleeping pills or alcohol. I *had* to get some kind of crutch to ensure that I could sleep at night, or else I was headed for a breakdown.

I was locked up in the basement of a bar, for goodness sake ... *surely* they could spare a few six packs if I explained the reason.

That was it .. two reasonable requests. But it was no good unless someone came to visit me.

***

Except ... no one came to visit.

I tried to not take it personally, but after five full days of this and that and the other thing, and the absence of the ever so familiar sounds of the lock and chain on the door outside my room being drawn and the liquor boxes being scraped across the floor of the outer storage room into position blocking that door from prying eyes ... it was kind of hard to not feel slighted.

No Mario. No Mria. No Albert.

Even Jinx the cat stayed away despite the afternoon thunderstorm when it hit.

"Afternoon already,"I mused to myself. I had spent a whole half a day doing absolutely nothing but feeling sorry for myself.

I knew that I dare not take another nap.

So I sat there, waiting to hear the sounds up above that signaled life had begun again at the bar as it opened for the evening.

Sitting for such a long time with no distractions allowed an unfamiliar feeling to take hold.

I missed my puppy.

Luckily, I had had the dog-sitter arrangement since I was supposed to be in New Orleans on a two week investigation into my father's whereabouts, but the comfort in knowing that Gator was being watched wasn't enough to chase away the loneliness of not having him with me ...

... exacerbated as it was by the refusal of Jinx to stop by to visit.

I had to be very very careful ... or else on top of the breakdown from not being able to control my nightmares, I was going to find myself spiraling into the descent of depression.

I was on dangerous footing.

***

Nothing.

No one.

No-body.

To my current list of demands (more lunch meat AND alcohol or sleeping pills), I decided at that moment to add that I wanted a visitation plan.

Or a TV ... but that seemed a bit far-fetched.

To be honest, I think I already knew that I might have been pushing it to ask for the booze and pills.

"You are better than this," I said to myself.

After all, I had just graduated from college. I had only recently had to sit through boring lectures at school, and I found a way through *that* experience.

Of course, the difference in that scenario was that I had lots of distractions to view when a professor was droning on.

Here in my cell, I had little to look at.

I studied the back of my hand, so I could feel honest in case I ever was in a situation where I had to say that I knew something "like the back of my hand". I wanted to feel confident that, in a "back of a hand" line-up, I would know without a shadow of a doubt which one was mine.

That didn't take very long at all.

The next thing to catch my eye was the camera up in the corner. I still didn't know for certain whether it was being monitored *all* the time, but I decided to take a chance.

I stared directly into the eye of it and started making faces.

Maybe if someone saw me all contorted, they'd think I was having a stroke and rush down to check on me.

I had sunk to a new low.

***

"What's a guy got to do to get someone to come down here!" I yelled at the camera in the corner of my cell.

It turns out that the answer was NOT to yell "what's a guy got to do to get someone to come down here" at the camera in the corner of a cell.

Indeed, that got no response at all.

I heard the sounds of the bar employees moving about above me, so I knew now that I wasn't alone in the building. But seeing as how I could count on one hand the number of people that even knew I was down in the basement, that activity alone wasn't a guarantee that I'd be visited.

I also knew that that meant that although I felt like time was dragging on, it was already dinner time.

I scrounged up what was left of my rations, and feasted on more cheetos and soda ... the meal of champions.

After "dinner", I settled in to brainstorm any possible ideas to get attention. I had previously tried that trick of pounding on the ceiling ... but that had led to a beatdown courtesy of Albert, so I didn't want to try to fashion a pounding stick again.

I came up empty. I was a prisoner ... and I was beholden to the whims of my wardens.

Weary of the task, I felt my eyes growing heavy and my head starting to nod. I had told myself to avoid falling asleep at all costs, but it was a losing battle.

While I pondered, weak and weary ...

While I nodded, nearly napping ...

Suddenly there came a tapping ...

***

I don't know what it was about my incarceration in this basement storage room that made me think of Poe and his beloved Raven so much.

Perhaps it was because it was only a few days since *I* was the one doing the tapping ... the night I got beaten by Albert ... which was the last time that I had recalled the classic poem.

Or maybe it was just the solitude that was getting to me ... and the thought that I might not be rescued nor visited again ... nevermore.

But sure enough, there I was, his rhymes front and center in my brain for the second time during my captivity ...

EXCEPT this time, someone else was doing the tapping!

I froze, realizing that the tapping was coming from the window facing the back alley up near the ceiling of the storage room. In my six days of being locked in the space (not counting my field trip to the party), I had only seen one person through that window ... the little boy trying to find his cat, who had actually found her way to my space.

I wasn't exactly sure how to respond.

I had already determined that I couldn't reach the window to open it, and I realized I could scream and yell to whomever it was on the outside ...

But what if it was that boy again.

How would I explain the complicated situation to a child? And what would I have him do? Run into the bar and announce that someone was locked up in the basement?

I had to make a decision quickly, though, before this window of opportunity passed, so to speak.

***

For the life of me, I couldn't remember which came first ... the dot or the dash.

But luckily, I did remember that I had the flashlight that had been provided me when I reminded my captors that the bathroom/janitor's closet in the storage room where I was being held captive didn't have any lights in it.

With someone out in the alley, tapping at the window near the ceiling, and it being dusk, I decided that the action I'd take would be old school.

I grabbed the flashlight and turned it off and on repeatedly, three short bursts of light, three long bursts of light, three short bursts of light, three long bursts of lights, three short bursts of light, three long bursts of light.

I had no idea if I had just spelled SOSOSO or OSOSOS, but I put my faith in the fact that whomever was prowling in the alley behind the bar would be able to read between the lines ... or, read between the flashes, as it were.

Again, I repeated the SOSOSO or OSOSOS refrain.

And a third time ... the same thing.

Then -- the tapping on the window stopped, just as abruptly as it had started.

I waited for whatever was going to come next.

Would someone break the window? Send the police?

Or were my flashes of light for naught?

Would my SOSOSO ... or OSOSOS ... be heeded?

***

I didn't have to wait long at all for a response to my flashlight attempts at signalling to the alleygoer.

Within ten minutes, I could hear the scrape of the boxes and knew that someone who knew that I was locked in here was about to visit me.

Of course, it could have been a coincidence.

But it wasn't.

It was Mario, likely fresh for his shift at work.

And he wasn't happy.

"Give my your damn flashlight."

Not a "hello ... how are you ... how's it going" ... just a demand to turn over what he had just recently given me ... accompanied by a look of disappointment and a touch of anger.

"I trusted you. Now you'll have to piss in the dark."

Of all the people who might have been in that alley at that moment, it had to be Mario.

Everything that I had worked toward to build up our relationship was crumbling at that very moment.

But, true to the saying "when it rains, it pours", it was about to get worse.

Much worse.

***

"So how long have you been doing this?"

Mario towered over me, jaw clenched in anger.

"I thought you and I had a deal."

Like a child caught in the act, I found myself deciding that it might go better for me if I pretended all of his questions were rhetorical in nature.

"All you have to do is wait two more days. That's it. Two more days. And then we can use your little mind trick to get the safe combination that we need ... and then ... boom ... you are on a bus headed back home and this whole thing is over. TWO DAYS!"

He punctuated that last bit by shaking his fists in my direction.

"Do you *think* you can *behave* yourself for two days? Is that *too* much to ask?"

Once again, I instinctively reverted to childhood strategies.

"I'm sorry," I said as I looked up at him and passed him the flashlight. "It was an impulse."

"Yeah. Sure. *This* time."

He waved something other than his fists in front of my face.

And I recognized it. It was his cell phone.

"Look what I found by the back door in the alley!"

***

"My phone. My *missing* phone. Missing no more."

I attempted a poker face.

I didn't want to convey in any way that I knew how it got to the back alley, courtesy of my kitty courier Jinx ... because *that* would open up a discussion about how I had taken it from him at the crash site the morning of the accident on the way to the house party.

So I didn't respond.

"What I can't figure out is how it got back there. Especially seeing as how I last had it at work before you and I went to the party ... and seeing as how we left the building after closing out the FRONT door!"

I had nothing to add ... and I wasn't in a situation where I could plead the fifth, since that would just clue him in to the fact that I did know more about what was, to him, a mystery.

He was on a roll.

"So yes, that was *me* that was tapping at your window ... because I had to know for sure that it was closed and that *you* didn't have my phone the whole time it was gone."

Again, I saw no benefit to informing him that I did have it. If he felt satisfied from his inspection of the window that I couldn't possibly have opened it and thrown it out into the alley, then that would be a plus in my column.

"Which brings me back to your little flashlight trick. Because, not only was I surprised to FIND my phone ... but guess what I found ON it?"

I counted the seconds to see if he would continue or that I would be able to treat that last question as rhetorical as I had done some of the others.

By the time I got to the sixth second, I had more insight into his expectations.

"GUESS!" he yelled, a bit of spittle landing on my face.

***

"I don't know. How would *I* know what's on your phone?"

I feigned ignorance. Or was I feigning innocence?

Regardless, I was getting my "feigning" on.

"Oooooh really."

I was always a fan of instant feedback. I guess I needed to practice up on my "feigning" skills.

"So you're telling me that you have no idea why I'm getting messages from someone saying that they know what I did? And that they need $2500 to keep quiet about it?"

Ugh. I did know about that. But only because I had stolen his phone for that short period of time and had already seen the pictures and texts.

"Do you think I have an extra $2500 to piss away on guaranteeing that some stranger is going to keep my secrets?"

I did not reply.

"You met my sister. You get that we are robbing someone in order for me to pay for her treatment ... that we kidnapped you and brought you to help us ROB someone so that my sister can live a little bit longer. You understand that I don't have the funds to entertain whomever it is that YOU contacted somehow, some way ... "

His voice trailed off out of frustration and anger. But only for a second or two.

"AND ... they have pictures! Of us. Of you. At the crash site. That means they've been following me around ..." His voice trailed off again. I now knew that that was what happened when he couldn't deal with the magnitude of his conclusions.

When he started up again, it was quieter, which was worse -- because the anger from before had morphed into the pain and disappointment associated with betrayal.

"So you intend to sit there and tell me that you haven't been in contact with anyone?"

***

How to respond ... how to respond ...

The answer to his question was that I *did* reach out to someone. And that I even did it using his phone.

But it was also true that my outreach was not to anyone who was blackmailing ... or blacktexting ... him as it were.

I decided to take the politician's path and to try to thread the truth through a needle.

"Mario ... please believe me. I did NOT make contact with anyone here. I am not part of this blackmail scheme. I did that whole flashlight SOS thing because I heard you tapping ... and it was impulsive ... and reckless ... for me to do that. But I've never tried it before."

He didn't look like he was buying what I was selling.

"I have done nothing but try to be a good little prisoner ..."

I couldn't resist a little dig ... to kind of push my perspective a bit.

"Which, I'll remind you, is what I am. You said it yourself ... you guys *kidnapped* me. I am here against my will, and I've cooperated with you from the moment you grabbed me and put me in your creepy van for the ride down here. I've had a chance or two to run ... and I decided against it each time."

I was turning the tide ... or at least I hoped I was turning the tide.

"And that was all *before* I met your sister. I tried to help her. I want to help you help her. I did not create any situation that would drain your finances further. I get it. I got it. I'm a part of the team now ... despite my situation."

I motioned around the storage room. Somehow I had to steer this conversation back to me getting more rations and the other things on my latest list of demands.

I pulled from deep down in my soul, and summoned a tear to my eye.

"I want to help. You have to trust me."

***

"To show you how serious I am ... you can have my share to cover the blackmail costs."

Mario stared at me, trying to decipher if I was serious or not.

Then he couldn't help it. He laughed. He laughed out loud. He LOL'd himself, right in front of me.

When he was done, he responded. "You don't get a cut. You get a bus ticket home ... and maybe some McDonald's money for your trip."

I had been told that before. But if bringing it up the way that I did helped lighten the mood, then it was worth looking the fool.

"If --"

He got serious again, just like that.

"That's IF I don't let Albert take you and keep you in his closet for his parties."

I was taken aback.

I knew that I was determined to escape that fate, and I had been working all this time to get Mario on my side to make sure that I didn't end up in that space I found in the guest bedroom of Albert's apartment at the party.

Here he knew all along.

And he could instantly see that he had caught me by surprise.

"What? You didn't think I knew? I *know* things. More than you think ..."

***

I was in such shock that I kind of lost track of time.

I just sat there, processing the fact that Mario knew of Albert's alternate plans for me once the heist was over.

In this odd scenario where I had been plotting and planning allegiances worthy of any fierce competitor on any competition/elimination reality show, the person on whom I was counting to be in my corner when I needed him most was all too aware of the plans of the one I had determined was my true enemy in this scheme.

Sure, I had committed some betrayals in this process -- for instance, the taking of the cell phone -- but now I had to deal with the fact that someone might betray me.

It's true that I might have exaggerated the extent of my "friendship"with Mario in my own head, but still ... this news hit me hard.

After a bit of time that felt like days, but was probably just a few seconds, I picked my chin up off the floor, gathered my thoughts, and asked him point blank, "Is that where you want me to end up? Have you been a part of *his* plan all along?"

Mario stared intently at me, and for the first time, I looked at him and saw something bigger than I had seen before. Something more. Something smarter than that which I had given him credit in my interactions with him to date.

It was my fault for having underestimated him, time and time again.

The clues were there all along. I had been in his head multiple times, courtesy of my gift, and I had sensed his depth of emotion.

But I had judged the book by the cover ... and I had written him off as a pawn in my plan -- a big brute of a bartender pawn on *my* chessboard whom I thought I was going to easily manipulate.

Finally at that moment, I saw him as more than a character or a stereotype ... I saw him as a complicated and complex human being.

***

His face softened somewhat when he finally replied to my question as to whether he knew of Albert's post-heist plans for me.

"Not exactly. Albert drinks. And when Albert drinks, Albert talks. And when Albert talks, he thinks he's speaking in code, but he's just drunk. It's not that hard to figure out."

I decided that that was possibly good news -- in that maybe *others* had also figured out there was someone held captive for strange purposes.

"Besides," Mario continued, "I know all about what's going on ... and I've crashed in that guest bedroom once or twice ... and I've seen the closet he's emptied out ... so I have more pieces of the puzzle than most."

So much for my theory that others might know.

"My point is *this*. I thought you were cooperating. Now I'm not so sure. I just want you to know that it is in your best interest to do so, because I'd much rather you just disappear from our lives after this is over, and that we put this whole incident behind us -- never to be spoken of again. *That's* how I see it ending. But it's up to you to make sure that there are no more surprises after today."

It was time to revert to my attempts to divide and conquer.

"Well you said it yourself. If Albert gets drunk and talks as much as he does, maybe HE was the one who spilled the beans to the people blackmailing you on your phone?"

Mario considered my claim, but only briefly.

"The problem is that YOU are the one in the picture. And that it's from the crash scene, which had nothing to do with Albert."

I sighed and shook my head.

"I don't know. I just know that I didn't do anything wrong."

I made steady eye contact with Mario in an attempt to convince him that I was telling the truth, at least about that fact, and then had to look away when our staredown got too intense.

Much to my surprise, as I looked away from his gaze, I saw a shadow through the doorway, beyond the first storage room and in the outer hallway.

***

We were not alone.

"I don't mean to interrupt you two ..."

A voice I had never heard before accompanied the shadow I had seen in the outer hallway.

Mario froze.

Actually, the both of us froze.

"I'm looking for the moscato. Do you guys keep it in here?"

A diminutive blond stepped foot inside my room and took a quick look around.

"Mario, right? I met you the other night when I was training. They sent me down here to grab the moscato, but I don't know where to find it."

She looked at my cot, and then looked at me.

With a cock of her head, and a quizzical expression, she extended her hand.

"I don't think we've met yet. I'm the new girl Julie."

I was still frozen, unclear how to handle this unexpected turn of events.

For the awkwardest of moments, the three of us just stood there, each saying nothing, in the oddest of tableaux.

I furtively glanced at Mario, who was nodding his head ever so slightly.

I took that as his approval that I should acknowledge the newcomer.

***

"Hi Julie."

Yet again, I found myself walking a tightrope.

Mario and I had just been discussing how I wanted him to trust me more, and how he was starting to trust me less.

Now I had the perfect opportunity to demonstrate that I *was* to be trusted, and that I wouldn't give away anything I shouldn't.

"I'm on vacation right now, and so you haven't seen me around yet. Just came in to help him out with a project cleaning out this old space."

On the surface, that seemed to convince her and relieve the tension her arrival had put in the room.

So I continued.

"But I can assure you there's no moscato in here. Maybe in the other room?"

I pointed to the door and gestured for her to leave the way she had come in, before she could make a mental note of all the things that were odd about this space. I had followed her eyes to know that she had already registered that there was a cot, and I wanted to try to avoid her seeing the mini-refrigerator and other signs that I was living there.

Mario jumped in and grabbed her arm.

"Yep ... moscato is in the stash under the stairs. Here ... let me show you."

He gave me a look that one would give a trained puppy in hopes it would stay, and walked out with Julie.

But he couldn't exactly lock me back up in front of her, so I had a split second to make a decision.

The two of them turned the corner into the basement hallway, and I stood there, with the door to my "cell" wide open.

***

Risk vs reward.

It was the classic conflict.

I stood there, listening to Mario and the new employee Julie walk down the hallway and out of my sight.

Since Julie had no idea that I was a prisoner in this environment, Mario left the door open behind him, and I had a clear view of the outer storage room and that hallway.

Of course, I also was keenly aware that there was a camera in the corner of my "cell" ... but I was just as certain that I was not being watched 24/7.

I could still hear Mario and Julie talking about the moscato she was seeking that had sent her down to the basement of the bar in the first place, so I knew that they couldn't have gone too far.

I tiptoed out of my room and through the door, for only the second time since being imprisoned a few days before.

I looked around that other storage room, and quickly determined that it was named properly.

Indeed, I was surrounded by cases and cases of alcohol ... beer, liquor and wine of all varieties.

Behind me, I saw the boxes that they were moving in front of the door to my inner storage location, hiding my space from any prying eyes.

I heard the rustling of bottles down the hall and the sound of their voices somewhere around the corner.

He had said he was taking her to a spot under the stairs, so I felt *pretty* sure that the coast would be clear for me to sneak out even further.

*Pretty* sure.

***

If only I were a more professional prisoner.

If so, I would have fashioned some reflective device by this day six, and I would have been able to hold it out into the hallway to see if anyone was there.

But I didn't have any such tool.

So I had to gamble and just walk out. Right into the hallway. Unclear if Mario would see me or if he would still be occupied with Julie and the moscato.

My gamble paid off.

Kind of.

The hallway *was* clear.

But it also led to nowhere.

Oh sure there was the one end that led to the stairs, behind which Mario was loading Julie up on moscato.

But the other end ... the end I had never been in ... turned out to be the worst kind of end.

A dead end.

So my little gamble gave me some intel, but, as with many circumstances on this journey, it didn't necessarily lead me anywhere.

And with just a limited amount of time, I had no choice but to return to my cell.

***

I decided to take ONE more gamble.

Circumstances were such that I had to return to my cell, because I had nowhere to go in the hallway except toward the place where Mario was wrapping up with Julie.

But I didn't have to return empty handed.

I knew that inebriation was one of the ways to chase away the nightmares I had from absorbing everyone's painful memories, and the path back to the place where I was being locked up was full of alcohol.

I grabbed two bottles of whiskey as I quietly scampered back to my lair, hid them against the side of my body as I walked past the camera, and hurried to put them in a corner of the room directly underneath the camera that I assumed wasn't in view of whomever may be watching me.

Knowing that Mario would be returning, I threw my bed pillow over top of them, and struck a "waiting" pose as if I hadn't been out exploring.

Sure enough, Mario returned by himself, shaking his head the whole time.

"Do me a favor."

I nodded to signify I would.

"If your friend ever talks you into driving across multiple state lines to kidnap a freak who can read minds so that you can lock him up in a basement until you need him to steal some money off of a former employer/drug kingpin ... don't do it."

I bit my cheek to keep from laughing.

"Because I got to tell you. It's not worth it."

He looked at me one last time before leaving.

"No offense."

***

"Oh right. None taken," I replied.

Truth be told ... I could see his point.

He had one final thought as he departed.

"You are too much trouble. And now I have to go clean up *this* mess ..."

It turns out he had one *final* final thought.

"Two days. That's it. Two days. Please behave."

Then he was gone ... and I got to hear the all too familiar sounds of the boxes being moved to block my door after the chains were drawn to lock it.

Two days.

Two days.

Two days.

I repeated that mantra in my mind, taking comfort in the light at the end of the tunnel on which I could now focus.

Two days.

Two days.

Two days.

***

It was time to get down to business.

The business of getting drunk, that is.

After all, I had nabbed the bottles of whiskey during that brief time when I had snuck out ... so it was only the polite thing to do to drink them.

Of course, it was the impolite thing to do to *take* them ... but I thought of it as the minimum of payment for my services rendered.

Or ... services TO BE rendered.

Not counting what I had done to pick into Rodney's brain, my main contribution to the heist was still to happen.

In two days.

Only two days.

Just two days.

But on that night ... at that time ... the only thing I had to do was get sufficiently inebriated that I could all but pass out and sleep through until morning -- with the nightmares kept at bay.

I'm not sure that I had ever gotten drunk by myself in this way ... even when I went out on the town drinking by myself before, I was still drinking with the bartender and inserting myself into the experience of all the guests.

Vicarious drinking didn't count as solo drinking in my mind.

"Rationalization sure is a wonderful thing," I thought, as I worked my way over to my hidden stash and cracked open the first bottle.

"Cheers to rationalization!" I said aloud as I took my first of what was to be many swigs.

***

I decided to turn it into a drinking game.

Every time I heard the sound of someone up above me in the bar doing something, I took a swig and wished I could be with them.

(I had lifted two bottles of whiskey ... but I hadn't taken any shot glasses.)

Every time I remembered that someone might be watching me on the other side of the camera in my cell, I surreptitiously took a swig and considered whether I could pound the whole bottle if I heard someone coming down to stop me.

(Luckily, the noise of the removal of the boxes from the door would provide me the necessary heads up.)

Every time I thought about my poor puppy dog back home in my apartment in central PA, I took two swigs in hopes that that might make me forget.

(It was a good thing I had arranged for a dog-sitter to watch after Gator since I had hoped to be on vacation before I was kidnapped.)

Every time I felt someone else's memory start to creep into my consciousness, I took three swigs as that was the whole reason that I was doing this in the first place -- to be able to sleep without nightmares.

(Especially seeing as how I didn't have access to my usual trick -- which was to take sleeping pills to keep the "andantes" away.)

Every time I finished one bottle, I took four swigs to kick off the second bottle.

(And since I didn't have a third ... that was putting me closer and closer to the end of my game.)

I didn't need to make up any more rules ... because I successfully passed out shortly after getting into the second bottle of whiskey.

And that was how I ended my sixth full day of captivity ...

***

CHAPTER 25

I sat up too quickly.

I should have known better. As a recent college graduate, this was NOT the first time that I was returning to consciousness the morning after having lost consciousness the night before with the help of a little alcohol.

In this case, though, it was a LOT of alcohol.

I had finished one bottle of whiskey ... and started the second.

Although I didn't get too far with that second bottle.

Seeing as how I had pilfered them from the stash in the outer storage room whilst Mario was distracted with Julie, the new employee who wandered in to see the two of us in conversation in my "cell", I was probably going to have finish it during my "stay" in the locked room of the basement in the bar.

But for now, I had to deal with the immediate problem at hand.

Namely, that I had sat up too quickly.

The price to be paid ... all the alcohol from the night before was NOT going to stay in my belly.

I sat there regretting my move, knowing that I only had a few moments left to get somewhere more amenable to what was about to happen.

I was about to get my Lucy on.

And if you don't remember Lucy, she was the girl I had met that night at the party ... but first by listening to her vomit over the balcony of the porch where I was perched one floor above to eavesdrop on new cash-grab-gang member Rodney.

To the bathroom ...or, at least my version of it, a converted janitor's closet ... but to the bathroom ... post haste.

***

I will spare you the details ...

... from EACH of the times I found myself praying to the porcelain god ...

... because my regurgitation pattern on that seventh day of captivity was so regular that you could have set your watch to it.

I would sit on the floor for a bit, trying to be certain that I was really done vomiting, then get up and throw water on my face, and then shuffle back to my cot (one time I distinctly remember crawling back). I would pull the blanket up over my eyes to block out the Florida sunshine blasting through the little window up by the ceiling that led to the back alley behind the bar ... and then I would wait for the uncomfortable feeling to return.

I had two things going for me -- the silence that surrounded me, seeing as how the bar was closed and there was no one in the building but me, locked in my room as I was. And the fact that I could focus on the pain in my head, and picture the blood flowing through it, becoming one with my pulse in order to diminish the hurt.

I also had two things going *against* me -- it took me way too long to remember that there was a washcloth somewhere that Mria had used to clean me up after Albert had beaten me that I could wet and place on my forehead. And it took me just as long to remember that hangovers and dehydration were interconnected, and that I should raid the mini-fridge and replace the liquids leaving my body with drinks of any kind.

I lost track of how many times I made that round trip ... but had I been counting, I'm just as certain that I would have run out of digits to keep score. By early afternoon, all that was left for me to remove from my digestive system was my liver bile.

At that point, I knew I couldn't get any worse.

Which is why, also at that point, I decided to embrace the classic hangover cure ... a splash of the hair of the dog that had bit me.

***

Without being too obvious ... it was either going to work ... or it wasn't.

"It" being that extra swig of whiskey out of what was left of the second bottle I had sneaked out of the storage room outside the room into which I was locked.

I counted to ten, knowing full well that I would either feel insta-relief ... or rush back to the bathroom.

Luckily for me and all my systems, it was indeed the former. The classic cure was confirmed. The hair of the dog that bit me was finally going to quiet my digestive upheaval.

For the first time all day, I relaxed on my cot feeling like I might survive.

Being the middle of the afternoon, I was kind of expecting Jinx, the alley cat who had previously visited me, to stop by to cuddle up next to me ... but such was not the case. Of course, for all I knew, Jinx had started down the pipe but had overheard the racket I was making with my retching and had decided that today was not a day for visitors.

If only everyone had decided to stay away ... that would have suited me just fine.

Instead, I was roused from my healing nap by the sounds of someone going through all the machinations to get to me (moving the boxes that blocked the other side of the door, drawing the chain on it, etc., etc.) and in walked Mario.

"Heads up," he yelled in my direction.

My first thought was that he might have been throwing something at me ... but I quickly learned that it was a *verbal* heads up he was giving.

"Tonight's the night. Mria will be down in about an hour or so to go over the plan. So clean yourself up and get ready ..."

***

"Hey!" I yelled, for the purpose of getting Mario's attention.

He seemed way to eager to just poke his head in the door and run.

"What?" he asked bruskly. "I have to start my shift upstairs."

"Can't you give me any details about tonight?" I implored. "I mean it's all been leading up to *this*!"

"Yeah. Sure. You're going drinking with Rodney. So ... you know ... you better recover fast from your hangover."

Once again, Mario knew more than I thought he knew. Perhaps he also had access to the camera feed in addition to Albert, who I knew could watch on his cell phone from that one time the three of them were all outside my room.

"And."

An *and*. I was going to get more information. Information was key.

"And ... you owe me for those bottles of whiskey. I'm going to collect, one way or another. Now I've got to train another new guy to replace Rodney."

Yes, indeed. Mario knew a LOT more that I thought he knew.

He shared nothing else, but left ... *without* blocking the door again with the boxes on the other side.

I took that as a sign that Mria's announced visit to me was happening very very soon.

Seeing as how the fact that I stole the whiskeys was already known AND that I now knew that I was going to be going drinking with Rodney AND that a shot had helped me recover from my painful hangover ... I concluded that all signs were pointing to me having another drink.

As we used to say in college, it was time for some old fashioned pre-gaming.

***

It was NOT my best pre-gaming attempt.

Although, admittedly, I had never tried to pre-game while basically being locked up.

For instance, I did not have music to blast as I was working to get my buzz on. I couldn't listen to any remixes of classic pop hits from the 80's, like we did in college.

I also did not have any weights lying around that I could lift in an attempt to look my best at the club.

I couldn't stand in the shower under a hot stream of water, repeating affirmations to myself in preparation for a night out.

Instead, all I could do was use the crusty washcloth to clean up my twice bruised and battered face (first from the beating Albert had given me and second from the hit and run in Mario's jeep), humming 'Walk Like an Egyptian', occasionally doing a poor man's vertical push-up off of the sink.

It wasn't the best pre-gaming attempt ... but at least it was something.

Sadly, I didn't draw it out long enough ... because I was done long before Mria showed up to give me more specific instructions than that which Mario had shared: "You're going drinking with Rodney."

It took me *that* long to get apprehensive about the evening ahead of me.

The last time I had seen Rodney was with my eyes a-fluttering shut as he was choking me out. And that was only after I had gotten inside his brain and learned that he had shot his mother while robbing the store where she worked. *Accidentally* shot his mother.

Still ... I couldn't begin to fathom how our conversation was going to go.

***

Before too too long, Mria's visit was underway.

Mria PLUS Mario, who stood at the door of my room PLUS Albert, who stood at the door of the outer room, guarding the hallway. I guess that coming to see me during the busiest time of the bar on the floor above me was riskier ... and so she didn't want to take any chances that someone might wander in as Julie had just done the night before.

"So ... how are you doing?" was her opening line.

I considered as to how best to respond.

Except she didn't wait for me to do so.

"Tonight's the night. Are you ready?"

I nodded my head to show I was indeed ready.

"By tomorrow, you can be on a Greyhound bus -- headed home -- with this whole thing just a strange summer camp type experience you can tell your grandkids about years later."

She reached into her pocket and pulled out what looked to be an actual ticket, as she continued.

"I want you to know that I am a woman of my word."

Waving that piece of paper around, she added, "But you MUST follow my instructions. Without deviation. So listen closely and pay attention."

***

"Stanley is your mark."

Mria had begun instructing me as to the evening's cash-grab scheme that was finally coming to fruition.

"He'll be the only one closing the bar ... and being Sunday, he'll close as soon as the crowd dies out -- maybe even before regular closing time. You and Rodney will need to watch carefully and be listening for his last call. After that, be sure to order one more drink, and then take your time with it. It will be important that the two of you are the last patrons."

I felt like a kid in class, so I did what I thought a kid in class would do. I raised my hand.

"What?" she asked.

I shrugged my shoulders and replied. "I don't have any money. Is Rodney going to be buying my drinks?"

"No. No. No." She shook her head with each of the no's ... and then held her hand out toward Mario, who reached into his pocket and handed her some cash.

"Sometimes, you have to spend some money to make some money. Here's thirty bucks ... and don't be afraid of bringing back some change."

She passed me the cash.

"And as for you and Rodney. You aren't going to be drinking together. You'll both be there ... but we're not looking to arouse any suspicions. So you will go in at separate times ... and you won't interact until the two of you are alone with Stanley."

Things were looking up. The evening was going to include free (to me) alcohol AND I could pretend I didn't know Rodney and wouldn't have to talk to him at all. This was a task I was looking forward to execute.

***

"Then ... bing, bang, boom! You strike."

Mria's tale of what I was to do at the bar now included hand motions. In conjunction with the "boom", she clapped her hands together aggressively.

"Rodney will take care of Stanley, and after he subdues him, you will do your little trick and talk to him about the safe in the back room ... then ... you'll grab him by the arm and sift through his memories and get the combination."

So there it was. Everything that had happened this last week ... the sole purpose of my being kidnapped and brought down here ... my skill was to be used to take advantage of someone. I couldn't be surprised. I should have seen it coming. As soon as Albert and Mario compared stories about what I had done to them on that first trip to Florida, I'm sure the seed had been planted.

Instead of a clap, this time Mria was snapping her fingers in front of my face.

"Hey. Did I lose you? You in there?"

Again, I nodded my head.

"Do you see any problems with that task?" she queried.

"I'm not sure," I answered honestly. "I mean I'm not sure that what I do can be directed that specifically."

Mria's face went blank. She turned to Mario and Albert, positioned as they were at each of the doors, inner and outer.

"Boys!" she yelled, clearly upset. "This is your territory. What does he mean? We did not come this far to have things fall apart now!"

***

Albert was the first to call out, from his position guarding the outer door that led to the hallway.

"Don't bullshit her. You *know* you can do it. I didn't even know you and you figured out my situation with my ex-girlfriend's sister."

I had almost forgotten that Albert was going to be a father. With his ex-girlfriend's sister. Hence the "ex" part before the girlfriend part.

"You're a little all natural lie detector and you know it. All Rodney should have to do is to ask Stanley politely for the combination ... and assuming he lies or refuses, then you step in. It will be front and center on his mind ... and he should be stressed out by the situation ... and when you get in there and dig around, you'll be able to see it no problem."

He accompanied his explanation/instruction with a smirk. A smirk that I found unsettling.

Mria turned back to me, and put a wrap on the conversation.

"Well that solves it then, doesn't it. You do it *that* way ... and everything will go off swimmingly."

Again, I nodded my head. It sounded like it would work when I heard Albert describe it. Of course, I'd have to make skin to skin contact, and this Stanley guy would have to look in to my eyes, and I'd have to be there for the conversation that would create the anxiety in Stanley the bartender ... but those things could all be arranged by Rodney and I.

Rodney and I.

I still wasn't looking forward to that pairing for the evening's activities ahead.

Mria had one more bombshell.

"Should there be any issue, Albert will be outside in the van."

***

My immediate thought ... I was going to be out with the wrong "parent".

I didn't want *Albert* to oversee the cash-grab from the drug kingpin ... I felt a much stronger connection with Mario. Heck, even Mria, with whom I had infrequently interacted, would have been a better "adult" to be the back-up in the van outside the bar where it was all to go down.

The van. The creepy van.

I was familiar with that van. I *rode* in that van.

Or, more accurately, I was *transported* in that van exactly one week prior when Mario and Albert had kidnapped me and brought me here specifically for the purpose of using me to steal money from Papa Kalfu.

I saw no reason to not ask for a switch of parental unit.

After all, Mria had promised me a bus ride home the day after this adventure. Albert had threatened to keep me as a freak to bring out at his parties. And Mario told me he'd be fine with either outcome.

"What about you two?" I asked. "Where will you guys be?"

Mria paused before answering.

"Not that it's any of *your* business ... but we'll be waiting for you back here. We can't possibly be seen in that bar. I work there ... and he *used* to work there. If we're seen on the cameras during the incident, we'll be prime suspects. The beauty of our plan is that you and Rodney are unknowns ... and not only that ... you'll be unknowns who will be many states away within hours of the heist. The three of us intend to stay in town ... and we intend for Papa Kalfu to have no leads to follow."

She was pleased with herself. I could tell by her smugness. That, and the fact that she ended by muttering, "It's the perfect crime".

***

"So that's it. Clean up and be ready. Someone will be down to fetch you before too long."

Mria wrapped up the conversation for real this time.

As the group of them gathered in the hallway to leave, I heard the typical routine to which I had become quite accustomed. The locking of my door. The piling of boxes in front of it from the other side. The locking of the outer door.

I was left sitting there on my cot, holding the most information I had had up to that point -- knowing exactly what I was supposed to do to contribute to the cause.

Drink, drink some more, drink at last call, trick a bartender into letting me linger on that last call drink, wait for Rodney to manhandle said bartender, grab a hold of said bartender and pick his brain for a combination to a secret safe that held all the drug money ... and then hightail it out of the establishment, return the funds to the triumvirate in charge, and get to a bus station to be home within a day or two to my normal life.

Well, my normal life before being kidnapped for my special talent became the new normal.

I was most looking forward to seeing my dog.

My puppy Gator ... how I missed him. It was only a week that I had been gone, but puppies grow so fast. For all I knew, he had forgotten me and grown attached to Mattie, who was dog-sitting him since I had intended to be away on vacation when I was nabbed. My fear was that I'd have to reintroduce myself and remind him that I was his and he was mine.

All I had to do was follow through with this plan ... and I could be reunited with my puppy.

Even if I hadn't already decided that the whole Robin Hood-esque caper to take money from the bad and funnel it to a good cause (namely, Mario's sister's cancer battle) ... that upcoming reunion would have been incentive enough for me to do exactly what I was told.

All that said, there was a gnawing fear in the back of my head about what often happened to the best laid plans of mice and men ...

***

Hurry up and wait ... the story of my life in captivity that week.

Under any other circumstances, the night before the last day of "vacation" would have been for packing as much as possible, so that I could come in from a night of drinking, nap briefly and then wake up and run to the airport before the buzz wore off. The pre-packing was all strategy to maximize the length of that post-drinking nap.

But this wasn't exactly "vacation". And I didn't exactly have anything to pack.

Still, I straightened up my "cell" to the best I could, folded the blanket on my cot and splashed some more water on my face.

I counted and re-counted the thirty dollars that had been given to me for my night out.

And then I had one more shot of whiskey from the purloined bottle.

Just one. I had to pace myself. The last thing I needed was to be too inebriated to function at my best for the adventure of the evening.

The adventure that was finally starting.

I knew that it was time because someone was outside my door, going through all the necessary steps to get to me.

Ugh. As foretold by Mria, it was Albert.

"It's time." he announced.

If anyone else had come to claim me, I would have been excited. For some reason, when Albert said it, I felt like we were doing a "dead man walking" scenario.

***

I knew Albert was a dick the day I met him.

Texting on his phone angrily ... fighting with his girlfriend because he had gotten her sister pregnant.

From the moment I laid eyes on him at that bar that first night in Florida, I could tell what kind of man he was -- or wasn't.

My opinion of him was confirmed once I figured out that he was one of the two guys who had kidnapped me.

And it only got worse from there.

For instance ... the night he beat me ... and told me that he had his own plans for me after this heist was over.

The worst was when I realized that he was addicted to me -- to the feeling he got when I took away his pain. That he used that as a free pass to do whatever he wanted to, because he could always just reach out afterwards and get absolution by way of me absorbing his memories and making him feel better about himself.

He was my biggest threat ... and now he was my babysitter for the night -- the most important night of this whole detour from my original plans.

Begrudgingly, I got up from my cot, and headed toward the door of the room in which I had been locked up.

I didn't make it very far.

As soon as I hit the doorway, he slammed the door in my face.

One more step, and he would have smashed my nose. My poor face had already taken a lot of abuse between him and the accident with Mario's jeep ... had I been hit, that would have been the last straw.

***

The reason for the slammed door in my face became apparent soon enough.

There was another voice in the hallway. A voice that did not belong to Mario or Mria or Albert.

"Yo!" is all I overheard.

With that one word, I knew I knew the voice, but I also knew that I didn't know the voice. It was that problem that always plagued me. I experienced just enough of a familiarity and yet I couldn't immediately connect the aural dots. Faces -- those I could recognize and remember easily.

Well -- so long as they had faces ... all the faceless andantes -- characters from the painful memories I had taken from others -- they all looked basically the same.

Voices, though. That was a different story.

Voices taunted and teased me.

Voices stopped me in my tracks and made me pause and cock my head and strain to place them.

Luckily I got a few more words to help me place things.

"Are we still doin' this or what?"

Albert replied to the voice. "I told you to wait in the van."

Then the voice replied to Albert.

"Yeah. That's what I *was* doin'. For too long. I'm not a dog."

Albert commented coolly, "I know you're not a dog, Rodney. I got involved in a conversation, and I'm running a little later than expected. I'll be right there."

***

Rodney.

Of course that's who was out in the hallway.

As planned, my partner in crime for the evening was here and was apparently ready to go.

And it's no wonder I could barely place the voice. I had only met him directly once before ... not counting the indirect meeting we had when I eavesdropped on him from the balcony above the party at Albert's place.

Albert may have been trying to communicate to him to go back out to wait in the van, but Rodney wasn't picking up on the messaging.

His curiosity piqued, he started to question Albert.

"Why are you guys always down here? What's in that storage room?"

I had almost forgotten that Rodney had almost walked in on us once before, a few days earlier. Now that the caper was underway, I guess my situation wasn't as much of a secret as it had once been.

Albert opened the door and he and Rodney stood in the doorway.

It seemed only appropriate that I wave, so I did.

Albert was the first to speak. "I believe you've met Alan."

Rodney glared at me.

"You." He practically spat out the word.

"I don't like you."

***

"You're a freak."

It wasn't the first time that someone responded to me that way ... and it also wasn't to be the last.

All the same, I still felt a bit of a sting listening to him pass judgment on me.

Albert kept us on track.

"I don't care what you think of him. He's your partner for tonight ... and he's how you're going to get the combination to the safe ... so for the next few hours, he's *your* freak."

Rodney shook his head disapprovingly.

"I told you guys that I could make Stanley talk. There are ways to get information."

Albert paused, contemplating exactly what he meant. Then he countered.

"Yes, of course there are. But you don't have all night. This is a precision strike. In and out. Done and done. The quicker, the better. That's the whole reason we made an investment in him in the first place."

Rodney's attention was drawn back to me again.

"Yeah, but I don't like him."

Albert was getting flustered.

"And I don't care if you do or not. Make it work, Rodney. Make. It. Work."

***

"Wait a minute. You keep him locked up down here?"

Rodney was finally putting all the pieces together.

My first thought was that I would have rather had a partner in crime that was a little quicker on the uptake.

My second thought was that I was in the room with them. Standing right in front of them. They didn't have to refer to me like I wasn't there.

He took in all of my surroundings, before continuing.

"Hell, I would have stayed here if I had known it was available! I would have saved all kinds of money on rent."

Albert chuckled as he replied.

"Well, to be fair, Jorge doesn't even know about this."

"Jorge? Who's Jorge?"

"He owns the bar - this bar - not the bar you're going to tonight. He's been away on vacation on a cruise with the guy you replaced as shot boy. Well, for the few shifts you *were* the shot boy before we tapped you for this instead. This job pays much better, doesn't it?"

It was Rodney's turn to chuckle.

"Yeah ... and I get to keep my shirt on."

The friendly back and forth banter between the two ended abruptly, as Albert bolted toward the hallway unexpectedly.

***

"Can I help you?"

Albert was blocking the outer hallway and speaking in the direction of the back stairs.

"I'm the new guy," I heard someone say.

"Well, there's no 'new guy' stuff down here. You're supposed to be working with Mario ... and the bar is UPstairs."

Albert raised his left hand toward Rodney and I, palm open, conveying to us that we weren't supposed to move. With the rest of his body, he was blocking the path so that the 'new guy' couldn't continue down the hall and accidentally see me and my situation.

The new guy continued, "Yeah. Right. I know. I was just looking around."

"Well you don't get paid to *look* around. You get paid to *walk* around the customers looking pretty and selling shots. And there are no customers down here."

The whole scene reinforced how important tonight was. Every other time I had been visited, it was before or after shift, when my captors could control the risks of someone else finding out I was being locked up in the room in the basement of the bar. But now that Julie girl had seen me ... and here someone else was close to walking in on me.

I heard one last string of words from this new guy.

"Sorry. My bad. No worries."

I couldn't rule out the fact that it might have just been the excitement I was feeling in that moment ... but for the umpteenth time, I felt like I might possibly know that voice.

***

We stood frozen in a tableau, waiting for Albert to give the signal that the interloper had left the hallway and returned to the bar upstairs for his shot-boy training.

Outwardly, we were frozen ... inwardly, I was racking my brain, alternately convinced I recognized the most recent interloper's voice and then determined that I was just so lonely from having been locked up for most of the week that I was tricking myself into thinking that was the case.

"Sorry. My bad. No worries."

"Sorry. My bad. No worries."

"Sorry. My bad. No worries."

The more I played it back in my head, the more it twisted into something about which I could no longer feel confident.

If only there had been more of an interaction ... then I could have proven it one way or another.

After a few more moments, Albert waved us both to head toward him and the hallway.

Quietly, he gave us our next set of instructions.

"Let's go boys. We need to get out of here before anyone else sees us and get to the van. Up the stairs, out the door and in the van. No talking. No nothing."

Rodney started to leave first.

"NO! Rodney ... you follow immediately *after* him. If he deviates from the path, you have my permission to break one of his legs. Gently, though. He has to be able to live up to the rest of the plan once we get to the bar."

A new set of words started playing over and over again in my head.

"It's going to be a long night ... it's going to be a long night ... it's going to be a long night ..."

***

[to be continued ...]