Time continued on without me while I died slowly on concrete and became a gelatinous, mind-fucked blob.
*****
Leather Jacket came for me one day. I’d been on my own for so long, my mind craved human contact. Any human contact.
My heart actually jumped when he came for me.
“Time for your next training session, puta.” He nudged me with his foot. “Get up.”
I no longer knew how to speak or move or pretend to be human. I was cold and hungry and I desperately wanted to go home.
I tried to conjure images of Q. Remember his house and Suzette’s warm embrace. But I came up empty. All those happy memories were blank.
Tears tried to form in my eyes, but it’d been so long since I’d had anything to drink only a single droplet formed.
Someone hoisted me to my feet. Cold concrete was replaced with frigid air as Leather Jacket scooped me up, holding me against his repulsive frame. My body, so, so cold, huddled into him even though my drug-fogged brain fled in repulsion.
Leather Jacket chuckled. “Starting to like me? Huh, bitch?” He licked my cheek, walking us to the door. “You’ll like me even more after today.”
My heart tried to race, terror tried to kick-start adrenaline, but my fight was stolen. Gone. Disappeared.
One moment we were still in my room. The next we were half way down the corridor.
Then we were in another room.
Then in another corridor.
Blocks of time disappeared, leaving me with a splattering of photographic images.
How much longer before I completely lose my mind?
One moment someone tossed me onto the floor of a shower and sprayed me with a hose. A second later, I was clothed in a red dress, short and slutty. It was meant to cling to curves and accent sexiness, yet it didn’t do any of those things—only amplified how skinny and sickly I’d become. But at least the fabric was clean. After decaying inside Q’s damp shirt for days, it was heaven. Loneliness wrapped around my heart as Leather Jacket yanked the material from my hands and threw away the only thing I had left of Q. The last connection I would ever have to the man who owned me completely.
“Give it back.” I shuffled forward, trying to get to the rubbish bin behind Leather Jacket.
He pushed me to the floor, laughing. “You get nothing that you want. Unless you want my cock.”
I curled up on the wet tiles, trying so hard to keep my mind from skipping off into some other dimension. A dimension where I no longer had to fear every time I woke up and suffer every time I went to sleep.
Time flickered and the bathroom no longer existed.
Something starchy was forced down my throat, followed by fresh, delicious water.
Then I was standing over a girl with a club in my hands.
Time flickered again. I blacked out.
Spray. Hot, wet, metallic spray. It splashed across my face and I instantly gagged.
Oh, God. No!
I dropped the club, clutching my stomach as my retching turned into racking coughs. The blood on my lips entered my mouth and I scratched frantically at my tongue.
I couldn’t have her blood in my mouth. I couldn’t!
Someone grabbed me, hoisting me upright. I kept coughing and bucking and I finally snapped completely. Words strung from my mouth, interrupted by huge barks. I made no sense. I didn’t need to make sense. They understood. They knew that my breakdown marked the beginning of the end.
My mind wanted out. I reached the end and the taste of a girl’s blood in my mouth was the last straw.
I hurt her. I didn’t know how. I didn’t remember. But I did something horrid and she suffered at my hands.
I can’t live with that! I tried harder to get loose, wriggling, biting, coughing, snarling.
“Fuck, someone give her something. The other dose isn’t doing jack.”
I twisted and bucked, only seeing compressing walls and being suffocated by the horrible cough hijacking my body.
Someone grabbed my legs and I kicked out.
“Ouch, you bitch!” A cuff caught me around the head, but I was no longer in my body. I was in some other world where I wanted with every wish to die.
A needle punctured my flesh and administered the ghostly ice I’d grown to know so well. Spreading its white smog through my blood, stealing my body, killing my mind.
My coughing stopped and I hung utterly spent in someone’s arms.
“That’s better. Let that kick in. She’ll be cutting them up like Picasso again in half an hour.”
The image of me slicing off body parts and arranging them in some terrible piece of art kept me occupied while I floated into demise.
*****
When I came to, I lay flat on my back, wheezing like a ninety-year-old smoker. My ribs shrieked with agony and my lungs felt as if someone had filled them with pond scum.
I tried to move, to make sure I no longer had blood on my face, but my arms once again weren’t mine.
“She’s alive. Bring her here.”
Time fractured and suddenly I’d gone from lying on my back to standing, swaying with a baton in my hands.
Fast forward through time and my ears started working again; I immediately wished they hadn’t. Whimpers and wails filled the small dungeon.
The tiny blonde with the hummingbird tattooed on her hip lay at my feet. Her face was black and blue, distorted from swelling. Her eyes held mine as I gasped in absolute horror.
I slammed to my knees when I saw the bloody tooth on the concrete.
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry. Sorry. Sorry!” I couldn’t handle it. The old passion in me rose, giving a reprieve against the drugs, only to hurl me into sickness.
Hugging the club, I rocked and rocked. “Stop. Make it stop. Please, God, make it stop. Q. Please. I’m sorry. I need you. Q!”
Something fissured deep inside. My soul folded inside me like a tattered piece of origami, taking everything good left in me, leaving me with nothing.
My memories, my happiness, my strength, and passion for Q all vanished. Just like that.
Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
It’s happening. It’s happened. I’m done. I literally stared at the end of my life.
Time blacked out and I came to as Leather Jacket pushed me over, sprawling me on top of Blonde Hummingbird. She didn’t move, didn’t make a sound.
He laughed. “You were doing so well, bitch. Taking orders like a pro.” He squatted in front of me, grabbing my hair to look me in the eye. “You beat her until we told you to stop. You swung that bat like she was vermin you wanted to kill. Do you remember, puta? Do you remember what you did? Huh?”
I retched and buckled over. The coughing started with vengeance. Maybe I could suffocate from coughing, drown from whatever buildup existed in my lungs.
Ryan the Ogre kicked me off Blonde Hummingbird and dragged me away.
I tried to stay awake and not let the drugs swoop me away, but time flickered and crackled. Why am I fighting it? The oblivion is better than reality. With a drawn out sigh, I let the drugs consume me.
Corridor.
Room.
Another corridor.
Ryan threw me into a space different to the abominable dungeons and cells. A large grimy window let gorgeous sunlight stream in, highlighting the evil and dankness in the room.
A fist to my shoulder blades sent me straight to the ground.
A flare of red fire lit up my jaw and my eyes snapped open. I blinked when Leather Jacket appeared in my face. His greasy skin and stringy hair needed disinfecting; he stank like a dumpster. “Know why you’re tied up, slut?”
I’m tied up? I looked down, noticing the bindings around my wrists and my legs imprisoned tight against chair legs. Another black-out. Another fragment of my life stolen.
I didn’t answer. I no longer had the energy to care. The drugs for once were on my side—cushioning me from the outside world, turning me introvert until nothing else existed.
He whispered, “We’re going to do to you what you’ve done to the girls over the last few days. But we’re going to show you how hard we expect next time. No more timid little pussy hits. We expect a beating…so take notes.”
I couldn’t breathe.
Days? I’ve been doing this for days?
Ryan mumbled something in Spanish, hoisting the baton in his hand and slapping it against this palm. “Ready to see a pro at work?”
He gave me no preparation; he attacked.
I sucked in a breath as he hit me hard in the stomach.
I doubled over, almost falling off the plastic chair. The shackles around my wrists were the only thing keeping me upright.
Pain resonated like a marching band in my tummy, but I welcomed it. This might be the end. They might kill me.
Please kill me.
The next blow was to my thigh, cracking so loud I was sure my leg was broken. I welcomed the pain, adding it to all the rest. Compounding it until my heart raced and pumped, hurtling me closer to blacking out.
Someone hit me around the ear.
Then punched my breast.
A kick landed on my ankle.
A fist connected with my cheekbone.
They hurt me beyond hurt—they catapulted me into agony, but they never went too far. They restrained from killing me.
Each punishment hurt more than the last and I sobbed freely in my bindings. Every part of me wept for freedom.
I can’t do this anymore. I want out. I want to die.
Finally, something sharp pricked my skin, and another dose of medicine sent me cartwheeling into nightmares.
You call me maître but I am the esclave—slave to inflict the pain I crave…
Time was my enemy.
I wanted to shatter every clock, dismantle every tick. Every second was a ceaseless moment that I let Tess down, every minute an eternity in missing her.
I ran only on hatred and the undying need to find her. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. Everything I did felt like a betrayal.
Every day that went past, my temper frayed further until I lost sight of the cool businessman who owned the world and morphed closer to the beast I truly was.
No one wanted to be around me. I swore and yelled and raged. Every day, I dropped a little further into hell, and I didn’t care. I welcomed the numbness, the emptiness, because I deserved it.
I’m not good enough.
I wasn’t even strong enough to hunt the woman I loved.
I’m a fucking loser who deserves to be alone.
I wanted to gut the Wolverine and read his intestines like tarot cards. He had answers but I’d been too stupid to make him talk. I was too hasty, and now he was fucking dead along with the chance of ever finding Tess.
I slouched and poked at the wound in my arm. The dull pain wasn’t enough. I deserved more. I deserved to be electrocuted, to be mauled by rabid tigers. I deserved every horrible way a man could die. I deserved to be put down for failing my esclave.
My fingers plucked at the stitches. Some lucky pre-med student got a free flight in a G650 to patch me up on our way out of Moscow. We’d managed to get out before word had spread, but I had no doubt a bounty hung around my neck from more than one trafficking bastard now.
Sitting at some desk, in some office, in some city, in some country, I hung my head and wrapped my fingers around my skull. I squeezed, digging harder and harder, inflicting pain, inviting a migraine. I wanted to crack open my brain and stop all the emotional pain.
Some moments I couldn’t breathe with the thought of what was happening to Tess. I wanted to suffocate all thoughts of her from my head until I no longer had to endure such agony.
But on the heels of such self-pity and loneliness, came furious anger. Livid hot temper that she left me. I hated that she made me care. I cursed her for the way she turned me into this tangled, twisted creature and then disappeared.
Six days passed.
Then a week and a half.
Twenty-four hour blocks all stacked on top of one another creating an unmovable mountain, barricading me from ever finding the one person I ever cared for. Time obstructed me from finding my fucking other half.
I would live alone. I would die alone. I would exist in the netherworld all fucking alone because Tess had been stolen and I was too worthless to save her.
Fuck. Where the hell are you, Tess?
“We just had a tip-off. We’re flying to Singapore in an hour,” Frederick said from the doorway.
I looked up, still clutching my head.
I couldn’t even remember what country we were in. We’d been everywhere. Russia, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Thailand. Following whispers of rumours. Hints that someone knew someone who knew where Tess had been taken.
It’d been a fucking rabbit chase. All lies. All of them hiding the truth.
The truth would be found only by finding the source. Not bribing underworld contacts, or threatening to turn their precious names into local authorities. I had power, but it didn’t mean shit when no one knew a thing.
Goddammit. You’re a fucking imbecile, Mercer! The truth can only be found at the source! Why didn’t I see it?
It was as if someone wrenched back the curtains, inviting piercing sun to chase away the gloom of a disused room.
I stood up so fast the chair fell back and clattered against the tiles. I remembered now. This office belonged to Lee Choi. A man I’d built two casinos for in Macau in return for four slaves. Hong Kong was sleek and money-shiny, but beneath the surface—just like every cosmopolitan city—lurked the dangerously sick and twisted world.
Lee Choi no longer ran that world.
Lee now rotted in a foetus position stuffed in his closet.
“I don’t care about a tip,” I snarled. “I know where we need to go.”
Frederick frowned, coming closer. “Q, when was the last time you slept? You need to eat. You’re gaunt. You can’t live on revenge and bullet casings.”
The urge to hit him rose, but I swallowed it back. “No more leads. They’re useless.”
He shook his head. “One of Choi’s underlings gave up a name of a man who has a harem in Singapore. He might know where Tess is.”
I rubbed my face, trying not to snap. “It’s a waste of time. He won’t have Tess. We need to go to the source.”
“The source?”
I moved fast, pushing past Frederick. No one in the usual circle would’ve bought Tess. Gerald wouldn’t have sold her to be used so…kindly. He was out for blood. Where was the payback if she was sent to a sick fuck, but someone who would ultimately keep her alive? No, he’d send her to someone who would ruin her. Break her. Someone who would stand to earn just rewards for destroying her.
Fuck. Why didn’t I think of it before?
It felt right. My gut knew I was on the right path.
“Pack up. We’re flying to Mexico.”
*****
Four days.
Four long fucking days we’d patrolled the sin-stained world of Mexico. Hunting drug dealers and spineless thieves, we lurked in dives and sniffed around illegal enterprises. No matter how many men Franco tortured, or how many palms I greased, no information was forthcoming.
No one knew who kidnapped a blonde girl on a scooter four months ago.
“Eat this, boss.” Franco skidded a plate of noodles under my nose, obscuring the map of the slums of Mexico I’d been studying for the past three hours.
Tess could be anywhere in this filthy city, and I might walk right past whatever building she was imprisoned in and never know.
As much as I was starving, the thought of eating, of surviving, when Tess might not even be alive, ate at my soul.
I ignored him, shoving the plate away.
Franco clasped my shoulder as Frederick came over from the bar with three mugs of icy beer. “You need your strength. For her. Your brain will work better with fuel.”
Frederick sloshed the beer onto my map, taking a seat.
I g
lowered, swiping my hand over the paper before the liquid could ruin it.
Frederick nodded. “I agree. Eat and recharge. You’re no good to her if you’re passed out from hunger.”
The animal inside didn’t need such petty things like nutrition. It only needed blood. But you’re not a fucking superhuman, so eat up.
Sighing hard, I tried to return to the land of men and sat taller. Acknowledging they had a point, I dug into the noodles and forced myself to swallow. I was a world traveller. I’d lived in cities around the globe, but the man I was at heart was French, and I missed Mrs. Sucre’s duck and homemade baguettes. I missed simple perfection. I missed my regimented life. I missed Tess with every fucking part of me.
Half-way through my meal, I gave up and growled, “There has to be some other way.”
I slouched, scowling at the droplets of condensation on the beer mug. Frederick mumbled something around his mouthful of food and Franco cocked an eyebrow. “Like what? We’ve tried bribing men we know in the sex trade, we’ve tried beating it out of others. We’ve argued, we’ve threatened, we’ve pleased. Either no one knows who took her, or they’re too terrified to say.”
I rubbed my chin, letting my brain race for clues, answers, conclusions that might work better than our current methods.
“All Mexicans are linked somehow. I read that the city is one of the friendliest on earth,” Frederick said, wiping his mouth and swigging some beer.
Yeah, apart from the raping trafficking bastards.
“It’s said that it’s a matter of pride to have the largest family possible. I’m talking cousins upon cousins upon cousins. You need to go for a—”
“Cousin.” I bolted upright, smiling for the first time in fourteen days at Frederick. “T’es un putain de génie.” You’re a fucking genius.
Franco stood, glancing around the crowded, dirty bar, making sure my abrupt standing didn’t attract unwanted attention. My muscles were rock-hard at the thought of a bar fight. I craved to use my fists, to pull out the knife and lose myself in anger.
Once he deemed the coast clear, Franco said, “Care to share?”
No, I didn’t care to share as that would be a waste of fucking time.
Instead of answering, I strode right to the bar and jumped on top. Men nursing their beers looked up with their mouths hanging open, their hands guarding their precious alcohol.