Coming to after being knocked out via blunt force to the head is one of the strangest experiences I could ever attempt to explain. Though no one on Earth remembers being born, it’s the only connection I can make; it’s the type of thing people have to experience for themselves, or else it just doesn’t make sense.
The world was cold and foggy, but I knew I was inside. Each time I attempted to open my eyes, not only did the light bring unbearable pain, but the pain coursing through the rest of my body also seemed to awaken. If I could just keep my eyes closed for the rest of forever, I would probably be alright.
Probably.
I knew moving any part of my body would also bring torturous pain, and even if I wanted to move, I quickly realized I couldn’t. I was tied to something at both the wrists and ankles.
I squinted my eyes open just enough to see the chair I had become one with due to the duct tape wrapped around each leg and wrist. I hadn’t even realized I had been sitting until that moment.
“Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey,” Geet chuckled when he saw me moving slightly. I opened my eyes the rest of the way, trying my best to ignore the lightning bolts of throbbing agony pulsing through me. Geet was standing from the couch and walking towards me.
It was dark outside and mostly dark in the apartment. The only source of dim light came from a solitary lantern glowing in the kitchen. I couldn’t figure out why the lights in the apartment weren’t on.
I grunted in response, still unable to form actual words.
“Don’t try to speak,” Scarface said. I couldn’t see him, but assumed he was lurking in the shadows somewhere nearby. “The pain must be excruciating.” His voice was filled with more joy than I had ever heard come from him before. He was a pretty solemn guy, but my predicament seemed to brighten his day.
Geet let out a low laugh, kneeling down in front of me. “I’m guessing the pain might be similar to being attacked with a shovel. If it’s anything close, then you probably wish you were dead right now.”
I thought back to the encounter the three of us had in Shelby and wondered how long it had taken them to make it back to the city and if they had gone searching for me before. Part of me was angry for not finishing them off when I had the chance, but I quickly brushed the thought away. What was done was done, and I wasn’t a killer.
“How long do we have to wait?” Scarface asked, not specifying what they were waiting to do, though I could only assume it was to experiment with countless new torture techniques on me.
“Not long,” Geet answered. “Harrison will be here shortly. He wants to talk to them, and then we’re free to have a little bit of fun.”
Them. Geet had said them.
I hazily rolled my head to each side, noticing Gabe on my right, also duct taped to a chair and still unconscious. His head hung low, his chin resting on his chest. His hair was matted with blood and more ran down the side of his face. As far as being beaten and bloodied, Gabe had had a rough couple of months.
“He’s your brother,” I managed to say, though I wasn’t sure if I had been loud enough for Geet to hear me. My throat was sore, and it hurt to speak.
He nodded. “That, he is. I begged Mom and Dad for a little brother, and when they finally had one, I was ecstatic. Then, he grew up to be Gabriel.”
I sneered at him.
“You can understand my disappointment,” he said, shaking his head and looking to Gabe.
Gabe began to stir, waking up a lot quicker than I did. He realized he was restrained and immediately began trying to move his arms and legs, to no avail. His grunts and groans echoed through the apartment as Geet watched and Scarface came into the living room from the kitchen to see what was going on.
“Good morning, sunshine,” Geet said, patting Gabe’s shoulder. “You slept a little longer than I thought you would.”
“When I get out of this chair, I’m going to kill you so hard,” Gabe growled, still struggling with the chair like a restrained wild animal. Being tied up was one of Gabe’s biggest fears: a lack of control.
“I don’t think you’re in any position to be making threats.”
I tried to swallow, but my throat was dry, causing me even more pain. I knew it was no use trying to escape my confines, especially with Geet and Scarface in the same room as me, so I decided to try to compromise with them. I knew it was a ridiculous idea, but it was all I had.
“What do I have to do to get Harrison to let my brother and Fuchsia go?” I asked.
Geet stared at me with a puzzled expression on his face, and Scarface let out a hearty laugh from the other side of the room.
“It’s a little late to start making deals,” he said. “Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. Harrison will be in charge of deciding what happens to who when he gets here, which should be any minute now.” He pulled out his cell phone and checked the time, sliding it back into his pocket and smiling.
I hung my head with no idea what to even say next. I glanced over at Gabe who had stopped struggling with his restraints. He stared at me sadly. He was broken, defeated, and looked like he was ready to have this all over with. I had never seen him with so little fight left.
I waited for him to try to convey some kind of escape plan, but he looked away, letting his head hang low again.
Five minutes passed, and there was a knock at the door. Geet immediately marched to the apartment’s entrance, glanced through the peek hole, and opened the door. He spoke to the person on the other side, Harrison, but I couldn’t hear what they said.
Harrison walked into the apartment and across the room, stopping only inches in front of me and Gabe. He wore black slacks and a light blue shirt. His fingers were adorned with rings, as usual, and his hair was slicked back. He looked as if he had just come from a nice dinner with his wife and kids at an upscale restaurant downtown.
I found myself wondering what type of man Harrison was outside of work. Was he a family man or a loner? Did he spend his downtime schmoozing with socialites and politicians, or did he try to stay out of the limelight as much as possible? Did he even have downtime, or was being a drug-lord the only thing he did?
“I don’t know what to say,” he whispered. His voice was stern, but remorseful, as if the entire situation was out of his control. He was the parent who might as well have been saying, “I’m not angry, I’m disappointed.”
I used the extra effort to lift my head, trying to look him in the eye, but he knelt down between the two of us before I could muster the strength.
“This was never going to end any other way, was it?” I asked.
“On the contrary,” he said, shaking his head, “This was supposed to go the exact opposite way, Jamie. Don’t you see that?”
“No,”
He grimaced. “You would have gone far, kid.”
“Excuse me?” I asked. “What are you even talking about?”
Harrison let out a sigh, as if trying to convey how frustrated he was with me. “When I brought you here, it was to pay off your debt to me,” he began. “But once that was taken care of, I had goals for you. You were going places, both of you. But you had to go and make things as messy as possible. You had to go and get yourselves killed.”
We were the star pupils who were on the fast track to stardom, but we had gone and fucked it up, and now we were being expelled.
“That’s bullshit,” Gabe spat from Harrison’s other side.
Harrison turned his head towards Gabe. “No, Gabriel. I saw the same promise in you as I saw in your brother. But you were too erratic, too angry. It was as if you had a death wish. You stole from me, and you knew the payment for something so witless would be your life. You did it anyway; you spat in my face.”
“You were going to kill us either way.”
“You’re wrong.” Harrison’s voice was the type of angry-calm that gave me goosebumps. “Oh, the chances you had. To make it right, to save yourselves. But you just kept pushing.”
I decide
d to speak up, because it was obvious Gabe wasn’t going to be able to get us out of this with only his words. “You’re going to kill us, I understand that, but the only thing I ask of you is you let my brother and Fuchsia go. They had no part in this. They didn’t do anything wrong.”
Harrison nodded, and the look on his face told me he was contemplating what I had asked. He was thinking of the right words to say, but I didn’t care. As long as he told me Kip and Fuchsia would survive, I no longer cared what would happen to me.
“Fuchsia will be fine, I can assure you that,” he said.
“And Kip?”
“That, I can’t promise.”
“Why?”
Harrison nodded towards Geet, who immediately walked to the front door of the apartment. He opened it again and brought someone in, though I couldn’t tell who it was due to the lack of light in the room.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“I apologize. The electricity in the building went out about an hour ago. A storm must be coming. The light is minimal,” Harrison said. “Come closer, darling.”
Out of the shadows and into the dim light of the kitchen lantern walked Fuchsia, completely unharmed and not restrained in any way. She had changed her clothes since I last spoke to her that morning, and she looked entirely less frightened than she had been before. Her makeup was fresh and no longer smeared. This was not the face of a woman who feared for her own life.
My jaw dropped.
“I’m sorry, babe,” she said, stopping next to Harrison and placing her hand on his shoulder. Something about her seemed deadlier than it ever had before. “It wasn’t supposed to go down like this.”
I couldn’t speak. I didn’t even know what words were. What the hell was happening?
“You see, after you abandoned me back in Weed, Harrison tracked you to my house. Of course, by the time he got there, you were already long gone, but he convinced me it was very important he find you. You know how bad I was hurting for money, Jamie. The whole psychic thing wasn’t bringing in enough to pay my bills.” Her face said she was sorry, but her voice gave no signs of remorse.
“You sold me out for money? You’ve been working for him this whole time? Nothing we had was ever real?” The questions flowed from my mouth faster than I could think of them.
“Oh, it was real, but like Harrison said; things were supposed to end up differently. You were supposed to follow the plan and never find out he had paid me to track you down.”
I glared at her. “I hope he paid you a lot. I hope it was worth it.”
She smiled.
I took a second to glance over at Gabe, who hadn’t spoken since before Fuchsia entered the apartment. He kept his gaze on Geet, but behind his back, I could see he had been trying to free his hands from the duct tape, and had almost succeeded.
I looked away, trying not to draw attention to him. “What happens next?” I asked Harrison.
He glanced to Scarface who made his way to the back half of the apartment where the bedrooms were. “Well, Jamie, let me make this very clear to you; you’ve betrayed me, and you’re definitely going to die tonight, but you’re going to get one more chance to save your loved ones.”
The blood drained from my face and I nearly passed out from shock as Scarface reentered the room, escorting two people with their hands tied behind their backs and duct tape covering their mouths. He shoved them in front of me, and both of them tumbled to the floor but were ushered onto their knees by Geet and Scarface.
Harrison took the liberty to rip the duct tape from both of their mouths, and Riley, through sobs, said, “Jamie, you have to do something!”
Kip didn’t speak.
They knelt in front of me, their faces looking towards the floor, execution style.
Geet and Scarface pulled guns from their belts, Scarface holding his to Kip’s head and Geet holding his to Riley’s.
Tears welled in my eyes as each of them tried to look up at me, unable to because of the metal pressed against their heads. Riley continued to sob, but Kip remained strong, trying to show as little emotion as possible.
I flashed back to the last time someone I loved was dragged into my actions against their will.
I saw Harrison’s employees, Sonny and Cher, holding their guns on me and Gabe in my house.
I saw the doorknob turning and Airic walking into the house like he had hundreds of times before.
I saw him slamming backwards into the door, blood splattered across his chest and face.
I saw him in my arms, taking his last breath.
My chest heaved in panic, and the tears spilled from my eyes, and I waited to find out what I would have to do to save the two people I cared most about in the world from meeting the same fate as my best friend.
“Untie him,” Harrison commanded.
I saw a confused expression flash across Scarface’s face, but he did as told, walking around behind my chair and slicing the duct tape holding my wrists with a small knife. He soon followed with my ankles.
I stayed in the chair, not wanting to risk being killed if I made the wrong move, or any move for that matter.
“Get up,” Harrison commanded.
I did as told, glancing to Gabe one more time to see how far he had come on getting his hands free. He was close, but still hadn’t succeeded.
Harrison pulled a small handgun from the back of his pants and placed it in my palm.
“What is this?” I asked.
“Well, if you want them to live,” he began, gesturing towards Kip and Riley. Kip’s face was stone cold, but Riley had continued to cry, her tears dripping onto the floor as she waiting on her knees, the gun still pressed against the back of her head.
I stared at Harrison without flinching.
He nodded towards Gabe. “If you want them to live, you have to kill him.”
(His Story Repeats Itself)