When I woke it was light. I could tell by the way it hurt my eyes.  But it wasn’t just my eyes that hurt.  It was my shoulders, my wrists, and my ankles.  As I blinked myself to consciousness, I found the reason for the pains – I was tied to a chair, my mouth gagged. And oh yeah – my head hurt, too.    A soft moan caused me to crane my neck to my left, and I let go a muffled curse as I saw Hope gagged and bound to a chair like me, her shirt torn.  I surveyed the room.  It appeared to be some flea-bitten motel, a double bed and night stand to our left, pushed against the far wall, the old color console shoved over to make room for Hope and me, us tied to the two chairs that usually sat around the little table by the shuttered windows. There was light filtering in through cracks between the slats of the blinds to my right.  The windows were closed and it was getting hot. The room stunk, as I had pissed myself during the night, and I assumed Hope had as well.  I cursed one more time under my gag, then struggled against my bindings to no avail. The smell of the air, as much as I could get of it, told me we might be by the beach, but I couldn’t be sure, Desperate, I began to try to rattle my chair over to the window, but only succeeded in toppling it and banging my already throbbing head.  Once on the floor, I was able to use my arm and shoulder to begin working the chair slowly toward the window and door.  After several minutes of this, I don’t know how long, I had almost reached the door when it opened, cracking my shin.

“What the?” said a voice from the face I couldn’t see, and I was kicked hard in the stomach and my chair heaved back.  After I was kicked once more, my chair was righted and I saw through tearing eyes three figures: Carlos, Keele, and Wilkes.

“Hold ‘em still,” said Wilkes.  “I want to take pictures.  And take their gags off.”

Keele then pulled out a pistol with a silencer and looked at me. “One word out of you and I kill your girlfriend.”  Then he looked at Hope.  “The same goes for you, sister.”  He pulled off my gag, then hers.  Hope opened her mouth like she wanted to scream, but all that came out was a croaky, “Water…”

“Get ‘em some water,’ said Carlos to Keele, taking his gun, while Wilkes snapped our pictures with a Polaroid.  In a moment, the lieutenant came out of the bathroom with a dirty plastic cup filled with water.  He held it to Hopes lips and she gulped half of it down, then he put it to mine.

“Oh these are nice,” said Wilkes, waving the pictures dry in front of his face, a slightly feminine lilt in his voice.  “Reallll nice.”

At this, Hope began mumbling something, like an incantation or chant.

“Shut her up!” snapped Carlos to Keele, who smacked her across the face and replaced her gag. I cursed him, and he clubbed me, catching me right on the bump on the back of my head, then replaced my gag, too. I could still hear Hope’s muffled mumbling, but my head began to throb, and the room swam a bit. Through blurred eyes, I saw Wilkes pull something out of the plastic supermarket shopping bag he’d brought -- a photo album.  He flipped to a page about halfway through and lilted, “This will do nicely.  Here,” he said, holding a page out in front of Hope, but still in my line of vision.  “I’ve made a space just for you.”  I could see a picture of Skye, Hope’s son, the age when he died, and with an empty space next to it.  I heard Hope’s mutterings increase in intensity. I opened my mouth to tell her to stop, but the room started to spin, and, once more, I was out.

When I woke, it was dark, and I was shivering, still bound and gagged, my throat completely dry.  I heard a moan and turned to see Hope, head lolling about her chest, also still bound and gagged, three feet away.  There was rustling at the door, then it opened.  Pale, orange rays of artificial light hazed in between four or five guys to my crusted, blurry eyes, and I thought again of that first night I met Hope, the sidewalks glistening pale under the fluorescent light.  In a moment the door was closed and the lamp was turned on. 

“You two junkies are going for a swim.” said a familiar, gravelly voice.  When I was able to blink his face into vision, I saw that it was once again Carlos.  Wilkes wasn’t with them.  There was Keele, bad teeth guy, the new initiate, and two of my other friends from the bar.  Keele nodded to bad teeth guy.

“Do it,” he said.

Bad teeth guy stroked his goatee once, then took a bag form the newbie’s outstretched hand.  I watched him pull out a needle and a brown vial. He filled up the needle a third of the way, then walked over to Hope.  The mustached weightlifter from the bar came behind her, licked her once on the neck, then secured her shoulders.  Newbie went and held down her right arm while Keele tied it off with an elastic and found a vein.  As he hit the plunger and pushed in the poison, I heard Hope manage a soft curse under her gag, then her head lolled and fell to her chest.  In a moment, they came over, and with the help of the newbie, held me still while Keele plunged more of the same poison into my vein. The world swayed.  At first I thought I would pass out, but I didn’t.  I felt myself being untied, then lifted.  I heard the sound of urination coming from the bathroom, which seemed so strange to me, a normal function so out of the grasp of my reality.  I had soiled myself long ago, and at least once more since.  I heard a voice that echoed in my head a million times for someone to hurry up.  It must have been the middle of the night.  I remember being carried under the armpits down some stairs.  Then I saw it again, the sidewalk.  That pale white sidewalk glistening in a streetlight, glistening in starlight, with sand and salt and mist, like little angels had done a kindergarten art project that, though beautiful, sparkled back the warnings that I had so ignored.  I heard the crash of waves echo in my head, but what I kept doing was blinking at the sidewalk, trying to discern its message, as if maybe it wasn’t too late.  We must have been along the seawall.  Then we were up some stairs. The world tilted on its axis, and I tried to turn my head to straighten it, but failed, knowing it had come to the end, and there was nothing I could do.  I had followed this thing when every part of my being cried against it, decided to ride this wave when all good sense said to let it go, and now the big wave was going to take me.  I closed my eyes and waited for the proverbial end to come, the last darkness. When we stopped moving, I opened my eyes and saw the blurred end of the pier.  Ready to go over, ready for it finally all to end, Hope with me, me with Hope, everything and all hope gone, I heard a cry from one of the guys and managed to crane my head to see the lights of a police car speeding towards us, and these strange white lights bobbing behind them.  Then I was over.

The water was cold, and I swallowed some right off, confused at first when to breathe and when not to.  I came up, with some effort, coughing, and tried to search for Hope in the dark, as a wave crashed into my face.  Two hands grabbed me from behind, and I felt the cold rubber of a wet suit pressed against my back.  I struggled to free myself, then heard the words, “Relax.” in my right ear, and without much choice in the matter, I did.

Chapter 15 coming 12/1 (or so…)!!!