Page 34 of Intrepid

“Pictures of the back of my head, or of me sleeping. And dick pics.”

His mouth stretched to a roguish smile that crinkled his eyes, and holy hell, it was perfect. I wanted to snap a pic of him, just so I could study all the finer details my eyes weren’t even picking up on in all that brilliance. “I’ll save the dick pics for when you’re feeling up to them.” He leaned forward and planted a kiss on my cheek. “I’ll pick you up Friday at five.”

“Wow. An early date?”

His tongue traced his lips, and I watched, mesmerized by the wet sheen. “I’ve got a lot of things planned for you.”

11

Jameson

Nine years ago …

Blood-chilling cold.

An ache in my jaw pulled me from the wooziness that’d settled over me. When I opened my eyes, though, the darkness didn’t go away. I double blinked, only the flapping of my lashes across my cheekbone telling me I was awake. Blackness surrounded me, where I lay against what felt like cold metal grates pressing into my muscles, the sharp, protruding prongs scraping across my skin.

Sickness churned in my stomach, like when I’d spend too much time outside and forget to drink water. I jerked my arm, rattling a chain attached to my right wrist, the cuff of it biting into my bones. With a shaky hand, I followed the path of the chain in darkness, locating the end of it bolted to the metal frame beneath me.

Finding my left hand unbound, I patted along my body, taking comfort in knowing I was clothed, in spite of the chill humming along my bones. Though, I’d no idea what they’d done to me after I’d passed out—a thought that balled my stomach into tight knots of terror.

I pushed up, and the hard crack against my skull knocked me back down again. I reached out, palpating hard metal grates, and up along the side of what felt like wooden planks. The surface pricked my finger. I drew back and blindly finger-tweezed a sharp nettle of wood from the source of pain. Careful the second time, I reached again and tapped my fingers across the wood in front of me, the warped curves of it offering gaps, through which I could slip my hand up to my palm.

I pawed at the floor again, my mind scrambling to puzzle my surroundings together. A metallic scent, like old tools, suggested some kind of storage space, and the damp, moldy undertones hinted I was in a basement. But what the hell were the metal grates beneath me? Some kind of cage inside a pantry? I kicked out my feet, rattling the metal, only to find the space accommodated no more than my bent form.

Over the swishing of blood in my ears, voices emerged. Laughing. More than one. Two. No, three distinct voices.

“Help! Help me!” I slammed my feet and hands against the metal to make noise.

“Oh, fuck, oh, fuck, James. Oh, fuck.” Eli’s voice, even brimming with terror, offered a small comfort in the surrounding blackness.

“Can you see anything?”

“No. Nothing.” His quiet whimper escalated into a squeal of panic. “Those cocksuckers put us in a cage!”

“A closet, or something,” I corrected. “And some kind of metal floor.” I tried to make sense of its purpose, based on what I’d unseeingly touched.

“They’re going to kill us. They’re gonna fucking kill us in this shithole, and nobody will find us, Jay.”

“Just … let me think.”

A creaking sound broke my thoughts.

A bright yellowish glow bled through the wide gaps of the door, allowing me to see that they were, in fact, wooden planks, the slats so worn down and misshapen, they failed to serve as a barrier. Through the chinks in the wood, I could see a room with brown pools of water scattered over the concrete floor, in the center of which sat a box shape, draped in a black curtain. I lifted my head, staring at it, studying its purpose—or, more importantly, what might be in it.

“You see that box?” I called out to Eli, hoping to get some idea of where he sat.

“Yeah. I see it.”

The door to the room beyond must’ve sat somewhere to my right, because shadows danced across the water-stained cement walls in front of me, melding into the dark parts of the room, warning me we were no longer alone. My nerves flared as I sat forward, searching through the gaps for who had entered the room.

Cold black eyes, like two empty graves, peered in from outside the door, and I kicked myself away from Fox. With his face shining beneath the penetrating light, the warped barrier between us wasn’t enough to shield me from his curious stare. “Hello, sleepy head,” he said. “Right about now, you’re probably wondering what the hell is going on. Why you’re in here.” His gaze shifted to my left and back to me. “You boys don’t hold your liquor very well.” From somewhere beside him, he produced a flip phone, holding it up so I could just make out the back of my head, as I sat slung over a dirty toilet seat.

Flashes of memory flickered like snapshots through my mind. Being forced to drink. The room spinning. Burns searing into my skin. Feeling sick. The blackness settling over me.

He pulled the phone back and chuckled, looking down at the glowing screen. “Here’s another one.”

My teeth chattered with the tension in my jaw, as I stared at a picture of Eli passed out and sprawled across a couch, completely naked. “You sick fucks.” I turned my attention away from it, unable to look at his helplessness.