Page 20 of So Silent

“Exactly five minutes longer than you want me to.”

“Screw you.”

“Get some sleep. You’re not useful when you’re irritable like this. Don’t look at me like that; you know it’s true. I’ll keep brainstorming, and when I feel myself slipping, I’ll wake you up.”

Faith glared at Michael, who returned her stare impassively. Finally, she sighed. “You were a lot easier to deal with when you were afraid of me.”

“The Boss used to say that too. Now go to sleep. Seriously, I feel like your mom.”

“You mean my dad?”

“No, I mean your mom. That’s how messed up this is. Go. To. Sleep.”

“All right,” she said, lifting her hands in surrender. “You taking a nap, too, boy?”

Turk responded by circling a spot in between the two beds three times, then lowering himself to the ground. He turned his head lazily toward her and yawned luxuriously. She found it fascinating sometimes, just watching him. “Everything’s just so easy for you, isn’t it?”

Turk met her eyes just long enough to make it clear that yes, everything was easy for him, and he loved it. Then he closed his eyes and promptly fell asleep.

She chuckled and set her bag on the other side of the bed. “I’m not changing out of my work clothes,” she said to Michael.

She wasn’t sure what she hoped to accomplish with that little micro-rebellion, but whatever it was, it didn’t work. Michael lifted a thumbs up her way without even looking.

She lay down with her hands behind her head. She had no confidence she’d actually manage to sleep at all, but she didn’t want to hear from Michael about not resting.

Against her will, however, her eyelids grew heavy, and soon she was fast asleep.

***

Faith opened her eyes and gasped. She tried to stand but found herself unable to move.

Her heart raced, and she took deep breaths to slow its pounding. She looked around as much as her bonds would allow her and took stock of her surroundings.

She was in a wooden chair bolted to the floor of what she guessed to be an old barn. The only light came through a small crack in the wall behind and to the left of her near the ceiling of the tall structure. Its beam fell on a metal cart—a surgical tray. On top of the tray was a selection of cutting implements: a scalpel, a knife, a couple of different handsaws and what looked like a cutting wheel for a table saw. All of them were rusty and pitted, and most had red-brown stains covering their blades.

She’d had this nightmare many times before, but knowing what was going to happen next rarely allowed her any relief, and it allowed her none this time. She struggled against her bonds, grunting with effort and pulling until she nearly felt her joints dislocate. She failed to loosen them at all, as she knew she would.

Panic seized her and knowing that she would survive this dream as she had the real-life event that inspired it did nothing to calm that panic.

The door opened, and behind her wide-eyed, hyperventilating exterior, she wondered if it would be Trammell or West this time. Or both.

It was West. He approached her, humming a tune under his breath. One Way or Another by Blondie. Faith didn’t know exactly why that choice seemed odd to her.

“Well, hello there, Miss Bold,” West said, smiling benignly at her as he approached the surgical table. “How are we doing today?”

“You’re in jail,” she replied. “You can’t hurt me. This is only a dream.”

West lifted an eyebrow. “Are you saying dreams can’t hurt you? Now Faith, surely you’re not that naïve.”

“You’re just a phantom,” she said, ignoring the trembling in her voice and the shaking in her limbs. “The real you is locked in a cell, weeks away from spending the rest of your life in a hole with a four inch by ten inch view of the sun.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say weeks,” he said, selecting a scalpel from the tray and turning it over in his hands. “This is a sensational case. They’ll drag it out for at least a year. Ratings, you know.” He started walking toward her. “And while it’s true I’ll spend a considerable amount of time at ADX Florence, the reality is that I have maybe ten to fifteen years of interviews, book deals and news specials before interest in me wanes and they finally decide they can’t profit off of my exploits anymore. Then it’s an early return to Hell for me.”

He grinned at his joke. In the soft light of the cracked barn wall, his teeth looked unnaturally white.

“Go ahead and do what you’re going to do,” Faith said. “This means nothing.”

West grinned and leaned down until his lips were right next to Faith’s ear. “Don’t be mad at me, Faith.”

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