Page 17 of Deader than Dead

“What? Someone to bring back the men you kill, if you go whoops, made a mistake?”

Crocodile’s laugh was little more than a rasp in his chest. “Something like that.”

“Then, no. I’m not looking for a new job. I’m happy to stay on the right side of the law.”

“Pity,” he said. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.” He turned away. “Get him out of here.”

Me? Or Bellamy? An answer to that question came with Gold Tooth’s hand on my shoulder as he frog-marched me toward the door. I didn’t have the candles, the knife, or my bag, but I’d already pushed things far enough, and there was nothing that wasn’t replaceable. Cade could fill the damn forms in. I wasn’t doing it.

Gold Tooth’s fingers dug in, his pace brisk as he escorted me back down the corridor the way we’d come. “Didn’t think I’d be bringing you back this way. Gates isn’t usually big on leaving witnesses. He must be going soft in his old age.”

Gates. So Crocodile wasn’t O’Reilly. I couldn’t say I was disappointed at not having met the big boss. “I’m not a witness. I’m a man who was hired to do a job. I don’t know what’s going on here, and what’s more, I don’t want to know. All I want is to go home. My shift should have finished two hours ago.”

Gold Tooth laughed like I’d made a joke as he halted in front of the lift and pressed the button. The doors opened immediately, and he gave me a little shove that had me stumbling inside. “Make sure you go straight down. I wouldn’t advise poking your nose around any other floor. You know what they say about curiosity.”

Yeah, it killed the cat. I didn’t say that, though, the doors already closing. I pressed the button for the ground floor and I waited as the lift made its descent, the journey down seeming to take even longer than the journey up had. I counted floors, refusing to think about what had just happened and what I’d left behind.

The journey home passed in a blur. If I’d said more than two words to Giant, Monstrous, and Gargantuan on my way out, I couldn’t remember what they were. Given that I still had my own teeth, though, I had to assume that I’d displayed some modicum of politeness. On the tube, I’d done nothing but stare into space, which, to be fair, was standard behavior for most Londoners, so I doubted anyone had suspected anything was amiss. Inside, though, I was numb. No, not numb. It felt like someone had carved out my chest with a rusty spoon to leave nothing but raw flesh behind.

Cade had called as I’d emerged from the underground at Wembley Park. I’d ignored the call. Let him think I was dead for a few hours. Maybe he’d even feel guilty for sending me into the lion’s den with only a warning to keep my mouth shut. I guessed there was a certain irony in me not having done that and still living to tell the tale. God knows why Crocodile hadn’t just put a bullet in my brain. Was there a part of me that had wanted him to? Is that why I’d goaded him? Probably.

I’d barely finished locking the door of my flat before the tears fell. Away from prying eyes, I slid to the floor with my back against the wall and gave in to my grief. Could you grieve what you’d never had? Apparently, you could. Maybe it was worse when there were no memories. I didn’t know. All I knew was that it hurt like nothing else in my life ever had.

Bellamy and I could have been the real deal. Now we’d be nothing. Less than nothing, him not even surviving long enough for us to have met. Would we have bought a house together? Married? Adopted children? The questions wouldn’t stop. My phone rang another three times. I didn’t even bother to look who was calling. It was likely my mother or Cade, and I didn’t want to speak to either of them. I couldn’t speak to anyone.

Only when there were no tears left to cry did I heave myself to my feet and make my way to the bedroom without putting any lights on. I didn’t undress, just burrowing beneath the covers as I was and pulling them over my head to leave myself in a dark cocoon that felt like a sanctuary. Tomorrow, I’d scrape myself back together, and I’d carry on as if the events of today hadn’t rocked me to the core. I’d paste a smile on and face the future.

Chapter Ten

Bellamy

Cold. Dark. Like I had a great weight pressing down on me.

Once, when I’d been eight and Vicki had only been six, we’d gone on a family holiday to Bournemouth where our maternal grandparents lived. During a day spent on the beach, Vicki had taken great delight in burying me up to my neck. The sand had been surprisingly heavy, and when she’d run off, I’d experienced a moment of panic. A moment where I’d struggled for long enough to break free from the sand that I’d imagined being pinned there until the tide swept in and filled my lungs with freezing cold water.

This felt like that. Like my body knew what it was supposed to do, but couldn’t actually do it. What was wrong with me? I wanted to open my eyes, but it felt like an impossible task, like my lids were weighted down. Why? Drugs, maybe? I didn’t do drugs, though. I’d never done drugs, so it was highly unlikely I’d start in my late twenties. Had someone spiked my drink? I had a vague recollection of being in a bar, so the scenario fit. Or maybe I was in a coma. What if a bus had hit me after leaving the bar?

I’d read stories about people being stuck in comas who could hear everything going on around them, but couldn’t move or wake up. Is that what was happening? I strained to hear something: my mother, my father, my sister, a doctor or a nurse, but the room was silent. No beep of machines. No sound at all. I made a superhuman effort to pry my lids open, and this time, I was successful.

I rolled my head to the side and found myself staring at a lit candle with a flickering flame. Not a hospital, then. No hospital would use candles. I struggled to sitting, the effort required a long way from normal. There were more lit candles arranged in a circle around the bed on which I lay, something about them sending an icy shiver down my spine.

The bottom half of me was fully clothed, even down to me still wearing shoes. My chest was bare, though, the discovery sending another wave of panic coursing through me. Why couldn’t I remember how I’d gotten here? And where was here? I struggled off the bed, my legs almost giving way beneath me as I attempted to stand. My breath came in short pants, my heart fluttering in my chest like a trapped baby bird. “Keep it together, Bellamy,” I whispered.

See! I knew my name. That was a good sign. I knew my name. I knew my age, my address, the name of my parents, my sister. Hell, I even remembered the name of my next-door neighbor and that chihuahua of hers.

The mask! That damn mask. Recent events came rushing back at the same time as I spotted my T-shirt neatly folded next to the pillow. I pulled it over my head, movement coming a little easier to me now. I’d hidden the mask where no one would find it, and then I hadn’t gone home in case they’d found me there.

What had happened after that? I’d gone to a bar. Right. That’s why I remembered one. I’d had a few drinks. There’d been a guy there. He’d tried to chat me up, and I’d been tempted. At least until I’d spotted his wedding ring and given him short shrift. Had he drugged me? Was this where he lived? But no, that couldn’t be right. Not when I remembered leaving the bar. What had happened after that? A car. Men. They’d grabbed me. And then I remembered nothing. They must have brought me here.

The candles provided enough light to see the bedroom I’d woken up in. When a quick appraisal provided no clues to my location, I hurried over to the window and yanked the curtain back. I was up high. At the top of a building, if I had to hazard a guess. As for which part of London I was in, I didn’t have a clue, and that was assuming I was still in London. Why couldn’t I recall being brought here? I turned my attention back to the bed. A bag lay beside it. One that gave the impression someone had abandoned it in a hurry. My bag? I didn’t think so. It wasn’t one I recognized.

“Take it to him.”

I blinked at the voice in my head. Who was the him? And how the fuck was I meant to find someone I had zero recollection of? But there was a compulsion gnawing away at me, something that told me that at least some of the answers lay with whoever had left these things here, and that I needed to find him. I blew all but one candle out, stuffing them in the bag and fastening it. The last candle I kept lit, using it to light my way as I made my way to the door. What if someone had locked it? Locked doors weren’t usually a problem for me, but even I needed tools.

However, the door opened to reveal an empty living room. A table full of crushed beer cans and an overflowing ashtray spoke of that not having been the case earlier in the day. A cursory search didn’t reveal my missing phones or my jacket. It had probably been too optimistic to hope I might stumble across them.

I found another door—one that led out into a long corridor. There was no one out there, the entire building unnaturally still. Other doors led off from the corridor, the purpose of the building clear as a block of flats now that I was outside the one I’d woken up in.

---