Page 8 of Possession

“What the fuck is this?”

“Boss wants him tending the Beast after the doc is done. Took him off Prescott.”

Briggs narrows his eyes at me. Maybe because I know there was a syringe in his pocket? I wonder if it’s still there. I wonderif it’s empty. Probably. If he hadn’t intended to drug the fighter, there would’ve been no reason to have the syringe with him at all. He could simply have taken Frank’s money.

So Briggs might have told Crowley that Frank simply tried to bribe him to drug the collared fighter, but the truth is likely that he actually did it.

And the fighter won anyway.

The doctor stands up and starts gathering up the bloody gauze. He puts it in a disposal bag along with his bloodied latex gloves. He zips his kit and hauls it to the gate. Briggs unlocks the gate and lets the doctor out.

The doctor eyes me coldly over the top of his glasses. “You have any medical training?”

“Huh?”

He sighs. “I’ll take that as a no.”

The guard who brought me says, “You’ll have to give him instructions. Unless you prefer to tend the Beast yourself once he wakes up?”

The doctor pushes his glasses up with a finger. “You know I only visit when he’s doing his Sleeping Beauty impersonation. I’ll bring supplies though.”

The guard who brought me informs him, “You have another visit to make.”

“Finger?” the doctor guesses.

“What are you, doc, psychic?”

“Call it an educated guess.”

Briggs holds the gate open and gestures me inside. Adrenaline spikes. I back up, bumping into the guard who brought me. He shoves me toward the opening.

I stumble forward, catching myself against the bars. “Please!” I cry out, unable to stop myself from protesting despite knowing it won’t do any good. “I don’t have anything to do with this!”

Briggs kicks me in the hip and sends me crashing to the concrete floor inside the cell. “You do now.”

The gate clangs shut. I fly to the bars.

The doctor and the guard who brought me here are leaving.

“I know you drugged him,” I whisper desperately at Briggs, my eyes darting between him and the others as they reach the stairs. “Let me out or I’ll tell them.”

Briggs snorts. “Your word would mean as much as the Beast’s. And you’ll be dead by morning anyway.” His head tilts as he takes a good look at me. “Kind of a shame really—pretty boy.”

FOUR

Lucas

When the doctor returns, I’m sitting with my back to the wall, as far away from the unconscious fighter as I can get without putting myself in a corner. I don’t want to get trapped.

I don’t know how much time has passed. Enough that my heart has stopped racing. Enough that I’ve returned to a state of numb acceptance. I’m not getting out of here.

A lot of people would probably still be in disbelief. They would probably beg and protest. Me? I feel dumb for having protested at all.

That doesn’t mean I’m not scared. That’s why I’m over here with my knees drawn up. That’s why I still haven’t really looked at the big, unconscious figure on the mattress at the other end of the cell.

I have looked around though. The rectangular cell is pretty big and obviously makes use of what existed in the building before its conversion. The mattress lies along one short wall. The long wall stretches behind me then ends at another short wall. A partial wall, actually, because there’s an opening to a bathroom. It’s just a toilet and sink, no door in the doorframe, but it’s better than nothing.

There’s a punching bag and a pull up bar.

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