Page 97 of Penny for Your Saints

Neither Tin-tin nor Caz object to this—but they don’t look pleased about it either.

“I need something to take the edge off,” I admit, shrugging their concern off. “I’d get it from the source—but you’re too uptight to do anything other than smell off and sour right now—and none of us are in the mood right now after today…” I trail off.

“Fine—but only one tab, ok?” Caz warns. “I don’t want to have to chase you down because you’re running around convinced you’re the king of the fairies again,” he scolds.

“Only the one—I promise!” I assure him before dropping the tiny square of paper onto my tongue.

I lay back into the lumpy pillows and the drop is nearly immediate.

Lush colors explode around me as the kaleidoscopic effect of Caz’s perfume magnified nearly ten times, saturates my vision with rainbows of color and shimmering lights.

There’s a warm, comforting resonance, like a Mandela of sun and star-shine that pulse above me. I reach for it—feeling the connection to Caz, to Quentin as I run my hands along the golden skeins.

Without thinking—I reach for Louise along our bond; expecting to find the static silence we’ve all been getting for the last few hours.

I feel something—like cold wet rope; the fingers of my questing consciousness closing around it.

“Stop!” I find myself screaming before I even understand what is happening.

It is as if I have momentarily conducted myself down the bond like a jolt of electricity; for a moment of horrifying clarity, I experience the waking horror of Louise in an unknown room; no windows—only a single sickly overhead light; the entire room lined wall to wall in white tile—every inch of surface nearly identical—save for a single plate metal door in the far wall, and a metal drain at the center of the tiled floor.

“Sébastien! Sebby! You’re right here—you’re just freaking out!” Caz calls to me from where my body lies in the motel bed.

“No! It’s Louise—I can see through the bond; she’s being held somewhere—tortured!” I wail—not sure if Caz can hear.

Louise’s panic is my panic as she hears a set of keys jangling in the metal door.

“Is it Lowry?” Quentin’s voice is accompanied by the vague sensation of hands on shoulders. Are they my shoulders? It’s hard to tell when my body seems so far away; Louise’s sights and sensations—so much more immediate in this moment.

“She needs help!” I repeat pathetically—unable to will myself to move, to look away.

I can tell from the rush of adrenaline—the pounding of her heart so intense it’s painful; that whatever is about to pass through that doorway—Louise is terrified. She knows it will bring her great physical pain—and will drive her to mental ruin.

“Seb, what is it!?” Caz’s face fills my vision for a moment—and I wish I could hold on to those blue eyes, that gaunt face—but I am yanked back to the torture room as the horrifying figure walks through the door.

When I see the figure through Louise’s eyes—I am undone. I scream my horror and pass out.

“You know, I feel like I could start one of those travel blogs about dungeons and captivity spaces,” I groan through my bloody nose and split lip before spraying a mess of blood and snot onto the white tile before me as Susan Lowry and Ed Compton stand back in disgust.

Neither of them is versed at this kind of work anymore—but you can tell that they took my little escapades on the Yacht personally; they wanted to get a few punches in before they bring the big dogs in.

Fine, let them bruise their knuckles on me. I’m not going to talk to them or the dogs.

“I could be the Tony Bourdain of torture chambers,” I laugh to myself, my right eye already half swollen shut.

“We didn’t want to do this, Louise, but you left us no choice,” Lowry tuts regretfully as she uses a small white cloth to wipe the blood off her hands.

“Sure, whatever helps you sleep at night, Suz.” I give Susan a bloody grin and a gallows laugh.

She shakes her head, as if she just can’t understand why I wouldn’t roll over for a couple of fucked up fascist’s like her and Compton.

That’s when her eye finally catches on my hand—my wrists bound in my lap—my arms bound to my sides and around the back of the chair.

I see Lowry’s eyes widen as she finally takes in the bonding bite wound.

“That’s right Susan,” I laugh slowly, the gleeful malice rising in me like an old friend. “You and Eddy really fucked up this time. I’ve got four of the most batshit crazy vigilantes out there searching for me—architecting all sorts of ways to make you pay—to deliver you the most sublime pain that they can manage.”

Emboldened by the pause this gives her—I press on.

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