Page 33 of Tear Me Down
Damien
One Week Later
The new interrogation room is pristine. All-white walls and floors flow seamlessly together—there are no windows, bare walls to distract my victim from what is happening to him, and the walls are soundproof and hard enough that if I were to throw him against them, it would surely break a bone. Water and sewer hookups are also a nice addition and will make cleanup easier. I was anticipating this interrogation, ready for a few hours of screaming and painful coercion. Considering the array of tools I have sprawled out along the all-white counters, I should be having a great time. But I’m not.
I had picked one of Dust’s dealers off the street to get some information. Their warehouses, or new manufacturing locations, are getting harder to find, but their output has increased—leading to more and more overdoses and deaths, not only confirmed by police dispatch but also by Serena’s shifts at the ER. This tells me Hugo is starting to use his fucked-up brain, and that doesn’t bode well for any of us. Usually, I’d beat the shit out of one of these guys, maybe stab or cut them a little, and then they’d tell me everything I want to know, but this guy? No, and it’s not because he’s a tough prick.
This piece of shit doesn’t feel a fucking thing. Not a single hit, slice, or stab. Even when I shoved my knife into the top of his thigh, he didn’t move. He’s so high on whatever drug Dust is passing around that he doesn’t even know who he is. It’s both astonishing and infuriating, like one of those true crime documentaries where you should be disgusted, but you’re actually impressed. Even as I sit in the opposite chair and hurl throwing knives at him, he isn’t fazed. Not as one hits his stomach, shoulder, shin,nothing!
It's really starting to piss me off. I needed this outlet tonight to ease the crashing waves in my mind, but it appears I won’t receive that solace. No way to force these feelings to subside. Ashia is still sick. She’s recovering and making progress, but the gnawing guilt is eating away at me slowly. The exhaustion still covers her face, and even though the frequency of when sheactuallyvomits is lessening, I can still see when she feels nauseous.
She’s trying her hardest to appear fine—like nothing ever happened, so we can return to that perfect moment just before the catastrophe—but I’m not sure I can. Those few hours that I couldn’t feel her essence surrounding me were worse than eternal damnation, and even though we both pulled through to the other side, that small taste of the void my life would be without her in it was enough to scar me forever.
Eyes were just eyes before I saw hers. Hair was just hair, and a soul was a figment of imagination. Something made up in folklore and fairytales to make life seem livable. A myth built up through time to justifythe delusional belief in God and a reason to hope for eternal peace after a tortured lifetime. But that was before I saw her—studied her and captured her—drawing her into my madness. So selfishly inclined that I tangled her so far into my own being that she’ll never be able to crawl her way out. But given the chance, I would do it all again, in every life, as long as it led me back to her.
Up until that moment…
That’s one mistake I’ll never be able to take back and would never want to repeat.
I know a part of me is at war with myself for thinking that, knowing that the woman who will be my wife, and hopefully the mother of my children…is standing beside me taller than she’s ever been because of it, but when this is all said and done, will she still believe this was all worth it? Will she still see me as her pillar of strength, or will she view me as her destruction, building her up just to tear her down like she was initially afraid of me doing? Will she finally see through her smoke screen of love and believe I’m as big of a failure as I know I am?
“You look like you’re having the time of your life,” Carter jokes as he enters the room, holding his laptop like it’s a prized possession and breaking me out of my thoughts. I respond by flipping him my middle finger. His bullshit is the last thing I want to hear, and I can already feel the tick in my jaw.
“Yeah, a great fucking time.” I drop my hand to throw another knife, jerking it forward so harshly that I lift out of the chair. The knife lands with a thud right into his other shoulder, next to his collarbone, AND HE DOESN’T EVEN FUCKING FLINCH! I growl loudly and flop back in the chair, getting more annoyed by Carter’s chuckle.
“Jesus Christ, what’s wrong with this guy?”
“The eyeworms are dancing,” the drug dealer says as he gazes around the room, clearly looking at some imaginary floaters his brain has conjured up.
“HE’S FUCKING HIGH!” I thrust my hands forward in the dealer’s direction, gesturing to the annoying piece of shit. “It’s whatever the fuck Dust is throwing around town! Please, tell me one of our patrols picked some up so we can test it,” I all but beg.
“No one has reported that they have,” he relays, and I slap my hands to my knees as I stand up and walk over to the dealer. “Are we sure it’s just one drug? With the number of overdoses rising as rapidly as they are, I doubt this is the same thing. The symptoms they come in with are nothing like this.” Carter points at the dealer.
“Then there must be more than one experiment being passed around, because he’s been like this for a while. Maybe he’ll just randomly drop dead,” I shrug, not really giving a shit if he does or not.
“I’m going to die? Oh, that’s so sad,” the dealer slurs out in a depressed tone, and I turn to look at Carter. I raise my brows and shove my hand in his direction again, showing my exasperation. If he’s not useful to us, I might as well kill him now, but I have a feeling Carter will just argue.
“How long has he been like that?” Carter asks with his brow furrowed.
“I am thirty-two!” The dealer shouts, and I don’t resist the urge to rear back and punch him, soaking in the sting that bursts across my knuckles and letting the feeling ground me for a moment.
“FOR AN HOUR!” I roar, getting even more frustrated. If I could have high blood pressure at twenty-eight, I’m pretty sure it’s developing now. “Do we have anything on facial rec yet? Picking up the dealers obviously isn’t getting us anywhere.”
“Nothing yet.”
I pace the room and feel the agitated tingle creep through my body. This is taking too long, and the lack of answers is eating away at me. I need to know what Hugo is up to and how he’s being so discreet. At least before, Dust was right under our noses. Easy to see and exterminate. But now? Now, they’re being sneaky, methodical, and a real pain in my ass. I can’t ensure the city’s, or Ashia’s, safety like this. How can I continue to let her go to work and pretend like everything is normal when all it would take is one slip-up, and everything could turn to shit? I could lose her, innocent people could start dropping like flies, and it would be all my fault. Bits and pieces from the evening she was poisoned flash through my mind, and it’s like my chest tightens, constricting itself to keep any oxygen in if I were to stop breathing.
“What the hell is taking so long? It’s never been this slow before.” I grip the counter hard enough for my hands to cramp, letting the pain trick my lungs into working again.
“I don’t know, D. It’s not pulling them from the databases,” Carter says, his voice laced with disappointment, and I start to pace, lacing my hands behind my head to keep myself steady.
“What other databases can we get into?”
“Besides the federal and local ones? I don’t know, but I can look into it.”
“Listen, I’m sure you’re both very nice,” the dealer chimes in, “but I have to get back to work now. My dad is going to be so mad at me.” I stop in my tracks and look back to the dealer, feeling the anger boil over again. Every second I look at this pathetic life form, I can feel another piece of my sanity being chipped away.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” I shake my head and continue to pace, almost praying for God to give me the gift of this drug wearing off just so I can beat the shit out of him.
