Page 8 of A Taste Of Truth
“Actually. I think it fucking does now.”
He sighs and looks out to the wind and cold, chest seeming to ward the storm off somehow. “Rothburg. You’ve probably seen me in the media when I have to be seen.” No, still nothing really, but maybe that’s true enough. Not like I keep up with high society or anything remotely attached to it. “I design and deal in pharmaceuticals. Try to make the world a safer place when I’m not fucking around with its existence.” My own brow cocks at the hilarity of that statement considering what happens behind those doors we’ve come through.
“So that shit in there is your fault, and that’s why you feel the need to help him.”
He nods. “Yes. Although, I’m trying not to be held responsible for his addiction. Hardly my fault if people are unable to cope with themselves.”
“Well, isn’t that just something a drug dealer would say? What an asshole you are.” I scoff like someone should do and back my way out of the cold into the relative warmth of the tunnel again. “This is all ridiculous. He has a wife. Ask her. I don’t even know how to help him. Or even if I should. Or even if I want to.”
He frowns and looks past me, staring out into nothing for a few minutes. “Faith is … what she is, I suppose. Malachi’s health isn’t her concern. She might be more interested in his death in all honesty.” Well, that’s fucking sad. What a great marriage. “I’d like you to try.”
“Why? Why the hell should I help you, or him, with anything?”
“Because that’s how you get home. I can guarantee you, you won’t get home any other way. I’ll make that a certainty.”
I sneer, grabbing my knife again. “That’s tantamount to blackmail.”
His hands go to his pockets, brow arched. “Pleasant isn’t part of my repertoire. And he’s a priority to me at the moment. For varying reasons. I’ll get what I want one way or another. I’d choose the easier option if I was you. You’ll stay sane that way.”
And that sounded like a threat.
“I don’t take threats well, Gray.”
“No one does, so try connecting with that feeling inside you instead of labouring the thought of pressure. That joining you’re accessing will help you understand him far more than anyone else ever will. Use it. He won’t be able to anymore.”
“What?” No answer.
Spinning slowly, he starts heading back into the part obscurity, nothing else than that coming from his mouth. The sound of his shoes seems to lead me after him, but still I look back out into the brightness, as if hoping another possibility of escape might offer itself up. It doesn’t. It’s just a barren expanse of snow and ice, mountains elevating in the distance and gales squalling around the outlook.
I shiver and lean on the wall, eyes casting between his disappearing form and the outside. Run, he said. Run where? Nowhere to run to. The only pace I can run is back inside a place I do not want to be, to apparently help a man I don’t see why I should help. Connect with that feeling inside me? I can’t get away from the fucking feeling, let alone abandon it.
Suitably pissed at my lacking choices, I eventually get off the wall and start walking back inside to follow. “I want a phone!” I shout. At least if I get one of those I can keep in touch with home, make some element of decisions myself maybe.
“You’re not getting one.” Fuck.
“Well, at least reasonable clothes then.” Clothes that are normal and useful instead of me being half dressed or pretending to be something I’m not. Maybe then I can do normal and average again. There isn’t any answer from him. In fact, I can’t even hear his footsteps anymore. Whatever. I’ll get back to that place when I damn well feel like it, and I’ll travel at my own pace because one thing I certainly won’t be doing is being below anyone’s commonplace. Screw that.
Chapter 4
Malachi
The consideration of jealously hasn’t inched over my skin for a long time, certainly not with a clear head. It is doing now, especially having watched them walk that tunnel and even more so when the screens went blank. It’s immeasurable to me how he made that happen. Security runs the screens, and they do as I say, not him. At least I can feel my body again, and use it. Unfortunately, I also seem to be blocked in this room with no way out because he deigned to give me that back.
Frustration and anger burn low in my veins, perhaps replacing the usually dull throb of indifference I’m used to. I don’t like it. It fuels thought and hesitation, proving me lacking and indecisive. That’s not who I am. Not who I’ve been or need to be either. And sitting here in this chair, simply waiting for someone to let me out of a room I fucking own, is becoming tedious and obstructive beyond all rational levels.
The slide of the door, and him walking in exactly twenty seven minutes later, does nothing to calm the storm of discontent that’s built. I watch him closely, part considering the fact that he’s strong enough to get one of those damn needles back in me if he wants to. I might be able to feel my body again, but using it to full effect isn’t on the cards yet. It’s weak, laboured, and slightly shaking from whatever I’ve had in me so far.
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
I don’t answer. Pissed is how I’m feeling. As he probably knows.
He sits at the side table and boots up the laptop, scanning his fucking clipboard for information about me and my fucking body. “I want to give you something to make this easier, but I won’t if you’re going to be difficult.”
“Fuck you.”
“Pleasant, Malachi.”
“What were you doing with her?”