The Burn Zone (13 page)

Thanks. See you tomorrow?

Tomorrow.
Be careful, Sam.

I logged off and took another swig from the bottle. Good guys like Vamp didn
’
t come along every day.

He was kind of famous online, but that wasn
’
t why I liked him. I mean, I used to think he was cool, and when I kicked in a yuan to his pet project I was psyched when my name actually got picked. I wasn
’
t his first contest date, but he was my first real date ever, which was kind of funny because it was a complete disaster on almost every level.

I smiled, remembering it. Afterward I really didn
’
t expect to ever hear from him again, but he wouldn
’
t leave me alone until I let him apologize and try again. Our second date wasn
’
t really a date, but that was when we clicked for some reason. He became the first real friend I ever made, and we
’
d been close since.

I sighed and stared up at the ceiling. I forget when I first noticed the change, but now his voice dropped when he talked to me, and his eyes had started to linger. He sat closer to me these days, and smiled more. I wasn
’
t sure what to do about it. I mean, it wasn
’
t like I totally couldn
’
t see myself with him, but I didn
’
t want to ruin things, and it seemed like moving either way could do that now. I
’
d been avoiding the whole thing so far, but it had gotten worse and now he was too ready to go out on a limb for me. I was going to have to deal with it sooner or later.

Not tonight, though. Tonight I didn
’
t have the strength left to think about anything. In the morning I
’
d figure out what to do next. Until then, I just wanted to get numb. Fuzzy wasn
’
t going to cut it. I wanted to be numb enough to sleep through the night.

With half the bottle gone I got pretty close, but I still didn
’
t get my wish.

~ * ~

Chapter Five

23:45:21 BC

“
I
’
ll help you, but first you have to help me....
”

Sleep came, but it was a fitful sleep full of sweat, jitters, and bad dreams. It dredged up murky clouds of half-remembered voices and faces. Memories of being woken by gunshots and groping fingers.

“
Touch me.
...
”

In my dreams I smelled human waste, engine smoke, and cooking meat that made me salivate even though I knew it was the flesh of men. A low rumble filled the air, and a faint hiss bubbled up over it while a child sobbed from a few feet away. I shifted on the slick concrete floor to try and wake my leg up, and winced as my back pressed against the grimy wall. My throat was so dry it ached, and when I turned my head toward the water bottle hanging next to me, the hand
’
s length of cable connecting my nylon collar to the eye screw above pulled taut. The edges dug into the raw chaff around my neck as I licked the ball bearing at the end of the bottle
’
s metal tube, careful not to let any of the warm, foul-tasting water dribble away. Through the wire mesh basket that held it in place, I could see there was only a tiny amount left.

The men were back. I could hear their footsteps as they came closer, and then the squeal of a rusted bolt being turned.

“
No!
”

The child, a boy, screamed suddenly and pulled at his collar as the heavy metal door groaned open across the room. We
’
d been brought in together,
he and I
. He
’
d been in a blind panic ever since, quiet only when he slept, or when they finally got fed up and shocked him into unconsciousness.

I didn
’
t bother to try and shush him. It didn
’
t work. When I looked in his eyes, I could see he
’
d gone over the edge. He was next now, the row of collars next to his dangling bloody from their hooks. They
’
d hung the last woman to bleed out earlier, and the drips had finally stopped maybe ten minutes before. Two figures came through the door, indistinct shapes in the haze of steam. They clomped across the wet concrete floor as the door slammed shut behind them.

“
No!
”
the boy shrieked.
“
Please no! Please!
”

The two dark-skinned, tattooed men approached the woman who was still hanging by her ankles over the trough. One of them guided her over to the platform of butcher block, while the other worked the controls. Her head thumped on the wooden surface as the winch began to lower her.

“
Please! I want to go home!
”

“
Gonzo, please tell me he
’
s next,
”
one of the men muttered.

“
He
’
s next.
”

He unhooked the cable from around the woman
’
s bony, broken ankles and moved it off to the side. His partner grabbed a heavy apron and slipped it over his head, then yanked a machete out of the block.

“
Don
’
t!
”
the boy cried.

“
Shut it,
”
the man with the machete said.
“
You don
’
t, you get the prod again. Get me?
”

The boy went quiet, but he was clenching and unclenching his fists frantically, eyes bugging from hollow
sockets. He slid across the wall behind him, away from the men until the collar tugged at his bloodied neck and he almost knocked over the shallow, shit-stained bucket next to him. The man cursed as he went back to join his partner, who had spread out the dead woman
’
s arms and legs. They
’
d chop her up next, like they did the others.

That
’
s going to be me.
The thought used to send me into a panic, as bad as the boy
’
s, but now it just crawled around in my brain like an ugly certainty. That was going to be me. They
’
d do the boy, and then they
’
d do me. They
’
d winch me up and cut my throat, then leave to go have a cigarette while I dangled.

My empty stomach turned, bile threatening to creep up on me. I swallowed hard and squeezed my fists until the nails cut into my palms. I was shaking, shivering even in the heat, and I couldn
’
t stop.

“
Don
’
t watch,
”
the old man said from my right. I didn
’
t look over at him, but I could sense him there, head lolled against the taut cable. I reached down behind me with one hand and found the length of wire I
’
d managed to work off the water bottle
’
s mesh basket. I poked the point I
’
d sharpened with one finger. It seemed puny next to the blades the butchers used.

The man with the machete looked down at the woman, and his eyes lingered on her breasts. He reached down with his free hand, and cupped one, giving it an experimental squeeze.

“
Kind of a shame, huh?
”
the second man said, shaking out a cigarillo and sticking it in his mouth.

“
They
’
re real,
”
the first one said.

“
Well,
”
the second one said with a yellow-toothed grin as he sparked his lighter,
“
the taste is in the fat.
”

“
Why do you watch?
”
the old man rasped. I didn
’
t answer. I poked my finger with the wire again, the jab of pain waking me up a little. I might be able to surprise them, but I felt so dizzy now I could barely hold my head
up. I told myself one of them would have to reach down to unfasten the collar. If I went for the
eye ...

The old man opened his mouth to speak again, but he froze, like he was on TV and someone
paused
him. His image flickered.

“
...receiving this transmission, listen carefully,
”
a voice said, Mandarin with a heavy Western accent.
“
What you are experiencing is not a dream. You
’
re—
“

The old man flickered again, and the strange voice cut out. The butchers laughed, one of them spreading the dead woman
’
s arm out across the block while the other got into position. He hoisted the machete, and then everything froze again.

“
...
attempting
to reach you... if anyone can
...
”

The voice crackled out again. Everything jumped forward a few seconds, and the sounds and smells all returned as the man brought the machete down hard on the woman
’
s shoulder.

I jerked awake and crashed into the wall behind me as I scrambled back. In the seconds it took to register that I was back in the hotel, and that it was just a dream, I
’
d retreated from the mattress and stumbled on all fours into the corner of the room. My body was covered in sweat that made the cuts sting, and my breath came in fast, shallow hitches.

A dream.
Just a dream.
Calm down.
Dim sunlight shone in through the window. It was day
It
was just a dream.

I hadn
’
t had it in a while, but it had been waiting. It had been just waiting for me to miss a dose or two, to sleep too lightly, so it could seep in and take me back to that place. Why hadn
’
t I
... ?

The events of the night before were still tangled in cobwebs, and for a few seconds I listened for the sound of Dragan in the shower or
Tānchi
keening from the crib before I realized where I was.

I wiped drool from the side of my mouth and tried to blink the dryness out of my eyes. I
’
d passed out the night before, and the bottle lay capped on its side on the end table next to the lamp. One of the 3i
’
s chat windows blurred off in the corner, where a string of text still sat.

Sam, forgive me, I couldn
’
t—
I
jerked upright as I realized the message was from Dragan. I seized on the chat window and dragged it to the foreground, firing off text as fast as I could manage.

Dragan, where are you? Are you okay?
He didn
’
t answer.

Dragan?

His contact icon was gray. The message had been sent hours ago and I
’
d missed it, although it looked like he hadn
’
t managed to even finish a sentence before he got cut off.

Forgive me, I couldn
’
t...
what? I stared at the text, trying to make something out of it, but I couldn
’
t. It couldn
’
t tell me what happened to him, only that he was alive. Or he had
been,
a couple of hours ago. It couldn
’
t tell me where they
’
d taken him.

Or could it? I pulled up the message details, fingers crossed, and smiled when I saw a location tag was included. At the time Dragan sent the message, he was in...