Breaking Point (4 page)

He gives me a second or two to think about it. I flashback to that explosion of pain and my mind just fucking recoils. I think I’d rather die than feel that again. He leans in close enough to kiss. He is deadly earnest, remorseless. I feel the force of his personality, wielded like a blunt instrument, trying to bludgeon my will to his.

“It. Can. Always. Get. Worse. And fuck with me in any way and it will, fast. Do you doubt?”

If it wasn’t for my vibrating trouser pocket, it might even work. That fucking lifeline - it’s just enough to keep my head straight. This is all bullshit. It will keep getting worse, no matter what.
Yes. But it’ll get worse quicker if he knows you know.
I have no doubt.

“No.” Utter sincerity.

He reads it and smiles. The fire doesn’t entirely leave his eyes though. I don’t think it will, until this ends.

“OK then. I’ll leave you with your thoughts.” He gets up and walks out of my field of vision. “See you soon.”

Three footsteps and a door slams shut. Wolfmother plays. ‘Love Train.’ I am alone with my thoughts. And my vibrating pocket. Exhale.

CHAPTER 7

That may have been a mistake. I have a job of work to do now. Thanks to a broken arm, a full stomach and an overconfident armchair-psychologist sociopath, I have a legitimate shot at getting out of this. It is not going to be easy, but fuck me, I’m going to give it the old college try. But first I need to make sure this isn’t a setup, and he‘s not going to come bouncing back in like some satanic jack-in-the-box, “Caught you!” I’ve got time. If he’s telling the truth, I have time, and if he’s not I never did, but if he is, I do. So no need to rush. Catch your breath. Remain calm.

Only I can’t. Not even close. Calm is a continent, a planet, a fucking galaxy away; it’s on the other side of the deadlights and I’m stuck down here with a heart that’s hammering away in my chest, and broken ribs and broken arms and blood and bile in my throat, face wet with tears, and now the shakes start. My teeth clatter together. My whole body twitches, spasms. Each time it does, it sets off little mini-bombs of pain in my arms and gut. I feel cold, but my skin is still sweating. My pocket vibrates, vibrates, vibrates, stops. Never mind me, phone the fucking police. My thoughts are jagged, dislocated, and ‘Love Train’ gives way to ‘Vagabond’ and still I tremble and hurt and cry.

He has to know; that’s the thing. He fucking has to. It’s sitting right there, front pocket of my jeans. What else could that bulge be? He knows, and he’s just waiting for me to go for it so he can…What? What, exactly? He doesn’t fucking know. He’s got his plan. He’s running it. I’m just a puppet on a string, string, string. He never looked because he didn’t need to, because my hands were tied, and now my arms are broken, so it doesn’t matter if I have a phone because I can’t use it. And I don’t even have one because I’m a loner.

Or he’s waiting for me to go for it so he can have an excuse to take it up to eleven. My mind, stuck in a trap, a vicious circle of thought. ‘Vagabond’ plays and the clock ticks and the world turns and my body shakes and aches and I can’t decide what to do. Then my phone vibrates, one single time, which means the battery is dying.

Okay, stop fucking about. You need to do this, and you need to do it now. Phone a friend. Phone a fucking friend. Here’s your lifeline: take it while you still can. Good advice. Okay. I take a slightly deeper breath, allow the sharp pain to focus me.

Okay, my phone is in my trouser pocket, front left. Tight jeans. Getting it out is going to be a motherfucker, but before we even try that, there’s a more pressing question before the house. And the question of vital national importance is: can a man with broken arms move his fingers?

I stare at my hands, resting uselessly in my lap, thinking about how I passed out as they hit the kerb when I was dragged in here, and my will to act just drains away.

No way man. No fucking way
. But there’s no alternative, and nothing I do to myself will be worse than what that guy’s going to do when he comes back in, and it’s now or fucking never. Still I hesitate, until the phone gives another plaintive buzz.

Time gentlemen, please.

I flex the fingers on my left hand. They move, jerkily, imperfectly, but they do. The pain is like each tendon in my finger is made of rusty wire which is slicing through the muscle and skin, but they will move. Okay. Okay, we’re off to the races. Now, how do I get this fucking phone out of my pocket? I flex my shoulder experimentally, seeing if there’s any movement in my arm at all. It rises, but the pain is immediate and monstrous. My head slams back against the wall involuntarily and my teeth crunch together hard. I suck in air, close my eyes and just breathe for a few precious seconds, making sure I don’t heave.

I don’t.

Okay. I open my eyes again and look down at my lap. Clearly, I’m not going to be able to put my hand in my pocket and pull the phone out. That normally simple, almost unconscious action, is currently as impossible as licking my eyelids. At some point, I’m going to need to get my hand on the floor, to manipulate the phone (and, fucking hell, won’t that be fun), but first things first. Let’s get the fucker out of there.

I look over to my pocket, seeing the shape of it outlined there right in the bottom. How the fuck did he not spot that? And how the fuck am I going to get you out, you bastard? How? The despair is so strong now. It feels like it’s flooding my brain, my thoughts, my soul. I’m caught, and it’s just not fair.

Buzz.

Okay, fuck it, let’s do it the hard way. First, get your hand resting on the pocket over your phone. That’s all you’ve got to do now, just that. Make a start. Now. I lift my arm and straight away the pain comes back, great and terrible and bloody. My teeth clamp together again; sweat pours out of my face, my eyes clench shut, all involuntarily, and I stop moving my hand. Breathe. Look again.

My hand has made it to my thigh. Excellent. We’re cooking with gas. As the waves of pain subside (a bit), I realise I can feel just the shape of the phone through the back of my glove. All right. All fucking right. We’re doing this thing. Now, turn your hand over. Just do it, one tiny movement. Flip it over so your palm is down over the phone. Don’t fucking think. No time. Just do it.

This one’s not so easy. It’s a rotation so I have to use the muscles in my whole arm, and muscles do not appreciate being made to work around fractured bones. They complain. Loudly.

Sparko.

The next thing I remember is the noise, cacophonous, which fades quickly, before being replaced by a pulse. Then a guitar and a voice. It’s Wolfmother, and better yet, it’s still ‘Vagabond.’ So I’ve only been out for a minute or so. That said, time's definitely awasting.

Something’s different as I resurface this time. The physical discomfort is as acute as ever, but I somehow feel slightly dislocated from it - like I haven’t come back all the way this time. My mind grasps very quickly that I’ve blacked out, come to. My eyes open and, after a scary blurry second, focus back on my hand resting, palm down, over the phone in my pocket. Touchdown. Okay, next comes the squeeze. I know this part is going to be tricky, but the detachment helps. I feel the pain as I force my fingers to push into my leg, feel my lips draw back and my breathing go ragged. I do feel it, but, at the same time, it’s like it’s happening to someone else. I flick my gloved fingers upwards under the edge of the phone as hard as I can and, even behind the fresh stabbing, I register the feeling of the phone shooting up the inside of my pocket. I unscrew my eyes and look down. I can see the top third of my crappy little pebble flip-top peaking out the top of my jeans, and it’s just about the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Got you, you sexy bastard.

Then the phone buzzes again, once, the feeble cry of a dying battery. The fucking Wolfmother guy howls in my ears as ‘Dimension’ starts. The album is on repeat. Clock’s ticking.

CHAPTER 8

The next part is, I think, going to be the hardest. I’ve got to get the phone out of my pocket and flip the fucker open. After that, the sailing should be relatively plain. I’ll have to chance the speakerphone, but the music is pretty loud, and the door is shut, and he should be upstairs, and anyway I’m out of options, so fuck it.

The new feeling of distance continues to be an ally. I can still feel the woozy pulsing current of pain from my fractured arm; the sweat stinging my underarms and soaking my chest and face, the restricted breathing, all of it. But it’s like the signals are coming from the next room over. Not exactly out-of-body, but still, interesting. I think back to the shakes and wonder if this is some further permeation of the shock. I hope so. It’d be nice to think evolution didn’t totally fuck us when it came to situations like this.

I grip the edges of the phone carefully, inexpertly, cursing the thickness of the gloves; any benefit I get from the reduction in trembling caused by the thick cloth is more than offset by a chronic lack of precision. That will make dialing fun, but one impossible thing at a time. Grip and pull. The pain is sharp, exquisite, and a little scary - but not in quite the same league as when my new playmate grabbed me - and the phone hits the deck. That’s it. That’s the worst passed. The rest should be merely fiddly and unpleasant.

I turn the phone around slowly, so the hinge is pressed into my thigh, braced. My fingers throb and pulse and bitch and moan and sweat, but we get it done. My thumb goes under the lid, and I push. The lid raises enough to allow my thumb to pass into the phone, and I push towards the hinge (sweating hard, hurting, panting) until the phone pops open. Fuck, yeah.

Two bits of information hit me. First: eight missed calls. Holy moley. Second: the time. It’s 12:20. My shift finished at 10:30, I hit Oakfield at 10:45 at the latest, so I’ve been here for an hour and a half. Plenty long enough, as the missed calls attest. I think about the phone vibrating in my pocket while I was out - with him that close, tying me up - and wonder again how the fuck I got away with this. Wolfmother at volume for the win, I guess.

Time to make a phone call. Three nines should do it. Yeah. Only problem is the fucking gloves mean my fingers are the size of fucking sausages and the straight downward pressure makes it feel like barbed wires are being stabbed through my tendons, but, other than that, it’s a fucking breeze. I swat out nine and nine then my fucking hand twitches and my finger spazzes out and I hit a six instead of the third nine.

Fuck my luck. Okay, breathe. Delete the six (the delete button is bigger so that’s easier). Okay, this time shithead, lucky number nine. Bring it home. My finger starts the trembling shit again, but somehow this time I manage it. Gladness. Next up, hit dial.

The second I do, my wife’s voice comes screaming out of the earpiece at me. I haven’t turned on the speakerphone and the music is pretty loud (Dimension is starting to crank up) but she’s shouting loud enough that I can hear every word. Her voice is shrill and harsh, anger swamping real fear. “Where the FUCK have you been? Where the fuck are you? This isn’t fucking funny Frank! You fucking said you left. I’ve phoned the fucking police. WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?” She yells the last loud enough to distort the signal.

My mind takes in the individual words, but it’s fair to say my focus is elsewhere, trying to figure out how the hell this is happening. There’s a moment of supreme dislocation, like I’m hallucinating, like I’ve just finally fucking cracked under the strain and, as I look down at the phone, my finger resting on the ‘send’ button, my brain comes through with the goods. The ‘dial’ and ‘pick up’ button are the same. She must have phoned and got connected a split second before I hit the offending button.

Fuck me, I don’t have time for this shit.

I contemplate hanging up, but she’ll just phone back, and knowing my luck, it’ll happen before I can redial. Also, there’s the matter of the battery. The phone bleeps a note to let sender and receiver know that time is short. Her voice drops a few decibels, and I can no longer make out the words, but at least from the tone it seems like concern is entering the mix a bit, thank Christ. Either that or she ran out of breath. No, probably not. I waste precious seconds of battery time as I fumble for and find the speakerphone button, grunting with the effort.

“…hurt? Oh my God, did you have an accident on that bike? Can you talk? Can you move? Talk to me baby, please….” The signal crackles, fades, comes back, “…thing?”

“Tracey...”

“Frank? Frank?...”

“Please just listen.”

Breath.

“No time.”

“What’s…  ..Hurt?”

No good, the fucking thing is dying. Shut up woman and hear me.

“Battery dying. Please listen.”

Breath. Miracle of miracles, she’s stopped talking.

“I’m in Oakfield.”

Breath.

“New Build. Detached.”

Breath.

“Been kidnapped. Tortured.”

Breath.

“Going to kill me.”

Breath. I hear her gasp over the speaker, but it’s getting crackly.

              “Send the police.”

              Breath, but fuck me, she’s talking again.

“Is this…. ing joke? I swear… Fucking… ny Frank, I…. ting it here…”

“Not joking!” I yell, forgetting everything, all caution, all fear, because if I can’t get her to believe me this is the end, right here. I don’t know if she’s even hearing me now; the line is so bad, but she has to fucking know. “Swear on Sid’s life.”