Cellar Door (9 page)

Madonna

I wake up lethargic and disoriented. My hands are too heavy to move, the effort requiring concentration and motor skills that I don’t possess at the moment. I sift through my jumbled thoughts and try to remember what happened. At this moment I know only one thing: something is not right. Something is very, very wrong.

After another failed attempt to conjure any usefulness from my two-ton hands, I find that my feet and legs are similarly afflicted. An odd clanging noise catches my sluggish attention and draws my eyes to the source of the problem: restraints. Cuffs. Shackles. Call them what you want, all I know is that they signal that I’m in deep trouble, and that my current circumstances are not of my own making.

A wail of despair bubbles in the back of my throat, but crying isn’t going to do me a damn bit of good. I’ve got to think. I strain to remember the last thing I did. Stringing two coherent thoughts together takes effort but an image flickers in my mind’s eye and a tsunami of physical sensations comes barreling down on me with no warning.
Shit. The crazy guy in the hoodie slammed me into a wall. And now I’m here…wherever this is.

I look around at my surroundings and, although they’re meager, this doesn’t look like the type of place a guy like that would have. It’s too nice, too tidy, too…civilized. There’s a cot I’m almost lying on that has fresh linens tucked in with hospital corners.

There’s a small desk and chair. I try to crawl over to the desk to see if there is anything I could use as a weapon. Another image flashes across my consciousness and this one makes no sense at all: Was Liam here earlier?

Nothing is adding up. How did I go from being attacked by the hooded guy to seeing Liam? Are they working together? The thought pushes me toward the desk, clawing my way across the cement floor like a dying man endlessly pursuing a desert mirage that is always just out of reach.

Fear is a powerful thing. It can power useless muscles into action, and I have every intention of using it to get out of here. My fight or flight instinct just kicked in and I pity anyone who tries to stop me.

My hands are clumsy and sluggish as I grab onto the desk chair and try to pull myself up. I cry out in pain when the chair tilts to one side and comes crashing down on me, leaving me with a goose egg on my forehead.

My body won’t obey even the simplest commands from my foggy brain. At long last, I give in to the temptation to cry. I curl into the fetal position, sobbing and trying to convince myself not to give up, even as sleep takes me once again.

His Failure

The sour stench of body odor and liquor forces me back to awareness—that, and the infernal pounding in my head. I slowly open my eyes and look up at the wino who is rifling through my pockets.

“Get the fuck out of here!” I bellow as I fight him off.

“All I’uz tryin’ to do…” he slurs, weaving where he’s perched precariously on his knees next to me. Spittle flies from his mouth onto my face.

“--is rob me!” I rant as I pull my fist back and take feeble aim at his face, swinging wildly. “Get the fuck out of here!”

He steps away, his body listing hard to the side before he staggers down the alley, but not without a parting shot: “From where I’m lookin’ at things, you ain’t ‘zactly in a position to be tellin’ nobody nuthin’.”

Fucker…
I slump back against the wall, exasperated, as he bonelessly winds his way down the alley and out of sight.

How the hell did this happen? I’d already injected the drugs into the girl’s neck when all hell broke loose behind me. I felt something hard crash down on the back of my head. I tentatively run my fingertips over the lump and find that it’s tender to the touch. I hiss in pain and yank my fingers away, eyeing my bloody fingertips with disgust. Whoever hit me did a damn good job because they knocked me the fuck out.

I look around and immediately spot the culprit: a bloody brick. As to who wielded the brick, it could have been one of these fucking winos around here, but if so…
FUCK!!
Where’s the girl?! I didn’t see who knocked me out but I know whoever it was made off with my bounty, Lance’s girl.
Motherfucker..
.

Maybe I should have been nicer to that wino and asked him if he’d seen anything. Damn it, damn it, damn it, how the hell did I let this happen?! Though I toss around the idea that it could have been an attempted mugging, I know deep down inside it was that holier-than-thou fucker, Liam Chambers.
Oh, excuuuse me: Liam Sheldon Chambers, M. fuckin’ D.

What is he now, some sort of superhero? What does he think he’s doing, interfering in my plans, protecting her from her destiny? It makes perfect sense because I know he’s been nosing around, pestering Lance with questions. He, of all people, would know what his ‘evil twin’ is up to.

I hate him more than ever. He’s ruined everything. I was poised to follow in my hero’s footsteps. Now there’s nothing I can do. All my plans, shot to hell because Dr. Asshole decides he has a conscience.

Well, fine, no problem. I’ll adjust. I’ll just move to Plan B. Let’s see what he thinks about
that.
He can keep the little bitch for all I care, but he can’t protect this whole city.

All this time I’ve been trying to please someone else, maybe it’s about time I do something for me. It would be a whole lot more fun to pick out my own victim, to do things my way without outside influences or opinions. I mean, really, what has Lance ever done for me other than drain my bank account and use me as his emotional and verbal punching bag?

Yeah, I think it’s about time that I take the reins and do things
my
way.

Liam

I finish tightening the screws that will immobilize the man’s leg in traction for the next couple of months.

“You guys go ahead and finish up here,” I say as I step away from the operating table and head out into the hall, removing my mask and snapping off my surgical gloves before tossing them in the hazardous waste receptacle by the door. I trust my team to wrap up the surgery, to take care of final details before moving the man to the recovery room.

I struggled to maintain my focus during this two-hour procedure. It’s imperative that each patient gets my very best care. More than once I wanted to step away to check on my ‘houseguest’ via the video feed on my phone.

I pretend to move things around in my locker while two fellow surgeons banter about their weekend sexual conquests. I feel sorry for them as they describe the lengths they went to just to woo women into their beds. They don’t have the balls to just take what they want like I did. I’m considering telling them to get the fuck out when they finally wander off and I’m alone. I retrieve my phone and bring up the video feed. My heart pounds against my ribs as I wait for the app to load.

I didn’t want to leave her alone after that son of a bitch had drugged her, but I have a duty to my patients so I had no choice. Surely she understood. Right now I know she’s confused, disoriented, and most likely scared although she’ll never admit that to me. She’s too damned independent for her own good. I want to show her it’s okay to trust someone—to trust
me
. It’s going to take time for her to become truly attached to me. I’ll have to be patient with her. One thing’s for sure in the short term: when the drugs wear off, she’s going to be pissed—at me.

I decide to head down to my office for more privacy. With my office door locked behind me, I sit down at my desk and study the image that appears on my phone as I cradle it in my hand. My breath hitches at the sight of the wooden chair toppled over and Madonna crouched in a corner, rubbing her head. By the look of things, she was trying to get to the desk.

She’s obviously hurt herself. This won’t do at all; I need to get back home and tend to her. She’s probably fine but I’m not going to take any chances with her safety.