STICKY SITUATION

STICKY SITUATION
Emerson’s Pov

Pain.

That’s the first thing I know when my eyes open, especially in my left arm. It loudly protests at the very thought of movement. It burns, throbs and kind of itches all at once. 

For a second, I think it’s a fucking dream. I occasionally have vivid dreams. I want it to be a dream so when I wake up I'll leave this consistent pain behind. 

But it doesn't take long to realize that it's not. All it takes is rolling my shoulders to find the very real sensation of restraints cutting into me to dispel that fucking assumption.

And yet, like some sort of idiot, I try to move again. Maybe somewhere down in my subconscious I reasoned that I didn't use enough force, because I yank my body up, trying to get out of the bed underneath me.

The motion sends a jolt through me, convening at that painful point in my arm and I groan — a low, guttural sound that doesn’t sound like my own voice. 

I blink, and my vision takes it's time to clear. It's dim, and I don't know where I am. Concrete walls, with bulbs that looked burned. The room hums, with the dull, sick sound of the rest of the fluorescent lights that sound like they’re fucking dying.

And then the memory detonates.

The running. The gun. The bullet kissing flesh but not sinking into it. The sting of hot metal, the sudden collapse to the ground, the haze that came after. The cloth back over my face until nothing.

“Awake?”

My head swivels to the side trying to find the source of the voice but I don't see anything, I only end up making myself a little dizzy.

“That was a warning, Emerson,” he says. His voice is low, deliberate, laced with a cruel kind of amusement people get when they know they have all the power. “Next time, I’m not going to aim for something vital.”

It's really beginning to bug me that I can't see him. I feel like he's smiling, calm and steady, like all this is nothing more than an errand to him. Like my life is just fucking another Tuesday to him. 

I can see what I'm tied down with though. It's rope. I'm shackled down with ropes. My throat feels like sandpaper when I manage to croak, “What do you want?”

He laughs, a weird broken chuckle that drips with condescension. Somewhere behind me, a chair scrapes the floor. I hear his boots on the floor and he begins walking.

“Nothing,” he says finally, the word drawn out like a sigh. “Don’t worry. At least, not from you.”

The fuck? My stomach turns at my anxiety. I don’t understand. He fucking shot me, drugged me, brought me here, and now he wants nothing? That can't be right. Why is he toying with me?

“I don’t know anything, I promise” I whisper.

“I know you don’t,” he says, almost gently.

That’s when the fear sinks in, a slow, suffocating hand around my heart. It seeps into my bonesnand makes them fucking cold. Because if he knows I don’t know anything, then I’m not here for questioning. He may in fact already have his answers.

I’m here for something else. And what else could it be?

“What the fuck is going on here?” I ask, the words trembling out of me before I can stop them.

He exhales, like a cashier disappointed that he has to repeat himself. “I just need The Brothers.”

The name hits like a cold wave. The brothers? The Larry Brothers? That can't be good.

“Then why am I here?”

He stops his pacing at that, then resumes walking into my line of sight. His face is pockmarked, maybe from acne, maybe from bullets, who knows? The grooves of a gentle, neutral frown are dented into his face, the expression he's wearing right now. “I’ve got to get their attention somehow.”

That's kinda fucking sinister and I don't like it. “With me? I don't have any ties to them.”

“Dont worry about it,” he says dismissively.

“No really,” I prompt, trying to make him understand that I can't help him, “what makes you think they'd look at your message twice?”

He pauses, and I wonder if I'm too successful, if he now realizes that I'm useless to him and now he’ll get rid of me.

“Because that’s their whole M.O.,” he goes on, his tone almost amused. “It doesn’t matter who it comes from. You send them a challenge that even vaguely threatens them — they answer. They've built their reputation around it.”

My thoughts trip over themselves, trying to keep up. “Does this even count as a challenge? I’m just a delivery boy.”

“Plus,” he adds, and there’s a gleam in his eye, “your supplier’s head. The body was too big to ship.”

I freeze, his words suddenly not making sense. I mean, individually I could tell you what he just said but together, he has to be telling me some type of fucking joke. He might be actually with the way he watches my face as he says that, as I struggle to process what the fuck that means.

He doesn't say anything for ten, maybe fifteen minutes even until I can bring myself to ask, “Al’s dead?”

He doesn’t answer immediately. He takes his time, walks to the edge of the bed, and crouches so I can see his face. There’s a smile there — small, deliberate, merciless.

“Calm down,” he says softly. “You’re fine. You’re just bait. I’m hoping my two big fishes will bite.”

The words echo in my skull. Bait. “Al’s dead?” I repeat, louder this time, desperate for him to say no.

“Yeah. He killed himself rather than face their wrath.” He straightens, voice almost casual as he adds, “Took one of my men with him before he blew his own brains out.”

My vision tunnels for a second. Al. Dead. I’m struggling to accept it. I mean, I knew there was a possibility of it but I just expected he’d be. . . fine, to be honest. A little scratched and all but fine. Al wasn't high up enough to be killed in all this. Was he?

He's still talking. “I respect it. It was ballsy of him. He knew it would be worse if we sent him to the brothers. Them and their examples.”

He rolls his eyes, actually fucking rolls his eyes when talking about Al’s death. Al, the man I met during the hardest time of my life, who taught me how to survive in this city. He might have never been the straightest person, downright greasy at times, but he cared for me, I know, evident by the times he offered me his precious chocolate.

Now he’s gone. Apparently by his own hands.

“Are they,” I start, swallowing, feeling like I'll never be hydrated again, “that bad?”

The question reads like a child asking a doctor how bad a shot is going to be, even to my own ears. He laughs again, shaking his head. “You really don’t know anything about what’s going on.” 

His voice drops lower, silkier, darker and I'd lean in if I could. “There’s money in this town, kid. Power. It'll rot your teeth. It's enough to make men eat each other alive just to get a piece.”

“Don’t worry,” he says, leaning down so his mouth is near my ear. “I might give you the mercy of a quick death instead of handing you over to the Brothers. We’ll see.”

His words hang in the air long after he steps back and I can't help the words that tumble out of me. “I didn't do anything,” I scream. “Nothing! I just delivered drugs for Al, and ergo them. Why would they fucking kill me?”

I  swallow hard, my mouth even drier from the amount of spit I just lost. My body’s trembling; part fear, part rage, part sadness.

“A spectacle,” he says calmly, in the face of my panic. “They'll have to show that they can't be blackmailed, that their hands can't be bent.”

I can’t breathe. The room feels smaller by the second, the walls folding inward. My arm throbs with the pulse of my heart — each beat reminding me I’m still alive, though I wonder for how much longer now.

He turns and walks toward the door.

The light above me flickers again, dimming to a weak, trembling glow. I hear the heavy latch slide open, adding one more obstacle if I somehow manage to get free from this bed. His silhouette pauses in the doorway, shadow blocking the light from outside. What time is it?

“Remember,” he says without looking back, but I'd bet my entire freedom that he’s amused. “They like it when you scream.

The door slams shut.