Since Garcia couldn’t bring his hands to his body, he simply moved them in place, using his fingers to feel around, trying to better understand his predicament. Judging by how tight and how thin the ligatures to his wrists were, he guessed that they were zip ties. What his wrists were bound to was hard and cylindrical in shape, like a metal tube, or something similar.
Garcia could also feel that he was in a lying-down position, with his legs stretched out under him and his ankles secured in place, probably by another pair of zip ties. The only conclusion he could come to was that he had been tied down to some sort of hospital bed or gurney.
Using all the strength that he could muster, Garcia pushed from the hips to jerk his body upward. The effort sent another spray of pain up and down his spine, but he was able to figure out something else as well. Only his body jerked. The bed that he was bound to didn’t move an inch, which told him that it was either a very heavy bed, or it was bolted to the ground.
Flash.
All of a sudden, the lights came on.
Finally, confirmation that his eyes were really open, because as the light traveled through his pupils and reached his retinas, it felt like a needle had punctured his cornea and it was now scraping at his ocular globe. A whole new dimension of pain was created – and with the pain came a crazy explosion of colors, blurring his vision.
Instinctively, Garcia shut his eyes as tight as he could, but it made no difference. The pain was already traveling through his nerves and the colors just kept on coming.
He grimaced and winced, which only served to stretch his neck muscles even more, as if they were about to snap.
‘Is it too bright for you?’
The male voice caught Garcia by surprise, but he resisted the urge to look and kept his eyes firmly shut. He knew that if he opened them up right then, he wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway. He’d been in darkness for God-knew-how-long, so even if he hadn’t been sedated, which he was sure that he had been, his pupils would be naturally dilated. All that would happen would be that his eyes would devour the light in the room, and light would just add fuel to the already all-consuming fire of pain.
Instead, Garcia breathed in through his nose and tried to concentrate on the voice.
‘Would you like me to dim them down for you?’
Garcia had heard that voice before. He knew he had.
Still keeping his eyes closed, he nodded his reply.
Through the thin skin of his eyelids, Garcia sensed the lights dimming.
‘Take your time,’ the voice said. ‘Don’t be too eager. Your pupils will soon adjust.
Of course Garcia had heard that voice before. They had been sitting in the same support-group meeting – George, the late arrival, right?
Garcia began trying to open his eyes again. First just a hair… then a fraction… then halfway.
‘That’s it,’ the voice encouraged him. ‘Do it slowly, or the light will feel like a thunderbolt from hell.’
Garcia finally managed to get his eyes fully open. As he did, the man standing by the light switch rotated it back to full power, bathing the room in such brightness, it could’ve given Garcia a suntan.
‘Fuck!’ Garcia shouted, immediately slamming his eyelids shut again, but it was all too late. Pain exploded behind his eyes, enveloping his brain and compressing it in a vice grip before expanding like a tsunami throughout every atom of his body.
‘Really?’ The man laughed. ‘You think I’m here to make this a more pleasant experience for you? Would you like a fucking massage as well? I’m good at those.’
Garcia heard steps coming closer. A couple of seconds later, the man spoke again, but this time, his voice was right by Garcia’s ear.
‘You better savor that little pain that you’re feeling right now – and that islittlepain – because what’s coming your way will make your soul want to abandon ship and leave your body here to rot. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
The pain was so intense that Garcia felt dizzy… too dizzy, actually. He was passing out again, but there had been a delay… a hesitation between him opening his eyes and the man at the light switch bringing it back to full power again. It had been just a tiny gap, but a gap that had allowed Garcia to lock eyes with the other person in that room, and that was when he realized that he had been wrong.
The person he saw standing just a few feet from him wasn’t George, the late arrival at the support-group meeting. It was Trevor, the caterpillar-eyebrows man.
Fifty-Five
Splash.
The bucket of freezing water did exactly what it needed to do – woke Garcia back up again.
This time, not surprisingly, he woke up in a fright, desperately gasping for air. His heart pounded inside his chest with such intensity that he thought it would break through his ribcage and land on his lap. His eyes, bloodshot, blinked frantically as they tried to regain focus.