Requiem of Revenge

Mike’s PoV

The drug Marcus had ejected me with had worked too well. I couldn’t move my mouth at all now, and could only let out a grunt.

Now he was sitting around the room, mostly in silence. Sometimes he got up and paced, making the floorboards creak, muttering things I couldn’t hear.

Time dragged more slowly than it ever had before in my life. I was too panicked and worried to try to sleep. I was lying in an uncomfortable position, with my arms crossed and pressed underneath my stomach and my legs twisted. I knew it would hurt like a bitch if I was ever able to get up.

Three or four hours in darkness passed, and I became more frantic. Ransom…for who? My wife? Billie? Someone else entirely?

I knew that if Marcus stayed here in the room with me the whole time, there would be no way to escape. And with that drug, depending on how much of it he had, I wouldn’t even be able to move.

How had he gotten his hands on it, anyway? As far as I knew, he was still just as homeless and broke as he was before he got thrown into jail all those years ago. He couldn’t have just stolen it from the local pharmacy or doctor’s office, either. And it was so fast-acting, too…

Worse yet, how had he brought me here? Granted, I had no idea where I was—it could be anything from a town right in the same county, or across the ocean in some country where I could never be found. If I had traveled any great distance, I couldn’t see how he could keep me passed out and brought into…this place, through car or train or whatever…

And I didn’t even want to think about how he managed to break into my house in broad daylight, which I had always kept up to date with whatever alarm systems I could get—my paranoia about burglary had never failed until now.

This was just getting more and more confusing. It just didn’t add up that a guy who pretty much doesn’t exist could get at least several doses of a powerful paralysis drug, transport a kidnapped unconscious person to this place, and do it without any money.

For the first time in an hour, I tried stretching my mouth again, opening it wider.

To my surprise, it worked.

“Ughhh.” I worked my jaw muscles up and down.

“Do you mind shutting up?” Marcus spoke for the first time since he’d first caught me. “I don’t need to hear your moans.”

“Wh-who did you ask the…ransom…” I was still stumbling over my words. It was so frustrating to be unable to speak, sprawled out on the floor like a dead body.

I heard clacking across the floor as he made his way towards me.

“Who’d you think, Mike? Your little friend Billie. He has seven days to find you,” he snorted. “Although, I think I was too lenient. Should have given him four or something. Then again, I doubt he’ll be able to find you anyway.” He seemed to be talking more to himself now.

“To be honest, I would prefer that he doesn’t make it here. I would love to kill you, just the way I want, without the distractions of last time.”

I didn’t say anything in reply, but he kept going.

“Such a shame, really, Mike, that you had to have this happen to you. But I have to do what I must…you were, after all, responsible for my child and wife’s deaths.”

“It…wasn’t our fault!” I protested. It was getting easier to speak now. “We didn’t know…that we had…taken away…”

“Don’t try to shift the blame onto someone else. You know full well it was all your fault, all because of your miserable existence that they're dead now."

“I-I…still don’t get why…you had to do this to us…”

“You dumbass, Mike,” he snapped.

“You know nothing of the hell I have been through. Do you know how many awful nights I stood in the icy cold, shivering with frostbite and unable to afford so much as a match? Do you get how much it hurts every day to know you two are still nearly living in mansions, with food to eat and a bed to sleep in at night? Do you know how it felt to have my only family die right before my eyes, knowing I could never feed them and had failed my duty as a father and husband?

“You stole my life from me. You stomped on my work, sucked up to the company with your pretty little tunes and took my money, my fame, my happiness…the only reason I’m living now is so that I can be sure you’re dead.”

I was filled with shock at the end of his speech, too much to say anything in reply. It wasn’t like Marcus to have outbursts of rage, normally barely concealed behind his smooth tone.

Billie, you’d better come quick, I thought hopelessly, veins pumping with apprehension. At this rate, he might give in and just kill me before the time is up…