He knew, when he awoke, that he was not dreaming.
There was no time in between completely asleep and completely awake for Shawn. There was no lingering of dreams or hazy questioning if he was really in his bed or actually still raiding the enchanted pineapple grove while chasing down Gus in pirate garb. One minute he was asleep, and the next minute he was awake.
He was awake: confused, hurting, and bound.
Awake and soberly conscious of the fact that he was bound and immensely uncomfortable, Shawn tensed and flexed his body to get a sense of how he was suspended. He was lying on a piece of jagged plywood that was currently lying against a metal bar. His arms were bent at 90 degrees around that bar and zip-tied to brackets on the underside of the plank.
'Jeez', Shawn thought to himself as he turned his head from side to side trying to assess the situation, 'So much for the usual chair-and-handcuffs routine.'
Becoming aware of his physical state quickly led Shawn to try to answer how he had landed in this predicament. Usually a recent suspect's name would pop into his head, he would remember a confrontation or an insult, and then a pain in the skull, and that would lead, ipso facto, to waking up in said dangerous state. But this time…there was nothing. Shawn closed his eyes trying to back up his eidetic train of thought, and everything went hazy. It was like his mind was on buffer, and the only thing he remembered clearly was having dinner with his father.
Shawn sat in the pale, yellow light in his father's dining table and finished off the bowl of mashed potatoes. Henry sat at his 9 o'clock, swigging the last of his beer bottle. His father placed the bottle down on the table and then crossed his arms across his chest.
'Aren't you going to ask me?'
'Asph-u-utt?" Shawn sputtered around the potatoes, fully aware that his father loathed when he talked with his mouth full, let alone packed to capacity.
'The case? Leads? Dead-ends?' Henry wiped a hand over his face, 'You never would have agreed to come over if you didn't need something.'
And that was it. Shawn couldn't remember his retort, which would have had to have been brilliant…nor did he remember the rest of the evening or leaving his father's house. Everything stopped with his father's comment.
Trying to remember was beginning to cause a throbbing pain on his right temple. Instead, he refocused his energy on trying to get loose from his current predicament. His father had shown him how to break free of zip ties (on Christmas day when he was 10 years old'…) but his arms were to widely spread to get any kind of power. Shawn tried flexing his arms out, up, down, and around, but there was no budging. He was stuck.
'Okay…' Shawn thought to himself, 'I'm not getting out on my own.'
He surveyed the room taking in the fact that there were no windows, the walls were concrete, and the only exit appeared to be a flight of steep, narrow steps.
'Probably in a basement, of course, because why would you keep someone in the living room or an upper level? Though it would make for a great conversation starter…'
His small, concrete room was empty except for himself and a stack of cardboard boxes that were stacked in one corner. There was absolutely nothing else for him to use to escape.
'Alright. Nothing I can use here to help me. What about what's on me?'
He was wearing the same clothes that he wore to his father's house: jeans, undershirt, and plaid button-up. He shoes, his sweet, sweet Roos, had been removed. He could tell that his wallet and phone had been taken because he couldn't feel the familiar weight in his back pocket. His Swiss Army knife was gone too.
Just as Shawn was beginning to realize how hopeless his situation was, and desperately wishing that this would turn into an elaborate hoax (maybe his dad laced his food and was trying out some advanced training on him…kind of sad that that scenario would be welcomed), Shawn heard a faint squeak and the sound of footsteps coming from the stairs.
'Pretend to be asleep? Stay awake or alert? Asleep? Awake?' Shawn bounced the options around as the steps got louder. There must have been a lot of steps because it was taking whoever was coming down a while to get there. Making a decision, Shawn closed his eyes, dropped his head, and let his body go slack.
He tried to slow his breathing and give the appearance of sleep as the footsteps became louder and finally stopped.
He could tell someone else was in the room; he could feel it in the air. He could feel eyes watching him.
Shawn tried to control his breathing, but it suddenly felt like the loudest sound in the room. It hitched in his throat and he swallowed roughly.
"Open your eyes, Shawn."
He opened his eyes, dreading what would greet him. He was mildly surprised by the person who had addressed him.
A girl, a woman, was standing not three feet from him pointing a gun right at his heart.