Chapter 27- Awakenings
"I…well shoot…I think I got the wrong room!"
Richard shook off the tattered sleep that clung to him. The bedside lamp had been switched on. As the room came into focus and his wits clustered to him, he saw to his horror that the interloper had pulled back the covers and had been looming over Lupe's supine body. Her nightgown was pulled up to her waist, exposing her to this stranger's gaze. Why didn't she wake up? Richard shook her shoulder and she made a sound halfway between a burp and a cough.
Relieved that she was not dead, Richard turned his attention back to the stranger. The stranger was now backing away from the bed. "Wait, I remember you, you're Annette's husband! Robert!" A wave of anger was roused in him as his sleep-drunk mind began to piece together what was happening. He was going to rape her, good God, and with me right here in the room next to her! The wave of anger built into a tsunami. Robert was going to pay in blood that night for his error.
"Now look, this is just a misunderstanding-"
Unthinking, Richard lunged out of the bed towards Robert. His rational mind had been completely sublimated by rage. Robert dodged him, however, and Richard staggered into the wall. Richard stood upright and grabbed the nearest thing to him, which happened to be the train case Lupe had brought with her for the evening. He threw it at Robert and struck him in the chest. A bottle of toilet water tumbled out of the train case and tumbled to the floor.
Robert wheezed loudly as the air was knocked out of him but he managed to stay on his feet. Richard took another glance at Lupe, who was still out cold. The ruckus hasn't reached her at all. "What did you do to her?" Richard demanded, trying to collect his thoughts but failing. Blood was needed for this. Robert's blood. It would be the only payment that would begin to balance this out.
"This is a misunderstanding," Robert stressed again once he had gotten his breath back. "We can come to an agreement, I'm sure, businessman to businessman."
Richard noticed the opened trap door in the floor. "You've got a whole set-up here to have your way with woman," he realized slowly. "I bet you slipped a mickey in her drink too, that's why she's out like a light." Richard wished he had something else immediately at hand to throw again but nothing came to hand.
"Let's talk this out," Robert repeated while taking a step back.
"Talk this out," Richard snarled at him. He wildly threw a punch at Robert, who took another quick step back. "I'm gonna gut you like a fish, you son-of-a-bitch!"
"Okay, I can see you're upset, so…" Robert scrambled for the trap door. Richard made a grab for him, but the weasel provided to be quite slippery indeed and he disappeared down the hatch.
Rich glanced at Lupe and hesitated. She seemed fine, aside from being unconscious. I'm going to rip him apart for you darling. He was completely unconcerned with the fact that he was nude save for his red and blue striped boxers. Richard slid down the ladder, which was shorter than he expected. He landed hard barefoot on a metal grating and winced at the sensation, but his symbiotic partner almost instantly whisked away the pain.
The tunnel was low and there was just enough room to crawl. A few dim bulbs illuminated the tunnel enough for Richard to spot Robert's form quickly scuttling away. Richard began to rapidly crawl after him, giving no thought to where this tunnel may lead or who was waiting or to anything other than tearing Robert's pecker off and force feeding it to him.
There was no sound save for the labored breathing of two men trying to crawl their way through a tunnel faster than the other. After sixty feet or so Richard managed to catch up to Robert and grabbed his ankle, but Robert kicked him in the face repeatedly and Richard was forced to let go. But as Richard could now take a hell of a lot of punishment all this did was infuriate Richard further.
Robert had reached the exit ladder and slid down it faster than shit through a goose. Richard was hot on his trail, only a few paces behind him. Robert plowed through a door and tried to slam it shut and trap Richard, but Richard threw the entire weight of his body (plus a little extra supplied by the slug) against the door. Robert strained to shut the door, but Richard was more than he could manage and he gave up and ran off.
Richard found himself in a storage room and was momentarily disoriented by the maze of boxes and cabinets. Robert had the terrain advantage, but Rapture was a limited space. Sooner or later Richard would find him, even if he had to bust down every damn door in his way.
A crashing noise directly ahead of him drew Richard's attention. "Damnit!" Robert exclaimed and pulled open another door.
Richard rushed towards the noise and stepped over the pile of spilled silverware that Robert had knocked over in his attempt to flee. He was now in a hallway and Robert was just rounding the corner some twenty feet away. Richard sprang off in pursuit, his fists eager to pummel Robert until they were saturated in blood.
A housekeeper yelped in surprise as the nearly naked Richard ran past her, but he had no time to consider the severe indiscretion of the situation. Robert now pushed through two swinging doors and onto the floor of the casino, probably hoping that Richard wouldn't dare run out into public into a state of undress. However, Robert did not know Richard very well and Richard was only very recently getting to know himself.
Robert turned at a row of slot machines to check if Richard was still there. A quick confirmation that yes, Richard was still there, spurred Robert to make a break for the entrance and hopefully lose Richard in the plaza outside. But slowing down to look cost Robert precious time and only steps away from the exit Richard pounced on him.
They tumbled to the floor. A small crowd of late-night gamblers had gathered around them and the roulette table immediately to the left had suspended play, although the wheel was still spinning and the ball was clattering over the slots. Robert wasn't attempting to fight back and was instead trying to wriggle away.
"Stop trying to get away, you degenerate son-of-a-bitch!" Richard shoved Robert onto the ground and loomed over him, not unlike Robert had done to Lupe mere minutes ago.
"Someone get security now!" Robert hollered out a half-second before Richard's right fist slammed into his jaw. The sound of the ball whizzing around in the roulette wheel came to halt, but no number was called.
Richard grabbed Robert's shirt collar and yanked him up. "How many times have you done this, huh? You're one sick bastard," he hissed at him. "You picked the wrong victim, this time!" Richard delivered another blow directly to Robert's right temple, a hard one, harder than then he thought he was capable of.
Robert's face went blank and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Richard had never punched someone's lights out before – the closest he'd come was getting stabbed by Van de Graff. But it wasn't enough. It had to be more. Robert had to feel this, he needed to remember every day for the rest of his life that he had tried to hurt Lupe and that he was the one who ended up getting hurt instead. Richard gave him another blow, this time directly on his nose, leaving it a bloodied and gooey mess.
Someone took hold of Richard's shoulders, but as it was just a single person they were not strong enough to pull him off in his fully realized fury. Richard got another clip in on Robert, on his jaw again, until three men managed to haul him off Robert's crumpled form.
"Easy now, easy," came a voice from Richard's left. He didn't turn to see who it was. He didn't care. All he desired was to get back on the floor and transform Robert from a glib rapist into a thoroughly mangled one. Richard made a move to return to mete out more punishment, but another pair of arms seized his right arm and he was finally halted.
"He was in my room!" Richard yelled out for all present as he was no longer allowed to attack Robert physically. Before Richard could publicly accuse him of attempted rape, however, a shrill shriek came from behind him.
"You've killed him! You monster! You've killed my husband!" Annette rushed to Robert's injured body.
"Good," was all Ricard had to say about that.
Would you kindly imagine a page break here?
Lupe's addled mind interpreted the soft yellow light as sunlight as she groggily opened her eyes. She could almost feel the warmth of the sun's rays on her face until she remembered where she was. Or, at least where she thought she was.
This isn't Richard's room, she groggily realized. There was a pain behind her eyes and she grunted uncomfortably as she sat up to survey her surroundings. This isn't my little room either. She was in a very small room, with white painted walls and a single naked light bulb screwed into the wall. There was a metal shelf on the wall next to her with a pitcher of water on it.
Panic began to set in as Lupe searched her memory for where she was and why she was here, but her memory for the past day or so was lacking. Flashes of recollections hit her – a loud smoky room, an elevator with a gold-tinted mirror, the sound of a faucet being turned on – but none of it was a cohesive picture that gave her an explanation for where she was and how she got there.
She sat up and looked at her own body for clues. She was still wearing a nightgown. Yes, this mine, she reassured herself while looking at the simple cotton nightgown that was printed with small blue flowers. I must have gone to bed. Was I alone? Lupe struggled to remember any details that might help.
Casino, Dorothy's awful friend's casino. A sense of trepidation washed over her at the memory. I thought…what did I think? Richard…he said…Lupe leaned back on the bed and shut her eyes. Where is he? I went there and he and Dorothy came there…or they were going to…Lupe's jumbled mind was spinning, trying to piece together what had transpired.
Her most recent clear memory was getting dressed at the Stone's apartment. Her dress was so pretty, and she had put extra care into doing her hair and make-up. I was going to the casino, I was going to meet Richard there, we planned on it. Did we meet? She scrunched up her face while searching her memory. She could visualize him in the casino, but she wasn't sure if that was an actual memory or just her imagining what he would have looked like in that situation.
Despite her best efforts, she couldn't recall when or if or where she went to sleep. Did I do something awful? Did I get drunk and blackout? Oh Lord, did I hurt someone? The fact that she wasn't in a security cell was heartening at the least.
"Well I'm not going to get any answers here," she mumbled to herself and slipped out of bed. She noticed her purse, train case, and a garment bag that presumably held her dress and the outfit she had brought to wear the next morning hanging next to her bed. Hoping for clues, Lupe searched through her purse. There were several crisp twenty-dollar bills in her pocketbook, which she did not remember having when she left the house, in addition to the five and two ones she did remember having.
Puzzling as that was, it didn't answer anything. There was also a key for a room in her purse, room 318. But as far as she was concerned that key opened a door to a black hole. I must have won some money, and at least I had a hotel room, she reasoned while staring at the cash and the key. But why can't I remember anything?!
Lupe opened the door a crack and peered into a hallway. Down the hall she could hear someone quickly pounding away on a typewriter. The margin bell cheerfully tinged and then whoever was typing went right back to work. Knowing she couldn't exist in this limbo forever, Lupe closed the door, quickly changed into the grey skirt and yellow blouse she had in the garment bag, slipped on her very uncomfortable fashionable pumps, and went to the hall.
"Oh, oh you're up!" exclaimed the young man behind the desk. "They said to call them when you woke up." The man reached for the telephone, but Lupe grabbed his hand before he could pick the handset up.
"Who's they? And where am I? And what happened?"
"You don't remember anything? I guess, why could you, they say you got gassed-"
Lupe's eyes went wide. "What?! Who said this? And who gassed me?!"
"I'm not supposed to say much, I'm just Dr. Burton's assistant, I am just supposed to watch you."
"And a bang-up job you're doing," Lupe irritably replied. "Can you tell me where I am at least?"
"Sure, you're at Burton's Emergency Medical Clinic, just a few blocks from the casino they found you at. You're still in Fort Frolic."
So I was gassed at the casino, Lupe put together. A memory stirred in her, too real to be a fabrication. "They want us to…I don't know exactly. Kiss. Screw. Something entertaining," she heard Richard say in her head through a cloud of darkness.
"Something entertaining," Lupe muttered to herself. A knot tightened in her stomach.
"What'd you say?"
Lupe shook her head. "Nothing. Look, I was with my boyfriend last night. Or at least I think I was. Is he here too? Or do you know where he is?"
The assistant shook his head. "I wasn't here last night then they brought you in. All I know is to call the security agent when you wake up. They want to question you."
"No, not without my lawyer," Lupe immediately responded, remembering what Richard had told her. "I can't remember anything anyway."
"I don't think they suspect you of anything, they found you unconscious in your room."
"Either you know nothing or you know everything!" Lupe snapped, deeply annoyed that her mystery assault was being beaten around the bush.
The assistant gave her an evaluating look, then picked up the handset and swiftly dialed the number written on a scrap of paper before she could grab it from his hand again. Lupe grunted in exasperation. I am constantly treated like a second-class citizen in this hellhole! I'm getting passed around and brushed off and ignored! There was the usual anger towards those who deserved it, but there was even a tinge of resentment towards Richard, who could be a little patronizing at times, and not in the good sexual way either.
There wasn't much she could do and she figured she was going to have to deal with security sooner or later, so she impotently stomped back to the room she had awoken in. Lupe wasn't going to let the cops get to her looking like a mess, so she took her brush from her train case, rinsed her mouth out with mouthwash, and put on a little mascara.
She received the two agents in the waiting room of the clinic. Thankfully they weren't in contact with their Adranos Place colleagues because they had no accusatory statements. Lupe stuck with her story – that she remembered nothing, which wasn't really a story as much as it was the truth.
Once she had answered all their questions she demanded that she be allowed to pose some questions of her own. Gradually and reluctantly they let in on it, and once they got to the part about Richard putting Robert into a coma with a few powerful blows to the head Lupe was in shock. Her hand was clasped over her mouth as her stunned mind tried to process the story of potential rape and drugs and violence that she had escaped.
The previous annoyance she had harbored towards Richard evaporated, leaving her with only the sticky residue of guilt for having felt like that in the first place. The agents told that since he unquestionably the preparator of grievous bodily harm, Richard was currently being held in custody until bail could be arranged.
"No, no!" Lupe vehemently protested when they told her this, remembering how along and scared she had felt in that jail cell. Oh my poor dearest one! "He didn't do anything wrong! Let him go, you let him go this instant!"
"Ma'am, that's not for us to decide, that's for the Council of Justice to decide." To be fair the agents were being very polite, but no amount of civility could mask the fact that her wonderful and loving boyfriend was currently alone in a jail cell.
"You have to let me talk to him! Let me see him!" Lupe demanded again, standing up from the wicker chair she had been sitting in.
"He's not allowed visitors except his lawyer, who is on his way to see him right now." The agent gave her a brief but encouraging smile. "Don't worry ma'am, if everything you told us is true and squares up with his story, I'm sure he'll walk, you'll see."
Lupe found that to be a bit unbelievable in a city where everything was for sale. Annette will probably put up the cash to have him convicted or whacked. "When can I speak to Richard?"
"Come by the precinct tomorrow morning if he hasn't been released by then. You're to go, Ms. Cervantes, but-" the agent chuckled to himself. "I was going to say don't leave town."
Lupe sighed heavily after they left. Poor Richard, stuck in a cell for being a hero. She went back to the room she woke up in to gather her things, and then stopped cold in her tracks. Oh, Dorothy is not going to be in a good mood when I get back. Evidently, it had been a very public fight, albeit a late-night one, and the whispered gossip that had been endemic of her and Richard's affair had likely morphed into full-blown fact that Richard was sleeping with Lupe.
On a good day, Lupe did not want to deal with Dorothy without Richard in the house, but the combination of lingering confusion and heartache set her to resolve.
Sixty-some odd dollars, I can get a hotel room for that, she thought as she counted the money in her pocketbook. As she did so she saw the business card Richard had given her before his surgery in case something had gone wrong.
Roland Stone
Stone and Sons
Director of Business Development
Triton Court 173
Tel: TIC-2562
Lupe flipped the card over, where the number for his home telephone was written in Richard's extremely sloppy and near illegible handwriting – ADP-0381. The prefix told Lupe he lived in Adranos Place too. She hadn't met Roland yet, but the way Richard had spoken about him was encouraging. Roland had promised Richard to help her if something had happened during the surgery and so she was betting that he hadn't changed his tune too much in the past few weeks.
She felt the absence of Helena very keenly. Helena would know the right thing to say in this situation. Lupe wiped a tear from her cheek as she walked to the reception and asked the young man if he would kindly let her use the telephone. He acquiesced to her request and Lupe picked up the handset.
Now that she needed to have her wits about her Lupe was forced to wade through the muddy sludge that was her mind. What time is it? She glanced at the clock at the wall and was shocked to see it was nearly seven.
"Excuse me, is this seven in the evening?" Lupe slowly asked the young man.
"Yes, you've been resting for some time now."
She blinked and stared at the clock. "It was only one night, right? Just one night?"
"Yes, one wild night."
Lupe dialed the home number listed on the back. The line rang and she tried to formulate in her head what she was even going to say. What am I going to do if he isn't there? I suppose I'm on my own until Richard gets released, and-
"Hello?"
Thank God. She did not want to face Rapture alone. "Roland? Um, I'm sorry to bother you, but I have had a very rough day or night, or I don't know and-"
"Excuse me, who is this?" Roland's voice sounded puzzled.
"Oh, how rude of me, my apologies. I'm Lupe, I believe Richard has spoken about me to you? He told me to call you if his surgery went wrong and now I hope that you can still help me."
"Yes, of course, he got picked up, I know. His lawyer called me this morning. I'm sorry I didn't recognize your voice, but we haven't been properly introduced." He seemed friendly enough and Lupe relaxed.
"Now seems like a good time for it then. What's your address? I need to get my bearings and, well, I don't think it's a cherry idea for me to go back to the apartment right now." Lupe wondered exactly how much Richard had told his brother about their relationship.
"No, we don't want anyone else in a coma. Tell me where you are and I'll come to pick you up," Roland offered.
"That's not necessary, just tell me where you live."
"I insist. I promised Richie I'd look after you if something happened to him and by gum, something happened. You'll stay with me until Richie gets this sorted out. Now tell me where you are and I'll be down there in two shakes of a lamb's tail."
Lupe smiled weakly. "A medical clinic in Fort Frolic, I didn't get very far." She took a piece of mail from the desk and read the address to him.
"I think I know exactly where you are. I'm grabbing my coat now, I'll be there before you know it."
Lupe thanked him and hung up the phone, genuinely grateful for Roland's offer. At least I have a place to stay for the night. She wondered if there was anywhere in Rapture though where she'd ever feel safe again though.