Lennox raised his hand, calling for another drink from the bar. The
bartender stared at his suspiciously, but then slid him over another shot
glass. At the other end of the bar, people commiserated, speaking in
slurred Spanish. Toothless and squinting, one old man came lumbering up to
him, scratching the salt and pepper stubble on his chin. The brown wrinkles
in his eyes increased in their intensity as he gave an unnerving stare,
trying to search out Lennox's face in his blindness. From the
unintelligible mammering, Lennox deciphered that the man must have wanted
money, most likely for another drink. For the first time, Lennox seriously
empathized with the situation, and pulled a bill out of his pocket.
Clenching it securely in his fist, the old man worked his gums once more and continued talking to no one. He continued to have a secure grip on Lennox's shoulder. Suddenly the grip tightened, and the man fell silent for a moment as he bent in closer to Lennox's face.
The man's big black eyes opened wide, and when he spoke, the voice became clear and even.
"Things will make sense soon. . . . . . You've just got to go with it." With that, the man turned quickly on his heel to go beg from other customers in his pathetic way, leaving Lennox speechless.
He slammed down the coins to pay for his drink on the counter, and walked out as quickly as possible. He just needed to get back to the hotel and think.
************************
"Will that be all for you?" The woman at the drugstore asked her. On the pay counter was a bottle of maroon hair dye.
"Yes." She said. And maybe a loaded gun, she added as an afterthought to herself.
Walking out of the store, she looked behind her back out of instinct. She needed to escape this, especially after today with seeing Lennox. They're gonna be looking for me soon. One last night here, and then I'm gone. She needed to feel reckless.
Going back to the cheap motel that she was staying at, she changed out of her white shirt and red bikini. Red. What had she been thinking? There shouldn't be any color. She had gotten too comfortable, that's what she'd done. It would be black from now on.
An hour later, she entered the heavy metal club with maroon hair and black mesh on her body. A new addition, she now wore a large diamond ring on her thumb in addition to the one around her neck. It fit her mood completely. Before she could remember herself, she popped a few ecstasy pills into her mouth, and went to go join the Russian Roulette game going in the corner. One might say she was becoming more and more like her mother every day.
***********************
Sark had grown bored, something that happened easily and often. He had checked every single source, underground and mainstream, with no sign of Sydney Bristow. If she was here, she sure as hell wasn't trying anything. But Sydney was always trying something. The Caribbean was a dead trail.
Sark smirked. There were other ways to enjoy oneself in Caribbean. Not all of them were legal, but all were quite enjoyable. And he was already in the hotel room after all. No need to go anywhere now. He reached over the bed to dial up the local escort service.
A gruff man's voice answered, accompanied by loud pumping music in the background. The man must be in a nightclub, Sark thought. Not surprising. Sark calmly placed his order, talking a little bit louder for the man's benefit, and then hung up. He laughed at himself. How drunk was he right now, to be doing this?
He had a feeling he would need to be even more drunk when she got here. Stumbling a little, Sark made his way to the nearly empty scotch bottle on the table. His hand shook so bad that he dropped it the minute he reached for it. Sark swore as the scotch poured out across the carpet. He would have to order more.
He stumbled again on his way to the phone, and found himself groping for the floor lamp just to give him balance. All he succeeded in doing however, was knocking the floor lamp to the ground. Almost in slow motion it tipped downward, the bulb shattered on the carpet, still lit, and then before Sark could blink, there was a spark and the carpet was on fire. It had smashed over the scotch spill.
Sark blinked once more, his vision blurred, before collapsing on the floor, passing out completely.
*************************
The Roulette game had been a bust. Twice in a row cowards had taken the bullet out secretly before the start. They had sat around that table for an hour before they realized that there was no bullet.
Now somehow this had escalated into her doing a table dance for 6 or so masturbating roulette players. Ecstasy pulsed through her veins, and if she could focus long enough to remember, she thought a man had given her a cut on the arm and rubbed some white powder in right before she started this. It didn't matter. She laughed as she thought I'm probably end up getting raped by one or more of these men, but nothing mattered anymore. She wasn't real.
Her shirt was now a crumpled pile on the floor, and one of the men was coming up onto the table. The man's cell phone was ringing. He swore at the delay, but stopped to grab it.
She lifted up her head and squinted, trying to figure out what was going on. Another one was climbing up on the table, taking advantage of the man's interruption. The other one stopped talking on the cell phone long enough to punch the man off the table, protecting his possessions.
"We'll have one come up to your room within the hour." She heard him say, then turn it off. She had started to come to her senses a bit better, and had started looking for her shirt before any damage could be done.
The man laughed again when he saw her, still disoriented from the drugs.
"How would you like to make me a little money?" He said to her. A British man in a hotel down the way needed a little help getting to sleep that night. The bass music was starting to her head in here, and instinct told her she should get out while she still could. She agreed.
"Good. Now go find your shirt." All the men still surrounding the table laughed loudly at the joke.
Besides, the drugs told her, you haven't fucked a British man yet. She jumped as a picture of Danny flashed in her head, but as quickly as it was there, the picture was gone.
She exited the club with the promise that she's return before the end of the night with some money and a little more fun for the men still there. It wasn't a promise she would keep, but they had trusted her, still thinking her completely wasted. She could still feel the drugs at work in her body, but most of her sense had come back now, thank God. She had forgotten how much trouble you could get yourself into when being reckless.
She had walked down to the end of the block when one of the men from the club had come running up beside her. They'd seen her walk to wrong way.
"Nuh-uh, Princess, the hotel's that way." He grabbed her and pushed her in the right direction, and began walking with her. She knew she was in no condition to fight him. She'd just have to lose him at the hotel.
She was never taking that many drugs at once again.
*********************
Lennox sat in his hotel room staring at a blank TV screen, just thinking. This used to be the hotel they had always gone to. It was kinda masochistic to stay here now, he thought. How he missed her.
The best thing for it now was a drink. He got up to head down to the bar, but jumped back as soon as he gripped the white-hot doorknob. Tentatively, he put his sweatshirt over his hand and cracked the door open slightly to see what was on the other side.
Flames flared up in his face, causing him to fall back. He just barely managed to close the door with his foot before the fire entered his room. Smoke poured in through the crack under the door.
Instincts setting in, Lennox ran to the bathroom, wetting a bath towel and shoving it under the door crack to keep the smoke out. But he knew it would only keep the fire out for so long. He had to find a way out.
Breaking the window, he climbed out onto the fire escape only to find it rusted and broken. He wouldn't be able to get down through here.
Looking down he saw that fire trucks had arrived. Maybe they'd get it calmed down. Maybe.
Deep down inside, Lennox knew that that was a whole lot of maybe.
*************************
During the long walk to the hotel, she had felt herself sober up little by little. The moment she realized that she had regained motor control of her body she had punched out the man walking with her and ran for it. It had only taken one hit.
Racing around the corner, her eyes were blinded by the flash of light before. An entire hotel building, most likely the one that she had been requested for, was going up in flames.
Without a second thought, she ran headlong for the building, trained instincts kicking in. She would be able to do a helluva lot better than that measly fire truck they had going there. It was a smaller hotel, that would help them in the long run. Only 5 floors, and the fire was concentrated to the 3rd floor and above.
Running to a side alley, she jumped for a dangling fire escape ladder, and went in the second floor window. All the floors below had been evacuated, making it easier to navigate her way up to the third floor with little trouble.
One or two firefighters stood at the other end of the hall, subduing the flames for the most part on that floor. Running through the door, she burst into an empty room on the opposite end of the hall. Another fire escape ladder dangled outside the window.
Climbing up, she found the fourth floor much more ravaged than the third. Through the broken window, she ran into a room, and almost tripped over an unconscious person. He was lying face down, but she could see he was still breathing. Without thinking, she hoisted him up onto her shoulder and took him out to the fire escape and fresh air. Fire had ravaged most of his room, it was lucky that there was still a path to the window.
Once she had him out on the fire escape, she started to lay him down gently, but accidentally dropped him hard on the metal, just through sheer surprise.
The blonde spike hare and boyish features brought back quite a few unpleasant memories to her head. After this, she was going to have to leave immediately. No way was she staying here if Sark was around. A sinking feeling in her stomach told her he was probably here looking for her, like everyone else. Why did they all want her, she thought, running back into the hotel building.
The Prophecy, a voice inside her said.
Well she wouldn't have it. None of it. She was nothing now, and that's the way she wanted it.
Not quite, the nagging voice told, he, as she climbed through two more windows. Just a few hours ago, is that what you wanted from nothing?
That was different, she told herself, a mistake she wouldn't make again.
You can't escape it, deep down it told her. YES I CAN!
Squinting her eyes shut, she screamed just to make it stop.
"Sydney?" Her eyes flew open. There was a person in this room. Flames were licking through the door and starting to scar the walls, but this room was relatively undamaged.
Hunched in the corner, coughing and looking up at her, was Lennox. Without saying a word to him, she grabbed him by the arm and dragged him up, and out onto the fire escape. He was coughing and shaking his head at her.
"I've tried that, it doesn't pull down all the way. . . . ."
She just looked at him.
"Did you ever just think of jumping into the window below yours?"
"Oh." She just rolled her eyes, grabbed his arm and swung him in. Yep, she would definitely need to leave after this. Was Italy still out of the question? She wondered.
"Sydney, Come on!" Lennox beckoned her into the lower hotel room.
For her now, there was no other option.
Clenching it securely in his fist, the old man worked his gums once more and continued talking to no one. He continued to have a secure grip on Lennox's shoulder. Suddenly the grip tightened, and the man fell silent for a moment as he bent in closer to Lennox's face.
The man's big black eyes opened wide, and when he spoke, the voice became clear and even.
"Things will make sense soon. . . . . . You've just got to go with it." With that, the man turned quickly on his heel to go beg from other customers in his pathetic way, leaving Lennox speechless.
He slammed down the coins to pay for his drink on the counter, and walked out as quickly as possible. He just needed to get back to the hotel and think.
************************
"Will that be all for you?" The woman at the drugstore asked her. On the pay counter was a bottle of maroon hair dye.
"Yes." She said. And maybe a loaded gun, she added as an afterthought to herself.
Walking out of the store, she looked behind her back out of instinct. She needed to escape this, especially after today with seeing Lennox. They're gonna be looking for me soon. One last night here, and then I'm gone. She needed to feel reckless.
Going back to the cheap motel that she was staying at, she changed out of her white shirt and red bikini. Red. What had she been thinking? There shouldn't be any color. She had gotten too comfortable, that's what she'd done. It would be black from now on.
An hour later, she entered the heavy metal club with maroon hair and black mesh on her body. A new addition, she now wore a large diamond ring on her thumb in addition to the one around her neck. It fit her mood completely. Before she could remember herself, she popped a few ecstasy pills into her mouth, and went to go join the Russian Roulette game going in the corner. One might say she was becoming more and more like her mother every day.
***********************
Sark had grown bored, something that happened easily and often. He had checked every single source, underground and mainstream, with no sign of Sydney Bristow. If she was here, she sure as hell wasn't trying anything. But Sydney was always trying something. The Caribbean was a dead trail.
Sark smirked. There were other ways to enjoy oneself in Caribbean. Not all of them were legal, but all were quite enjoyable. And he was already in the hotel room after all. No need to go anywhere now. He reached over the bed to dial up the local escort service.
A gruff man's voice answered, accompanied by loud pumping music in the background. The man must be in a nightclub, Sark thought. Not surprising. Sark calmly placed his order, talking a little bit louder for the man's benefit, and then hung up. He laughed at himself. How drunk was he right now, to be doing this?
He had a feeling he would need to be even more drunk when she got here. Stumbling a little, Sark made his way to the nearly empty scotch bottle on the table. His hand shook so bad that he dropped it the minute he reached for it. Sark swore as the scotch poured out across the carpet. He would have to order more.
He stumbled again on his way to the phone, and found himself groping for the floor lamp just to give him balance. All he succeeded in doing however, was knocking the floor lamp to the ground. Almost in slow motion it tipped downward, the bulb shattered on the carpet, still lit, and then before Sark could blink, there was a spark and the carpet was on fire. It had smashed over the scotch spill.
Sark blinked once more, his vision blurred, before collapsing on the floor, passing out completely.
*************************
The Roulette game had been a bust. Twice in a row cowards had taken the bullet out secretly before the start. They had sat around that table for an hour before they realized that there was no bullet.
Now somehow this had escalated into her doing a table dance for 6 or so masturbating roulette players. Ecstasy pulsed through her veins, and if she could focus long enough to remember, she thought a man had given her a cut on the arm and rubbed some white powder in right before she started this. It didn't matter. She laughed as she thought I'm probably end up getting raped by one or more of these men, but nothing mattered anymore. She wasn't real.
Her shirt was now a crumpled pile on the floor, and one of the men was coming up onto the table. The man's cell phone was ringing. He swore at the delay, but stopped to grab it.
She lifted up her head and squinted, trying to figure out what was going on. Another one was climbing up on the table, taking advantage of the man's interruption. The other one stopped talking on the cell phone long enough to punch the man off the table, protecting his possessions.
"We'll have one come up to your room within the hour." She heard him say, then turn it off. She had started to come to her senses a bit better, and had started looking for her shirt before any damage could be done.
The man laughed again when he saw her, still disoriented from the drugs.
"How would you like to make me a little money?" He said to her. A British man in a hotel down the way needed a little help getting to sleep that night. The bass music was starting to her head in here, and instinct told her she should get out while she still could. She agreed.
"Good. Now go find your shirt." All the men still surrounding the table laughed loudly at the joke.
Besides, the drugs told her, you haven't fucked a British man yet. She jumped as a picture of Danny flashed in her head, but as quickly as it was there, the picture was gone.
She exited the club with the promise that she's return before the end of the night with some money and a little more fun for the men still there. It wasn't a promise she would keep, but they had trusted her, still thinking her completely wasted. She could still feel the drugs at work in her body, but most of her sense had come back now, thank God. She had forgotten how much trouble you could get yourself into when being reckless.
She had walked down to the end of the block when one of the men from the club had come running up beside her. They'd seen her walk to wrong way.
"Nuh-uh, Princess, the hotel's that way." He grabbed her and pushed her in the right direction, and began walking with her. She knew she was in no condition to fight him. She'd just have to lose him at the hotel.
She was never taking that many drugs at once again.
*********************
Lennox sat in his hotel room staring at a blank TV screen, just thinking. This used to be the hotel they had always gone to. It was kinda masochistic to stay here now, he thought. How he missed her.
The best thing for it now was a drink. He got up to head down to the bar, but jumped back as soon as he gripped the white-hot doorknob. Tentatively, he put his sweatshirt over his hand and cracked the door open slightly to see what was on the other side.
Flames flared up in his face, causing him to fall back. He just barely managed to close the door with his foot before the fire entered his room. Smoke poured in through the crack under the door.
Instincts setting in, Lennox ran to the bathroom, wetting a bath towel and shoving it under the door crack to keep the smoke out. But he knew it would only keep the fire out for so long. He had to find a way out.
Breaking the window, he climbed out onto the fire escape only to find it rusted and broken. He wouldn't be able to get down through here.
Looking down he saw that fire trucks had arrived. Maybe they'd get it calmed down. Maybe.
Deep down inside, Lennox knew that that was a whole lot of maybe.
*************************
During the long walk to the hotel, she had felt herself sober up little by little. The moment she realized that she had regained motor control of her body she had punched out the man walking with her and ran for it. It had only taken one hit.
Racing around the corner, her eyes were blinded by the flash of light before. An entire hotel building, most likely the one that she had been requested for, was going up in flames.
Without a second thought, she ran headlong for the building, trained instincts kicking in. She would be able to do a helluva lot better than that measly fire truck they had going there. It was a smaller hotel, that would help them in the long run. Only 5 floors, and the fire was concentrated to the 3rd floor and above.
Running to a side alley, she jumped for a dangling fire escape ladder, and went in the second floor window. All the floors below had been evacuated, making it easier to navigate her way up to the third floor with little trouble.
One or two firefighters stood at the other end of the hall, subduing the flames for the most part on that floor. Running through the door, she burst into an empty room on the opposite end of the hall. Another fire escape ladder dangled outside the window.
Climbing up, she found the fourth floor much more ravaged than the third. Through the broken window, she ran into a room, and almost tripped over an unconscious person. He was lying face down, but she could see he was still breathing. Without thinking, she hoisted him up onto her shoulder and took him out to the fire escape and fresh air. Fire had ravaged most of his room, it was lucky that there was still a path to the window.
Once she had him out on the fire escape, she started to lay him down gently, but accidentally dropped him hard on the metal, just through sheer surprise.
The blonde spike hare and boyish features brought back quite a few unpleasant memories to her head. After this, she was going to have to leave immediately. No way was she staying here if Sark was around. A sinking feeling in her stomach told her he was probably here looking for her, like everyone else. Why did they all want her, she thought, running back into the hotel building.
The Prophecy, a voice inside her said.
Well she wouldn't have it. None of it. She was nothing now, and that's the way she wanted it.
Not quite, the nagging voice told, he, as she climbed through two more windows. Just a few hours ago, is that what you wanted from nothing?
That was different, she told herself, a mistake she wouldn't make again.
You can't escape it, deep down it told her. YES I CAN!
Squinting her eyes shut, she screamed just to make it stop.
"Sydney?" Her eyes flew open. There was a person in this room. Flames were licking through the door and starting to scar the walls, but this room was relatively undamaged.
Hunched in the corner, coughing and looking up at her, was Lennox. Without saying a word to him, she grabbed him by the arm and dragged him up, and out onto the fire escape. He was coughing and shaking his head at her.
"I've tried that, it doesn't pull down all the way. . . . ."
She just looked at him.
"Did you ever just think of jumping into the window below yours?"
"Oh." She just rolled her eyes, grabbed his arm and swung him in. Yep, she would definitely need to leave after this. Was Italy still out of the question? She wondered.
"Sydney, Come on!" Lennox beckoned her into the lower hotel room.
For her now, there was no other option.