Every promise is a debt
"And then you'll let me go?"
"That depends on the outcome." He was clever, two-faced, sneaky. I reached for the vial and twisted it back and forth in my hand.
What a perfidious way to try to persuade me. He mercilessly exploited my desire to protect Legolas by giving me hope. Hope that I would be able to put things in perspective if I just took the serum. Hope that everything would be okay. This was so clear to me at that moment that I had to laugh out loud. Mr. Sattler seemed to know me better than I knew myself. There was no other way I could explain that he intuitively sensed what I myself had been denying all along.
All right. I could refuse and I would die. When doing that, neither I nor Legolas would be helped, because Ice Eye would continue to assume that he was the thief. But if I took the serum... maybe there was actually a possibility that he believed me? I knew I was playing right into Sattler's hands, but I couldn't help it. The hope was too strong. And even if he killed me afterwards, he could not doubt the truth of my words. Or could he? Was he fixated enough on Legolas to rule out all other possibilities? What about Jack Adams? He had mentioned him himself, after all. Or was he just a lead?
I clenched my eyelids and tried to steady my breathing. "All right, you win. But don't think I don't realize what you're doing."
"Hope is such a delicate thing, isn't it?"
I ignored him and instead unscrewed the lid of the serum. "Just swallow it?"
"Just like you drink water."
"What's the Coke for?"
He turned to the window. "You'll know when you've tasted the serum. Open it first."
I set the serum aside and opened the Coke can. With a hiss, the cap gave way and I took it in my left hand. With my right, I reached for the serum again.
One.
Two.
Three.
Down it went. I raised it to my lips and swallowed the stuff in one go.
As it slid down my throat, it felt like ice, but once it got to my stomach, it started burning like crazy. So much so that I began to double over in my chair, convulsively trying not to spill the Coke. Why that was so important to me at that moment, I couldn't say either.
"Drink," I heard Sattler's voice from far away as pain shot through my abdomen in waves. I was going to make him drink in a minute, damn it! Did he have any idea how much that hurt? I groaned, but managed to put the can to my lips and choke down several gulps.
The Coke tasted sickeningly sweet, even more so than it already did, and it didn't get any better.
Rather, I felt like the carbonation only made the brew in my stomach even more aggressive. I dug my fingernails into the palm of my hand and fixed the vial that had contained the serum, now lying on the floor at my feet. I must have dropped it. The next wave of pain rolled in and I groaned again. He was trying to kill me. I blinked. Somehow my vision was blurry, so I couldn't see the vial clearly. As hard as I tried... I just couldn't. What if this hadn't been truth serum at all, but poison?
With that last thought, I closed my eyes and toppled sideways off the chair.
"Can you hear me? Hey there?"
I was shaken by the shoulder, but my limbs were so incredibly heavy that I couldn't manage to move. Not even a millimeter. If only I could sink back into the blissful blackness that had held me captive until just now. There had been no pain down there - and no cold. Both flooded me now in overabundance. Almost simultaneously I curled up and began to tremble. And with the sensations came back my memory.
I wrenched my eyes open.
The world hung askew and it took me a while to realize that I was lying on my side. In front of me stood a pair of black women's boots, the right one tapping annoyingly loud on the floor. Only now did the woman's voice also get through to me. "...She didn't. I don't know, you told me to turn in the letter, but not that there would be half a dead body."
Silence. I rolled onto my back and saw a black ponytail nodding. "If you say so. And I'm really not supposed to...?" Another pause. "Well, okay."
She hung up and turned around. At the sight of me, she flinched so violently that the cell phone slipped out of her hand and hit the floor just beside my head. "Oh God, you scared me!"
I opened my mouth, but only managed a hoarse croak. All right, one more try. I cleared my throat. "Hel... help me..."
She bent down and quickly put the cell phone in her pocket. Then she took two steps back. "I'm sorry, dear, but I'm just supposed to give you this letter."
Her voice hadn't sounded the least bit regretful, and I sensed that something was wrong with her. Closer up, of course, that was an absolutely brilliant conclusion for my befuddled brain to draw; after all, any normal person would have called an ambulance given my condition. The woman, however, seemed more like... like a messenger? In any case, she didn't seem particularly concerned about my well-being or otherwise interested in me being able to open the letter. Her job seemed to be done with the delivery.
She pulled an envelope out of her coat pocket, which was already quite crumpled, and knelt down next to me. Then she slipped it under my right hand.
"And while I'm at it. I hope you'll forgive me..." She knew full well that I couldn't do anything, so she started going through my pockets. However, except for a pack of gum that had been rotting in my pants for ages and my flashlight, she found nothing. She shrugged her shoulders apologetically, stood back up, and raised her hand in farewell. "Take care."
And with that, she disappeared into the gathering dusk. I stared after her, stunned. How could a person be so cold? She... she had robbed me! She hadn't taken anything, but she had taken a chance and now she left me lying there like a dirty rag.
I bit my lips to suppress the tears. Nevertheless, they gathered in the corner of my eye and dripped onto the floor from there. God damn it, I had to get up! What if the next person who came along had completely different things in mind for me?
In pain, I rolled back onto my side and propped myself up on my forearm to keep from toppling over immediately. From there, I worked my way up. Inch by inch. It felt like a lifetime, but finally I made it and was sitting upright, leaning against the tree to my right. Under the omnipresent pain that dominated my body, the throbbing of my bullet wound peeled out clearly, and as I carefully felt for it I felt the spot hot and swollen under my sweater. This was not good at all.
I ran my hand over my eyes and only now began to consciously notice my surroundings. There were trees all around me and only one path led away from the place where I was lying. In the dim light some distance away, I could just make out a picnic table and some benches. I frowned. Where the hell had they dumped me? Why was I here in the first place? Hadn't Sattler promised to give me my life back? I didn't consider that waking up half-frozen in a patch of woods without the slightest idea of where I was. Or had he thought I was dead?
No, he hadn't really looked like an amateur. If he had wanted to kill me, I wouldn't be here now.
Mist crept out of the underbrush of the forest and I shivered again. I had to get out of here if I wanted to survive the night. Using all my strength, I managed to get to my feet. In the process, something fell.
The letter.
I paused and wondered if I should just leave it there. After all, it was extremely unlikely that I would manage to pick it up. In the end, however, curiosity won over, and it took me again ages before I finally held it in my hands. In the meantime, it had become so dark that I couldn't even tell if it had an addressee. Probably not, since it was delivered directly to me. I fiddled with my pocket and pulled out the flashlight. Please don't let the battery be broken, I pleaded in my mind and sighed with relief as a faint beam illuminated the toe of my shoe.
Hastily, I opened the envelope and pulled out what looked like... "A plane ticket!"
What was I supposed to do with that? Still attached to the ticket was a note that read in spidery handwriting, "Your new life begins now. Don't throw it away.
He couldn't be serious!
I was staring at the paper in my hands and felt my heart start to trip. Not from fear, not from cold or pain, but from anger. This couldn't be true! What a despicable son of a bitch! He had kept his word, no question about it. I was here, I was free and I had my life back, just unfortunately not my old one.
