The room was full of milky white stars that glittered in her peripheral vision and disappeared when she tried to look at them. She closed her eyes. She was still on her back across the bed, her head lolling off the side. She was dizzy and faint with nausea from the position and her neck throbbed at the base of her skull so much that she wasn't sure any more what was real and what was not.
She could hear noises...voices...time was moving slowly and then quickly...somebody was on the phone to the hospital – Tramadol, Diamorphine, Ketamine...the price of her freedom.
Who was it they were speaking to, she wondered. Charlie? Jacob? Rita...?
She swallowed against the rising acid in the back of her throat. She coughed, a hoarse dry cough that caught in the back of her mouth and made her gag. She opened her eyes. As far as she could tell she was on her own in the room. The door through to the kitchen was ajar, and through the gap, if she squinted, she could see Eliot.
One pale shaft of watery winter sunshine reached across the room through a crack between the curtains and ran in one long yellow strip across Eliot's body. Hours had passed...surely it had been hours? She narrowed her eyes again, straining them in the darkness of the bedroom to focus on his shoulders, but she couldn't quite tell whether the ever so slight rise and fall of his arm was a trick of the eye...
"Eliot?"
Her voice was nothing but a hoarse whisper. She glanced up, along the body of the boat, whoever was still here must be outside, she could hear the murmur of voices, could see the flicker of a passing shadow...
She coughed again, louder this time, and watched for Eliot's reaction...any reaction.
But when none came she let her head fall back again. Just how many lives was she intent on ruining?
She drew in a breath, the deepest she could manage. She sucked it right into her chest and held it, and with one awkward twist of her body she began to rock herself, twisting and gritting her teeth against the pain until she felt herself tilt and fall onto her front. She gasped, the air pushed suddenly from her chest. She could breathe! She felt the pounding of blood against her forehead and for a moment all she could see was the creeping darkness.
She waited for it to pass. Still she could hear the murmur of voices and the occasional laughter from above her.
She rolled again, slowly this time, and as she rolled she angled her arms to hook herself over the bottom bed post, and with one final push she rolled herself off of the bed, hitting the ground with a sudden thud that made her teeth rattle. But finally she was sitting up, caught at the wrists to the bed post.
She glanced again to the door, Eliot was closer now, her eyes flickered across him. Surely there was the the slight ripple of breath across the pool of blood that haloed his head?
A creak from above her made her start, and she tucked her feet beneath herself, struggling against the tightness of the belt. She pushed herself up, slowly at first, her feet began to tingle and pulse and her head felt thick and slow. She shivered as she stood, pulling her hands free of the bed post, and then, with one shoulder against the wall she half-hopped, half-shuffled to the book case where one of the men had stabbed the pen knife into the spine of one of the books.
She turned her back to it and leant over forwards, being careful to remain balanced, and reached up as far as she could. She felt the cold of the pearl handle brush her fingers, and she grasped it tight, pulling until she felt the book begin to come loose. She paused, and then wriggled it up and down as much as she could, working it looser, and looser, until finally it came free in her hands.
She closed her eyes, expelling a breath of sudden relief, and then she turned the blade slowly, carefully in towards herself until she felt it catch beneath the plastic of the cable tie, and with every little bit of the strength she had left she prized it upwards, pulling and pulling until finally, it snapped.
She staggered forwards, her arms falling to her sides, every joint in them twisted and aching. She stood up straight and bought them into her chest, clutching the knife and rubbing her wrists. She looked down at them. Her fingers were a blueish grey colour and around her wrists were purple-black from the tightness of the cable tie. She inspected the cut, still it weeped fresh red blood that ran over the coarse clotted brown blood that had dried in streaks across her flesh...
From above there came a laugh, and the scuff of boots. She looked up, they were directly above her.
With the knife tucked into one hand she bent down hurriedly and unbuckled the belt and tossed it onto the bed, and then, with numb feet she staggered to the door, to Eliot.
She knelt down beside him.
"Eliot?"
She touched his cheek.
"Eliot?"
She leant closer to him. She pushed her fingers into the soft flesh of his neck and closed her eyes. She held her breath.
"Come on..."
There was a pulse, the faint, struggling flicker...she exhaled all at once and sank back down on the floor.
Footsteps sounded above them, scraping sloping footsteps that edged away from them. She felt her body tense, the air seemed thin all of a sudden. They were coming, she wasn't ready, she wasn't ready-
She glanced to Eliot, his skin was pale and mottled and glossed with sweat.
The footsteps were nearing now, moving above them, and beyond.
She took hold of the arm of one of the chairs and hauled herself up, her head spinning and her throat constricting around what little air she could struggle to draw in. She turned around, the knife in her palm, she tripped as she walked, falling and regaining her balance, she fell against the bed, and as the footsteps sounded on the steps she buckled the belt back around her ankles – though not as tightly – and tucked her arms behind her back, making sure that the blade was pointed into the bed before falling back down onto the mattress, letting her head fall back from the edge of the bed before the front door of the boat swung open again.
-.-
More soon...hopefully later today xxx