Chapter 2

Sendoh looked into a dark corner, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the low light in the darker parts of the cellar. Cellar or unfinished basement, whichever- he never remembered if there was supposed to be a difference between the two, though cellars to him always brought a dim memory of his grandmother's place, the cellar dim and cool, shelves neatly stacked with rows of canned fruit and vegetables.

He and Rukawa sat on the ground close to the back wall, near the midpoint of the cellar. The floor was packed dirt, scooped low in the middle and rising up the sides before giving way to the smooth rover rocks in the house's foundation. Overhead, copper pipes stitched the dim reaches together. An old coal stove squatted in a dark corner to the left, and discarded building materials crowded the corners of the room- paint cans, a table saw, two by fours, and a rolled carpet, its woven underside dry-rotted.

A set of wooden steps rose close to the wall on Sendoh and Rukawa's far right, old and gray, flanked by filmsy wooden railing. The window, the only source of light, faced them from high up in the wall, square and squat. Dirt pressed against the glass pane about halfway up on the outside and was barred and wired from the inside.

Bars on the inside. Not the outside. It made Sendoh's stomach hurt in a whole different way. "Dammit," he muttered.

"What?"

"The bars." Sendoh pointed at the window.

Rukawa didn't even look. He lay on his back, legs tented, feet close to Sendoh's. "Yeah." His voice was flat.

Sendoh shifted, searching for a more comfortable position. The ground was too damned hard. "So how did you end up in here?"

"I got hurt last night. I was unconscious. I don't remember anything about being brought here." Rukawa tapped fingers restlessly against his chest. "I need to stretch out my legs, okay?"

Sendoh nodded, slowly stretched out his left leg. At the same time, Rukawa stretched out both of his.

"Smooth as synchronized swimmers," Rukawa said, smiling a little. He folded his good arm behind his head. "You know, it's weird. The details of what happened yesterday before waking up in this shithole are pretty foggy. Fading. Like a dream or...something." He shook his head. "I'm taking an accelerated summer class at UT. The professor and I aren't exactly hitting it off. He made some smart ass comment a few days ago, like he didn't think I was gonna pass yesterday's test. Pissed me off. So I put pedal to the metal and studied. I passed it. I aced it, I know it."

"You like flipping off your professors?"

The corner of Rukawa's mouth lifted. "Maybe, when they're assholes. So then I went with Sakuragi and Miyagi and some other friends to..." Rukawa's forehead wrinkled, thinking. "We went to their place, celebrated a little. Celebrated a lot. Some smoke, some JD. I didn't feel like crashing at Sakuragi's afterward, just wanted to head home, so I walked. It wasn't that far. It was late, heading toward dawn. Really quiet. I didn't see anyone else out. I crossed a parking lot and was going down Kanagawa Street when something knocked me down from behind. I hit the sidewalk in front of a florist shop, rolled over and there was this big, light-colored dog standing right over me. I couldn't believe it."

"A dog on campus?"

"Yeah, I don't know. It bit me on the arm. I beat it on the head with my fist, I kicked it, but it hung on." Rukawa hesitated. "It got pretty surreal after that. There's this big neon rose in the window of the florist shop. It was blinking, and I'd hear this electrical sound, you know, like a bug zapper? I must have been more messed up than I thought because the dog looked crazy huge, too big to be real." Rukawa looked at Sendoh, gauging his reaction, then continued. "The thing was chewing on me like a piece of meat. I stared at its eyes and just...stopped fighting. Kept hearing that damn noise the light made, getting louder and louder, buzzing and popping. I remember thinking something crazy, that it was just the beginning- that I was being eaten alive and it's never end and I couldn't do anything about it. It hurt, damn but it hurt. His teeth were red. Everything was. It all looked red." Rukawa blinked as if clearing his head. "Talk about a nightmare. I'm starting to wonder just what was in that weed." He shrugged. "That's all I remember. Just woke up here this morning, like I told you. I heard noises upstairs- people walking across the floor. Then two guys came down. They took me up to the bathroom and tried to give me some food." He shook his head. "They looked at my arm and laughed, said it was a good job or some such shit, the fuckers. I asked why I was here, what they wanted, but all they'd say is that I'd find out later." Rukawa rubbed a hand absently over his jean-clad thigh. "When they decided it was time to bring me back downstairs, they pushed me toward the basement door. I fought back, tried to get loose. One of them was kind of skinny, didn't look like he'd be very strong, but he knocked me on my ass big time. It surprised the hell out of me. Didn't think he had it in him." He paused. "They were talking to each other about somebody passed out in a bedroom down the hall. Was that you?"

Sendoh swallowed. "Yeah. I guess it was."

Rukawa looked puzzled. He sat up again. "You were kidnapped, right? Same as me?"

Sendoh made himself answer. "They didn't- I was out with my friends. We met these guys. They didn't make me do anything. Not until they threw me down here."

Rukawa watched him, eyes narrowed and moss blue in the streaming light coming through the window. "You were dead to the world when they brought you down. Must have been a hell of a party. Or did they give you something?"

"No, they didn't. Least I don't think they did."

"Sendoh. What happened?"

Sendoh looked out of the window. "I woke up here. With you. Look, I was really wasted. I couldn't remember any of it when I woke up."

"I don't give a shit about when you woke up. What do you remember now? What do you know about all this?"

"I don't know why the fuck we're down here, okay!" Sendoh shouted. He took a deep breath. "Rukawa, I know you don't know me, all right, so you don't have much reason to believe me, but I'm telling you I have no idea what's going on."

Rukawa scrubbed a hand over his face and sighed. "So you don't know these guys?"

Sendoh flushed, his face hot. "Not really."

"What do you think they want with you?"

"They already got what they wanted. So I thought."

"They get upset with you for any reason?"

"It was a fuck. You get it? It was what it was, no drama. I'd have left right after if I hadn't been so damn drunk."

Rukawa's eyebrows rose. "Okay, okay. I'm just trying to figure out what in hell's going on."

"Doesn't mean I want to talk about it to a stranger," Sendoh muttered.

"Yeah?" Rukawa snapped. "You might just be dying with this stranger, does that make it feel a little more intimate?"

Sendoh stared at Rukawa, then put his head down on his kness, shutting out everything- the streaming light, the dankness. The guy he might die with.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, I'm sorry."

Sendoh rolled his head and looked at Rukawa from the corners of his eyes. "You think I've got something to do with why you're down here and you're apologizing to me?"

"I didn't say I thought you were to blame. We just both need to know as much as we can about the situation, don't you think? So maybe we can figure out how to get out of here." He paused, then gestured at a white plastic pitcher sitting against a legless, peeling pink dresser on his left. "You want any water yet? I drank a little of it earlier. It's okay. They're not trying to poison us or drug us, in case you're worried."

Sendoh shook his head. "Not yet. Let me look at your arm, okay?"

Rukawa's eyebrows rose again. "We've been over this before. Nothing to be done for it, same as the ankle."

Sendoh straightened, looking Rukawa in the face. "Have you tried to wash it out?"

"With what?"

"With water. What else?"

"Water won't cut it."

"It's a dog bite, Rukawa."

"I'm really, really aware of that."

Sendoh ignored him. "Let me see it."

Rukawa raised a brow at him, staring, looking a little startled at Sendoh's emphatic tone. He nodded reluctantly. Sendoh scooted carefully down by Rukawa's feet and turned so he was facing him. He held out his hand, waiting.

Rukawa slowly stretched out his left arm. "Don't touch it."

Sendoh huffed out a breath and ignored him, turning the arm and looking closely. He couldn't help the sudden intake of breath.

"It fucking hurts," Rukawa complained, as if he hadn't tried to ignore it before.

"I bet it does," Sendoh said softly, trying not to let the shock of it catch in his throat and show in his voice. The skin was swollen, blood trickling sluggishly from the wound. The center looked like hamburger, and above and below were clear bite marks: deep red holes and ugly, glistening tears. "I'm just going to stretch out and grab the jug. I won't let the chain pull, okay?"

"You dump all our water over my arm and we're going to get pretty thirsty."

"If I don't, you're going to be in trouble. They'll bring more." Sendoh tried to sound confident.

"You don't know what they'll do. Or why we're here. We don't know anything."

"I know they brought water in the first place. They don't want us to die." Yet, he didn't add, though they both heard the implication.

"I think it's case of too little, too late, to tell you the truth. Water isn't going to fix this. Odds are I'm going to get pretty sick before long."

Sendoh looked at him but Rukawa refused to meet his gaze. "It'll help. Just let me, Rukawa. Okay?"

Rukawa sighed, a long deep breath out as if he'd been holding it. "Yeah, okay. Don't blame me if you get thirsty later on."

"Ingrate." Sendoh moved to pick up the jug, keeping his left ankle close to Rukawa's feet as he could. He settled back into position in front of Rukawa. "Ready?"

"Set, go." Rukawa smiled a little. Sendoh poured a stream of water over the wound, blood and water running onto the dirt below.

A muscle in Rukawa's cheek jumped. He stared down at his arm. "You probably won't believe this, but it actually looked worse when I first woke up."

Sendoh kept pouring. "That doesn't make sense. You said you've only been here since this morning."

"I know. Said you wouldn't believe me. I don't believe me, but I swear it looked worse. I thought I might bleed out down here at first, but it slowed. A lot."

Sendoh pulled the hem of his dark-colored T-shirt up and inspected it doubtfully. "Maybe we'll just let it air dry."

Rukawa looked at the tail of Sendoh's shirt and grimaced. "No maybe about it."

"Wish we had more to work with." Sendoh chewed his lip.

"I know. Feels better," Rukawa added, voice soft.

"Liar." Sendoh's brows rose skeptically.

"No, really." Rukawa nodded his head for emphasis.

"Yeah?" Sendoh smiled, looking at him. "If you say so."

tbc

Thank You For Reading.