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I gulped down a giant lump that had lodged in my throat.
Was it the same?
The same?
My knees buckled beneath me, and I grasped the counter for support.
I cleared my throat, desperately trying to dislodge the caustic lump. Keep it cool. Keep it cool, Talon.
Images whirled into my mind, conjuring themselves from the blackness. The walls filled with photos of tattoos inched forward, the colors pulsing, vibrating. No. No flashback. Not here. Not now.
“Hey, Haley!” I yelled, the room spinning back into focus.
She trotted back up to the counter, looking pissed. “Yeah?”
“Are all these photos from tattoos that were done here in Snow Creek?”
“I haven’t the foggiest. Some of the photos are really old.”
“Maybe over twenty years old?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah, probably. Toby bought this place from some dude a while back. He’d know better than I would.”
“When’s he coming in?”
“Probably later this afternoon. I think he’s got an appointment scheduled.” She strode quickly back to her client.
Quietly, I pulled the photo out of the book. The colors had faded. Yes, it was an older photo. Toby and I would be having a chat.
“What’s Toby’s cell number?” I yelled back to Haley.
“Not sure I should give that out.”
I pulled out another twenty and waved it at her. “How about now?”
Haley laughed and returned to the counter. She wrote a number down on the back of a business card. “Here you go. Pleasure doing business with you.”
The boy emptied his stomach.
He wasn’t sure why they bothered to feed him. He didn’t keep much down anyway. His wrists were noticeably skinnier than when he had been brought to the cold, dark cellar.
They laughed at him, taunting him. “Makes you puke? You can’t take it like a man?”
No man should have to take what the boy took. No woman, either. Especially no little boy or girl. No, nobody.
Nobody but him.
He’d been forsaken. No one had come for him. No one would. Did he deserve this? This horrific fate that had been thrust upon him?
He must. Because no one came.
Tattoo clocked him upside the head. “You know you get hit whenever you puke, boy. But still you insist on puking.”
The boy gagged again and heaved, the sharp pain from the punch making his eyes water. Nothing remained in his stomach to come out.
Cramps churned his gut. One of them kicked his bare ass, and his head hit the concrete wall.
Blessed blackness, where no pain existed. No masked men. No flaming bird.
