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“My chest feels weird,” he muttered, ignoring her instructions. “Like I just did a line. What the hell is that shit about?”
Ricki ignored him, switching one attachment for her machine out for another, this one with several needle tips all clustered together. She dipped the machine in the ink again and went back to work.
“I’m sure it’s nothing, Javier,” she said dismissively, but I noticed her eyes darting up to him more and more frequently as she used the new, larger needle set to make large swirling swaths of black ink over his leg. I frowned, looking at her work. It was a good thing that Javier appeared to be distracted, because there was nothing about what Ricki was doing that looked right. In fact, it looked like she was just trying to get as much black ink on to his skin as possible.
“It don’t...it don’t feel like nothing.”
I watched as he blinked, over and over, squeezing his eyes shut tightly, then opening them wide again before staring around the trashed room, looking at everything but apparently seeing nothing.
“You’re doing really well this time, Javier,” Ricki went on, her hand moving quickly as she covered more and more of Javier’s skin in black ink. “You haven’t flinched once.”
“Yeah,” Javier said distractedly, one hand still rubbing his chest as he tipped his head back slowly, mouth open wide as he stared into space. “I’m doing great.”
Something was seriously wrong here. Moving slowly, I got up off the tattoo chair I was seated on and made my way closer, doing my best not to spook him. It didn’t seem to matter, though, because even when Javier dropped his gaze to where I stood, he didn’t seem to register that I was there, his pupils blown wide as he blinked again.
“My heart,” he muttered, her words slurred. This time Ricki did put down her machine, the sudden silence radiating around us. “What the fuck is wrong with my heart?”
“Something the matter?” Ricki asked, rolling her chair away from where Javier sat and moving closer to me.
Javier blinked at her, some of the clarity returning to his eyes as he stared at Ricki where she sat in front of me. Drenched in sweat, he swayed where he sat, and his lips began to take on a bluish tint.
“My heart is...what the hell did you do to me?” he suddenly shouted, lunging for her, but his coordination was off and as his feet hit the floor, he stumbled. Ricki and I managed to dodge out of the way, leaving Javier to slam into the tattoo bed that I had been sitting on, the gun flying out of his hand as he tried—and failed—to catch himself.
Darting past me, Ricki rifled through one of the nearby workstations, coming up with a pair of scissors, which she held up triumphantly.
“Asher, here,” she said, gesturing for me to turn around so she could cut my bindings. When she released my wrists, the pain was almost unbearable, the change in position after so long restrained making me groan. But I ignored it and kept myself between Ricki and Javier.
“Thank fuck,” I muttered, circling my arms a few times to get circulation back into them.
“I can’t... can’t...fuck,” Javier wheezed, still bent over the tattoo bed. Keeping Ricki behind me, I moved us to the far side of the bed, bending down and picking up the gun from where it had fallen. When Javier noticed me, he growled, making to dive across the table, but once again, his body failed him, leaving him sprawled half on, half off the tattoo bed.
“Fuck you,” he snarled, saliva trailing from his lips as he tried to reach across the bed and snatch the gun from me.
“No,” I replied, pulling my fist back and delivering a punch to his face that had been a long time coming. “Fuck you.”
Draped across the bed again, Javier blinked at me, struggling to haul himself up with his arms because his legs were looking less and less stable. When he’d righted himself once more, I punched him again, this time with an uppercut that sent him stumbling back, his arms windmilling as he tried to gain his balance.
Instead, all he managed to do was slide his feet in one direction, his body in another as he stumbled into the tattoo chair he’d just been sitting on, landing on his ass and slumping down like he was drunk. This time, his muttered words were all in Spanish, breathy and incomprehensible in his pain.
“Poor Javier,” Ricki mocked, clicking her tongue. “What a shame it is, seeing you like this. Gasping for every breath like a fish out of water.”
“I feel like I’m fuckin’ dying,” he puffed, reaching for her but stopping when he caught sight of his hand in front of his face. Javier turned his hand back and forth, inspecting it like it had suddenly grown wings or something, and I couldn’t figure out what his deal was.
“What you’re feeling,” Ricki went on in that same calm tone as she stood above him. “Is something called Anticholinergic Syndrome.”
“The fuck you talkin’ about?” Javier snapped, his glazed eyes rolling in his head as he tried to focus on her. “What is that?”
“It’s why your heart is racing right now,” Ricki went on, ignoring his question. “It’s why you’re sweating so badly and why your vision is getting fuzzy.”
The look of shock that came over Javier’s face was comical as he connected her words with what was happening to him. Realizing that something was incredibly wrong, Javier tried to stand, his legs sliding beneath him as he attempted to regain his feet. I watched as he stood, managing only a few seconds of being upright before his legs gave out again and he collapsed into the chair once more, clearly out of breath.
“Why?” he said, his words muted as he tried to keep his wandering eyes focused on Ricki.
She stepped closer to him, leaning over so that she was directly in his face.
“Because I’m taking a stand,” she said, her words full of fire.
Chapter forty-five
