Sometimes you can’t get away
And…
Sometimes your past follows you

‘thum-thum-thum’

I became aware that my head was hurting. Each moment my head kept going ‘thum’, over and over again. If it didn’t hurt so much, the regularity of the ‘thum’ could have been relaxing. With each ‘thum’ my eyes squeezed and my nose wrinkled. I couldn’t think with all of this going on. Why was it going on?

‘thum-thum-thum-thum’

Okay, don’t think. Try to empty your mind. Don’t think.

….

I’m thinking about not thinking.

….

This is useless. My mouth … I smacked my dry lips and my mouth felt like cotton mixed with phlegm. Then I remembered. My arms… my hands… I couldn’t move them. There were straps holding them down.

I felt my body complain as I began to tense up. I needed to stop… think about something else. Anything else….

David…

No, not David… I can’t deal with David right now….

But he is so … oh god he is so amazingly good looking.

My heart was starting to race. Think of something else. Breathing. Yah, concentrate on breathing. In… Out… In… Out… God, David felt so good back there.

No, something else! Anything else!

I opened my eyes and saw that I was in a small room that was dimly lit. There wasn’t much to it, really. The only thing in the room was the bed I was on. I knew this. I had seen this before. I remembered… that I was ... that I can’t move….

“Let me go,” I whispered. “let me go… let me go… help me… help me let go….”

Heat spread over my chest and moved through the rest of my body… My fingers began to tingle, then my toes… my air… I can’t breathe… i can’t breathe… i can’t…

“What the HELL is wrong with you idiots!?” Lon ran to the first aid box, pulling out of it several boxes and cartons. “You! Come with me.”

He ran out of a room lined with monitors with the man he had commanded following him. Quickly the door was opened, the lights were brought up to full levels, and Lon began checking Moon’s heart.

“Elevate his feet and legs. Half a foot or so. Don’t stand there you idiot!”

His mind ran through the checklists and routines he used to diagnose emergency cases. Check the eyes, airway clear, heart, and pulse. Damn, he didn’t have a blood pressure cuff. That would be helpful to rule things out.

His patient began to stir again, his breathing changed and his eyes fluttered open, only to squeeze shut again because of the bright lights. Lon tried to talk to him, but all he got was repeated requests to be released that progressed until his breath became labored and he passed out again.

This wasn’t working… He needed to get a sedative into Moon’s system to stop this cyclical fainting.

“So what is such an emergency that you’ve brought me here for?” David grumbled while looking at his surroundings.

Lon looked at him to gage his reaction as they walked into the non-descript building surrounded by a whole neighborhood of equally non-descript buildings. The driver who had been sent to pick up his old friend got back into the car and drove away. “Well, I’ve a special case that I need your help with.”

“What sort of special case? One of your people sprain his back or something?”

“No, nothing like that. Look, I’ve a patient that keeps fainting. I don’t know why. I can’t see anything physically wrong in a basic examination and soon after they come too, they start freaking out and then they faint again. I know there’s something there medically, but I don’t have their records nor do I have the ability to do x-rays or MRIs or anything else useful. So I tried a gentle sedative and now they seem to have gone fully unconscious. I can’t wake them normally. I don’t want to give them anything to revive them, because that will start the fainting all over again.”

“That’s not good. Where are they?”

David took a look at Moon’s unconscious form strapped down on the bed, then spun around and yelled, “What the hell is wrong with you?” He had thought it was one of Lon’s accomplices, but they had Dusty here. Given that they didn’t know who Dusty was during or after the party, it could only mean that he was being held as a prisoner.

Lon didn’t bother to look apologetic. “I’ve got a situation and we’re trying to find out how much trouble we’re in.”

“What do you mean, ‘situation’?”

“Well, I can’t go into detail about it. You’re not involved in what I do. You’ve always wanted to stay out of it. So if I tell you then you’ll be involved.”

“Damn it all to hell! You’ve already have involved me by calling me in to look at him. Did you not think about what would happen when I saw someone you were holding? And you know I am…” David’s face crunched up and he stifled any further outbursts he had. It did not pay to get too out of line with Lon. He knew that. He knew there was danger there. He forced himself to turn back around and started examining Moon, taking readings and the like.

Lon turned and started to leave, “Do your business. I want him awake to answer questions.”

Moon slowly came around, feeling extremely tired and sore all over. When he finally was able to blink, he realized that the lights were no longer dim. Carefully he stretched his arms and found them no longer tied, but he felt, then saw the IV drip they had on his arm. This definitely was not a hospital though. He knew a lot about hospitals.

Carefully he turned his head very slowly, fighting the dizziness he felt as he moved. It was a rather small room. There wasn’t anything in there either, other than the bed he was on and the IV stand. No, definitely alone. And there were two obvious places for cameras to hide in distinct darkened half-globe fixtures. So if they were watching him right now, they could tell he was awake.

Since they were holding him here, it was obvious he wouldn’t be able to get out by the door. Though he did entertain the notion for a moment that maybe he could sneak out and take on the stereotypical guards and gain his freedom. Still, reality dictated that there was no way in hell he would be able to escape and beat anyone up physically. Anything really athletic and he’d be unable to breathe. He’d faint. That would be that.

He wasn’t sure how many times he did faint since they brought him here, but it was certainly multiple times judging from the way he felt.

As he laid there, it finally made sense. He reported on the illegal claim pricing scheme that he had uncovered. At the party the mansion was guarded and certainly stank of a lot of money. That sort of combination meant it was probably one of the bad guys who were behind his kidnapping. They would have to have found a way to identify that he was involved. Most likely Barbara finally connected the girl she met at the party with him. Which means she would have been able to tell Dr. Braselton and his people where he lived. He was screwed.

The door clicked.

There wasn’t any use in pretending to be asleep or even to try and stand up and do anything. He wasn’t in any shape to stand up anyway. So he did his best to relax. Keep breathing normally. Wait.

Suddenly he jerked upright and gasped.

David walked into the room and turned towards him with a slight smile on his face. “Hello there. Strange meeting you here, isn’t it?”

It couldn’t be! The man he had fallen in love with, that is, that he liked, that is… Oh damn, David was one of the criminals!

His world crashed down around him and his body slumped back down into bed. Things were bad now; really bad. A long, strained moan of pain from his heart softly left him.

Suddenly David was at his side, “What’s wrong? Where are you hurt?”

Pulling away from David, he felt himself wanting to shrink away to nothingness. How could it be possible?

“Moon, you need to tell me what’s wrong. I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me.”

He whispered, “go away. leave me alone.”

Eventually David did just that. But afterwards, he still felt no comfort. Even crying wasn’t helping.

Moon’s puffy eyes snapped open when the click of the door sounded. Dr. Braselton walked in with only one of his goons in attendance. ‘Not like it mattered’, Moon thought, ‘I can’t even fight against him.’

“Mr. Trail. I’m glad to see that you’re awake. I need to ask you some questions. The attendants tell me that you’re not eating your meals. I want to encourage you to eat next time something is brought in. I know you’re hungry and refusing to eat won’t buy you anything. I’m not here to be disagreeable with you. I can promise you that if you work with me, I can work with you.”

He waited, but all Moon could do was to stare at him

“Alright then. Let’s start by asking you a few questions. Why were you at my party uninvited? What brought you there?”

“What the hell do you expect? He can’t eat food like you and me. He’s missing most of his stomach and intestines!”

“So what does that mean exactly?” Lon asked, growing impatiently.

“Geez Lon,” David shook his head at his ignorance. “It means that there’s little to no absorption of some vitamins and minerals from food via digestion. You have to provide a lot of what the body isn’t able to get from food in pill form. There’s injections too to make up for what you can’t cover through pills.”

“Ah, so Moon can’t eat which is why he isn’t eating.”

“Exactly. And since he’s not even getting his pills, he’s going to have withdrawals from that as well.”

Lon rubbed his eyes in irritation. “Okay, you’re the expert here. What do we do to keep him healthy?”

“I need his medication list for one. That will list all the supplements he’s taking as well.”

“And where do we find it?”

“He has it on a key drive that he always carries with him.”

“My men took him in the middle of the night and he doesn’t have that. It is at his house which we can’t go back into.”

“There’s a website he set up for access to the latest information.”

“We might be able to do that, but it would leave a trail even if we faked where we were coming from. It has an element of risk I don’t care for.”

“Hospital has a copy of it.”

“Which we can’t access for similar reasons. You failed to report to work and can’t be contacted. So protocol will kill your access until you are reinstated.”

“Yah, I want to thank you for that bit in my life.”

“You don’t know how thankful you should be. Now if you want to keep Mr. Trail alive you’ll continue to cooperate.”

“I had a personal copy of his medical records for review on my tablet.”

“Nice to know you’re so careful with your patient’s health information. We might be able to get your tablet, but again, you’re currently missing now. If they’ve started to investigate your disappearance, it would be very risky for us to enter your place to get your computer pad.”

“We could ask him for it.”

“He’s not in any shape to answer any questions.”

“Why?” David asked, concern registering in his eyes. He leaned forward, “What have you done to him?”

Lon sighed. “I tried to question him. It was rather pointless. I don’t think he really remembers everything he did this weekend. It seems… garbled.”

“What. Did. You. Do?”

“The standard stuff. I asked questions. He didn’t answer. Drugs didn’t work either. HELP!! GUARDS!!!”

The guards rushed into the room and pulled David off of their boss. It took three of them to hold him in place. Lon got up and dusted himself off, glaring at David who was being held prone to the floor. “I remind you that my patience is limited. You want Moon to live? Fine. You get the information from him. I’ll get your precious tablet to keep him alive. If you both cooperate, you’ll live.”

David spat, “What, to rot in your prison cell until we die?”

Lon actually sighed. “No, I’ve always valued our friendship. I also have valued the fact that during all this time, you’ve not done anything to jeopardize anything I’ve been doing. So I’m planning to give a good conduct pass to both you and Mr. Trail in there. I will set you both up in a private paradise out of the country, provide you both with new identities and faces, and I’ll even make sure that Moon is given the medical treatment he needs to be your wife, slut, or just your willing slave, if that’s what you want to do to him or her. Whatever makes you happy in that. However you won’t be free to leave that paradise, but that’s a small exchange for your life.”

“Dusty? Dusty, can you hear me?”

I tried to say something, but all that came out was a bit of mumbled response.

“Look, I need you to focus. I need your help here.”

I could focus. I had laser sharp focus. Hell, I could cut through concrete with my focus. I felt myself smile, then I stopped smiling because it hurt.

“Look, all you have to do is help me here. If you tell them what they want to know, then they’ll let us live.”

Live? Oh, the bad guys…. Can’t trust the bad guys.

“We can have our own place somewhere. You can get the surgery you need to be a woman if you want and we’ll be safe.”

I felt like glass was grinding in my jaw, but I had to tell him. “kahhnt de ah giirll.”

“What? You can’t be a girl? Is it that you can’t or don’t want to be? Because we can find a medical way that works with your conditions.”

I shook my head. “naaaooo,” I said clearly. “kahhnt.”

I felt him rubbing my arm and I could hear him talking, but I was too tired to focus. Don’t tell anyone I couldn’t focus…

I woke again. I knew I was definitely awake now and not dreaming because I hurt too much for it to be a dream.

I didn’t want to sleep anymore because of the nightmare. My old nightmare… I had told them who I really was and I could still hear my sister Meadow yelling about how I wanted to be a girl, my mother screaming, my father yelling and losing control of the car. His voice saying my name as he died.

I don’t like to sleep sometimes.

I was able to open my right eye a little and look around. My left didn’t want to open. I didn’t even bother touching my face to feel it, I knew it had to be swollen shut. I shouldn’t have said what I did to that bastard Braselton. If I could take it back now, I would.

“Dusty?”

I turned my head slightly and saw David. He looked awful. His face was bruised and he had blood stains on his shirt. One of his arms was strapped to his side by a torn sheet.

“bavib…” Oh God what did they do to him?

“Don’t worry, you should see the other three guys,” he laughed and then grimaced.

“bavib, wah ah we?”

“Same place as before. We’re not going anywhere soon.”

“erre esxackee.”

“Um, it’s in a warehouse district, near Forest and Van Deman. Number 3110B if I remember correctly. Why is it so important?”

“ah wahnded do no.”

“You wanted to know?”

I shook my head, ‘yes’.

“Look, that’s not important. What is important is that you’ve got to tell me what you know about why you’re here. If you can do that, then they’ll let us go free. We can be together then and they’ll let us live together. Will you do that for me?”

“dirred.”

“Yes, I know you’re tired. Damn, what am I thinking. You’re needing your meds. Look, are your fingers okay? Good. I need you to type out your medications and all the supplements you need. It’s the best we can do right now. Can you do that for me?”

He helped me sit up and put the laptop on my lap.

“It isn’t much. But we’ll have to trust your memory to help you out.”

I stared at the laptop.

“Once you’ve typed out your medications, you’ll need to write what you have told others. Everything you can think of. Tell them everything.”

“ah boned gib in.”

“It’s not giving in. Look, they’ve won. We’ve lost.”

I shook my head again. Couldn’t he understand? We couldn’t give up. We had to fight. My whole life was about fighting. Fighting to stay alive. Fighting against everything that ever held me down. I couldn’t give up now.

“Dusty, please.” David lowered himself to one knee before me. “I love you. I want to be with you from now until forever, but we can’t do that if we don’t live. I can’t let you die. They might kill us, but they might also torture us and I’m sure there are far worse things they could do.” He saw my skepticism. “Look, they will kill you if you don’t cooperate, but they’ll also go after your family and friends too. You don’t even have to be alive when they do it. I can’t let you or anyone else die. I can’t. Please, for me, tell them what you know.”

I looked at him and his eyes pleaded with my one good eye.

He slumped, “I should have never stayed friends with that bastard. I didn’t believe him when he told me he was connected like he is. I wasn’t smart enough or brave enough to say anything to anyone when I found out he really was. I was far too scared of what he might do. I always figured if I stayed quiet and let him be, as long as I didn’t know what he was doing, I could absolve myself of any wrong doing. But that isn’t true. I accepted it as the price of keeping people safe. I was a fool.”

I didn’t care about all of that. I was still hanging on what he said originally. “uu ovf me?”

“Yes. Yes, Dusty, I love you. Please do what they ask.”

I looked at the computer. I may be a part-time pretend magical girl, but I was also a full time badass with my weapon of choice. And they had given me that weapon. It was a long shot. It probably wouldn’t work, but if I knew people, they couldn’t help but do what I expected them to do. Someone was going to take this laptop and go on the internet. All I needed was to create a quick little program using a script, set it to trigger with an internet browser, and off goes an email with our address and circumstances. I began to type.

“I should have never promised you anything,” Lon said to David, his voice reminding me of a predator who wanted to eat the meat in front of him.

David took the box of medical supplies from him and brought it to my side. He started to prepare a syringe before he stated, “I expect you to live up to your promises.”

“Oh, I will. You and your fuck buddy here will be fine. You’ll live in paradise. The only big change in plans is that I’ll be joining you from time to time.”

“Joining us?” David asked, as he stuck the needle into the plug on the IV drip.

“Yes, seems that this bitch here didn’t just play Nancy Drew. She sold out me and Barbara and everyone else she could find. Now we’ve got to move shop, and fairly quickly. I’ve got to deal with the loose ends. Then my family will take care of me, but I would have liked to remain here in country. Ah well, that’s the way it goes at times.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” David grumbled. A moment later he was slammed against the wall by one of the guards.

Lon stood at the door and sneered. “I said you’d live. That you’ll be together. And that I’d do anything you wanted to your butt buddy here to make him more attractive. But I never said I wouldn’t do anything to you or him afterwards. I might make you both my toys, or even toys for my men.” With that he left the room and the guards left with him.

“babid?” I pulled myself from the bed and did my best to help him up. “babid? hon-nee? Thlease hon-nee?”

A dull explosion woke both of us. David was on the floor and I was on the bed. We both looked at each other and I struggled to stand up. “eeld nee,” I implored, looking to him to help me get to my feet.

Soon we were both on our feet as he looked at me and listened as intently as I was. We could hear it in the distance, the quick muffled sounds of rapid gun fire. I pulled my IV stand closer to the foot of the bed so I could sit closer to the door where the sound was better. The IV line was almost long enough to reach the end of the bed, but not quite. In a few moments, David moved next to the door to hear what might be going on in the hall. When the door clicked, he tried to jump back out of the way, but the bastard Lon came charging in and pulled him up and around to slam into the wall near the door.

Lon snarled into his face as he held him there, “The deal is off!”

David looked dazed. Lon seemed to move in slow motion as I quickly stood and grabbed my IV stand. He never looked my way, his eyes focused on David’s eyes. I remember seeing a gun being pulled from a holster on his back. I brought my stand up in an arc and swung as best as I could, letting the momentum take the pole in the widest route possible while still holding on. I spun as fast I could, bringing the stand to full extension…

Only to have it smack against the wall near them both.

The stand left my hands and I continued to twist around, carried by the momentum. My IV line popped apart at the connection joint as it tried to wrap around me.

Lon and David both looked towards me, started by the stand slamming into the wall next to them. I felt myself begin to fall, the momentum pulling me downward as I turned.

But I was not unaccustomed to balance.

I had spent years practicing.

Not too many other people could walk in heels as well as I could. Heck, I could name many, many people I had met who couldn’t walk in high heels to save their life. They couldn’t walk properly in them to save their booty. It always made me want to throw up when I saw them waste what god denied me. But me? I didn’t have a problem with balance in or out of high heels. I could save my booty. I was more graceful and more elegant than anyone else I knew when it came to balancing myself on my feet.

A slight step forward, bring the other foot up and in, continue the spin…

My IV cord whipped around as my inertia decreased, translating into angular velocity. I would have rocked as an ice skater! Especially in one of those gorgeous little skirt sets!

The end of the cord slashed across Lon’s eye. The gun fell from his hand and David shoved him in the direction he was turning, using Lon’s own movement to pull him around and to the floor.

I quickly came to a stop and went for the gun, but by the time I got it, David was dropping on Lon’s chest with his knee. David fell over to the floor then, as Lon’s body rolled under the impact. I held the gun in my hands and brought it around to point where Lon laid, but the next thing I knew, I was blindsided. I felt myself fall away as someone in blue combat gear started to yell at all of us.

I was separated from David then as we were both taken in separate ambulances. The police hadn’t let us talk to each other at all and I had no idea what would happen to him next. I could only hope that I’d see him soon.

But the first two days passed without him. Then the third. I figured he was done with me. My sister had come to see me as well as Winner and Ralph. Plus I had a lot of interviews with the agents. No one would tell me what had happened to my sweet David.

Slowly my face healed, my bruises started to fade. But the pain was there still. I missed him. And I never could be the woman he wanted me to be. The one I wanted to be.