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.All dreamy and soft mmm, soft and floaty.What was he trying to do?Ah! Yes.His fingertip twitched up the seam of the leather heel.Brushed woolensock.Felt ribbing of woolen sock.Yes! Must& must& must& wishAdjusting his weight, Sebastian moved his foot.Right out of death s way.Used up, Court s fingers fell slack.The carpet pattern, unnaturally vivid andbright, blurred, the colors running together into a big splotch before his eyesshut, defenseless against the drug s relentless pull.A prick of a needle smartedand dulled everything more.His body went completely loose.The ears are the last to go.He remembered a doctor telling him that once, andit really was true.Sucky doctors.With no other senses to rely upon, his braindirected all its energy to auditory input.A creak of leather shoe, a brush of fabric,and Dane s cursing voice fading to nothing was the sum total of his sensoryinput before the drug-induced sleep claimed him at last.www.samhainpublishing.com 253 Chapter Twenty-FiveCold.So very, very cold&Nothing intruded into his mind but the cold and his body s frantic shivering,rippling, painful shivers shimmying up his back, and hot bile revolting histongue as it bubbled up his throat.Time passed, hours gone in the blink of aneye.But that stupid eye wouldn t open.Not that Court wanted it them toopen.There d be nothing good to see.Numbness still claimed his body.Even so,he was certain he sat on bare stone, because the cold had penetrated his clothes,sucking all the heat from his body and leaving a painful chill right to the bone.Always rough stone for company, first in the desert, now here.Silence ruledinside his crypt.Dane!Where are you? Where am I?Are you safe?& be safe.After a period of time, hours or minutes, he wasn t sure which, he was ableto move his head and wriggle his arms.They were bound, and with plasticstrapping again.What s with that? K-Mart special or something? Did Sebastian andRemy buy tie-downs from the same discount store? An unpleasant chemical tastelingered on the back of his tongue, along with stomach acid churning from theshock of Sebastian s treachery.Court was still reeling from the depth of thebetrayal and an endless circling of questions. Forever in One SecondWhy, why, why?Not that the religious implications hadn t crossed his mind before.It was justthat he considered Sebastian his friend, and betrayal by a friend hurt the most.They d relied on each other for survival.Propped each other up when hopefailed, became each other s rock when they had nothing else to hold on to.How had it come to this?Speaking was not possible.Who you gonna talk to anyway, you fool? His mouthwas as dry as it got in the desert and tasted like moldy gym socks smelled.Feeling began to creep back into his extremities slowly, and when it did, theyburned with liquid fire.However he d gotten to where he was now, it must havebeen a rough ride.Moving hurt his hip.Life had kissed him with broken glass,and the glass dug in.All his parts and appendages smarted from fresh bruisesand ached with stiffness.Dragged.Again.Am I worth nothing?Jerking to the side moved him barely an inch.They d shoved him into adamp corner.Another jerk moved him out of the corner and flat onto his face,sprawled uncomfortably, nose stinging.He almost welcomed the pain, a relieffrom the deadening numb.The sting jolted his eyes open, gummy and sticky asthey were.Except for a thin sliver of faint light under a door across the room, the cryptwas pitch black.The blackness varied by degrees, shadows concealed amongstshadows.He could be anywhere.At least it s not the desert.A man needs variety inlife.Raising his stiff and bound body back to sitting was a monumental struggle,one accompanied by much animalistic grunting. Ah, so you re awake, a male someone said in French.At least that waswhat Court thought he heard.His traveler s sketchy vocabulary didn t includewords like awake.www.samhainpublishing.com 255 Finn MarloweWithout thinking, he mumbled his reply in English. What? The owner of the voice switched to English also. I said, so you re awake. His English was perfect, laced with a peculiar accent.An Aussie? Dane? Court queried aloud.His voice was raspy, but at least he had one. No one here but you and me. Who the hell are you? Court s ears told him the voice came from only afew feet away, yet he could see nothing nor catch sight of anybody.A shadowshifted, distorting the blackness.Startled, Court jerked backward and smackedhis head against the stone masonry
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