Doubt

He always thought he would shake. Head downcast, staring at his hands as his forearms rested on his legs, it struck him that he wasn't shaking. It occurred to him how strange it was that his mind should be wandering in this situation - a situation he'd worked tirelessly to avoid for days. And now he properly looked, he thought his hands were too big. Too big for his thin forearms. Made him look odd. Gangly, even. And Jesus, he was tired. Tired right through to his core. That's what the last few days will do to a man.

But he wasn't shaking. Wasn't nervous, nor frightened. Not even resigned to his fate, not yet anyway. Somewhere, rattling about in the back of his head, there was a way out of this. Think. Concentrate. What is it? What's the escape route? Jesus, he was tired. And his headache was unbearable. He couldn't get his thoughts to connect - what was the answer?

Come. On.

Think.

His head was in his hands now. This was a vicious circle. He couldn't kick his brain into gear to think of a way out, so rather than thinking of a way out, he was thinking about why he couldn't get his brain working. Then he heard the footsteps. Light as a feather for a big man, but still a soft echo in the stairwell. The echos grew slightly louder, still ever so soft but for him, like a drum in his head. They stopped outside the door of the room he was sat in, then a soft scraping noise as the big man drew his feet together. There was a quiet click as the door handle came down, and the door swung slowly open with a creak that shattered the tense silence. The big man stood there, immaculately dressed as always.

He took his head out of his hands and looked up. The man at the door winced when he saw his left eye. What a mess.

"You came, then." It wasn't a question. The smartly dressed man nodded, then considered his words. He always had to be careful with his words, or confusion reigned.

"Car. Car."

"Two cars? Why two?" Again, the man considered. Then simply shrugged.

He got up from the wooden chair he had been sitting on and walked towards the door. The big man turned to lead him out to the cars. Only then did he notice it, a slight tremor in his right hand. He was shaking now. And then it happened all at once. The adrenaline hit him, and for just a split second, the clapped out engine in his brain roared into action. And an idea, just a small idea, began to germinate.

* * * * *

She was onto the dry heaves now. Through bleary, water-filled eyes, she could see the contents of her last meal floating in the dirty toilet. That and some of the lining of her stomach. She could hear the rain outside the open window, dribbling onto the pavement from the broken guttering. This wasn't how it was supposed to end up.

Another wretch, but nothing came up.

Standing up to flush the chain, she caught a glimpse of herself in a cracked cabinet mirror on the grubby wall. She looked terrible, like she felt. Her face screamed sleep deprivation, her usually shiny and soft blonde hair a complete mess. Baring her teeth, she gently fingered the gap where one of her incisors should be. Where had she lost it? The last few days were all a blur now, with huge swathes of memory seemingly deleted. They'd been drugging her, somehow, she knew.

It was when the noise of the cistern refilling stopped that she heard it. A soft click and the creak of the door to the apartment opening, and the sound of someone taking a few soft steps into the room. She went in to the main room. The smartly dressed man who had turned her world upside down in the space of five days stood looking at her, arms awkwardly by his sides. He eyed her, a look of what she interpreted at either sympathy or distaste, or perhaps both, fleetingly appearing on his face.

"Time." She knew what he meant. He turned and walked into the stairwell, and disappeared down the stairs. He hadn't bothered to escort her to the waiting car, they both knew she wouldn't run. There was nowhere to run to, now. She'd exhausted all her options. Her only hope was a man that she had last seen clutching his eye, blood pouring from his face.