Page 31 of Need to Know

I stepped, literally stepped because this bathroom was so small, to a tiny sink, turned on the faucet, and tossed some cold water over my face. My god, I was thirsty, so I drank several cupped handfuls too. Feeling completely out of it, I stared at myself in the mirror. The man glaring back at me looked like shit warmed over. I was wearing the same clothes as last night, a tight-fitting tee and jeans. I’d sweated a lot on the dance floor, and so I reeked of flop sweat. How had I gotten a split lip? Was I brawling? I’d somehow grazed the knuckles on both hands, so yeah; I must have been in a fight. I then noticed the stamp from the club we’d gone to, SODA. Originally the ink of the stamp was blue and now it was…red. There were also fine lined bruises around my wrists. Someone had restrained me with cable ties. I gripped onto the sink and stared at my reflection searching my memories, but everything after leaving the club was hazy. I’d dreamed about dry humping against a gorgeous firm ass. I pivoted and staggered back into the small bedroom to see Jack on the bed, fully clothed. Oh! In my sleep, under the influence of whatever, I’d used Jack to get-off and if my dream was actually reality, he’d come too! Shards of golden sunlight glanced off Jack’s beautiful, but dishevelled form. The sun was shining through…a porthole window?

“Why are we on a ship?” I said in alarm, my throat feeling painful and gritty.

“Ah, Holmes! Welcome to the land of the living. How very clever to have deduced that we are indeed ON A FUCKING SHIP!” Jack replied waspishly, as if whatever was happening was my fault. He rolled over, sat up, and groaned cradling his head in his hands. Then he eased himself up off the bed, passed me, and went into the bathroom. I lurched for the cabin door.

“No point, it’s locked,” Jack informed flatly before he closed the bathroom door, but I grabbed at the round door knob anyway, tried to turn it. “Fuck!” it was locked. Still dazed and confused, I stood and stared into space until Jack came out of the bathroom. When he did, I met his gaze to gauge his mood. He speared me with a dark look, and as a reflex action, guilt automatically coiled at my solar plexus. I had no idea what I was supposed to feel guilty for. It wasn’t my fault we were locked in a cabin on a ship, was it?

On a side table there was a tray that held a couple of bottles of Coke, two bottles of water, orange juice boxes, pre-packaged sandwiches and a bowl with mints. My base instinct was to quench this insistent thirst. I reached for a bottle and to my horror, Jack roared fiercely, “DON’T!” I was stunned. What the fuck was his problem?

“Sorry…I didn’t mean to shout. Look on the top of the caps…tiny puncture holes. Fuck knows what they laced it with. Go on, look,” Jack prompted in a calmer voice. I stepped to the side table, picked up a bottle of coke and sure enough, Jack was right. Whoever locked us in here wanted to keep us sedated. They’d tried to disguise the needle insertion point, but a little liquid had dried around the hole and left a glossy sheen. I hadn’t thought for a second that the bottles could have been tampered with and I was grateful at least Jack was thinking straight!

“I heard someone, hours ago, they must have left the food and for us. I was so out of it I couldn’t move or speak,” Jack revealed as he slumped back onto the bed again. “Gah, I’m so fucking angry,” he roared, and I was about to apologize for…I don’t know what, but then he said, “I’ll have to do a bloody detox now. You know we were drugged, right?” he held his hand up to show me the SODA club stamp was red, just like mine. “Fucking abducted off the street like in a Mafia movie and drugged,” he fumed, “Except no one said CUT.”

Oh, so it wasn’t me he was mad with at all, he was upset about the predicament we’d found ourselves in.

“It was a sober night, we didn’t drink alcohol, and we didn’t take any drugs,” I insisted feeling a little foolish as I stated the obvious. “So how the fuck did this happen?” I asked, holding up my hand to display that my stamp was also red. “I’m so thirsty, why am I so thirsty?” The suspicious bottle of water on the side table was calling to me, but Jack was right. We couldn’t consume anything that had been left in this room.

“It’s the effects of Rohypnol. I’ve been roofied before, I recognize the symptoms,” Jack revealed with no emotion in his voice. I sent him a look of alarm.

“Long story,” he said wanly. “Look, we need to drink lots of water and flush the drug out of our systems,” he said, taking my hand and pulling me with him to the tiny bathroom. We both just about squeezed into the small space, and over several minutes we took turns drinking cupped handfuls of water from the bathroom sink faucet.

“I can’t drink anymore,” Jack admitted after what felt like ages, and not long at all. I stopped drinking too. We returned to the cabin and slumped onto the bed.

“I remember it was a beautiful summer night and we decided to walk back to the hotel. You pulled me into a doorway…we were making out like a pair of horny teens. We were gonna go back to the hotel and fu” I turned and met Jack’s tired brown eyes. “Oh my god, your face!” I gasped. It was only now, with the morning sun hitting Jack just so, that I noticed the bruising coming up around his right eye. I tentatively reached out to inspect the mottling skin.

“Yeah, I know,” he said resignedly. “I’ll have to get a make-up artist in to cover this before the première.”

I had a split lip and bloody knuckles, so even though I couldn’t remember what had happened to us, I’d fought back. I was mad about my small injuries, but I was goddamn furious that someone had dared strike Jack’s handsome face!

“We’ll be okay, I won’t let anyone hurt you again,’ I promised.

“And I won’t let anyone hurt you,” Jack replied in a soft, seductive drawl. Our gazes held for long moments and heat sparked between us. I wanted to act on it, to give and seek the comfort we both needed. I wanted curl up with Jack, and sleep in his arms, but this situation was too messed up. Why had we been abducted, drugged, and locked in a cabin on a fucking ship? Did someone want to harm us…ransom us? We were the stars of an international blockbuster movie and our faces were on billboards all over Berlin. We needed to get out of this cabin and off this boat. Berlin was surrounded by rivers and lakes. It was far from the nearest large body of water, the North Sea, so I hoped we weren’t at the coast. River cruises seemed popular in Berlin, so it was more likely we were on a river. I’d spent a lot of my childhood in the water and so I was a strong swimmer. And Jack, he was a God in the water. We needed to find a way out and then swim to the shore.

“There were two men,” I recalled. “One of them asked us for a light, and I turned to say that neither of us smoked. I don’t remember anything else,” I revealed.

Jack bit his lip in thought before saying, “I don’t remember anyone speaking to us. I was giving you a side-hug as we walked, and this stinky rag was suddenly over my mouth. I was pulled backward and I tried to fight back but my body wouldn’t obey. The fucker dragged me to a vehicle. We were chloroformed or something, I’m sure of it,” Jack said reaching out, his fingers pushing a lock of hair behind my ear. It was an affectionate act and the care made me shiver. We remained silent for a moment, watching one another with wonder in our eyes.

“I, eh, had weird…lucid dreams,” I admitted.

“About what?”

“My dad, mostly.”

“Yeah. It was probably the effects of the drugs scrambling your noggin.”

“Maybe.”

“What happened…to your dad? You don’t have to tell me,” Jack stuttered awkwardly.

“It’s okay, it’s been a long, long time,” I admitted, and took in a steadying breath. “He was a petrochemical engineer. My parents decided we’d stay put in Washington State, not follow him from job to job so Beth and me could have stability. For a lot of my childhood Dad would be away for months working, and then be home for months and we’d be a family. His work was in the US, but as my sister and I got older, he started to take jobs abroad, sometimes in the UK, or Europe, sometimes in the Middle East.” I paused for a moment, the feelings of bewilderment creeping up on me, as if it had all happened yesterday…realizing I’d never see my father again. That’s the thing with grief, it lurks in the shadows and bowls you over when you least expect it, even years later.

“Pop was supposed to be back in country for my graduation from Julliard. We were waiting for him at the hotel before the ceremony, my mom, my sister and me, all dressed up for the celebration.” I paused, remembering the gut punch of what followed.

“He never arrived; his phone didn’t even go to voicemail. Instead we got a knock on the hotel door. I opened it to see two men in suits; they showed me their government IDs, they were from one of the Alphabet agencies, maybe the Bureau of Consular Affairs…I can’t recall. They asked to come in and I remember this sickening icy cold feeling creeping over my skin. One of the men told us my dad had been working at an oil production facility in Saudi Arabia and there was an accident.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah! We’re not sure what happened…if it was a terrorist attack, or just an industrial accident. But losing dad…it gutted our family…crushed my mom. We didn’t even get a body to bury.”