I try to speak and nearly vomit.
There is a cloth in my mouth.
Something synthetic, scrubbed with bleach, and maybe ammonia if I'm lucky.
I clamp down until the urge passes, then let my body run the inventory—wrists behind the back, fingers numb but not broken.
Ankles crossed, zip-tied. No overt blood, but the sleeve of my shirt is soaked through.
I hope it's not from my nose.
The world returns in blinks.
I'm in a box, not wood butsteel, walls so close I can trace them with a heel.
The smell is familiar and immediate—salt, oil, rust, the signature stink of the docks.
There's a single bulb strung up on cord, probably run off a car battery, swinging a pendulum arc and throwing mean shadows on the corrugated walls.
Every swing uncovers more of the space—a stack of flattened cardboard in one corner, a plastic crate with a bottle and two paper cups, a dirt-streaked shovel propped upright like a warning.
Across from me, a man is pacing.
He has a scar that cuts through his left eyebrow and runs to his temple, a line of pink that never figured out how to heal.
He wears a bomber jacket and jeans, hair buzzed to the scalp, hands covered in what looks like black nitrile gloves.
He walks the length of the container, heel to toe, every so often glancing at me with the expression of someone who wants to be professional but is also a little bored by the job.
I try to test my bonds.
The zip ties at my wrists are double-looped, but not tight enough to bite.
The ones at my ankles are less forgiving.
I curl my toes to get blood back in the feet.
Scarface stops his pacing, crouches in front of me.
He does not take off his gloves.
"Morning, Mrs. Crowley," he says.
His Dublin accent is more Southside than North, vowels clipped and just this side of patronizing.
"Sorry about the accommodations. Couldn't risk a hotel."
I try to raise an eyebrow, but the cloth fights me.
Instead, I narrow my eyes, the universal sign for go fuck yourself.
He laughs, not unkindly.
"You're a tough one. We had information about your husband saying this on multiple occasions, but you know how men exaggerate."
This means someone on the inside has been feedinginformation to the enemy, whoever that is, at this point.
He stands, stretching his back until it pops.
