“I don’t know.”
“Wrong fucking answer.” The device in his hands sparks blue light, and I suddenly realize it’s a damned taser in his hands.
Well, shit; this is about to get a whole lot less fun.
Benson’s arm jerks forward, and I can’t help but scream when the thing makes contact with my shoulder. The taser is like twisting, biting heat lancing through me, clenching my muscles into painful knots and knocking the wind from my lungs .
Benson hoots as he draws his arm back; “Man, technology is a motherfucker, huh! Who needs creepy old tools anyways?” He laughs; “So you want me to keep asking until you piss yourself, or do you just wanna tell me now?”
“I’ve got no idea-”
The taser connects with my skin again, making me roar out a scream as the pain thunders through my nervous system, shorting out my brain for a second as my thoughts go numb.
“Fuck!” I shake my head as Benson draws back, trying to clear the thudding fog from my senses; “Jesus Christ, Benson, you knew me back then. I was a fucking waste-case; I was high out of my fucking mind. I’ve got no idea where we put them.”
Benson scowls at me, his lips drawing back from his teeth; “Oh I know where we put them, Connors. Problem is, the day you left, they weren’t there anymore.”
“It was a war -zone dickhead, anything could have happened to them.”
He’s grinning at me, but his eyes are anything but smiling as he leans closer to me; “You’re selling me bullshit, Connors, and I’m not buying.”
He turns his back to me, reaching for something else out of sight on the table; “How about a trade.”
“What?”
He turns, his hands wrapped around something and that wicked glint in his eyes as he grins pure evil at me.
I don’t like this.
“I said, how about a trade.” He opens his hands, and I can feel my whole heart go numb as my eyes narrow in on the syringe in his hands. I’m drawn to it, like a moth to flame; unable to look away or even fucking blink. Five years clean, and I want it; I want it so bad I can fucking taste it. Five years without a drop of poison in my system, and I’m practically aroused just looking at the fucking thing.
That’s addiction for you.
“So, how about it, Connors?”
My eyes linger on the silver and glass weapon in his hand before I finally tear my eyes away to look up into his face; “I’m clean, Benson; I don’t want it.”
He smiles, his eyes narrowing even further at me; “Oh, I know you don’t.”
A very cold feeling begins to spread through me, choking the blood to ice in my veins and seizing up my chest.
And I’m scared.
Benson sees it like the predator that he is, and takes a step towards me; “Yeah, thats right, you don’t want this at all, do you you little fucking junky.”
He moves his arm out, the needle moving closer and closer to my outstretched, tied-down arm, and I can feel every muscle in my body tense up. And there’s a war being fought inside my head, between the part of me that wants to run screaming from this nightmare and the part that craves every single fucking drop in the needle.
The room starts to fade around me, the edge of my vision growing darker as Benson moves his hand closer, until the cold metal of the needlepoint is against my skin. I’m drowning, my head swimming as the freezing chill of it all starts to claw it’s way up my throat. He draws the point of it up and down the skin of my inner arm, and I’m losing control.
I’m drowning.
“Where are the diamonds, Connors.”
I want to tell myself not to break, not to give in. But the worse part is, there’s nothing to tell anyways; no answer that he wants to hear.
“Tell me.”
I’m drowning, my throat closing up inside, and the demon inside is raging. He’s tearing at his cage; ripping at the floorboards, shattering the bars, and screaming like a fucking banshee roar inside my head; I WANT IT. I FUCKING WANT IT!
The needle pulls away, and suddenly, I can breath.
I gasp, letting the air fill my lungs as the blackness in the corners of my eyes begins to fade; the rampaging demon inside crawling back to his cage.
Benson laughs; “Jesus Christ, once a junky, huh?” He shakes his head as he walks to the door and knocks on it until a man in black comes to open it. He turns and waves the needle in his hands at me; “I’m gonna ask you again tomorrow, buddy-boy,” He says evenly; “And after that, I’m gonna keep asking you.” A wicked grin creeps across his face; “But Bryce, after tomorrow, you’re not gonna be worried about what happens if I do stick you with this.” He looks hard into my face; “You’re going to be a whole lot more worried about what’s gonna happen when I don’t.”