Walls

01

Abbie was used to waking up feeling like a lawnmower had run over her body. But never with the feeling of hanging upside down. The blood rushing to her brain was dizzying.

When she cracked her eyes open, she was instantly blinded by shards of glass reflecting bright light. Something sharp was cutting into her torso, and she felt numb.

She raised her head to survey her surroundings only to wince in pain as a cramp shot up her neck. The dizzying nauseousness was returning. She slowly looked around her.

She was inside a wrecked car, hanging upside down.

It was painful to move her arms - they felt bruised. Her hair was sticking to her face, making it harder to see clearer. She groaned as her fingers raised over her belly, reaching to unlock the seat belt.

The pounding in her head was intensifying with each movement she made. Her heart raced as she found the soft plastic by her side and pressed on it with all her might. The click rang loudly, jabbing her pounding headache. She tumbled down, landing with a thud.

Her knees fell on shards of glass, and pain shot through her body.

How the heck did she get in a car? She couldn't remember. Her mind raced with possibilities - did she sneak out of a party, drunk?

Her college life was two ways - pulling all-nighters coding with her friends or pulling all-nighters drinking with her friends. There was no in-between.

But she couldn't place what happened the previous night. Or the previous day. Or the day before that.

The pounding in her head was raging powerfully. A groan rumbled in her throat as she got to her knees. Pain shot up her neck, cramping her right arm.

"Shit," she muttered, but the words were drowned out by her headache.

The car rattled when Abbie gave another hard push and got on all her fours. She crawled out of a window into the wet grass. The process left a burning scratch across her stomach.

Once outside, she lowered her head onto the soft grass and lay on her back. The sky was a murky grey, and the air felt chilly. The grass was wet and soaked her back, but she did not mind. It cooled her burning skin.

Heck, how did this happen? She was probably missing a morning lecture. And there was no doubt that her roommate was freaking out. Unless -

A nasty jolt ran up her spine. Unless her roommate was in the car with her.

She sat straight. Her head spun with the sudden change in position.

"Damn it!" she sucked a breath as her fingers shot to her hair.

Her eyes squeezed shut, waiting for the spinning to stop. When her racing heart calmed down, and the spinning slowed, she cracked her eyes open to look at the giant mess in front of her.

The car was sitting with its tires in the air and its hood pressing into the seats. Grimy mud covered the tires, forming a crust around the rubber. Shards of glass dusted the grass around the car, shinning like strips of magnesium on fire.

Abbie peered into the vehicle. She could make out two more silhouettes inside the car. Her heart started hammering, and her bottom lip stung with her biting on it.

No, shit! Were they people she knew?

She leaned forward, squinting some more, but she could not make out the faces.

Her head whooshed as she stumbled to her feet.

The pounding was making her nauseous, but she held her head straight. The only good thing her many hangovers had taught her was how to walk without shaking her head a lot.

She circled around the car and dropped to a couch at the driver's window. Tiny pieces of glass cut into her knees through her jeans.

Bile rose in her throat when her eyes landed on the pool of blood oozing out of the person in the driver's seat. The wave of nausea was stronger than her will to hold it in. She gagged, vomiting onto the grass.

Her throat hurt. Clearly, she was dehydrated. And the pounding in her head was not going to stop anytime soon.

She took another look at the driver in the car, making sure to avoid the blood. The man wasn't someone she recognized. He wasn't one of her friends.

The costume and gloves on his hands reminded her of a chauffeur. A gold strip pinned to the man's coat read his name: Ricardo.

She didn't know him.

He was twisted in a weird angle, and Abbie had the dizzying feeling that he was dead. She tore her eyes off his face and held her pounding head in her arms.

Where was she? Who the hell was she with?

Her eyes slid to the other figure in the back. It was another man - she could tell by the shoe that was sticking out of the smashed window. She crouched further, careful not to shake her head unnecessarily.

He was in a suit. His coat was cracked open at his chest, revealing a shirt soaked with a strip of blood. What froze Abbie was his eyes - he was drifting in and out of consciousness, fighting to stay awake.

He was alive.

She steadied herself against the car, pressing her fingers inside, groping around for the seat belt. Once her fingers caught the strip, she ran them up the smooth fabric and released the hold. The man thudded onto the steel roof with a moan.

His legs splayed over him. She caught hold of them and pulled with all her might. First the shoes, then the legs slid out the window. The man moaned, his face contorted into a pained expression.

Abbie tugged again.

The motion wasn't helping her pounding head. The world swayed under her feet. She held a finger to her forehead, pressing hard at the center to make it stop.

The man groaned louder.

Abbie tugged until his butt stuck out of the window. She was sure that she was leaving cuts on his back where it scraped over broken glass in the window. She wrapped her arms around his torso and pulled him out with a few more tugs.

When he was out, his eyes snapped shut, and his moaning stopped. Abbie pressed two fingers under his jaw. There was a soft pulse - at least he was not dead.

Her eyes roamed over his face. Below cuts and bruises were a defined jaw and a shadow of a beard. She was sure that his eyes were a piercing shade of blue under his thick eyelashes. He looked like a young Nathan Drake from the video-game Uncharted.

But the dread of the situation was seeping into her - she did not know him. Or how she got into a car with him.

Her pounding head and hammering heart were only elevating the tornado of nerves brewing in her stomach. She felt her limbs thumping with pain from bruises she was afraid to look at. A weird sense of fear gripped her throat, choking her. Panic set in.

What was happening? Her eyes welled up with tears. She hugged herself, breaking into sobs.

Before she could get to her feet, her thigh vibrated.

Abbie pulled a phone out of a side pocket in her jeans. The device stopped her short - It wasn't her phone. It obviously belonged to someone else.

The screen was lit up with three text message notifications.

The first read: Five hours remaining. [07:20 AM]

The second read: Six hours remaining. [06:20 AM]

The last read: Agent 23, you have been activated. [12:20 AM]

A timer blinked at the top of her screen, counting down to Lord-knows-what.