Ghosts

8) Burden in Time

My head hurt. The pain was dull, lingering through my mind like a low lying cloud. Or a relentless fog, making it hard to think. I didn't know how long had passed, since...

He wasn't real. He wasn't here.

Even my impaired brain could work out that the fucker had drugged me.

I sighed, yanking on the chains around my wrists and bringing my hands up to rub my eyes.

It bothered me that I didn't know why. Why he had decided to drug me out the blue, seemingly for no reason. It was unnerving, even for me.

The sun was getting low on the wall, casting a glow on the concrete. Late afternoon, I presumed. The chill had already begun to set in, the concrete walls doing little to insulate the room. It was hard to suppress the shiver down my spine as I leaned up against the wall, my head resting on my knees.

I had grown accustomed to sitting and just listening to the outside world.

The birds went silent just as I noticed the now familiar sound of boots echoing through the warehouse. I tensed as they came closer, lifting my head and pressing my back against the wall, until, after an eternity, the door swung open and clashed against the wall. Booth marched in and barked,

"Get up,".

I rose wonkily, trying to keep my balance with the chains around my ankles. He strode over and grasped my hands,

"You try anything, and you'll regret it,".

I stared straight ahead, whilst he, to my surprise, reached down and begun undoing the chains around my limbs with a grunt, pulling my arms behind me and replacing my wrist binds with zip ties. He yanked me away from the wall and pulled me out in front of him, his hands firmly grasping my wrists behind my back, before he pushed me forwards towards the doorway,

"Walk,".

Stumbling forward, Booth leads me through the building, whilst my brain whirls. We pause as we reach the doors I had been forced through not too long ago as he unlocks them and pushes them open, yanking me through the door into the outside world.

The sunlight blinds me, my eyes no longer accustomed to the brightness. I stumble forward, rapidly blinking as my eyes adjust, as he pushes me towards a black SUV parked at the sidewalk. He opens the car door and roughly pushes me inside, growling at me to behave as he clicks the seatbelt, before he sharply forces a blindfold over my eyes.

He slams the door shut. I track his footsteps on the pavement, before he opens the passenger door and climbs in, slamming the door behind him. He speaks in harsh whispers to the man in the driver's seat, speaking too quietly for me to hear. Eventually, the car pulls away from the curb and away from my prison.

The ride was bumpy and disorienting, the blindfold making it extremely difficult to track the route the car was taking. We seemed to hit every pothole and dip in the road, the driver making no effort to avoid them. It was starting to make me feel sick.

The car eventually slowed, before pulling to the side of the road and coming to a stop. I heard a shuffle and the click of a seatbelt being unbuckled, before the blindfold was ripped from my eyes. I blinked rapidly, my eyes struggling to adjust to the sudden change in light, before I darted my vision around to take in my surroundings.

We were at a park. One I did not recognise. Children ran about playing, calling out to each other and laughing, running up to their parents to get them to watch the new trick they just learned on the monkey bars.

Booth was turned on his seat facing me, his expression stern and warning. He spoke, breaking my attention away from what was outside,

"Speak to your boss. Say you've been, I don't know, pulled away for longer than you thought. I don't care. Just make it believable. Make sure he knows not to expect to see you. Or hear from you."