ELIZA

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: CONVERSATION

I wanted to spit on his face, but I didn't do it.

"I need to pee," I said it instead.

He helped me up, I didn't object to because I wanted to get to the bathroom.

It must be a window here somewhere, I thought, hoping to escape.

Our "suite" was, in no way, exclusive. There were old carpets on the floor, and dust floating in the air.

The bathroom looked to be at least thirty years. Small, colorful tiles on the walls, a bathtub that took up most of the space, a washbasin, a toilet and a mirror. No window, of course.

"Will you leave?" I asked, but Cosmo shook his head.

"I've seen you before," he replied insolently.

I gritted my teeth. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't disagree. 

Luckily for me, the phone rang.

"Pick up," I told him.

He hesitated, but finally, after three long beeps, went outside. He must have gone somewhere far away because all I heard was a muffled voice.

"Yeah, you messed up the job..." I only heard in between blurry sentences.

My self-preservation instinct kept me from thinking about suicide. Instead, I was thinking about self-defense. I started looking for some razor blades, glass, I even wanted to break the mirror when Cosmo again graced me with his presence in the toilet.

"Are you done?" he asked.

I nodded, then walked back into the room. I didn't see the other bed or the couch, so I concluded that Cosmo would sleep with me at night. I cringed.

He didn't say anything more to me. He grabbed my hand and pulled me towards him. I saw what he wanted to do, the needle and syringe glowed ominously in his right hand. I didn't want to make anything easier for him, though, so I tried to pull my arm away, or at least move it so that it would be difficult for him to drug me again.

But I was still weak, and he was too dexterous. He pinned me to the wall beside the bed with his body, and I felt a pain in my left arm.

"Ow," tears of helplessness pressed against my eyes as he took his hands away from me.

Poison, because that's what I called it, moved very quickly. In a few seconds I stiffened and Cosmo could do with me whatever he wanted. He put me on the bed, playing with my hair.

With the last rest of my consciousness, I heard that he was saying something. He probably was convinced I couldn't hear, so he whispered to me triumphantly:

"I got a message from Camila, my love. Tom's fallen into a coma, but you're not in danger, you just go to sleep..."

Dream was not a dream. The nightmare was not a nightmare. It seemed to me that I was running in a big, dark tunnel screaming at the top of my lungs, but no one heard me. My body was stiff, I laid like a paralyzed log on the bed.

I was in this strange state of numbness for several hours. It was something new for me.

Returning to consciousness, I tried to plan an escape. But my thoughts weren't clear, my dream was mixed with reality. Only one piece of information kept coming back over and over again. Only it prevented me from drifting away completely: Tom was in a coma.

Once the assumption that Cosmo did something to Tom would seem absurdly funny to me. However, given the state I was in and where I was, now the assumption seemed quite logical.

I woke up for good about a day after Cosmo gave me drugs. I was confused and very hungry. From the lack of food and water, I concluded that I was dehydrated. I felt hot, and it seemed that I had a fever as I touched my face.

Cosmo wasn't in the room. At least not the one where I slept.

I got up even though I was still under the influence of the drug. I felt a little drunk, a little dehydrated, a little exhausted. It was Tom who kept me alive, even though he fought for his own life, ignorant of what had happened to me.

On the table I found a cell phone, the same old one that Cosmo had used before. Unfortunately, the message inbox was empty. Fortunately, I remembered Camila's number by heart. At least I thought so.

Nobody answered. I tried three times when I noticed my mistake. When typing the number on the keyboard, I mistook the three numbers. My hands were shaking like an alcoholic in rehab.

I think I was hallucinating.

"554 821..." now came the memory gap. Could I have forgotten my most frequently dialed number?

In the end, I dialed Leon's number, Camila's fiancé. Surprisingly, I didn't mistake his, because on the other side I heard a familiar voice:

"Hello?" it was Camila.

I almost howled with happiness.

"He kidnapped me," I gasped out in one breath, my voice muffled in my chest, when I heard the front door open.

I crouched behind the cupboard, staring at the number I had dialed in my hand. The phone was off. 

I didn't know if I was in such a state that the contact with Camila was just a figment of my imagination or not. I felt like crying like a baby.