Taste of Vengeance ✔

Chapter 7

There was a horrible cold – biting his skin, sticking pins in his longs, withering his heart. His limbs felt heavy, broken and bruised like he had been hit by a freight train. Juice tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids seemed to be frozen. What the hell was going on? Where was he? The last thing he remembered, was being in jail. He'd been stabbed in the neck – had he somehow survived? Fear cut off his breath – was he paralyzed? In a coma? He couldn't think of a greater horror, what if he never got out? If he was trapped in his body?

His breathing sped up, causing stabs in his lungs. Damn – what the fuck had happened to him?!

With more effort he tried to budge. Very slowly he managed to move his stiff fingers. It filled him with relief – he wasn't paralyzed – and it gave him enough strength to lift his head. Finally he could open his eyes – or so he thought, for he saw nothing but darkness. It was a deeper darkness than that of his eyelids, so he assumed that he was in a dark room.

While energy was flowing to the rest of his body he concentrated on his surroundings. He had expected beeping machines or the whispering voices of nurses, but it was dead silent around him. Although his limbs still felt like they were made of ice, he felt stronger than a few minutes ago. Trying to sit up straight, he bumped his head after a few inches. Wherever he was lying in, it was small. For a moment the fear that he was locked up in a coffin spread through his veins, then he shook his head about his own stupidity. The material above him was made of metal instead of wood. As he slipped his fingers across it, he felt something move. A few seconds later he figured that he was lying in some kind of drawer and he managed to shove himself out of it, until he could sit up straight.

The room was dark. He smelled something chemical. It was still freezing cold, so he started to wonder if someone had locked him up in a freezer. As he climbed down, grunting because it felt like all his bones had been turned upside down, he felt his eyes sting. Squeezing them to get rid off the pain, he discovered that his sight was improving, every time he blinked. For some reason he no longer needed light, he could see that he was in a rectangular room with these weird drawers. There were three tables too, covered with a blanket.

"What the fuck," he muttered as he realized that he was naked.

It wasn't the first time he woke up in a weird place – and not even the first time he found himself naked, but he lacked the headache that was so typical for a hangover. He bent his head and looked down at his pale skin. There were scars across various parts of his body, as if someone had cut him open. Thoughtfully his fingers followed the scar tissue, trying to remember how and when this had happened.

Suddenly the door opened. On a reflex Juice shoved behind one of the tables and pulled the blanket away to cover his nakedness. As the blanket revealed a corpse he stumbled backwards, forgetting about the person entering the room.

"Holy shit," he stammered, staring at the pale body, the stiff limbs. "Holy fucking shit."

In panic he looked around – suddenly he realized where he was.

In a morgue. In a fucking morgue.

"Good to see you alive and breathing," a female voice sounded.

Juice looked up and stumbled backwards as he recognized Scarlett. His head was spinning – what the hell was he doing here? What the hell was she doing here? Why was he naked? Had they – done it, here? For some reason he could imagine that Scarlett thought that having sex in a morgue was hot, but he absolutely didn't.

"Did... did we fuck?" he blurted out. Somehow that felt like the most prominent question.

She started to laugh. "Not yet."

As she stepped closer, he stepped back. For some reason she was totally freaking him out.

"What am I doing here? What are you doing here?!" he stammered, still pressing the blanket against his body.

"You died," she told him.

There was no mocking tone, no teasing tone... It felt like she was dead serious.

"W-what?"

"You died," she repeated. "And I already told you  dead wouldn't be the end for you." A dark smile crossed her lips. "Oh no baby, this is just the beginning."