Thirst Trap [https://i.imgur.com/oxezwME.png]

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Much had changed some months later.

Richard was dreaming when his phone buzzed and yanked him out of it, and he immediately forgot what the dream was about. All that lingered was the empty feeling of a seeming he’d been enjoying whatever dreaming he’d been doing.

His phone went off again and he jerked his head upwards off the pillow, only for the great white glow pouring from the thing’s screen to blind him. There were too many mirrors in his bedroom, but that blame rested on his shoulders. The large one on the ceiling was a nice touch on most days—and nights—but not now, not for its beaming the brightness directly at him.

He rolled over, squinted as much as someone could without closing their eyes entirely, and slammed a hand on the sleek, expensive box of vibrating interruptions, flipping it screen-down on the mattress. Darkness returned, but it was too late. Richard was now wide awake, face mashed into one of his pillows and breath tacky sourness in his mouth. He would’ve checked the time, but that meant turning the damned phone over again, and he didn’t fancy being flashbanged a second time if he had the choice. Instead, he resigned to lying there until the brain fog receded a little more, that he might function without falling over or knocking another bottle onto the floor, shattering it across his apartment’s floor, and stepping on a shard of it barefoot—

What the fuck.

Richard snapped his eyes open into the pillow to dissuade his thoughts from being so unwelcome, but the throbbing in his heel was cruel and timely a reminder all the same. He shifted the injured foot under the duvet and felt something wet against his skin, and his stomach dropped in a most unsavoury way. Half of him wanted not to look, as if the problem in the event it were blood would simply go away if left unattended.

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White sheets, too.

He turned, shuffled up onto his elbows, and threw the duvet off his chest, then leaned forwards and threw it off his knees, and finally off himself entirely, and saw that he could see nothing in the dark. He moved the wet foot once more, only to notice that both were damp. Indeed, so were his legs, and curiosity overcame him before long. He stretched upwards to the light switch above his headboard, braced himself for spectacular illumination, and flicked it. Richard was met with no scene from Carrie, no great elevator of red misery to dry clean from cotton sheets. Once his eyes adjusted to being burned from their sockets, he found his foot had not bled all over the place in his sleep.

It was sweat. He was sweaty.

A draught of ghostly being rushed across his chest and drew the dampness to chill that prickled his skin and set all his hairs to glass. He shivered, working the duvet some way back onto his bare legs as best he could without moving his perforated heel, for it would send a jolt up his leg and make him feel sick again if he did. He’d learned that very quickly and very soon after the expletive-laden matter, though had gone straight to bed instead of seeking medical attention. Drinking had clouded that decision’s reasoning, as it often did all decisions and their reasoning, but it did look at least like yesterday’s Richard had tried to apply a blister plaster to the gash. That was nice of him.

The phone vibrated a third time, an angry longing for his attention that couldn’t be pushed aside. Either the bank wanted him, in which case Richard needed to get dressed urgently enough that aftershave would serve in a shower’s stead, or one of his friends thought now a good time to send videos of husky dogs screeching at their owners. He wasn’t sure which he would prefer—neither, preferably.

He tapped the screen and saw the time, and lost his breath completely when he caught the name beneath it. Neither the bank nor a husky. There came a racing of his heart, and he considered throwing his phone across the room and slamming back down into the sheets and gritting his teeth until the throbbing in his foot, which was spreading to the rest of him, subsided enough that he might sleep.

Too late now.

Richard cursed to himself, to his decisions, and unlocked his phone. The three texts surfaced, one after another—he could hear the man’s voice in each of them, and it grew clearer with every word, and Richard hated it, and he hated that he hated it.

That smooth-talking, crazy-loving thief.