“What did I say?” The man’s voice is coarse, holding an obnoxious lilt that reminds me of a snickering hyena. “I told you she didn’t overdose. And you wouldn’t believe me.”

I hear a second voice. “Don’t try to play it off. It doesn’t take eight buckets to wake someone if you listened to my instructions and put in the appropriate dosage.” This man sounds almost mechanical, his words clipped and severe. “You’re lucky she’s not dead.”

I feel heavy breaths on the shell of my ear and my body winds with tension. Fingers dig into my chin and my head is slowly being forced to look up. I try to get out of the hold by jerking my head left and right, and it succeeds, but not before I bite one of the fingers that were too slow to pull back.

The tight slap whips my head to the side. The stinging pain banishes the remaining haze in my mind and my trembling eyelids fly open.

I was right about the second voice. The edges of the man’s face is sharp and jagged like it was carved from a rocky cliff face. The veins in his neck pulse as he stares down at me, one arm raised from the slap he’d delivered. His arms are corded with hard muscle that connect to broad shoulders, and I’m surprised he didn’t break my neck.

His cropped hair and square jaw projects a militant persona, his silent glower reinforcing it. I lick the inside of my cheek and return his glower with one of my own.

“Thanks for waking me,” I bite out.

“This one is wily.” A sharp laugh followed by, “Now I’m glad you didn’t die.”

I turn my head and trace the first voice back to its owner. Like the other man, this one is outfitted in camo printed clothes, but is missing a black military vest. He’s considerably thinner, wiry where the other is bulky. He’s a head taller, too, and an uneven scar stretches from his right temple down to his jaw. It grins at me as the man says, “Look, she’s healthier than any horse I’ve seen.”

“You’d better ingrain what I just said into your head, Oscar. Don’t attempt anything funny if you want to keep your head. I’ve put with enough of your fuck-ups for a lifetime.”

So thin man’s name is Oscar. Even if that didn’t give away he was a foreigner, his tanned olive coloured skin would. I assume Bulky Man isn’t from here, since he would blend in perfectly at any gym if he lost the eye catching army wear.

Oscar bares his teeth. “If there’s one thing I always say, it’s that if you wanted it done your way, you should have done it yourself.”

“I won’t bother arguing with the likes of you. Just go and get our second set of instructions. We need to know what she wants us to do so we can proceed.” He gestures at me. “I’ll keep watch over this one.”

“Aw. You bless me with your wisdom, Sher.”

“Sherlock.” I see him crack his knuckles, the sound they make resembling a snail as it is crushed under the bottom of a boot. “I told you not to shorten it. You say it again, and I won’t care if my pay is cut for failing to adhere to the rules.”

Their contempt for each other is so obvious I can practically see sparks flying between them. The tension only rachets up another notch when Oscar shrugs off Sherlock’s words and makes a rude hand gesture. “Don’t joke with me you little tin man.”

My stomach twists nervously as Sherlock squares his shoulders, his razor sharp gaze peeling off me and moving to the other man. His hands hover over his belt, and my heart leaps to my throat when I spy something that looks suspiciously like a gun. Shit… now I’ll have to add possession of illegal weapons right below their kidnapping charge.

Sherlock’s hand ghosts over it, ending up on the handle of what probably belongs to a knife. I don’t want to imagine the size of the blade attached to the other end. I stay tight lipped to avoid being the target of their frustration and quietly watch them face-off.

Oscar and Sherlock. Their names are as mismatched as their personalities. A part of me hopes they start fighting and end up killing each other. Or at least give me enough time to escape.

I can’t speak about the Oscar, but as mental as he seemed, I think he would be less likely to slit my throat if I dared to make conversation. Looking at Sherlock, I doubt he’d let me mouth off. And I really want to alleviate my growing stress with sarcasm or a bad joke.

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All too soon, my brief respite is shorted when Sherlock slowly relaxes. His arms falls to his side. “Go,” he says.

“Yes, yes.” Oscar passes me and disappears from view. His footsteps get farther. I hear the scuff of his boots, the hollow echo of metal ringing out, and the creak of a door being opened.

The room falls silent.

Sherlock watches me as he settles into a low squat several meters away. I stare at him, water dripping from my flattened bangs and down the sides of my face. The corner of his mouth curls downwards as he fiddles through his vest, eventually pulling out a pack of smokes.

I gather my courage. He bites into filter of a cigarette just as I blurt out, “I have money.”

I can pinpoint the precise moment he weighs the pros of getting up and slapping me again. Lucky for me, he decides not to move. He lights the cigarette, and I wait for him to take a long drag from it before speaking again.

“I’ll pay you to let me go. Name your price,” I say.

He pinches the cig between his fingers. He rolls it, puts it back into his mouth. “You can’t afford us.”

Completely shut down. But a verbal rejection I can handle. I force my voice not to tremble and soldier on. “How would you know if you don’t give me a chance?”

“Tch.” Sherlock clicks his tongue and spits out a string of numbers. They are astronomical enough to make me see stars.

“What?!” I croak. “Even selling every organ in my body can’t earn that much!”

“Precisely.”

He takes out his lighter and flips the chrome top open with his thumb. He doesn’t touch the tiny wheel to light it up. He shuts the cap with a nudge of a finger, and repeats his initial actions. It’s such a mundane thing to do, but I find myself intimidated. Is this some kind of psychological method to scare me into silence?

I rack my brains in a feverishly to come up with another method of escape. It’s a long shot, but there’s another thing I’ve yet to ask. Alright, if money’s out, then how about the next best thing I have to offer?

“I’ll work for you. I’ll do whatever you want for...” I juggle the numbers. “Fifteen years.”

He doesn’t answer.

I’ll say anything to get out of my binds. At least then, I could do something. Being stuck in this chair is practically a death sentence. “Ugh, you drive a hard bargain. Fine, twenty.”

He looks me up and down. He huffs out a short laugh and extinguishes the cigarette on the ground.

Being laughed at is terrible, but when you’re tied to a chair and can’t take out your anger by socking the opposite party in the nose? If I were standing, I’d stagger under the sheer humiliation of it.

“You know what? I wish that other guy was here,” I say. “At least he’s not a condescending prick.”

I hear a door swing open in the moment I eat a punch to the face. My vision goes lopsided as the chair topples, my body falling limp against the ground. My ears ring, but not loud enough to erase Oscar’s voice.

“She said to bring her up.”

Sherlock grunts. “Great. Get her legs.”

“I’m sure as hell not going to be carrying your dead weight. Break a leg, Sher.”

I hear another squabble breakout. I’m too busy to appreciate it, feeling as if someone practiced baseball swings on my jaw. I’m sure I’m exaggerating but… is this what getting punched in the face feels like? I’ve only ever slapped and gotten slapped.

My vision swims as I’m hefted up. I shut my eyes to curb my rising nausea, knowing I would take another jab to the face should I decide to spew vomit on whoever’s carrying me.

I’m carried up the stairs with enviable ease. Each step is an angry stomp as one of the two men climbs. I’m jolted roughly as he moves, and my feet are bruised on the doorframe as he exits what I believe was some kind of basement.

I didn’t think of it earlier, but I should have been more aware of my surroundings. Knowing where I was would have made me feel a little less frightened.

As I’m tromped onward to who knows where, the pain in my face subsides enough for me to pay attention to my surroundings. My burgeoning headache and rough handling stops me from getting a clear glimpse, but I catch a couple of distinct hallmarks of the place I got spirited to.

The place is brightly lit. We’re in a long hallway of a sort, and the floor beneath us is carpeted in thick, luscious brown. I can smell something strange. Incense. It’s incense, mixed with a powerful perfume. The overbearing scent is familiar, cloyingly sweet in a way that makes me want to throw up. Whether it’s because of my head or the smell, I can’t be sure.

We soon come to a stop. I feel the vibrations from his throat as he says, “This is where she told us to go?” Great, it’s Sherlock. I hope he doesn’t throw me down a flight of steps for my earlier insult. One punch is enough to make me regret mouthing off.

“Yeah.” Oscar laughs. “I can’t wait to hear you explain why you punched the girl.”

I feel myself jostled, and I choke out a gasp as the ropes cut against my skin.

“I doubt she would mind. She could have hired anybody else if she simply wished for her targets to be retrieved. There should be something else in store for them.”

I feel Sherlock cross the threshold. My head is bumped on the doorframe, and I instinctive yell of pain.

I’m dumped onto the ground without a word of warning. It’s a miracle I don’t end up with my face flat against the ground. As if mocking me, the legs of my chair rock precariously. Thankfully for my heart, the rocking quickly stabilizes.

I try to catch my breath and calm down. I want to lay down and sleep for a year, but I doubt whoever kidnapped me would allow it. As I think this, I hear a familiar voice that freezes the blood in my veins.

“What are you playing at, Mother?”

I look up and see Ling Ge sitting on the bed with his arms behind his back. Why is he here? Did they get him, too?

When I follow his line of sight, those questions are drowned out by the rising roar of noise in my head. The person I detest with every fibre of my being, more wretched than I ever found Shi Ning, sits before me

“You’re finally here.” Ying Ze says. “Shu Mei Ling.”