Sleepless by Charlie Huston Read Free Book Online Page A

C in "Salut! Demeure" it had been:
    I greet you, home chaste and pure,I greet you, home chaste and pure,Where is manifested the presenceOf a soul, innocent and divine!I greet you, home chaste and pure.
    PARK WAS HAVING trouble breathing.
    It wasn't just the fact of the bag over his head, it was the fact that he was far from the first prisoner to have worn it. Stiff with old sweat, crusted at the open end with dry vomit, the black canvas sack stifled more than just air.
    And his knees hurt.
    He'd already learned not to try to lower his buttocks to his ankles for relief. Having done so once and received a truncheon blow across his shoulder blades.
    And he'd lost feeling in his fingers.
    That was a concern, but a far greater concern was that he'd started not to feel the zip-strip where it dug into his wrists. Losing circulation to the fingers was one thing, having it cut off from his hands entirely was more disquieting.
    The man to his right moaned something in Spanish.
    Boots crossed the tile room, echoing, and a nightstick bounced off a skull.
    "Shut the fuck up!"
    Park felt the man tumble against him and struggled to somehow catch him, leaning his body far backward, trying to support the man's weight against his torso. The muscles in his thighs, already trembling, gave out, and they both fell to the floor.
    "Up! Get the fuck up!"
    Someone grabbed a fistful of his hair through the bag and hauled him back up to his knees.
    "Stay up! Up, asshole!"
    A lazy fist caught him across the ear.
    "Fucking shoot your ass now."
    A loud buzz shocked the room, vibrating the rank air, a bolt slammed back into its socket, and a door opened, letting in a draft of fresher air that Park could just feel on his upper arms.
    Sneakers squeaked on the tiles. Some papers rustled.
    "Adam, three, three, zero, hotel, dash, four, dash, four, zero."
    His arms were jerked as someone tried to get a look at the plastic bracelet fastened around his wrist.
    "Yeah, that's this asshole."
    The truncheon dug into his ribs.
    "Up, asshole."
    He tried to unfold his legs and rise but only succeeded in falling over again.
    "Fucking."
    The shaft of the truncheon crossed his throat, and he was dragged choking to his feet, stumbling, almost falling again, and caught under the arms.
    "I got him."
    "Yeah, well, fucking enjoy. And try not to leave too many marks."
    Blind and lurching, led out into a quiet hallway where the air, only a couple of degrees cooler, felt like a spring breeze. Tripping over his own numb feet, saved again and again from falling, and then leaned against a wall.
    "Can you hold yourself up for a second?"
    He nodded but didn't know if it could be seen through the hood.
    His voice cracked like his dry lips.
    "I think so."
    The hands left him, and he kept his feet.
    Keys were jingled, one fitted to a lock, and another door opened.
    "In here."
    The hands took him again, not carrying him as much as guiding him this time, feeling coming back into his legs and feet.
    "Sit."
    A chair.
    "Lean forward."
    He leaned, found a table, and rested his head on it, his eyes sliding shut, almost instantly asleep. And brought back in seconds as the zip-strip was clipped from his wrists and blood rushed into his hands, filling them with needles.
    The sack was yanked from his head, and he coughed on the sudden oxygen, blinking his eyes against hard fluorescents.
    "Here."
    A wiry man with a tonsure of gray hair, eyes hidden by green-tinted aviator sunglasses, placed a water bottle in front of him.
    Park nodded. He tried to pick up the bottle but couldn't get his hands to close around it.
    The man twisted the cap from the bottle and held it to Park's lips, slowly tilting it upward as Park swallowed.
    "Enough?"
    Park coughed, and the man lowered the bottle and set it back on the table. He took Park's hands in his own and started rubbing them.
    "When were you picked up?"
    Park looked for his watch, forgetting for the moment that he had stashed it before the bust.
    "I don't know.