Synesthesia: Chapter Eight

serial fiction

Amber looked around the room as if making sure we were alone. She leaned close enough to me that I could clearly make out the wrinkles and old acne scars on her face.

“You’ve got some sort of kink about kidnapping people, right?” she asked in a half-whisper.

I didn’t like her referring to it as a “kink.” It wasn’t like that. But I was too tired to explain. I nodded.

“Does it have to be a woman?” she asked. Her eyes reminded me of the cat I’d had as a kid. Pale green, almost glowing.

I thought about her question. Men’s fear smells just like women’s. It had never occurred to me to kidnap a man. Women, especially small ones, were just nice, easy targets.

“I guess not,” I finally responded.

Amber sat up in her chair and grinned. I could almost see her smile curl up around itself, like when the Grinch hatched his plan to steal Christmas.

I narrowed my eyes at her. “What are you thinking?” I asked.

She tried to tamp down her smile a bit, but she was ecstatic. She smelled like dog shit mixed with the excited scent of cinnamon. It was a disgusting combination.

“What are you thinking?” I repeated, my question coming out sounding more desperate and afraid than I’d intended.

“I have some ideas. Some targets for you,” she said. “I’m not going to help you kidnap innocent people. Especially women. No children. You try to hurt a kid, I’ll call the cops on your ass before you can even blink.”

I tried to shake my head, but it hurt. “Ow! No, I’m not like that. I don’t mess with kids,” I said.

“Good,” she said. “Because I’m only going to help you hurt people who really deserve it.”

I suppressed the urge to shake my head again. “I don’t hurt people,” I reminded her. “I just—” My eyes flew around the room, double checking for hidden cameras or recording equipment. “I just kidnap them and scare them,” I said just loudly enough for her to hear.

Amber looked at me as if I’d just told her that I enjoyed stomping on puppies.

“What if they deserve it?” she asked, more a rebuttal than a question.

I didn’t know what to say. Hurting people has never been an interest of mine. Pain doesn’t smell that great. Mangoes, strawberries. I can smell it in the produce aisle of any grocery store. It’s the scent of fear that’s so intoxicating I’ve shaped my life around chasing it.

As I was searching for a response, there was a loud, quick double knock at the door. A second later, it opened, and the fat woman with brown eyes and long dark hair walked into the room.

She gave each of us a brief smile that looked more like a grimace, then addressed me.

“The doctor is ready to release you. But we are going to need payment information before you leave,” she said matter-of-factly. “Your fiancée said you don’t have health insurance. We do offer an option for self-pay patients.” She pulled a wheeled cart from the corner, atop which sat a computer and a keyboard, and readied her hands over the keys.

Amber was right. I did not have insurance. But I was also running low on funds.

“Full name and mailing address?” the woman asked. I shot a look at Amber, willing her to leave the room. I didn’t like sharing my private information. But she stayed put.

I gave the woman my full name, my mailing address, and my phone number. The current one, anyway; I liked to change phone numbers every few months to keep my trail clean. I made a mental note to ditch this phone and get a new one as soon as we got out of the hospital.

Image: Ben, Unsplash

I watched her hands as they clicked across the keys. She didn’t use the shift key, I noticed. Instead, she tapped caps lock, then a letter key, then caps lock again to switch back to lowercase.

The brown-eyed woman then asked me for a credit card.

“I don’t have one,” I said truthfully. I paid cash for everything.

She looked at me as though certain I was lying. “Debit card?” she asked.

I started to shake my head, but the pain stopped me again. “No,” I grimaced. “Do you take cash?”

“No,” she responded curtly, as if I had suggested paying her in conch shells.

The brown-eyed woman and I fell into a staring contest. A contest of wills. A contest of who wanted to get out of there more quickly.

“I can have a bill mailed to you,” she sighed, her resolve crumbling. Finally.

“Great,” I said.

The woman rolled the computer cart back into its corner and left the room, leaving traces of lavender and wood smoke in her wake.

Amber stood up. “Let’s go, then,” she said.

I heaved my legs over the edge of the hospital bed and set my feet on the floor. I felt slightly dizzy, but I chalked it up to stress and dehydration. I grabbed the paper cup beside my bed and filled it up at the sink, then gulped the water down.

“Yeah,” I said, feeling a bit better now. “Let’s go.”

Amber and I walked out of the automatic sliding doors and into the scorching heat of the treeless parking lot. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dropped it into the trash can in front of the hospital entrance.

Then I stopped cold.

“Oh, shit,” I said, reality crashing down on me.

“What?” asked Amber.

“Where’s my fucking car?”