9 Nine

I limped down the dark street, my leg making a disconcerting popping noise with each step. I had considered going back to where we were staying, but the officers might have been looking for me there, so I kept moving, down the street, through the town, away from everything, toward Emilie. Nothing with me, shirtless, penniless, hungry, lost.

As I stepped, a pebble or something caught underneath my foot and my ankle rolled. I fell to the ground, my hands breaking my fall. I didn't try to get up, I knew I wouldn't be able to. I just lay in the dirty puddle I had landed in, eventually losing consciousness in the muck.

* * *

No one paid attention to me as I lay there. No one tried to help, no one even asked if I was okay.

Not that they should have.

I decided that I would go back to where we had been staying since it had been a few hours and they hadn't even found me in the middle of the street. Once there, I made it a point to simply slip on a shirt and pack up. I don't quite know why, but I packed up Nick's stuff, too, and carried it with me.

* * *

I set down the two bags at the door and sat at the far end of the bar, ordering a blackbush as I climbed onto the stool.

I shouldn't have let them take him. That had been the headline in my mind's newspaper for the past day and a half. I stared blankly at the counter as I sipped the blackbush nestled between my dirty hands. I looked at my hands and realized how dirty I probably looked. Dried blood down my face, dirt in my hair. The bartender must've thought I was homeless. Not that he cared, so long as I paid for everything.

I wondered where they had taken Nick. I wondered if they had tortured him for names and places. If they had tortured him, how was he doing? Did it kill him? Where was he?

The uncertainty was finally driving me mad. I had spent years without knowing where Emilie was, or if I would see her again, or whether my child was a boy or girl, or what their name was, thinking she was dead. Then not knowing who I was, then if I would even try to find my wife. I had wanted to try for years, then I stopped. It felt good but also scared me. I can't just let her go that easy, can I? It seemed ruthless. Careless. Brutal. I didn't feel like I'd had closure, but I didn't feel like I needed it anymore. Then Nick sacrificed the one good thing he had so I could find them, but I wasn't even that sure that I wanted that anymore, so had he sacrificed for nothing?

I put my head in my hands, accidentally knocking over the cup of blackbush. It spilled onto my lap and I stood, rooting through m bags for a change of pants. The bartender hurriedly cleaned up what was still on the counter. Another worker mopped up the rest on the floor and soon, there was no evidence the spill was ever there.

I changed my trousers in the bathroom and started out the door, but it was then that I noticed a group of four men sitting at a table together. They weren't loud as you would expect for a bar in the odd hours of the night, but rather quiet and brooding. I hadn't realized I had been staring for a little too long until I noticed they were all staring back at me. I panicked and before I knew it, I was walking toward them. To do what exactly, I couldn't say, but I didn't need to.

"You got a problem, boy?" The man who seemed to be the leader asked.

I shouldered the bags I carried and cleared my throat. "Are... uh... are you looking for someone?" Was all I could think to say. The men burst out in obviously pent-up laughter. I grinned and nodded, although I couldn't see what was so funny.

"Not particularly," Their leader said after wiping a non-existent tear-of-laughter from his eye. "Any reason you ask?

I opened my mouth to talk, but couldn't find any appropriate words to say.

"You need something, boy?" He questioned, eyeing me from head to toe. I swallowed as I realized they were crime lords and a plan hatched in my head.

"Yes, actually," I started.

"Oh, this'll be good," another of the men said. The leader elbowed him and let me speak.

I swallowed my courage and continued.

"My wife, I haven't seen her in five years. You look like the type of men who would know how to find her."

Silence greeted the end of my petition as the laughter welled up again, finally bursting more abundant than before. One of the men almost fell out of a chair if not for his buddy who caught him by the back of his pants.

"You'll understand we don't work for free, boy," their leader finally said.

"And I don't beg for help without the promise of reward."

The bar went silent as the leader contemplated the offer. He could tell by the way I was staring him down that I had a relatively fair reward.

"Well," he finally answered. "Where would you assume your little lady would be?"