Honeymoon
The smell of rancid piss entered my nose. Not the usual scent of lavender that I was used to waking up to. That usually meant only one thing, my dog had gone somewhere in the apartment in the middle of the night. I thought we were passed that point; she was almost a year old now. Its never smelt this bad before, I thought as I scrunched my nose when another whiff entered my senses.
A long moan escaped my throat when a large wave of nausea overtook me as I shifted my head. I didn’t dare open my eyes. Not yet. Tequila. The taste was still on my lips. Why do I always get sucked into doing tequila? A bright white light suddenly shined on my unopen eyelids. No, the sun can go fuck itself right now.
My hand absentmindedly reached for my fuzzy blanket. A couple pats on the uneven mattress revealed that I wasn’t in my own bed. That had me shooting straight up from my drunken slumber. Bam! “What the…” My eyes opened to see what I had banged my head on; another bed was above me. I placed my hand on the frame above my head as the world began to spin.
I rubbed the now sore spot on my forehead and swung my legs over the side of the bed. Finally, I took a look at my surroundings. The room was small and dirty. A set of bars were to my right and a tiny window where the devilish sun was doing its best job to make my head pound was on my left. I was alone in the prison cell. Completely alone.
“Where the fuck am I?”
The world shook under my feet as I staggered upright. My eyes fluttered shut as I could feel the wave of vomit coming up from my stomach. Yup, no stopping this, I thought. Doubling over, I threw up a mixture of green, blue, and yellow bile into the silver bowl that served as a toilet, just about missing it altogether. The heaves came a couple more times, but there was nothing more to come up besides stomach acid.
A jingle of keys brought my attention away from the heavenly cold steel I had my forehead pressed against. A guard dressed in a light brown uniform stood at the entrance to my cell. He fumbled with a large ring of keys before finding the one that fit the door. Stepping through, he waved his hand and yelled at me in some foreign language.
Dumbfounded, I sat on the floor gawking up at him. He repeated his words, his face flaring red and stepping towards me. The world spun once more as he grabbed my arm and yanked me to my feet. His words slurred together, and I had to take another moment to gather myself.
“Wait,” I tried to interrupt his long breath of jargon. “I don’t speak your language. Spanish?” Oh god, I can’t think with this hangover. “No hablo Spanish?” Is that the right way to say that?
The guard kept speaking in his fast-paced language, practically dragging me out of my cell and down the hall. This hallway seemed to go on forever as we passed cell by cell. The people locked inside them hollered and shook on their bars as we went by. Their excitement sent a shiver of fear down my spine. What the hell is happening?
“Sir, please, I don’t know what’s going on. Do you know English?” I asked the guard, but he still did not understand.
We reached the end of the hall to a large steel door that he yanked open. He then shoved me inside and I stumbled to my knees. Another wave of nausea overtook me, yet this time there was no place for it to go besides on the floor.
“Well, that’s pleasant.” A voice echoed from a dark corner of the room.
Finally, someone who speaks English, I sighed in relief. “I’m sorry, sir, I have a horrid hangover.”
“Sit.” He demanded.
I did as was told, grabbing my head in my hands, and placing my elbows on the table that occupied the room. “Where am I? Is this a prison?”
The man came out of the shadows wearing a black suit. He had short trimmed brown hair and held a notepad and pen. Screeching of the chair being pulled out opposite of me grated against my ears. My head pounded as the sound echoed throughout my entire body. I slumped back in my chair, taking a deep breath as I waited for him to answer.
“Don’t take me for a fool, Charlotte.” He huffed. “I do not have the patience for your games.”
“Games?” I asked, my brows furrowing together. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t even know how I got here.”
“Really,” he smirked, leaning back, and gesturing one hand at me. “Fine, I’ll play along. What’s the last thing you remember?”
My mind was so fuzzy I took a moment to answer. “My husband and I had just arrived. We’re on our honeymoon.” My husband! “Oh god! Nathan, where is he? He must be worried sick about me. I have to call him, please.”
The man shook his head. “Isn’t that convenient.”
“What? I need to call my husband.”
He brought out a beige folder from his suitcase and flipped through some pages. “You and your husband arrived in Mexico two days ago. So, you’re saying you can’t remember anything between then and now?”
“Two days?” That’s when it hit me. After we arrived, we got in the cab and went…where? The last forty-eight hours were completely gone. “Where is my husband. Please tell me you know where he is.”
“I do.” He said simply.
I put my hands up in frustration. “Where?” That’s when I noticed the strange red tint to my skin. I examined them more closely, seeing the red blots under my nails. My heart dropped.
“The morgue.”
“No,” I shook my head. “That can’t be.” Tears formed in my eyes as I thought the love of my life was gone.
“It is. Probably for the better,” he stated, looking through the files he had.
Anger soared through me. “How can you say that? What happened to him!” I demanded.
“You tell me,” his eyes glanced down to my clothes.
I followed the prompt and saw just how much blood was actually on my body. My hands trembled as I desperately tried to remember what happened. “Please,” I begged. “I don’t know, I swear.”
He calmly began to place pictures in front of me; horrid, gory filled pictures. Blood tainted each one of them, bodies strewn about in haphazard manners. Each one had a single dollar bill placed carefully on their chests. All were faces I recognized. The last one was Nathan, only there was no dollar bill around him.
My heart squeezed and a lump formed in my throat. It couldn’t be. He couldn’t be dead. I grabbed his picture, the tears now streaming down my cheeks. “Oh, Nathan.” I couldn’t get any other words out.
“Yes, very tragic. But what about these ones,” he pointed to the others. “Look familiar?”
I didn’t say anything. The tears stopped.
“I know who you are,” he smirked, folding his hands on the table.
The corner of my lips turned up slightly, and I met his eyes with a piercing glare. “Is that so?”
The man flipped over a newspaper. The title The Dollar Killers Strike Again. “Damn right it is.”
I had been so careful. We had been so careful. This was our honeymoon, it wasn't supposed to end this way. Whatever had happened in the last two days must have been some wild shit. It makes sense now, why I got so black out drunk, and I why turned to tequila. I would never want to remember what happened to my love. And I hope I never remember. It doesn’t matter what happens now. I’ll still get the last laugh.
An eerie calm settled over me. “Well, shit.”
“It’s over, Charlotte,” he laughed. “I got you.”
I smirked. “Sure, I’ll let you believe that.”