Jon Gustafsson was not a good man. He wasn't even an okay man, but he was not the sort of man you'd expect to find tied to a chair with a bag over his head.
He never saw it coming.
The night before was fuzzy and fractured, a kaleidoscope of half-formed images and blurred scenes. He'd been at a party... maybe?
He'd been wearing a new suit. A grey one with impeccable tailoring. He'd been drinking his usual single malt and talking to someone. An ex had been there. Sophia? Ines? Em?
Thoughts crumbled before they formed.
He was unconscious again, a hunched figure in the dead centre of a stone room. The whole place felt wet, dank. It had a subterranean smell and was the cold that crawls into your bones and pebbles your skin. Somewhere off to the left was a semi-regular drip of some liquid or other hitting the stone floor.
He'd been there for hours - in and out of consciousness.
Someone had drugged him, leaving his limbs cottony and slow. Not that he could move much at any speed. His hands were duct-taped behind his back, and his legs bound to the chair. The rope cut into the fabric of his black pants like some invisible string, the colours too close to distinguish. He was flirting with consciousness, regaining his senses slowly.
He had definitely been at a party. He'd walked there. The streets had been busy - but he'd caught all the walk lights. He'd arrived like some metropolitan god. There were laughing, beautiful people everywhere. He'd been talking to a young blonde; she'd been tall, stunning and new to the scene and couldn't have been more than 20. She'd gotten some heat around an indie film and was sorting out her next steps. They'd been sitting by the dance floor. How did he get here?
His body lagged behind, but his mind was alive.
Time meant nothing as he became aware of his predicament. His nose itched, and his calf was cramping. Too many indications that he'd been there too long. He arched his back against the
chair, stretching one arm against another.
Panic was winning - like a battleship dealt a fatal blow. He started to struggle. His chair scraped across the uneven floor, powered by his jerking movements. The awful screech cut through the
silence like a knife, shocking him back into stillness.
Drip, drip, drip.
Somehow, Jon knew that he would have to play this good and right because no matter what happened next, he would never be the same again.
He was utterly alone.
YOU ARE READING
Casually Cruel
Mystery / ThrillerBreakups happen every day. Sometimes, you lose it. *All homage, quotes, and allusions to the brilliant work of T. Swift were undertaken with the utmost respect and sincerity.
