Chapter 26
ALEXANDER
Where the fuck was I? Fuck, it was hot. I was drenched in my own sweat.
I crawled into the shade.
Saw the whiskey bottle, lying nearby, glinting in the sun. Alarmingly close to being empty. But not quite. I drank what was left of it, the insides of me as fiery and scalded as the outsides.
Ahh, it was good.
Numbing. Dulling some searing pain in my soul that I couldn’t quite remember what the fuck was all about. This was better. I needed that wash of oblivion to keep me sane.
Was I sane? I couldn’t be sure. I looked up at the sky and some big-ass clouds.
Fuck, I must be fucked up. The sky was swaying back and forth. The clouds were mocking me, laughing down with their faces. Bastards.
I remembered then, when I focused (with a shitload of effort) on my surroundings.
I was in a fucking boat.
Yeah. I remembered: I was in fucking Florida. I had a house here. I had lots of houses for some reason.
I tried to sit up.
Couldn’t.
Tried again.
Saw a bottle of blessed water somewhere out of reach.
Fuck, how I wanted that water.
The effort seemed gargantuan. It was all the way over there.
But I did it: I crawled over to it.
Reached it. Grabbed it.
Chugged it.
Mother of God, that shit was good.
I felt a tiny sliver of my humanity returning to me. Which was a bad thing. Her face. I could picture her face. Her hair. Green eyes.
I managed to lug myself half over the side of the boat before puking my guts out.
Damn it, the whiskey. Gone to sea. Giving some fish my buzz.
I just lay there for a while, enjoying the pain of the railing cutting into me.
I liked pain, I decided. Pure, physical pain that could gouge into some of that other type of pain that was cutting me down. Killing me.
Survival instincts are a bitch. Something in me gnawed at me to move, to sort my shit out.
Contemplated the basics. Now had no water and no whiskey. If I was gonna live, I needed both.
If I was gonna live, I had to figure out where the fuck I was and where the fuck I needed to go.
My brain argued against it. Wanted to shut down. Sleep. Not think.
I crawled back into the shade and let the darkness close in.
