Sasha had been on shift for an hour before he saw the mauve Skoda in his wing mirror, and he'd delivered four pizzas before he noticed it following him. It was dark by then, not so dark he could not see the make of the car, or see the last three letters of the license plate-AKM-but dark enough that he could not make out a face behind the tinted windshield.
He'd been followed before, as the Kidderminster fuzz had gotten the (not wrong) idea that most of the motorbike couriers had sidelines as coke dealers. That wasn't one of Sasha's sidelines, so it just meant being pulled over, searched, and then chewed out by the manager at Romino's Pizza & Kebab for late deliveries.
This didn't seem like the police, though. Something was wrong. Unmarked cars didn't have tinted windows and they didn't follow you for this long without pulling you over. Besides, who's buying coke on a Tuesday night a week before the end of the month? This wasn't London, after all. It wasn't even Birmingham.
He came to a green light, slowed down, and crossed just as it turned yellow. The Skoda followed through the red. For once, Sasha felt a surge of panic because he didn't see flashing blue lights. Definitely not the police.
His next delivery was for a regular, but one well outside of the town proper. There were dark, unlit roads with little traffic and no witnesses. Lots of ditches you could push a motorbike into and not have it discovered for a day or three. It only took a few moments to decide that this job wasn't worth being murdered for.
He reached a roundabout and on an impulse went round the wrong way, ignoring the blaring horn of the van he'd missed by an inch and barreling down a one-way street. He'd ridden the right way down this street enough times to know there was an alleyway wide enough for a bike but too narrow for any car, and skidded into it. After slowing down and switching off his lights, the faint orange glow of streetlights became visible in the distance.
As he rode along in the dark he felt incredibly stupid. He'd stayed up too long last night smoking hash with Greg and Greg's new girlfriend and he'd taken too much Adderall to perk himself up in the morning. This was paranoia, the dumbest kind of paranoia, the kind that fourteen-year-olds hitting their first bowl at a music festival or freakishly square cops who snap one day and eat a whole bag of edibles experience. Had there even been a car? There had definitely been a van, one that barely missed him when he went the wrong way around a roundabout. He'd almost died!
He stopped the bike halfway down the alley, turned the engine off, and took off his helmet. It was clear either end, and he hadn't seen lights drive past in any direction. His fringe was stuck to his forehead with sweat, and as he swept it off with a gloved hand he realised his hands were shaking wildly. He took a few deep breaths, took a cigarette from his pocket, and took a few drags after lightning it. He hadn't realised that his vision was spinning slightly, but it stopped anyway.
The adrenaline had worn off and left something cold and heavy in its place. There had been a car. It was some kind of Skoda, it was mauve or dark red, it had tinted windows, and he remembered the last three letters of the license plate. AKM. He'd seen it once, noted it in his mind, seen it again, and seen it again. It was the same car. It had followed him all over. It had gone through a red light to keep up with him. Just because he was paranoid didn't mean it hadn't happened.
Sasha made up his mind. He'd ride to a friend's house and hole up there for the night, call his boss to say he'd got knocked off his bike and couldn't finish his shift, and then try to figure out if anyone wanted him dead. Maybe he could start looking for another job too. Suddenly, call centre work didn't seem so bad.
He took a last drag on the cigarette, got back on the motorbike and started riding down the alley. Greg's house was barely a mile from there, and he felt a semblance of calm.
Just before he reached the end of the alley, his wing mirrors lit up like halogen lamps. A car was behind him at the other end of the alley, shining its full beams on his back, and in his mind he knew it was the Skoda. He revved and shot forward in a panic, accelerating towards the street in front of him, and slammed on the brakes a split second too late when he saw the side of the van that had pulled up in front of him.
He didn't remember going over the handlebars.
Sasha woke up with white circles pulsing at the edge of his vision and a sour, gluey taste in his mouth. He moved his limbs and they moved a few moments later. He was naked, and as he blinked his vision darkened, not because he was losing sight but because the room he was in was so blindingly white that his eyes had to adjust to everything but pure light.
The room was cold and bare, a grey metal floor with bumpy non-slip patterns rubbing rough against his naked skin, a sterile white ceiling, three sterile white walls, and one mirrored wall directly in front of him.
He was naked.
He yelped in shock, or he would have if not for the strange sludgy fog that permeated his head and slowed it down to a dull "Oh," that came out a few seconds later. His eyes didn't feel like they could focus, and as he stared at his reflection he felt as if he only saw bits at a time-his sweaty mop of brown hair one moment, freckles on pale cheeks the next, the half-finished koi sleeve on his left arm swum in and out, and every time his focus switched another wave of pain washed through his mind. The light that shone off the sweat-covered patches of bare skin on his chest and stomach seemed as bright and painful as a magnesium flare, and the light that glinted off the metal around his neck was even worse.
He wasn't completely naked.
He'd been collared.
As he touched numbed fingers to the steel collar, there was a shudder and a hum. He looked up and saw a cooling unit, a heavy one, like in a walk-in freezer. It was covered in droplets of condensation. A wave of even colder air washed over him.
Somewhere deep beneath the fog and pain, panic grew within him. He was naked, it was cold, and he was cold. It was going to get colder, and he would get colder with it and he was already so, so cold. He'd always been a skinny guy, he wore a vest from September through to late April, and everyone he'd ever lived with had yelled at him for setting the heating too high.
Cold killed people, he thought, and he needed to stop the cold. He would turn off the machine, or hit it until it stopped working, he had to. On unsteady legs he rose, almost toppling to his hands and knees before staggering to his feet, and as he pressed a shaky hand to the wall to prop himself up he felt even more heat leach out of his palm somehow.
It was then that he noticed the thick iron chain connected to the back of his collar, the metal so cold that it felt like searing heat as he grasped it, and as he moaned in dazed shock the door opened.