It comes back to him in flashes, probably as it’s happening. The writer in him taking notes, narrating his own story. The drug-high familiar to when he’d chased the dragon, but it had more of a bite. Like mercury chilling and flowing through his veins. His mind slowed, became sluggish, beating out thoughts as palpitations marked their passing.

The drug wasn’t to induce a high but to immobilise him, permanently.

Paralysed, feeling his heart slow, beating against the inside of his ribs like a prisoner rattling a tin can against cell bars, growing more and more feeble.

That and he can feel the side of his face resting against the cold dead cheek of a woman.

“Ah Jesus man, he stinks.”

“Shut up and fucking do it!”

A blue spark followed a sharp crack, the tang of electricity in the air ominous.

Something is rammed between his legs and his heart quakes. The next instant he is ejaculating lead shot in spasmodic coughs. His prostate singed and burnt.

Forensics will love this, the writer notes.

Then he blacked out.

His heart feels as though it is kicking its way out of his chest, but he’s conscious. Judith told him that no good would ever come from being addict, he realised that she was wrong, after ten years of being a serious addict, three years rehabbed, he’d built up a resistance to a good number of substances.

Head pounding like a bastard, Stroud tried to sit up.

He couldn’t.

A metal bracelet, no a handcuff, cinched his right wrist. The television had been turned on playing some porno film in the background. Noise loud enough to attract attention from other hotel guests.

Even he would find it hard to believe that he was innocent.

It wouldn’t be long before the noise disturbed the neighbouring rooms. They’d complain, send up a porter to knock on his door, and gain entrance to find him lying on top of a dead prostitute.

In the distance, he could hear sirens.

Whoever had set him up, had done a top notch job.

Only, they’d underestimated the dose. Rather than knock him out completely, or kill him. He could already feel his body absorbing most of the poison. A reservoir of blackness from his past opened up a long dormant channel that greedily dealt with the chemicals.

Stroud managed to turn his head, sliding cheek to cheek, lubricated by his own saliva. He wanted to cry, shout, scream at the unfairness, but what good would it do?

On the bedside table, he could see a small key. Obviously they had left it there so that it looked as though it was a sex game gone wrong. Who would lock themselves up and not be able to get out of it?

He reached across with his left hand, but misjudged the table and rapping his knuckles on the underside of the cabinet. The key jumped from the surface, clattering back down and slid over the side. A fraction of a second later, he heard it bounce once on the floor, then a rattle beneath the floor.

It had fallen between the floorboards.

Not being able to move his legs, Stroud inched to the left, rocking backwards and forwards. His head already spinning so didn’t recognise that he’d moved beyond the point of equilibrium. Falling out of bed, he nearly pulled the woman on top of him, the handcuff chain taut between their wrists.

Sweating profusely, he tried to twist his wrist out of the cuff.

It wasn’t a fake the sort that would open with the press of a button, or turn of a paperclip. It was well made. From his years as a crime writer, he knew that the good ones could be broken. The chain twisted so that it simply snaps. Cheaper ones bend. Stroud had neither the strength nor leverage to do anything other than rattle it on his wrist.

Pulling his shaking legs up to his chest, he rested against the side of the bed.

There was no sign of the key. The remote control for the TV was on the other side of the room, next to an open window. Beyond that, the fire escape where his attackers had probably fled.

He heard the heel of palm bang on the door.

“Mr. Whitfield? Mr. Whitfield? Turn it down. This is a family hotel!”

Shadows paced outside of the door.

Stroud felt for a pulse on the woman’s neck. He thought that he felt one, until he moved his hand away and realised that it was coming from his own ravaged shell.

Think man. Think!

“Mr. Whitfield. I’m going to have to call for security!”

Stroud swallowed. He tried to twist the cuff. The metal bracelet cut into his skin painfully.

He tried again, but couldn’t get past the pain.

Stroud pulled the woman off the bed. He lifted the bed awkwardly, having to keep his right hand low so that he could position the woman’s hand under the square wooden post.

He dropped the bed. He didn’t mean to. It slipped from his shoulder, brought him crashing into the side of the frame and caused him to kneel on the woman’s chest.

He felt her ribs crack.

Once more, he lifted the bed, trying not to look at the mangled ruin that remained of the other’s hand. The cuff came off her hand easily. Without a limb stopping it closing on itself, it folded through the frame. Stroud took a second to put it onto his own wrist so that he was wearing both. It would stop it snagging or catching.

Not wanting to wait for the hotel staff, Stroud threw his trousers on, putting his socks into his pockets along with his wallet and phone.

He managed to get one arm into his shirt, but couldn’t get the sleeve over the handcuffs. It should do it, but his addled brain couldn’t function. Standing up was an effort, working out that a sleeve was inside out and how to thread his arm through was more that he could take.

Walking into his shoes without tying them, he quickly looked around the room.

He was fucked.

If he fled the crime scene, it would make him look guilty, but if he stayed, they would crucify him.

Not sure where he would go next, Stroud stepped out onto the fire escape, then carefully started to make his way down one metal landing at a time.