ADRIANA

 

She slowly opens her eyes, but it’s harder than it should be. Her eyelids feel heavy, like they have weights attached to them. When she finally manages to keep them open, her surroundings seem as dark to her as her own fuzzy mind. Her mouth is dry, and her head is aching, like she’s been hit over the head with a hammer.

 

She tries to get to her feet, but her legs don’t seem to want to cooperate. It’s like they’re not part of her body anymore, not under her control. What happened? Why is everything so out of focus, so hazy? she thinks.

 

She moves to brush her hair out of her eyes, only to find that the simple action is not so simple after all. Her hands are bound in front of her; she can feel the restraints rubbing against her skin, cutting into her. That’s when it all comes rushing back: the mystery man and his goon in her apartment, the comments he’d made about Grayson not being the person that she thought he was, and the hand that covered her face and brought her to her knees with chloroform.

 

The memory of what happened in her apartment brings with it a sense of panic, of blind fear. Adriana feels her breathing quicken and a lump form in her throat, as she tries to work through her feelings. It’s okay, she tells herself, Grayson will come for you. He’ll find you.

 

After a few attempts, she manages to stand up shakily and, in that instant, the lights go on. She blinks against the brightness that feels like it’s seared into her eyes. The grim realization hits her that she is not alone; someone is watching her, watching what she’s doing.

 

“Hello?” She looks around at the damp brick walls of what looks to be a basement. “Is anyone there?” She strains, listening for a response, but none comes. She is alone.

 

Adriana scans the room. In the corner, she sees a table with a glass of water. She has no idea how long she’s been in this place or even what time of day or night it is, but the sight of the water makes her realize that she’s desperate for a drink. She grabs the glass, gulping the cool liquid down greedily and when she’s halfway through she stops abruptly. What if this is the last water she’s going to get for a while? She has to make it last. She tries to train herself to take small sips, but it’s like asking a man dying of hunger not to eat when food is put in front of him. It takes all her strength to leave some water in the glass, and she pushes it away from her clumsily with her tied hands.

 

That’s when she notices the other item on the table. It’s an old newspaper article, from The Philadelphia Chronicle. Her eyes scan the date, telling her that what she’s reading is over ten years old. Ten years, the thought echoes in her mind. Her senses get jacked up to red alert, as she processes the headline.

 

Suspected Underground Fighter Found Dead

 

A chill goes through her, but she forces herself to read on. It talks about a body being found in an underground warehouse, which had a reputation for hosting underground fights. It looks like he was pummeled to death, the injuries catalogued ghoulishly by the reporter. The man—Vinnie ‘Destructor’ Jones—had been known to the cops. He’d been in and out of jail for burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, rape, and the list went on. From the interviews with the local cops, it wasn’t hard to get the impression that no one particularly missed Vinnie.

 

There was speculation on the part of the reporter that he had been killed in an underground, unlicensed fight where bookies ran the show. Apparently, it wasn’t uncommon for these kinds of matches to end with one of the fighters dead or in a vegetative state. In a fight where there are no rules, no medics, and no accountability, anything goes—including homicide. There had been a sighting of a young man fleeing the warehouse in the early hours of the morning, but details were sketchy at best.

 

The article ends with the reporter’s opinion that despite the police asking for anyone who knows anything to come forward, it’s likely that this case will rest among the many unsolved crimes of the city. These fights are underground for a reason; they’re organized by people who believe themselves to be outside of the law. This wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last body found under these circumstances.

 

Adriana reads the last few lines with tears forming in her eyes. She brushes them away with her bound hands, as her mind races through all the possibilities of what she’s just read.  She looks at the date again, knowing exactly why it makes her feel feverish—hot and cold and then hot again. It was the day after she had last seen Grayson all those years ago. It was the first day he hadn’t been there to walk her home, the first of what would stretch out to be an endless number of days.

 

Grayson had said to her that she didn’t know what he was capable of, that he had left because he didn’t have anything to offer her. Even last night he had said that there was ‘more’ he needed to tell her, but she hadn’t given him the opportunity. Now, she wonders if that was because whatever he had to say it didn’t matter, that nothing he could say or do would make her feel any differently about him. Or perhaps it was because she didn’t want to hear what he needed to confess to her; perhaps she was scared of what he might say.

 

All it takes is one article for you to question everything about the man that you love, Adriana? She shakes her head in disgust at herself. She’s more willing to believe some newspaper article that was probably bogus anyway over Grayson, over the man that she fell for instantly all those years ago.

 

Grayson can’t be involved in what she’d just read; it isn’t possible. He isn’t a killer; he is a fighter. By all accounts, he’s one of the best in the state, maybe even in the whole country. But why then is he so cagey about the time he spent in Philly after he’d disappeared from her life? She thinks about all the possibilities, all the things that he’d said or omitted to say that never quite added up.

 

Just because he’s not a big talker doesn’t automatically make him a killer, Adrie, she reminds herself. But her eyes go back to the article, scanning it over and over again, searching for something that will exonerate Grayson from any wrongdoing. However, there’s no proof of any kind. It seems that no one knew what had happened to Vinnie Jones.

 

Yet, she can’t stop her hands from shaking. She tries to persuade herself that it’s just a result of being in this cold, damp basement, but she knows it’s more than that. It’s not just about the fact that she’s been assaulted, kidnapped, and hidden away in some dark hole where no one may ever find her. She’s scared and alone, but those aren’t her only concerns. It’s not just for her sake that she’s shaking. The same question goes round and round in her head, refusing to be quieted. Grayson, what did you do?