9
A noxious, distant klaxon made Dale crack an eye.
The morning light seeping through a gap in the heavy curtain nailed the eyelid open.
Dale’s tongue tasted like raw meat left on the kitchen counter overnight. In August. The lumps in the mattress had migrated into his back. Sometime in the night he’d thrown the coarse sheet down, his slow nocturnal kicks and flops twisting the burlap-like cotton into manacles.
He rolled an aching arm over to the desk where he’d plugged in his phone to charge.
Six forty-five AM. Fifteen minutes before his own alarm went off.
On the other side of the suite’s thin wall, someone groaned.
Warren Lash? Had to be.
The klaxon silenced.
Star Trek, Dale thought through the sleep oozing through his brain. Red alert. Original series.
At least Lash had taste
