If God wanted you to have a hole in your tongue he’d have put one there.

Don’t eat that, you’ll get worms!

That word had resurfaced in the steam on the mirror: OBSIDEO.

Don’t mind if I do, I thought absurdly, and then came that dopey laugh again. The brain-dead chortle that comes from sniffing too much glue. As though there’s such a thing as moderation when it comes to sniffing glue.

Who knows how long I’d been gone at this point? Was it still technically Saturday night? Or had I been missing long enough for Cassie to file a police report? Was that what had landed Caspian in the interrogation room? And, if so, what did that say about my odds of getting out of here? Would the psycho behind all this be willing to release me when he already had a suspect for my disappearance? My death?

What was it Malia had said? I’m still stuck in this thing. I don’t even know how long now.

Well, this had gone on long enough for me. I turned the water from hot to cold, waited for it to go frigid, then splashed my face, bracing against the shock. Again and again and again and again, my clouded mind clearing with each application. I felt my anger rising, breathing heavily now. This was the rage I’d once manufactured before taking the stage as a member of the Rising Dead. Pumping it from a well I thought had dried up. A vile organ gone dormant. Regressing to a primal state. Slathering aggression – wide eyes, strained neck, snarling. The twenty-something-year-old me who had smashed his balled fist into his best friend’s face. Kicked holes in hotel walls for no reason. Worked crowds into swarms of frenzied chaos. I wouldn’t lie down. Would not be cowed. It was time to rise.

Water dripped from my chin as I pushed through the door. Nearly bumping into Malia, who was standing in the hallway. She had retired the nurse costume and was now in street clothes. Blue platform shoes, sheer black hose, plaid kilt, Black Sabbath concert tee, hair parted and tied in pigtails.

“There you are.” A steel tongue stud glinted through her wide smile. “What, did you take a bath?”

I shoved past her, marched toward the bar ready to bloody whoever I found there. Wouldn’t be the first time I’d thrown fists in this place. Won some, lost some. Not that anyone really wins that fool’s game.