lie to me → s.d.

.05 | friendly treatment

PANAMA
2 WEEKS AGO

Sam's brows furrowed tight and his abs burned with a fire that was getting hard to ignore as the minutes ticked by. Then again, it could have just been a number of seconds; it was hard to keep track of time with no clock on the dull stone walls, even after fifteen years in identical-looking cells. He kept his ankles locked together and exhaled a wheezing breath as he did one more sit-up before lying back on the cool concrete floor. Sweat soaked the front of his tank top, as well as the sides of his temples, and he couldn't help but groan as he sat up and moved to his respective cot attached to the side of the cell.

"Samuel," said the man standing at the iron bars.

Lying back against the smelly, dank excuse for a pillow, he closed his eyes and touched the chains keeping the bed parallel to the floor. His cellmate for around a year, Hector Alcázar, had allowed him to move up slightly in the ranks of the prisoners. He was a well-respected crime lord, a drug baron, and anyone who had the audacity to even spit in Sam's direction was found beat to a pulp the following morning. He couldn't say that he didn't mind the friendly treatment from those who used to bust his balls every other week in the courtyard.

"Yeah," he replied, his eyes remaining closed. Sleep prodded at him from the backs of his eyelids like murmurs lulling him to dreams of better days.

"Tell me that phrase again," Alcázar said. He was backlit, silhouetted against the naked lights outside the cells, illuminating the cold hallways. "The one your pirate spoke."

Eyes dragging open, Sam pursed his lips and stared upwards at the blank ceiling. The phrase was his mantra, the motto he lived by, and the day he couldn't recite it word for word would be the day he was dead. He took a breath and said, for what seemed the thousandth time that year, "'I am a man of fortune, and I must seek my fortune.'"

The drug lord never turned to face him. He remained still, as if he were made of unweathered stone, hands gripping the bars and stance wide. "Tell me what you are going to do when you leave this place."

Another repeatedly-asked question. Another answer he knew off the top of his head. "I'm goin' to find Henry Avery's treasure and the Fountain of Youth."

A long, quiet moment passed. It could have been an hour - it could have been a minute. Sam had just begun to nod off, head going limp against his shoulder, when a series of noises jerked him back to reality. He immediately stood and made his way to the bars, the light illuminating his sunken features; a few tattoos were brought into view; a royal flush on his upper left arm, a star on his left pec, a number of birds on the side of his neck. The two men stared down the hallway as far as they could, attention piqued by the odd sounds. Soon, a thunderous storm of footfalls became louder and louder.

The door leading to the row of cells opened on silent hinges and a few tall, muscular men in tactical gear and balaclavas swept in like apparitions. They located Alcázar, greeting him by name, and one unlocked the door with a ring only guards carried.

Sam took a few steps back when the foot swung open, as if he was scared to take more than a step outside his concrete and iron home. Seeming as though he could hear his heart beating like a war drum, Alcázar peered at him half-way out and revealed his face, marred with healed scars and wrinkles from long nights and stories untold. "So, Samuel," he said, and it became apparent he had known this was going to happen for a long while. "Are you ready to seek your fortune?"

The next stretch of minutes were a blur that flew past Sam's eyes like a series of race cars on a track. He was led through a series of long, winding hallways that all looked the same, past either unconscious or lifeless bodies of guards he could identify by name. A few of them, he was more than glad to see them dead. He was at some point given an automatic and empty casings were bouncing at his feet before he could even process what was happening. Then he was outside, feeling an ocean breeze on his face and ruffling his hair, not broken or muted by the walls he'd been caged in by for years on end. He was out. He was free. The sunrise had never seemed so colorful, so bright, and he nearly dropped to his knees the moment he blinked against the wind and took a good, long look at it.

The world returned to real time when Sam leaned against the interior side of a nondescript black van, one of a number of them that had arrived to rescue Alcázar. Apparently, he was still just as popular as he had been when he was captured. The man himself, his now-ex cellmate, sat opposite of him and offered up a canteen of water.

"No, thanks," said Sam and wagged a hand. A bead of sweat slipped down his brow and into his eye, and he took a short moment to wipe it away. He hadn't ridden in any kind of vehicle in fifteen years; the inside looked so futuristic he could hardly identify the make or model at all.

Alcázar insisted. "You are dehydrated." He thrust the canteen into his hands and watched him intently, squinty, stern eyes tracking his movements as he took a few large swigs. The younger man heaved a breath, obviously far more fatigued than he let on, and went back to gulping the water like he wouldn't ever be allowed any more if they were caught. When he had finished the entire container, he spoke again, his voice surprisingly even and smooth for having just escaped prison. "Now that you are free, my friend... are you going to find the treasure and the fountain?"

Resting the canteen against the wall beside him, Sam shrugged one shoulder and tried to regain his breath. "Well, hell yeah," he said. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Eventually." A stretch of silence smacked him upside the head and he went on, filling up the uneasy quiet. "I've got to get home. Grab my brother, my girl... pick up where we left off."

Alcázar's stony gaze bore into him like the end of a gun barrel, no longer full of mischief and old wisdom like they were in the time they had known one another. He looked like a whole other man, thinner, devoid of any kind of soul. Devoid of the kindness he had just given him. A Spanish command left his lips. The driver of the van turned the wheel as abruptly as it seemed possible and the passengers jostled as they pulled off the road.

"Woah, woah, wait-" Sam gasped in, clawing for breath, when the door was thrown open and the man in the passenger seat tossed him out onto the ground. By now, the sun had just barely crested the line here sea met sky, and the clouds made the stretch of horizon look like a blotted watercolor. He rolled onto his back, the side of his face covered in gravel and dirt, and held his breath as Alcázar leaned down to press a jagged blade to the base of his neck.

"You said you knew where it was," he said in a low, ground-trembling voice. It threatened to split the earth in two and swallow Sam whole. "I gave you freedom, and you lied to me."

"No, no, Hector, listen, I can find it, I swear-"

"Three months." Alcázar lifted the blade from his throat and allowed him to pull in a single breath before yanking his upper body off the ground by his collar. He was strong for such a thin man, muscles hidden deep beneath his wiry arms and hands. Eyes black in the shadow of the new sun and knuckles pale in the grasp he had on his tank top, he seemed more demonic than human in that moment. "That is how you will repay me. Half of the treasure; a cup from the fountain. If you run from me, I will find you. I'll let your brother bleed out; I'll have your woman in front of you and then kill her. And then-" if it was possible, he leaned his face closer, so that Sam could feel the warmth of his sour breath -"I will kill you slow where no one will hear you scream. You understand?"

Sam yelped a grunt when he was dropped back to the ground, and his vision wobbled unsteadily as a wad of cash and another canteen of water were shoved into his hands. Short of breath and feeling a head-banging wave of nausea washing over him, he looked up and saw that the caravan of black cars were already speeding back onto the road. They moved quick, becoming ants against the horizon before completely disappearing.

He was left on the Panama roadside, on his knees, completely, utterly terrified.