A Curious Tale... 14

I cannot say how, why or when I woke up, and at the time I didn't even know where I was. It was dark, that place, very dark. It took several minutes for my eyes to adjust to it, and even when they did I couldn't see anything. I didn't mind it much though; I was still too disoriented to care. At that moment it wasn't that a flood of questions was overwhelming me. I was just extremely blank. I didn't even have any questions to ask myself.

After sitting up staring at the dark for several minutes, the first questions popped into my head – a flood of them actually, all triggered by the recollection of just one name.

Alizé! Where was she? Who was she? Why hadn't she been disturbed when the (by now my mind was full of memories) trench coats had mobbed us? Did she know them? Now the questions were threatening to tear apart my recently resumed mental processes. Not for the last time I wished Dante was with me. She would be able to make some sort of sense of it all. I just wasn't any good at any of this.

I started to grow smarter bit by bit. I mean, I usually am a pretty smart guy (though nowhere near as smart as dear but nowhere near Dante), so it goes without saying that my smarts would want to rush to my defence when the rest of me was clueless. So I started, slowly, to reason.

I had been brought to this place after being knocked out. By who? The trench coats? I tried to believe that but couldn't help remembering that the last touch I'd felt before passing out had been Alizé's. What exactly did she have to do with all of this? And why in the world had Martin put me up to this?

Right on cue, she walked in, intruding into my thoughts. I was inexplicably glad to see her. At least hers was a face I could recognise. That she was looking absolutely fabulous made it so much easier for me to just shut down and be happy to be in her presence. After we'd spent a few moments looking at one another, I realised a light had been switched on in my cell. It was a room actually, and it looked quite comfortable, even though it was sparsely furnished.

She spoke, and I immediately forgot the room.

"I'm so sorry", she said, and my world heaved once again.

"What for"

"For not being able to warn you"

"So you did know about this", I stated.

"No."

Then why was she sorry? What did she know? Or was she just lying? 

"I didn't just know, I planned it." She said.

"Ah," I said, my mind reeling.