Chapter 2
The Cure Is the Poison
The hospital room was high-end and sterile. The rhythmic beeping of a heart monitor cut through the air. Driver Lam sat in the corner calmly peeling an apple with a pocket knife, a long red spiral of peel falling to the floor. Thomas sat propped in the bed, no suit, no tie, only a thin wrinkled white undershirt. He was not resting. He was enduring. Head thrown back against the pillows, sweat glistening on his forehead, hair matted, neck tendons corded with tension. Shallow, jagged breaths. He was not restrained, yet he sat like a prisoner who had accepted his cage.
The door creaked open. A doctor in his fifties entered with a clipboard. Thomas did not look up. He knew the routine. Automatically he rolled up his sleeve for the blood pressure cuff, presenting his arm like an offering.
“How’s the head today, Thomas? The usual noise?”
“Just make it stop,” Thomas answered, voice flat.
The doctor handed him a paper cup with two blue pills. Thomas swallowed them without hesitation, then opened his mouth and lifted his tongue without being asked. The doctor checked and nodded.
“Good. We’ll have you stabilized in a week. Just like last time.”
The doctor left. The door clicked shut. Thomas lay back, pulling the covers up. Three seconds of silence.
“Boss…”
Thomas did not move.
“Mrs. Lloyd…”
Lam held out the phone. Selena was video-calling. Thomas exhaled a long, slow breath that sounded like the last air leaving a balloon. He opened his eyes, took the phone, answered, and angled it so she could see his face.
“Hey!”
On the screen Selena paced, genuinely terrified.
“Tom! Oh my god. Lam said you collapsed. I’m booking a flight. I’m coming right now.”
“No, no. Selena, look at me. Look at me.” He forced a weak, reassuring smile. “I’m okay. It was just the heat. And the jet lag, that’s all. You don’t have to come here.”
“Are you sure? You promise? You’re not seeing things again, right?”
A micro-second pause. The image of the woman in the car flashed through his mind.
“No. No visions. Just tired.”
“Rest. Don’t do anything. Just sleep.”
“You need some sleep too. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Take care of yourself. I love you, Tom.”
Thomas froze. He looked at the woman who had held his empire together when he could not. Gratitude softened his eyes, but passion remained absent.
“Go to sleep, Selena.”
A hesitant pause.
“… Okay. Bye.”
The screen went black. The smile dropped from his face like a stone. Exhaustion returned tenfold. He handed the phone back to Lam without a word, turned his head to the wall, and closed his eyes, welcoming the void.
At three in the morning the night nurse entered with the medication tray, yawning. Thomas lay in a deep, coma-like sleep. Too tired to wake him, she whispered, “Just take it when you wake up,” and left the cup of two blue pills on the nightstand beside the water jug.
At four-thirty Thomas stirred, thirsty. Still half-asleep and uncoordinated, he blindly reached for the jug. His hand clumsily swiped the nightstand. The paper cup flew off. The two blue pills scattered onto the floor and rolled under the bed frame into the dust. He blinked down at them, too drugged and exhausted to care. He groaned, ignored the pills, drank straight from the jug, and fell back onto the pillow, unmedicated.
Dawn light bled through the blinds. Thomas shifted. His face twisted. Eyes snapped open. A sharp, fierce migraine tore through the fog like a high-voltage surge splitting his skull.
“Argh…”
He sat up, clutching his temples, waiting for the usual numbness. It never came. Instead a flood of clarity rushed in.
A split-second flash: autumn leaves, the park bench, the boy’s abyssal black eyes, the woman’s terrified face in the car window. High-definition. Vivid. Real.
Thomas panted, looking around the room. The world looked sharper. Colors brighter. He looked down at the floor. The two blue pills still lay gathering dust. He touched his head. The pain was terrible, but his mind was finally his own again. A seed of suspicion took root.
Morning of day two. Bright sunlight flooded the room. The doctor entered, cheerful and slick, Lam following.
“Rise and shine, Mr. Lloyd.”
Thomas sat on the edge of the bed, shoulders slumped, head hanging low, falling back into yesterday’s posture.
“My head… It’s easier now,” he said, voice flat, acting.
“See? That means the meds are working. Withdrawals are tricky. Here.”
The doctor handed him the morning dose. Thomas tossed the pills into his mouth, drank water, swallowed audibly, and opened his mouth to show an empty tongue.
“Good.”
The doctor patted his shoulder and left with Lam. The moment the door clicked shut the dead look vanished. Sharp, calculating awareness flooded Thomas’s eyes. He rushed to the en-suite bathroom, leaned over the sink, gagged and coughed until the blue sludge forced its way up. He spat it into the sink and washed it away ferociously.
That night the night nurse watched him toss the pills into his mouth and swallow water.
“Sleep well, sir.”
The door closed. Thomas sat up immediately, spat the pills into his hand, wrapped them in tissue, and stuffed them deep inside the pillowcase. He lay back, gripping the sheets, sweating as withdrawal began.
“Come on… come on…”
Morning of day three. Thomas sat on the floor, leaning against the bed, pale, shaking, sweat-drenched. Wide awake. Terrifyingly alert. The headache was a sledgehammer.
Flash: the car window rolling down, the woman’s face no longer a silhouette. Red mole on her neck. Terror in her eyes. Engine revving.
“Tracy!”
He crawled to the hidden stash, held a blue pill up to the light. The realization hit with cold, hard horror.
“It’s not the sickness… it’s the cure.”
That night he sat in bed with a laptop open, phone on speaker so Lam could hear.
“Nancy, tell Dave the merger documents are signed. And tell my wife I feel much better.”
He hung up and glanced at Lam.
“Happy now?”
Lam looked relaxed, feet up, texting on his own phone.
A young janitor quietly emptied the trash bin, trying to be invisible. Thomas watched Lam through the glass pane of the door, standing in the hallway talking on his phone, distracted. Thomas slid off the bed, opened the bedside drawer, and took out a platinum Patek Philippe watch. He stepped behind the janitor.
“Hey…”
The janitor jumped, nearly dropping the bag.
“Sorry, sir! I’m leaving…”
Thomas held up the watch. It caught the light. The janitor’s eyes widened.
“Do you know what this is?”
“A… a watch?”
“It’s worth fifty thousand dollars. It’s yours.”
The janitor looked from the watch to Thomas, suspicious.
“What do you want? I ain’t killing nobody.”
Thomas slid the watch into the janitor’s pocket while Lam remained distracted.
“I need a phone. A burner, prepaid, local SIM card.”
The janitor, wide-eyed, nodded.
“Trash gets taken out again at 6 AM tomorrow. I’ll bring it then. Hid in the bottom of a new bin liner.”
He hurried out just as Lam entered, looking annoyed. Thomas was already sitting on the bed, staring at a laptop screensaver. A faint cold smile touched his lips.
Six in the morning of day four. Lam dozed in the chair, magazine over his face. The janitor entered with a fresh bin liner, nervous. Thomas pretended to work on the laptop. The janitor moved to the trash, lifted the old bag, placed the new liner, and tapped the side of the bin twice.
“Bottom. Under the paper,” he whispered.
Thomas gave a microscopic nod. The janitor left. Lam snorted awake, saw nothing amiss, and went back to sleep.
In the bathroom Thomas locked the door, turned on the faucet to mask sound, pulled out the cheap burner phone, powered it up, and dialed a number from memory.
“It’s me. Don’t use my name. Keep it off the books.”
“It’s been a long time. You got a job?”
“I need you to find a woman.”
“Name?”
“I don’t have a name. Not a current one.” He paused, visualizing. “And look for a boy about four years old, mixed race. Start with the Kindergarten near the Niagara Wine Region.”
“A kid? A woman? And that’s all you got?”
“He was picked up in a Black Sedan today. Ontario plates… the woman was in the car.”
“Okay. I’m listening.”
“She looks like Tracy.”
“Consider it done.”
Thomas hung up and hid the phone inside the ventilation cover.
The next morning the doctor shone a penlight into Thomas’s eyes. Pupils responsive. Heart rate normal. No complaints of headaches.
“I feel… more stable.”
“Excellent. The episode has passed. You’re cleared for discharge, Mr. Lloyd. But keep taking the medication.”
Thomas smiled, polite and hollow.
“I wouldn’t dare stop.”
In the moving car Lam drove while Thomas held his official phone, speaking to Selena.
“I’m out. Lam is taking me to the office.”
“That’s good news, darling. But are you sure? Maybe you should rest at the hotel for another week. The board meeting can wait.”
Thomas’s jaw tightened. He looked out at the passing vineyard.
“Selena, I’m not a pet. Stop trying to cage me for ‘my own good’.”
A sigh on the other end.
“Don’t be dramatic. We’re just worried. You know how you get… confused sometimes.”
“I know you’re worried. But please stop the surveillance, Selena. Or I’ll give the board something real to worry about.”
Silence. He had hit a nerve. He hung up before she could reply and tossed the phone onto the seat, seething. Lam glanced in the rearview mirror, nervous.
In Selena’s room she stared at her phone, annoyed, like a mother whose obedient child had just talked back. She immediately dialed another number.
“Dave…”
In Dave’s office overlooking the Thames, Dave leaned back, smiling as he signed documents.
“Sel?”
“He’s out. And he’s feisty. He snapped at me about the surveillance. He sounds… different.”
Dave chuckled, unconcerned.
“It’s just the stress. Don’t worry, Selly.”
He glanced at a surveillance screen showing the GPS of Thomas’s car moving toward the Canadian branch office.
“Maybe I should fly out to Canada? Just for a few days, to keep an eye on him. Make sure he’s okay.”
“No need for the transatlantic fuss, darling. Thomas will be back in London soon enough. The job there is nearly finished.”
He hung up, confident.
In the car Thomas looked at the back of Lam’s head. A vibration against his thigh. He froze, glanced at the rearview mirror. Lam’s eyes were on the traffic. Carefully he slid the burner phone from his pocket, keeping it low and hidden by his coat. One new message. He did not rush to open it. He slid the phone back, looked up at the rearview mirror, and locked eyes with Lam’s reflection.
Thomas smiled. Cold.
— End of Chapter 2 —