The Great Below

The Sleeping Pills

Sleeping was useless. She'd abandoned and pushed it off for several nights, trying to fill the restless hours like daytime, studying and pacing the periphery of her cramped room. At other times, sleep was hard to resist; as if when she curled into her squirrel's nest of blankets next to the heat register just to get warm, she slipped into a darker reality just beneath the concrete. Another unwelcome place, just a few floors beneath her room. When she lost focus and let go, even for a moment, she sank through the floor and found herself there.

Her training was a facade, a diet book purchased on New Year's Day. It looked productive and promising and useful, but she had no real intentions of using it.

She'd used all of the pills. She found uses for the empty, plastic bottle. She kicked it around the room or played catch with it to keep busy, but tonight she'd taken each of the five pills Doctor Townsend had reluctantly given her. Sleep was coming. The bed was even more ominous then. She wouldn't be able to separate the light, restless sleep that plunged her into the imaginary sub-basement and the deep, dream-filled sleep that waited underneath like a black ocean floor.

Her door opened.

Octavia scrambled up from the blankets, grabbing the first thing she could fashion into a weapon. She gripped the base of her lamp, pulling until the cord went taut.

"What are you doing?" Alex asked.

She sighed, unwelcome adrenaline pumping in her gut. "You scared me."

"Why are you sleeping over there?"

"I'm not sleeping. Not yet. What are you doing here?"

Alex closed the door and came over to her nest, where she leaned back stiffly against the pillows. The prescription was doing its job, but too fast, and all she could do was sink into the covers and hope that he came in peace. "I want to apologize," he said. He was more dressed-down than she'd ever seen him, in a band t-shirt, jeans and sneakers. His hair was pulled back, but here and there a few soft strands escaped. When he crouched next to her, his collar shifted to reveal a necklace with a tarnished coin hanging from it.

It was hard to concentrate. Had she been angry with him? "What did you do?" she asked.

"I should have told you about Victor right away, when you first told me you thought he was dead. It wasn't right to keep it from you."

She nodded, unsure if she was supposed to agree or disagree. The sleeping pills were strong. Then up from her middle came a gush of emotion, a clenching in her esophagus. "I want to trust you," she told him.

His look of concern intensified. "Did you take one of the pills Brian gave you?" When she didn't answer right away, he began to search the room, hands roaming the edges of the bare mattress, the dresser drawers. He found the empty bottle in the last place she'd kicked it – under the bed frame. Alex returned to her side on the floor, giving the orange bottle a small, soundless shake. "Wait. You took all of them?"

"I waited as long as I could," she said. Then, seeing Alex right in front of her, she feared the black ocean floor more than ever. He was a beacon of safety; he could have helped her stay up for most of another night or so, all she would have had to do was ask. She should have held onto the pills a little longer, savored them. She reached out with both arms and circled his neck, afraid of the grogginess that threatened to pull her into the blankets and below.

"Did you take them all at once?" Alex asked against the crook of her neck. He put his arms around her back, pulling her close, and she inhaled the scent of cedar and mint. He was much warmer than the vent she'd been cuddling up to, but the heat only amplified her sleepiness.

She pulled back just enough to rub her cheek, her lips, against the stubble on his neck. He wouldn't like it. Ever the righteous Boy Scout, he suppressed a gasp, but she held on tight, flexing the muscles of her arms and fighting to stay awake, pulling him closer until he fell onto both his knees. Kisses, against his neck. She could win him over. He would help. Even his scent was reassuring; it could pull her back from the threat of sleep. But then, he was fighting it. She felt his chest rising and falling in a new rhythm, and he'd gone tense in an attempt to deny the effect she had on him. She opened her mouth and ran her tongue over the soft skin of his neck, tasting the sting of his cologne. "Help me," she moaned. "I don't want to sleep."

He kissed her. It frightened her at first, the crushing grip he had on her, but then she yielded, letting his hands slide up her shoulders, against her throat and into her hair. He wasn't a Boy Scout, after all. His tongue brushed against hers. The heat in her stomach was more than the sleep-inducing magic of the pills; it was a long-absent ache that spread as far as her knees. Her grip on him weakened, though she hadn't intended it to. Alex held on tight in her stead.

"Help me stay awake," she said, when he released her. She struggled to open her eyes wide, but the light of the room was winking out.

"That's what I'm afraid of," he said, panting. Words echoing in the darkness. "I can't."

#

"Did she take the pill?" Nick asked. He'd been wearing a path in the floor, pacing the hallway back and forth while Alex had gone in to check on her, but it had taken longer than expected. He stopped, black sneakers squeaking, when he saw Alex coming out with Octavia limp in his arms.

"She took all of them," he replied.

"Oh." Nick was struggling with the pressure; having never been a primary trainer for a new employee before, he wasn't accustomed to being judged by the performance of someone else. And never with anyone as unpredictable as Octavia. "Townsend said they're only, like, ten milligrams. A few extra pills shouldn't do her any harm."

Alex sighed. "Maybe he predicted it."

Nick looked down at the figure splayed in Alex's arms, then reached to fold her arms together over her chest. "So what's the problem?"

"Nothing, it's just – who takes five pills when the label says one?"

Nick shrugged, leading the way to the stairwell. "Someone who hates being awake," he said. "Be glad he didn't give her twenty." They trudged upstairs to the Infirmary, past rooms that had already emptied for the night.

Once there, Alex handed her off to Nick so he could go get changed. "You remember what I said about the handcuffs and everything?" he asked.

"Yeah, I've got it." Nick pushed open the door at the rear of the Infirmary with his shoulder, backing in. "I suppose I don't have to hurry, do I? How long will these take to wear off?"

"Just set her up and go get Brian. He might have something to counteract the pills."

Nick vanished inside and left Alex alone with the stainless steel counters and cots. He retrieved a black sweatshirt from their pile on the doctor's desk, baggy enough to hide his build, and tried to relax. The truth was, when he closed his eyes too long, he could imagine it – his uncle's hand closing over the back of her neck hard enough to leave the marks he'd seen. It didn't matter how many days had passed, or how many harmless conversations he'd had with Dominic since. Even with the marks gone, the mental image stuck with him. He went to Townsend's fridge, removing the five-pound bag of gas station ice they'd purchased. He found the bucket he'd left near the sink and dumped the ice inside.

Alex wasn't innocent either, a realization that had been festering for most of the week. On the night Octavia had almost stayed with him, he'd left his own marks on her. It was an accident, those tiny, finger-like bruises. She had been having a nightmare and he'd woken her with a shake. It had been more difficult than he'd expected.

He put the bucket under the tap and filled it until he had a crackling slush. It wasn't even over, his cruelty, because he had to be tougher still. Alex had the unwanted opportunity to reenact a scene from the life of a man he despised. And when this was over, she'd hate him again. But then, she would have to hate him. If he was good at this, she would hate him to save her own life.