Book 2: Bad News

Dante

I open my eyes to see a popcorn ceiling overhead. Before I can finish thinking how much I fucking hate popcorn ceilings, a pain like I’ve never felt before rips through my chest. I grunt and try to twist away from it. My cheek meets a plastic couch cover, and I recoil.

Where the fuck am I?

Glancing around as much as I can without agitating whatever’s going on in my chest yields little. Puke-brown walls. The back of the couch I seem to be laying on, a grandmotherly floral print.

Popcorn fucking ceilings. I inhale and smell…soup? Chicken soup, I think, and medicinal alcohol.

None of this makes any goddamn sense, and I feel like shit. My mouth is dry like I got blackout drunk and collapsed in someone’s shithole apartment, but I haven’t done that since college. Getting that drunk is just offering my enemies an opportunity at this point. But I can’t piece enough memories together to come up with another idea.

Finally, I grit my t