Venice Tom would like to try to escape, put up a fight, but he's been shot so full of sedatives that it's impossible for him to even move.
His skin feels strangely numb, almost as though it's humming, a sensation that makes him guess he's been spiked with something like Propofol or Diprivan.
He's made enough care visits to hospital wards and palliative clinics to understand he's going to be physically useless for some time. Weak as a kitten. Maybe even unconscious at times. He'll also be vulnerable to hypnotism and possibly suffer hallucinations.
He uses what senses he still has to work out where he is. There's no freshness to the air. If he can pick up anything, it's a musty feel. His eyes are still burning from the pepper spray and he can't see. There's some form of bandage over them, but he can tell they haven't cleaned his eyelids properly and the pepper has soaked painfully through the pores.
Someone knocks against him, or at least against the stretcher or bed that he's lying on.
He can hear mumblings a few feet away and knows it will now only be seconds before he slips into a world of sleep.
A blessing.
Given the agenda of whoever has kidnapped him, sleep seems a merciful manner of restraint.
Unless.
In the remaining seconds of consciousness, Tom's mind spins out a thousand reasons why someone would want to sedate him.
To prevent him escaping.
To ensure he doesn't make noises or attack them.
To abuse him.
To kill him.
Sacrifice him.
Perhaps whoever has abducted him is planning to cut out his liver and pin it to some famous Venetian altar.
Thoughts to drive you crazy. Thank God for the sedative.
Tom considers all the options, as calmly as a kid with a box of chocolates, torn between picking a nougat or caramel cream.
The voices around him grow fuzzy. He can no longer discern male from female, let alone figure out who's in charge and what they might have in mind.
Blackness reaches out and pulls him into its sticky depths. Tom's last fleeting hope is that it's not going to be for ever. They still need him alive. For now.