Stuck in a foreign country, penny-less, heartbroken, emotionally volatile with booze to numb the pain... my bosses were not so straight and narrow.

Remember how I was telling you about the time I accidentally got myself trapped working in a drug/murder/mystery circus down in Dominican Republic? It's time for more of that story.

If you’ve been following along, you can skip ahead... if you're new here and you want to hear me spill my secrets of a time of drug running on the ocean, international murder, emergency escape plans, damsels-in-distress, rogue alter-egos/impersonators and overall life experience gone a-wall, read on. I’ll link back the previous chapters to catch you up in case you get addicted to the thrill of it! ;)

Last time we ended here:

Our search party had found us.

Just in time for my throat to close up and the hives to spread all over my body. Ceasing up, and my lungs constricting, I started to feel flushed out by heat, then came everyone's voices and hands on me as my eyes closed and darkness overtook my memory.

When I woke up, I was sleeping on a white couch in a white apartment that smelled muggy and filthy.

I recognized the surroundings but as I blinked and tried to place myself, a scruffy, wet, horrible smelling tongue ran itself over my lips.

Oh no!

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What a miserable experience to end up in again. Why is it that alcohol makes us forget the last rotten time and instead manages to zoom in only on the fun, happy, pleasure-filled moments, encouraging the behavior?

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I am sure by now you are all shaking your head at my wildly aggressive alter-ego Kat thinking "how can she keep ending up in the same trouble over and over again?"... "when is she going to learn?"

Well, if you are thinking that, good! That's exactly the point I am trying to make sure I stress to you! In hindsight, I feel the exact same way, and find myself wincing the whole way through this experience as my memory revisits it but oddly enough, at the time, none of this was sinking in. I was too convinced it couldn't be real to fully consider any consequences and so I kept finding myself reliving the same mistakes.

I close my eyes and can still remember the haze through my vision, the hives on my skin, the musty air, the goop of slime on my lip that tasted like leftover pepperoni pizza.

My throat felt thin... like it had shrunk in size and couldn't handle the amount of space the air was trying to take up in it.

Breathing proved difficult and my head was throbbing to the beat of my heart. I tried to pull myself up but instead, my heavy head rejected my will and plunked itself back into the pillow.

The sun shone furiously through the window and into the slits of my eyes which were desperately searching for answers. All I could make out was the brown fur of the pizza-stained tongue in question.

Suddenly it all clicked! I knew that tongue. It was Kyle's dog which meant, I was at his apartment!

Oh how I wished I would have ended up anywhere else!

Letting my memory stir up the last of what happened before I ended up here, I realized that I was dealing with a party of factors against me. For starters, the squid! I am knowingly allergic to the sea creatures and inevitably get really sick when I come into contact so the nauseousness, hives and dizziness could all be familiarly attributed to that unfortunate contamination.

Next, I was quite obviously dehydrated and there was no water in my line of sight so that was slightly problematic as it felt like my mouth was brittle with sand.

What was worse than either of those things, was I was definitely going to be in for a unwelcome treat whenever the bosses showed up due to my little escape party with Em.

But did I feel remorse? No... Did I feel shame? No... Did I feel guilty? No... Did I feel like I had done anything wrong or owed anyone anything? No... So, I was calmly accepting of whatever was to come. Too tired and woozy to really put any thought into it. Instead, I simply let my eyes droop back down into sleep mode and my mind turn off as I dazed away into a hazy slumber.

I'm a light sleeper to a fault so when the guys came barreling through the hallway downstairs, they startled me awake. I heard them yelling at each other as they made their way to the top floor and once they got outside the door, they started encouraging silence.

"Shhhh... everyone shut the F*&% up! If anyone wakes her up, I'm gunna F%#&ing lose it! Got me?"

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That was unmistakably Kyle but who was he talking to?

I decided in that moment to play dead, not making a sound or movement at all, no matter what. So when they came in, I lay frozen, lifeless, completely motionless.

A lot of their whispering was mumbled and hard to translate. There was some Spanish thrown in and a whole boat load of curse words littered throughout the conversation.

I ended up being able to make out that Kyle was talking to James and someone else but I didn't know who the someone else was.

It wasn't Em...Was it Adam?

"She's going to get us caught man!"

"This is the worst sh*t! We don't need this right now!"

"Her f*^%ing boyfriend?!"

"So what?"

"I know the dude man! He's nuts! They train them to be crazy as f*&%^!"

"He's going to show up here to get her? Who let her have her f*&^%ing phone?"

"What do we do boss? She's gunna be super f*&%ing sick today with all those pills we gave her."

"She'll be fine. We gave it to her before!"

"Ya but look at her. Her skin looks like it's glowing white or something. Em said she had some other meds before they started drinking... you don't think she'll be f&%ed up do you? You know like OD or some s&%?"

"If she was going to OD it already would have happened. Check on her, will ya? See if she's breathing... It would be easier if she wasn't!"

Sh*t! Someone was about to come touch me! I tried to mimic a turtle and will myself into a safe shell. I envisioned becoming small and began slowing my breathing down to a light, soft, barely audible in and out. Maybe I could fake dead and they would try to leave me somewhere.

That wouldn't be good actually. They would probably dump me off one of the boats, then I would be gone forever, only to be picked up with the next batch at sea. Forget that. Just stay calm. Don't move. Keep your eyes shut.

I stayed still and let the callused hand check my neck for a pulse. Given that I was breathing so slowly, he didn't feel it at first and all hell broke loose as they started to panic.

"SHE'S NOT BREATHING!"

I recognized that voice as James'. After he announced this, the whole room went silent.

"OK Kyle show is over! I know you brought me here as some part of your little rodeo circus game you're running but I ain't buying it. She's fine and you still owe me you piece of s*&^%. Bring me over here to show me some half dead girl you drugged up to try to scare me?"

An unfamiliar voice floated into my ears and the person belonging to it came over to me and started prodding me for signs of life. I decided to let out a little sigh so they would know I was alive but assume I was still deeply knocked out and leave me alone.

"See? She's fine. Now you two, you are not so fine. Tell me what the deal is with her boyfriend or whatever and stop wasting my time with your bull s*&%^."

"Last night, she went up to the roof to get some air. She she she was sick from the allergic reaction or whatever the f&% was going on with that red s&% on her face so we gave her water with some of the s&% in it to knock her out. She took it upstairs with her then we heard her talking so I sent Em up to check on her. She was up there all f&%$ed up on Skype with her boyfriend back home."

"Why does that concern me? So she called her boyfriend? What's that have to do with anything?"

"Well, he's in the military and he's a pretty big dude."

"James! I don't have all f*&%$ing day! What the f&%$ do you want?"

"She told him everything Chris... he knows and he said he's coming to get her."

"I'm literally going to rip your head off of your body you incompetent..."

A vicious smack pierced the air and I could only imagine that our mystery man (who we just found out was infamous Chris) had smacked James across the face.

"I'm sorry boss."

"Let's just get her out of here. Bring her to her apartment. You two better treat her like a f*&%ing angel so she trusts you and doesn't bring her God damn boyfriend down here. Take her out to dinner... get Em to suck up to her... just figure it out and you better fix this or you will wish you never stepped foot on this island."

I heard the door close after that and figured Chris had made his exit. I was right in that assumption because I could hear James and Kyle talking alone after it.

"You know this is Em's fault right? You're going to deal with it so help me James!"

The door slammed again.

This time, I decided that I needed to make a move so that I could get out of that apartment. With the sound of the door shattering the air of the apartment, I stretched one arm up and yawned a little.

James approached me and in one swoop had me up over his shoulder and down the stairs we began. In my mind I was just praying he was taking me to my own bed and luckily that's what happened. He placed me in my bed then shut the door and left. I heard a lot of ruckus outside the door and then in a moment, he was gone.

I had been holding in my tears the whole time but now, alone, I let them flood my face.

I desperately searched my mind for memory of what happened the night before but I kept coming up blank. They kept talking about me calling my 'boyfriend'... obviously they meant 'ex-boyfriend' as in the guy who had left me broken hearted and the same one who I was down here trying to forget about.

Would I have called him? Most likely, definitely.

Well this was going to be interesting. If he was actually coming to save me, my life was about to be a blissful ceremony of gratitude! But how would I know? My phone! I searched around frantically only to find that I didn't have it on me.

I flung myself onto my bed and tried my best to just stay calm, close my eyes, and sleep off the incredible pain in my temples but it wasn't working. I kept staring at the door. Would it be locked? I slowly slunk my way up to it, turned the handle and realized, it was open.

I walked out of my room, into the apartment and looked around. Could I risk leaving? I had my laptop, I could reach out back home and see what was going on if I could just make it to the internet cafe.

I remembered Chris telling James and Kyle to butter me up (therefore not threaten me) so I decided I would play ignorant and go get some lunch.

I put my computer in my bag and started walking to the cafe. It was blistering hot and the hangover from not only the rum but their candy concoction of sleeping inducers they gave me were wreaking havoc on my will to keep walking all the way into town but I managed not very gracefully, but I got there.

I quickly set my computer up and went to order a breakfast sandwich and some water so if anyone saw me, I would have an alibi.

I opened Skype and started clicking call like my life depended on it!

"Hey are you OK?"

A grumbled, half asleep voice brought comfort to my ears. He answered!

"Are you coming to get me?"

There was a pause and then a very uncomfortable sounding tone.

"No babe. James told me you're all good, just stressing out. You're fine right? Just a big night, ya?"

I wanted to smash my computer into the ground.

"What do you mean am I fine? No I am NOT fine! I need to get out of here! It's crazy... you don't even understand just please, please help me!"

I started looking around me and realized there were heart decorations everywhere... then I looked at the calendar and then I started balling my eyes out like the world had just ended.

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"Babe... we talked about this. This could be so good for you. What's wrong?"

I couldn't believe it was Valentine's Day (my favorite holiday) and here I was, sitting at a cyber cafe, half way across the world, in s*&% tons of trouble with my bosses and my ex boyfriend was here on Skype telling me to keep it together.

I could not contain myself anymore and so I began projectile vomiting all of my emotions onto him. Through sobbing, jerky internet interruptions and occasional inability to breath, I managed to explain that I was in fact not OK and needing to come home and with that, hoping to come home to him.

"Babe I really wish you would give this all another chance. James is a super great guy. I think you're just projecting your feelings about us onto this. You could be having so much fun. You don't need to come back here... just stick it out. You'll get over it in no time. You're already down there. If you end up really needing to get out of there, you can call me and I'll book you a flight back OK. Just give it a shot."

"Ya. Sure. Whatever. OK. Thanks."

That's what I get after professing my undying love for your cheating ass. Well, the hell with you then.

I shut my computer, scarfed down my sandwich and headed back to my apartment more confused, hurt and alone than ever.

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If you're following along, you know how I react to sadness and/or heartbreak so you might be able to guess what's coming... or will I end up surprising you? Wait and see!

If you've yet to read the series, here is the introduction, Welcome to DR, Part 1

Trying to Make Sense of Everything Going Wrong in Part 2
My Confusion and Panic in Part 3
My favourite, The Reveal (of the Terrifying Secret) Part 4.
An Intro to Kat Part 4.5
The More You Know Part 5
Kat Gone Wild Part 6
Kyle's Prisoner, Part 7
Adam's Drunken Incrimination Party, Part 8
Jailbreak, Part 9
Em's Perspective Part 10
They Found Us Part 11

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If you're hanging by a thread and want to know the moment the next part is published, let me know in the comments and I will keep you updated!

The end is near.

Is it a good ending or is it bad? I'll let you decide.

I hope you stick around to read what happens next. I'm baring my secrets to the world and it feels so... naked! I swore I would deny this stuff for my whole life. I hope my mum never gets her hands on this! If you're asking yourself how the hell I got here, check out the links to the first chapters to catch up!

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A gypsy life bought to you by @heart-to-heart
From January 2014 I have been what you would call a vagabond, a nomad, even a gypsy by definition of the words. I had what they all have in common: no fixed home...and no fixed income but the wildest stories.

Until next time,

XO,
😘

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