Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 79137 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79137 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
It was probably a lot nicer than any of the places I would have went for traditional detox.
That didn't make it any less of a prison.
And while Lazarus was abso-freaking-lutely a million times better looking than any drug counselor could ever be, it didn't make him any less my warden.
A warden with chains for the bed.
And there was not, was absolutely, positively not a strange, unexpected tightening of my sex at that thought. Nope. That didn't happen.
I might have been a lot of things, but I was not the kind of girl who got the hots for a guy who was holding her hostage.
I took a deep breath and moved into the kitchen, grabbing a cup of the coffee from the machine and trying to not freak out.
I lost that battle.
Though it didn't last all that long anyway, because by the time noon rolled around, I had dived headfirst into withdrawal.
And all there was was misery.
THREE
Lazarus
When I was sure she was passed out the night before, I had made the rounds in the apartment building, letting everyone know that my sister was staying with me and she was detoxing. While they were generally of the 'mind your own damn business' mindset seeing as they were all criminals themselves, I didn't trust that they wouldn't call the cops if they heard Bethany screaming about being held hostage.
"She's been messed up for long fucking enough," I lied through my teeth to the pot dealers down the hall. "It's time she cleans up before she throws her life away." That part was true enough.
"Understand, man," the guy whose name I didn't even know agreed. "We just deal herb, bud, but we know how that hard shit fucks your life up. We'll mind our business."
It was the same response from the freak who milked snakes and Barney and his wife Gerty who were forgers and the shut-in food blogger.
Drugs were an ever-increasing problem everywhere. They all got that. Especially seeing as we had heroin dealers right across the street. And, as much as they maybe weren't comfortable with the idea of a raging or crying or screaming woman, they understood that you had to do what you had to do for the ones you loved.
The sister angle was smart.
Even if they caught sight of her somehow- we were both dark-haired and dark-eyed. It was believable enough.
Once that was handled, I changed out the lock on the front door, replacing it with one that locked from the outside only. I had a chain on the inside. It was good enough. No one would break into a Henchmen's place anyway. When that was done, I nailed the windows shut.
Even if she was happy at the idea of detoxing, of getting better, it would only take a couple hours into active withdrawal for desperation to kick in. She would be climbing the fucking walls, trying to get out any way possible so she could hit the street and get another fix.
I needed to cover my bases.
That was why I was leaving right after she woke up and we talked. I needed to hit the club and talk to my brothers about trying to cover for me for a few days and then grab some groceries and clothes for her. She would sweat through anything she put on, but she needed them regardless. The longer I waited to do the errands, the worse she would be feeling, the more chance there was for her to find a way out and fall back into her habit.
I couldn't say where the compulsion came from. I wasn't the hero type. I was, in general, a let everyone live their lives type. I had been through so much shit over the course of five or six years that it had given me a new, much more laid-back outlook on life. Shit happens and it happens literally all the fucking time. If you got worked up over every little thing, you were stressed twenty-four, seven. It was easier to literally and figuratively roll with the punches.
I saw drug deals on the daily and never reported it.
I saw people snort off the bathroom counters at Hex and didn't get them kicked out even though I knew there was a 'no drugs' policy.
Very rarely did I step in.
I stopped a mugging of some poor fucking sixteen year old girl back in the City and I had told the Henchmen about people breaking into their headquarters.
That was about as heroic as I got.
I wasn't some White Knight saving the damsel in distress.
I was more like the Black Knight who all the good girls were told to stay far, far away from.
Maybe it was my own past, my own OD's, my own feeling of being completely and utterly alone in the world with no one who could even remotely understand how godawful I felt, how bad things had to be to allow me to stick a needle in my arm and shoot drugs into my veins.