The Serbian grabbed Lucky's gun and stumbled away. Once he had the weapon ready, it wouldn't matter what I said next. Nothing would keep him from trying to kill us.
My redheaded prize was still yanking at me to escape. I didn't have the time to make her understand I was her only option. Throwing her over my shoulder, I dashed towards the exit. This time, the door opened real easy for me.
Guess I'd made the right choice after all.
I thought about Tash and my weak spot for junkies. It was only then that I smiled at how insane this all was.
“No, please... Need to stay...” she protested as I loaded her onto my bike. She was further down the rabbit hole than I thought.
“Don't worry, I'm sure you'll find a new dealer somewhere else.” I started the bike as the Serbian smashed through the front doors. Luckily for us, I always backed my bike into spots when I arrived at places, just in case something like this happened. It made driving off so much quicker.
He licked off a pair of gunshots, but his aim must've still been foggy from the pistol whip; they both went harmlessly wide.
“Hold on tight!” I yelled behind me as the bike's squealing tires blasted us out of the parking lot.
The road ahead was about to get a little bumpy.
Chapter Three
Flora
My world was a grotesque painting that had been scrubbed with Vaseline. Every color swam between too bright or depressingly dull, faces contorting while voices warbled as if I was at the bottom of the sea.
I didn't know how much time had passed since I'd come head to head with Fiddle. More than just hours, possibly more than a few days. I had a hazy memory of being shoved into a car trunk, of hands pulling me and pushing me and never leaving me alone.
Someone had spoken to me briefly, early on. I couldn't recall his face, just his cruel smile as he plunged a needle deep into my arm. “Relax, sweetie,” he'd cooed at me. “You'll grow to love the taste of this. All the girls do.”
The hot burn of the new drug woke me up, slamming into my veins and keeping me perched on a cloud. I felt fantastic, and distantly, I knew I should hate that. Thinking was a chore, though, and my hope of focusing became a mere whisper on the wind the longer my torture continued.
Time was nothing but clear; slippery. Hungry eyes watched me, fingers probing even as I fought at them. I'd been trussed up, I remembered that, the ache in my shoulders a dull reminder. Soon, I was so lost in the heroin that they stopped bothering to tie me down. By then, I'd joined the others—women who huddled with me in the dark, our bones rattling as we shook inside the back ends of trucks, driving to who knew where.
It wasn't until I'd come down from my high, enough to start recognizing words again, that I finally heard something that cleared the jelly from my brain.
“Yeah,” the fat man was laughing. “Soon as we get these bitches inspected by Lucky, we'll ship them off. It's crazy how many they want, our last batch arrived there about two weeks back.”
Last batch...
Inside my coat, a piece of clothing I'd been amazed I'd gotten to keep, a flicker of warmth began to grow. Chunks of who I was and why I was here fitted together again. Fiddle, the drugged drink, my missing sister...
Was I being sent to where Claudine was? Was that it?
A hand shoved me forward. I stumbled, bouncing into a half-naked girl with dead eyes. “Keep fucking moving,” the fat man growled. “We got shit to do tonight.”
I didn't care how pissed he was. I didn't care how I was shivering from my first taste of withdrawal; the needles had stopped coming since last night. I didn't care that I was being lined up inside a filthy, strange looking building with every eye creeping over me.
The only thing that mattered was waiting for me at the end of this wretched path.
Claudine. I'm coming for you!
I was dizzy, and I could hardly move my swollen tongue, but dear god... for the first time since she'd vanished...
I was happy.
And then it all changed. Without me doing a damn thing, my situation slipped away from me. It happened so fast, I couldn't have seen it coming.
A man I didn't know—had never even seen before—had decided to play hero.
Horrified through my shrinking haze, I watched as the stranger attacked the man he'd been playing cards with. They'd been calling him Lucky, and I thought the name was familiar.
The gun shot that came soon after vibrated through my skull. In the explosion of action and angry men, I tried to fade away—to just vanish until it was over. If I could have bled into the wallpaper, I would have.
What do I do? Thinking was still such a challenge. Withdrawal or not, the heroin and the fuzzy car-rides had done a number on me. When had I even eaten last? I was too weak to run. My reactions were delayed.
When the Serbian man slapped me to the floor, I hardly felt the pain. Fuck, would the ringing in my ears ever end? Up or down lost all meaning; I was sure I was about to vomit, if only from the taste of my own blood.