I roll my eyes, huffing. “He’s not my Romeo,” I say bitterly.
I don’t even know what he is to me right now.
“You should listen to what he has to say sometime,” Luis says. “You might be surprised.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, the pounding in my head back. It feels like someone is stabbing me behind my eyeballs. I’m so hot, there’s a fine film of sweat on my forehead and chest, and everything hurts.
“I think I’m getting the flu,” I say. “Is there any aspirin on this boat from hell?”
Luis cocks his head to the side. “You can’t take aspirin,” he says, pointing to my stomach. “And you don’t got the flu, bebe. You’ve got the bends.”
“What?” I snap, before I follow his eyes to the spot on my arm where countless needles full of heroin have slid underneath my skin.
I’m still letting his words sink in when he takes something from his pocket and shakes it.
A bag of beige-colored powder.
“Don’t be stupid,” I say, scratching at my arm.
“You got the itching, too, right?” he asks, gesturing to the way I’m raking my fingernails up and down my arms to try and drive the crazy crawling feeling from my skin. It feels like millions of fire ants are teeming across me, the image as unsettling as the feeling itself. I shake my head to try and get it out of my mind, focusing on Luis.
I feel my face fall because I know he’s right.
“Fuck,” I say softly.
He takes a few steps toward me, then seems to think better of it and sits on the end of the bed instead, shifting the food and clothes behind him.
“Will it get worse?” I ask. Even though I already know the answer better than most. My mom was shooting this stuff my entire childhood. I’m well acquainted with what a junkie who is going through withdrawal experiences. And I’d say it hasn’t even started for me. This is nothing. It is going to get so much worse for me, if he’s right. And I’m almost entirely sure he is right.
He pats the bed next to him, and I stop scratching myself long enough to sit beside him, as far away as I physically can while still being on the bed. We aren’t close enough to touch, unless he leans over.
I stare at my bare knees, still marked with Emilio’s blood. It doesn’t even bother me anymore. Blood and death are all I have right now, the only things that tell me this is real and not some awful hallucination, a sign I’m here and not still stuck on that bed with that stupid music playing full blast in my ears.
“Hey,” Luis says. I’m like a kid with ADD; I can’t focus on anything. My mind is like mud. Or soup. Or something equally murky.
“You want a little bump to take the edge off?” he asks, offering me the white powder.
My first reaction is to push it away and tell him to fuck off. But my arm is heavy and the words die in my throat as I zone in on the very thing that could take this pain away.
Something brushes against the inside of my abdomen and I snap out of my daydream. I launch myself off the bed again and back to the round porthole again, pressing my shoulders against the curve of the wall.
“Okay, okay,” he says, putting his hands in front of him in a sign of peace. He drops the baggie back into his pocket and crosses his arms across his chest.
“You change your mind? You tell me.”
I nod thankfully, my throat painfully dry as I attempt to speak. “Why…why didn’t you tell me you were one of the good guys?”
He cuts me in half with the intensity of his stare. He’s amused, too, the ghost of a smirk twitching at his mouth.
“I didn’t know if I’d be able to get you out, Giulietta.” He pulls out a cigarette and puts it between his teeth, holding it there for a moment before he glances at my midsection. Sighing, he tucks the cigarette behind his ear and shoves the packet back into his jacket pocket.
“Why did you care if I got out?” I ask. “You don’t even know me.”
“Ah, but I do know you,” he says, nodding as if he’s privy to some great big secret I don’t know about. Which pisses me off.
“Oh yeah?” I say. “You another Ross brother I don’t know about? You don’t look like the rest of them.”
He shakes his head slowly. “Not me, bebé. I’m not related to that pig.”
“The pig you killed, or his son?” I ask, referring to Emilio and Dornan.
He snorts. “None of them.”
My chest constricts. “You are related to her somehow. I know it.”
His expression tightens; for a moment I think he’s angry with me, until he reaches down into his T-shirt and pulls out a locket attached to a thin gold chain. I frown, confused.