Chapter 13 #2
I hear her breathe before she starts coughing and retching.
“Taylor?” I panic when I hear my sister’s voice.
“Ada, I don’t feel too good,” she mutters.
Cyrus looks at me, and I fight the urge to start crying, hearing her voice.
“Taylor, where are you?” I call, trying to keep her awake as she rambles into the phone.
“I’m at Ethan’s,” she says, and I recognize the name as her old drug dealer.
I rip a U-turn, heading back in the direction of his house. Cyrus grabs the dash at my erratic driving.
“Taylor, I am coming to get you. Stay awake for me, please,” I plead, but the phone goes silent.
“Taylor!” I call out, but the phone suddenly cuts off, and I put my foot down on the gas.
“Where are we going?” Cyrus asks.
“Her dealer’s house,” I tell him.
“Slow down, hun,” he says, but I don’t listen, turning the next corner into the old suburb. This side of town is seedy, and Cyrus looks at the burned-out houses and trashed streets in disgust.
I slow down, trying to remember which street it is as they all look familiar, and most of the street signs have been removed. Finally finding it, I pull up, cutting off the engine. I unbuckle my seatbelt when Cyrus grabs my hand.
“What are you doing? You can’t go in there. They look like thugs,” he says, looking at the house with dead car bodies littering the lawn with high grass and trash all through it.
Three men stand out the front with their home-job tattoos and singlets on, looking every part the scum they are. One lifts his shirt, and I recognize him as Ethan as he shows off his gun. Music is pounding, with the bass way too loud.
“My sister is in there, and Ethan wouldn’t dare do anything at his house. He knows I would call the cops, and that’s the last thing he wants them stumbling upon his grow house,” I tell Cyrus, but he doesn’t let go.
“I’ll go get her.”
“Are you nuts? They will shoot you,” I tell him, pulling my hand from his. “Wait in the car. I will be back in a sec.”
The three men watch as I cross the street, Ethan stepping forward smelling strongly of weed, his shaven head making him look more menacing.
Still, these wanna-be gangsters don’t scare me.
I have pulled my sister from houses like these many times, surrounded by men like them, thinking they are above the law.
Ethan grabs my waist as I approach, trying to pull me against him.
“Addie, baby, what are you doing here?” he purrs.
“Hands off, Ethan. Where the fuck is my sister?” I demand, shoving him.
His eyes dart over my shoulder. “Who is that? You bring a fucking narc to my house?”
“None of your business.”
I notice that Cyrus has gotten out of the car. I wave him off, telling him to get back in the car. He glares at me but does what I ask. The last thing I need is to explain to Eli that his husband got shot because I took him to my sister’s dealer’s house.
I push past the other two men, walking into the brick house.
The wooden front door barely hangs on the hinges, like it has been kicked in repeatedly as the frame is also loose.
The air is thick with the smell of weed and meth.
I clamp my nose as I walk through the house and into the kitchen.
Another man is standing in the kitchen with an apron and a mask on, using the stove to cook drugs, I assume.
Pots of weed plants are sitting on the kitchen table under a light.
“Who are you?” the man asks, but I ignore him and keep looking for my sister.
I walk into the main bedroom and find her in a singlet and her underwear, passed out on the floor, foam coming from her mouth. Her skin is littered with needle marks and bruises; she also has a whopping black eye, like someone has hit her.
“Taylor, wake up!” I tell her, shaking her shoulders.
She groans before coughing, spewing onto the filthy carpet that has cigarette burns on it.
I sit her upright before looking for some pants and tugging them up her skinny legs.
We are identical twins, but looking at her now, we look nothing alike.
Her skin is covered in sores, and she is so pale she looks deathly ill.
She is all skin and bone and has lost well and truly over half her weight.
I pull her up, making her stand. She leans her weight on me heavily as I pull her pants up.
I wrap her arm around my shoulders, shaking her, and she mumbles, looking up.
“Ada?” she asks, her head falling forward.
“Yes, Taylor. You need to help me. I need you to walk,” I tell her as we shuffle out of the house. I drop her on the steps, her weight too much, before picking her up. Ethan tries grabbing her from me. I stop, pointing my finger at him.
“You have done enough.”
“She isn’t going with you, Adeline. She will just run back to me,” he says, trying to take her again, but I shove him.
“Fuck off, Ethan, or I will have the police here in a matter of minutes. Do you want them to find your meth lab out the back?” I ask, pulling my now limp sister against me.
He puts up his hands in surrender, backing away. I drag my sister to the end of the driveway. Cyrus jumps out of the car.
“Get back in the car, Cyrus!”
He ignores me before coming over and scooping up my sister. I rush over to open up the back door, and he places her on the seats on her side. Before closing the door, she pukes on the floor. Cyrus climbs in, tilting her head, so it runs out of her mouth and she doesn’t choke on it.
I ring my mother, the phone ringing through my Bluetooth as I head home. My mother answers after a couple of rings.
“Hey, Ada, what’s up?”
“I have Taylor, ma. I am heading home.”
“You found her?” she asks excitedly.
“No, she rang me. She isn’t well, mom. Should I take her to the hospital or to you?”
She hesitates. “Bring her home.”
“On my way,” I tell her, cutting off the call.
“Do you mind if I drop her off first?” I ask Cyrus.
“No, Addie, do what you need to do,” he says, grabbing my knee. “I thought you were identical?”
“We are or were. Don’t take drugs,” I tell him.
My sister groans, trying to roll over before sitting up, suddenly looking around, alert.
“Ada?” she asks before looking at Cyrus. “What are you doing? Pull over, Ada.”
“Nope, why did you leave the clinic? You rang me. I am taking you home,” I tell her before she loses it and starts thrashing.
I lock the doors, knowing she will probably pass out again soon. Cyrus looks at her when she hits me, her hand smacking me in the face, trying to get me to pull the car over and let her out.
“No, Taylor. I am taking you home. You promised us. You promised Maya. You know, your daughter? The one you keep forgetting?”
“Pull the fucking car over. I am not going back. Take me back to Ethan!” she screams.
“Why? So he can beat you again?” I ask, staring at her black eye in the mirror.
“It was an accident.”
I scoff, when suddenly Cyrus has enough of her kicking his chair and spins in his seat, grabbing her face.
“Sit still and do what your sister says,” he snaps at her, and I am surprised when she falls silent, sitting still.
I look at him before looking at her in the mirror. She sits there still as a statue.
“What did you do to her?”
“You saw. I just yelled at her. I know she is your sister, but she was pissing me off,” he says.
She starts coughing before throwing up again.
“Fuck,” I mutter to myself as she passes back out again. I know I will be up all night, cleaning out my car and getting rid of the stench.
Pulling into the driveway, Cyrus opens the back of the car before grabbing her out. She throws up on his shirt as he carries her. My mother rushes out before showing him where to put her in the spare room.