11. Chapter 11
Chapter 11
M eg was still with him when Naz woke up. His arm was still around her waist, though her body had turned while they slept. She rested on the side of her hip, one arm trapped between them and the other wrapped around his neck.
She’d drooled a wet spot onto his shirt.
His chin lowered to the top of her head, and his fingers tensed with the need to pull her closer, which was ridiculous. She was already close enough.
The morning had grown late. He never slept in, and dread curled into his neck, making it feel stiff.
He lifted his head and met Julio’s gaze. He stood over them, staring down at them.
“You two really do cuddle. Shit. Never pegged her for the clingy type.” Julio snorted. “Better you than me.”
Meg’s stomach muscles flexed under Naz’s arm, but her breathing remained slow and even.
“I don’t mind as long as it remains this sappy shit, but get her out of here for now. We’ve got dealers coming.” His eyes traced her body, and satisfaction curled over his face. “No surprise she’s exhausted after all I did to her.” His gaze took in the untouched pharmacy bag. “But make sure she takes the pill.”
The other guys were there as well, some of their gazes flicking toward Naz, but when Julio crossed over to them, they began acting busy.
Naz lifted Meg into his arms as he rose and strode out of the warehouse.
“I can walk,” she said dully, but her arm had curled tighter around his neck and didn’t loosen.
Naz didn’t put her down, but he let her open the trailer door. The sound of it shutting behind them somehow felt like a slap. He crossed the trailer to the room she shared with Julio, but he didn’t ease her down to the bed. He liked the way she felt in his arms.
Her face nuzzled into his neck. Then her sigh brushed along his skin. “It shouldn’t hurt.”
Shouldn’t. Which meant it did. Naz wished he had words to ease her pain, but they’d just be meaningless anyway. There was nothing to say.
“I knew he didn’t like me. He just likes to fuck me. If I keep fucking up, he won’t even like that enough to keep me.” She took a deeper breath to steady her hitching voice. “It’s fine. That’s what I’m used to.”
She lifted her head, and Naz let her legs lower to the ground. She supported her own weight but continued to grip his neck and looked into his eyes. “This between us? This thing we don’t really have?” She sighed, letting go. “This is what will hurt me.”
Her words stole the breath from his lungs. He shook his head. He never wanted to hurt her.
She reached out, gripping his chin to stop his denial. “You don’t want to fuck me, and you’re not my friend. I get that now.” She released him, and the warmth from her fingers didn’t linger but drained away. “Julio is going to give me away or sell me, probably soon. And I don’t need to miss you when that happens.”
Meg would be leaving. The thought of not seeing her again made him want to punch something, which was selfish. Her current situation wasn’t good for her. The next might be better.
Or it might be worse.
He wouldn’t be around to know either way.
She turned her back on him, crawling on top of the messy sheets and curling into herself. “Don’t take it personally, okay? And tell Julio I took the pill and I’m staying in here like he asked.”
Naz’s feet felt rooted to the stained carpet. Her eyes remained closed, and her breathing slowed.
He eventually turned around and returned to the warehouse.
T here were no other issues distributing the rest of the drugs. Meg stayed tucked away in the trailer during every deal, and Julio was proud that he’d set her straight.
Naz missed her.
He’d never missed anyone before. Diego naggingly checked in, making it impossible to miss him, and there was no one else that he’d wanted to have around.
When his life had changed at the age of twelve, he’d been too angry at his father to miss him at first. He’d watched his father fail to save him, watched the man who’d been his whole world die.
Remembering the good moments made the shitty stuff even harder, so his memories had fractured and faded. He could look back at what was left of them now and know his father was a good man. He could want to be like him, but he was glad his father wasn’t around to see what he’d become.
Meg, though. He wanted Meg around him.
She no longer snuck into the warehouse to sleep near him. He’d been struggling to fall asleep every night, as if he was waiting up for her.
He still saw her over the days that passed—Julio liked to show her off—but it was different. She didn’t talk to him. Her laugh was that awkward, strained one, and whenever he caught her looking at him, her amber eyes appeared dull.
Naz leaned against the outside wall of the warehouse, staring down at his phone. He pulled up Ramiro’s contact information, scrolling up to his ‘not yet’ message.
If he wasn’t around, would Meg be happier? Would her laugh seem more natural?
His eyes took in the low battery percentage of his phone. When he pulled out the portable charger, even it was low. That was what he got for avoiding the trailers.
He made his way to the one with the shower and smaller kitchen, where his second portable charger was plugged in, planning to switch them out and leave again.
He hadn’t seen her that day, but Meg mostly stayed in the other trailer, the one Julio preferred. It had the biggest bedroom.
Naz cut off those thoughts. He’d gotten better at avoiding all the sex they had; plus the frequency had lessened. Julio seemed to be losing interest, just as Meg had predicted.
The thought raised his own memories of men losing interest in him. He’d always been relieved, but someone else had showed up before long. Until Diego slaughtered the last ones.
Meg wasn’t acting relieved. Whenever he saw her, her smile looked more and more brittle, and anxiety carved creases near her jaw.
Naz switched out the charging devices. He considered plugging in his phone for a while. Deciding against it, he turned away, and his phone vibrated in his hand.
‘Proof of life.’
Had it really been a week since he’d last seen Diego? The empty days had stacked up.
He lifted the phone, took the picture, and sent it.
A returning vibration had him frowning down at the phone.
‘Is that a woman’s foot?’
The hairs on the back of Naz’s neck rose as he looked at the picture. A high-arched foot was visible on the bed through the doorway behind him. What was Meg doing in the spare room? Worse, why hadn’t he sensed her at all?
He deleted the picture, turned slightly, and snapped a new one without her foot.
Diego still wasn’t going to forget.
Naz looked inside the room, feeling guilty for not giving her space like she’d asked.
Meg lay still on the bed. Her eyes were closed, and she wasn’t making a sound. She looked too pale, her fingers almost blue.
His nerves skittered, the hair rising along his arms.
He moved into the room. Residue clung to the edge of her mouth. At first, he didn’t think she was breathing. Her chest finally lifted, but it was shallow, and the movement didn’t repeat for long seconds.
He rushed to the kitchen, jerking open the top drawer. The empty baggie on the counter mocked him as he searched the second drawer for the nasal spray.
Naz ran back into the room. His hand moved under the back of Meg’s neck, finding her skin clammy as he lifted her head and tilted it back. He pushed the nozzle into her nostril and pushed the plunger firmly until it clicked.
He removed it and tossed it away. His fingers slid around, finding her pulse. It was slow and uneven. As long minutes passed, the thrum of it became stronger.
But her skin remained cold and pale.
Fentanyl-laced drugs didn’t always let the Narcan work on an overdose.
Naz went for another one. He repeated the process in her other nostril.
After another couple of minutes, her eyes lifted, the pupils narrowed pinpoints at first.
They slowly enlarged as she began to sputter and choke. He used his hand on the back of her neck to lift her higher, sliding in behind her to support her shoulders.
The next choked sound was more of a growl, but it was a sound. Meg wasn’t dead.
“Wha—” She coughed, trying to sit up more, and he helped her. Her head flopped back on his chest with a groan. “Wha’d you do?” she slurred.
Naz brushed the hair off her face before using his palm to wipe the dried saliva from the corner of her mouth.
Her hand lifted, hovering over his, then dropped, nudging the second used Narcan he’d let fall to the bed.
She lifted it, struggling to pull away from him as she let it tumble to the floor. “You sprayed me? You piece of shit.” She slapped at his hand, and he let it fall away, pushing her up to sit on her own.
She turned to face him. “You ruined a perfectly good high!” Her hand fisted, and she hit him, but the swing was weak.
He wiped his hand against his jeans. She could be as mad as she wanted. Her face was no longer pale, but warm with color. She was furious, and he’d never seen such a beautiful sight.
She continued to hit him but then slumped into him, her face pressing into his chest and her body beginning to shake. “Why?”
Naz wrapped his arms around her back, pulling her into his lap. It felt like it’d been forever since she’d been there, but it also felt like his last recent memory, the days in between all a blur.
“Why save me?” she asked, a catch in her voice. “Better if I go that way. High and happy.”
He curled his arm under her legs so he could pull her in even closer. She hung limply in his arms, not trying to draw away.
“Meg.” Her name came out on instinct. He hadn’t thought of the word at all before saying it. The second time was deliberate and took longer to drag out. “Meg.”
She started to sob. Her face pressed into his neck, soaking his skin.
“Don’t do this!” she cried. “No one cares if I die. Don’t act like you do.” The words stuttered and stopped as she gasped.
His cheek rubbed against the top of her head as he continued to hold her.
“It’s better. Dying is better than what’s coming.” Fear filled her voice as her body shuddered. “Just let me go next time.”
His concentration narrowed down to the woman in his arms, the pressure in his chest.
“No,” he said.
Meg let out a sound of frustration, but her arms wrapped around him, clinging. Her sobs quieted, and she rubbed her nose on his shirt as she snuggled in tighter.
Naz waited, worry drumming in his head, but when she didn’t slip back into her overdose after a half hour, he lay back on the bed with her, turning on his side so she could curl in against him. At the hour mark, he accepted that she really would be okay.
Whatever ‘okay’ meant. For now, it meant alive.
Her hands shifted over his arms. He wasn’t sure whether she was checking to see if he was there, making sure she was still there, or doing it for no real reason. The brush of fingers was soothing.
“A bed is softer than that damn warehouse,” she mumbled, her hand curling around his neck as she snuggled into him.
His own lack of sleep and drained panic caused him to doze in a bed for the first time in a long time.
Julio’s voice brought him awake.
“What the hell?”
Naz looked over at the man, too entangled in Meg’s limbs to move away, and not even wanting to.
Julio wasn’t looking at them on the bed. He rose from his crouch with the discarded nasal spray in his hand.
“She OD’d?” he asked, though it was in a confused way, not like he gave a shit.
Naz didn’t bother responding.
“There wasn’t much in the bag I gave her. I’ll have to tell them the lacing was too strong.”
Julio had given her the drugs. Of course he had. Where else would she have gotten them? If the drugs had been mostly fentanyl, the Narcans shouldn’t have worked on her at all.
Maybe they hadn’t. Maybe he’d been wrong about her being in danger.
Either way, it sounded like Julio had used her as a guinea pig. Naz started to roll off the bed, but Meg murmured a sound of protest against his neck, curling against him tighter.
Julio made a disgusted noise as he kicked the other discarded can. “Two? These things aren’t cheap.”
Meg tensed in Naz’s arms before pulling away to sit up. She rubbed at her mouth before laughing. It was the sharp, fake laugh. “That’s what I told him. What a waste, right?”
Julio stared back at her.
Her eyes drooped with exhaustion, and her arm shook where it supported her on the bed.
Julio’s gaze shifted back to Naz. “You would have been dead if you’d been all up in her. Keep your clothes on, and I don’t give a shit. She’s no use to me all fucked up like this.”
Meg’s chin dropped, and she stared down at her hand.
Julio left.
Naz reached out, wrapping his hand gently around her arm. It curled over her in the same place everyone else always grabbed her, but he didn’t pull away. Instead, he tugged her closer.
Meg lowered into his arms, right where it felt like she belonged.