Twenty
T he place definitely smelled like hell, but once I sank into the sweet relief of my drug of choice, everything else was irrelevant. Two lines of pure fucking oblivion. It burned as I inhaled, drawing it into me. My nose burned even more as I breathed in again, feeling the easing of my spirit as the cocaine hit my bloodstream. My head spun, and I dropped to my knees, feeling the hit so much more intensely than I had for so long.
My heart pounded in my chest, my blood racing through my veins, as I gave in to the sensations flowing through me. I felt invincible. I felt like me again. Like I could do anything.
Dizziness hit again, and I landed forward on the filthy floor on my hands.
“Fuuuck…”
Everything went black, but it did it in increments, with flashes of red, like it had to taunt me by showing me that I was gonna pass out, but there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Lissa
A licia made me sit with her, while we waited for news. There were bikers out searching for Ice, who had apparently made it out through the heavily armoured gates, by threatening the prospect on duty.
“Ally?” Reacher stuck his head in the door, and she stood up, still gripping my hand.
“Is he okay?”
He sighed. “I need you to track his phone. I just pray he still has it with him. I can’t believe we’re here again.”
He didn’t even look at me, leaving the room, with Alicia following.
“I’m sorry. I’ll come back as soon as I can. We’ll find him, Lissa.”
She left, and then a woman with red hair poked her face around the door.
“I’m Tori, Ryder’s old lady. I thought I might sit and wait with you, if that’s okay?”
I watched her step inside and close the door. Her hair was in a very short bob, and she had a scar on her face that told me she’d seen harder times too.
“Reacher wanted me gone.”
She snorted, heading to the kitchen, and rummaging in the cupboards before she cursed.
“Of course. No fucking booze in Ice’s place.” That was the second time someone had mentioned that.
“He doesn’t drink?”
She switched the kettle on, and turned to face me.
“Nope. It’s a bone of contention around here, because he’ll poison his body with drugs, but looks down on drinking alcohol.”
“Reacher is so mad at me. I should leave, but I really need to know Ice is okay first. I should have stopped him. I tried, I really did.”
She prepped two mugs, and turned to face me again.
“Listen, babe. I don’t know how well you know Ice, but in the time I’ve known him, I’ve learned a few things, like just how fucking stubborn he is. If he didn’t want to be stopped, then nothing short of tackling him to the ground and restraining him would have stopped him. And you raised the alarm pretty fast. They’ll find him.”
She busied herself making drinks, turning once more to ask how I took my coffee, and then she joined me, sliding a mug in my direction.
“So you’re his therapist?”
I nodded. “I feel like the biggest failure there is. I wanted to help him, you know? Make him realise that he doesn’t need drugs, that he’s an amazing person without them.”
She smiled. “You mean, he’s an arrogant bastard, with an attitude problem, and a tendency to yell at the people he cares about.”
Huh. “I haven’t seen so much of that side of him. He’s strong, but he’s lost. He came to my rescue tonight, and if I could have just talked to him, to reassure him…”
“About what?” Tori blew on her coffee, holding it up with both hands.
“I’d rather not say. Things happened between us, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to him after.”
Tori narrowed her eyes, looking concerned.
“Was there an issue with consent?”
“What? No, of course not. We both wanted to do it. We’ve both been tiptoeing around how we felt for days. It should have been perfect.”
She sighed. “It rarely is. But as long as nobody was forced or coerced, surely it’s fixable.”
“Unless he kills himself by overdosing on drugs. My god. The one thing I’m supposed to keep him from doing, and I feel like I contributed to him doing exactly that. What if he dies? Oh god… I need to do something.” I was on my feet, and that’s when Ally came back.
“We tracked his phone. They’re on their way to find him, but he’s a little way out of town. I’m worried, though. It’s a dodgy neighbourhood.” We got her point. The kind of neighbourhood where one might go to find their drug of choice.