Tell Me Pucking Lies (The Blackridge Reapers #5)

Prologue

The pill bottle rattles like teeth chattering.

I’m sitting at the kitchen table, pencil moving through quadratic equations, when Mom’s voice cuts through the blue glow of the television. “Baby, can you get me the white ones?”

Math is easy. Counting pills is not.

The faucet drips—tap, tap, tap—a metronome I’ve learned to tune out. Dad’s work boots slump by the door, crusted with mud and something sharper, chemical. The smell makes my throat close if I breathe too deep, so I don’t.

I push back from the table. My brother Axel is already at the counter, rummaging through the drawer where we keep the takeout menus and broken pens and things we pretend are organized.

He’s sixteen, broad-shouldered from varsity practice, but his hands move with the carefulness of someone defusing a bomb.

“Which one?” he asks, not looking at me.

There are two orange bottles on the counter.

Similar but not the same. One has our local pharmacy label—CVS, the pharmacist who knows our names.

The other has a clinic name I don’t recognize, some town two hours south.

The cap is sticky under my fingers when I pick it up. Syrup, maybe. Or spilled soda.

“The white ones,” I repeat, reading the label even though the corner is torn, even though the dosage is smudged.

From the couch, Dad barks, “Hurry up,” without standing, without even turning his head from the screen.

I fill a glass with tap water. The pipes groan. Everything in this house makes noise except the things that should—like apologies, like I love you, like we need help.

Mom’s hand trembles when I bring her the water. Her nails are chewed raw at the edges. “Just one,” she says. Then, softer, almost like she’s asking herself, “Maybe two.”

Axel hesitates. I watch him make a choice, or maybe I watch him surrender to a choice already made. He hands her the bottle—or she points, and he obeys. Later, I won’t be sure which. Later, that uncertainty will hollow me out.

She palms more than two. I see it. The pills disappear into her mouth, and one slips from her fingers, clattering to the linoleum. It rolls, spiraling under the stove.

I kneel. The floor is cold against my knees, gritty with crumbs and dust. My fingers search the darkness beneath the appliance, and I find the pill. But there’s another one already there, wedged against the baseboard. Old. Dust-covered.

Not the first time.

I close my fist around both pills, slip them into my pocket, and return to my homework.

Mom settles back into the couch cushions. Dad’s eyes never leave the screen. Axel opens the fridge, stares inside like the answer to something might be hiding behind the milk.

I write numbers. X equals negative b plus or minus the square root. The pencil scratches across paper. Minutes pass. Five, maybe ten. The house breathes its normal broken rhythm.

Then Mom makes a sound.

Not words. Just a soft exhale, like air leaking from a tire.

I look up. Her head has tilted to the side, chin against her shoulder. Her mouth is open. Her hand has gone slack, fingers curled like she’s holding something invisible.

“Mom?”

Nothing.

“Mom.”

Axel turns from the fridge. The milk carton is still in his hand.

I cross the room in three steps. Her skin is warm but wrong—clammy, like she’s been outside in the rain. Her chest rises and falls, but the rhythm is off. Too slow. Too shallow.

“Mom, wake up.”

I shake her shoulder. Her head lolls. Her eyes are half-open, pupils pinpricks, staring at nothing.

“Ax—”

“What’s wrong with her?” His voice cracks.

Dad is up now, moving toward us. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t—she just—”

“What did you give her?” Dad grabs Axel by the shirt, twists the fabric in his fist.

“She asked for—”

The slap comes open-handed, sharp across Axel’s cheek. The crack echoes. Axel stumbles back, hits the counter, and the milk carton drops. It explodes across the tile, white river spreading toward the table legs.

Axel’s hand goes to his face. He doesn’t say anything. He just stares at Mom, his eyes wide and glassy, like he’s watching her from underwater.

“We need to call 911.” My voice sounds far away, like it’s coming from someone else’s mouth.

“No.” Dad’s face is red, veins standing out on his neck. “No cops in this house.”

“Dad, she’s—”

“I said no.”

Mom’s breathing changes. It’s a rattle now, wet and wrong. Her lips are turning pale.

I run to the hallway. My socks slip on the tile. The phone—where’s the phone? Dad always has it. I check the counter, the coffee table. Nothing.

“Ax, where’s your phone?”

He doesn’t answer. He’s frozen, one hand still pressed to his red cheek, staring at Mom like if he looks away, she’ll disappear completely.

I sprint to the neighbors. Mrs. Gillian hands me her cell, and I dial with shaking fingers while running back.

The operator’s voice is calm, mechanical. “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

“My mom—she’s not breathing right—she took pills and now she—”

“What did she take?”

I look at the bottles on the counter. Two of them. The labels blur. “I don’t—there are two bottles. I think—the white ones. I don’t know which—”

“How many did she take?”

“I don’t know. More than two. Maybe four. I don’t—”

“Do you have Narcan in the home?”

“No.”

“Is she breathing?”

I kneel beside Mom. Put my cheek near her mouth. There’s air, barely. “Yes. Barely.”

“Keep her on her side. Don’t let her lie on her back. Paramedics are on the way. Stay on the line with me.”

Dad is pacing now, hands in his hair. He keeps looking at the door, then at Mom, then at the door again. He drops to his knees in front of the couch, shoves his hand under the cushion.

He pulls out a baggie. White powder inside. Then a glass pipe, scorched black at one end.

Axel sees it. I see it. The operator is talking, but the words are just noise now.

Dad shoves both into his pocket and stands. His eyes meet mine, and there’s something wild in them. Something cornered.

“You called them,” he says. Not a question. An accusation.

“She needs help—”

“This is your fault.”

He backs toward the kitchen. The back door. His hand is already on the knob.

“Dad—”

“This is all on him.” He jerks his chin toward Axel. “He gave them to her.”

Then he’s gone. The door slams. The house shakes.

Axel and I stand there, on opposite sides of Mom’s body. The operator is asking if I’m still there. I can’t answer. I’m staring at Mom’s chest, counting the rises. One. Two. Three. The gaps between them stretch longer each time.

“What do we do?” Axel’s voice is small, younger than sixteen.

“I don’t know.”

We kneel on either side of her. I tilt her head back like I saw on TV once. Axel holds her hand. We don’t know if we’re supposed to do CPR. We don’t know if moving her will make it worse. We don’t know anything.

The minutes crawl. The operator keeps talking, but I’ve lost the thread. Axel is crying now, silent tears dripping onto Mom’s sleeve.

I count the breaths. Four. Five. The space between five and six lasts forever.

Six doesn’t come.

“Mom?” Axel shakes her. “Mom, please.”

Her chest is still.

“Mom!”

I press my fingers to her neck, searching for a pulse. I don’t know if I’m doing it right. I don’t know where it’s supposed to be. My hands are shaking too hard to feel anything.

The sirens start far away, then closer. Red and blue lights slash through the front window.

The paramedics burst through the door in a rush of heavy boots and equipment. They push us aside, and we stumble back against the wall, shoulder to shoulder.

They work fast. Hands moving, voices clipped and professional. Needles. Tubes. A machine that beeps.

One of them looks up. “How long has she been unresponsive?”

I don’t know. Ten minutes? Twenty? Time folded in on itself.

“I don’t know.”

“What did she take?”

I point to the bottles. They’re still on the counter, caps off, pills scattered.

A paramedic reads the labels, says something into his radio I don’t understand.

They lift Mom onto a stretcher. Her arm hangs off the side, limp. One of them tucks it back.

In the hallway, a different paramedic pulls me aside. “Where’s your father?”

“He left.”

“When?”

“Not long. He went out the back.”

The paramedic exchanges a look with his partner. He writes something on a clipboard.

They wheel Mom out. I follow. Axel follows. We climb into the ambulance, and the doors slam shut.

The beeps are steady. The medic works over her, pressing, injecting, checking. I count the beeps. One, two, three. I make bargains with the air, with God, with anything that might be listening. Let her live, and I’ll be better. I’ll be perfect. I’ll be good. I promise.

My hand slips into my pocket. The pill that fell from her hand still there, pressed into my palm. I don’t know why I kept it. Evidence. Proof. A piece of the story that doesn’t fit.

The hospital waiting room hums. Vending machine, fluorescent lights that tremble and buzz. I hold a cup of coffee that’s gone cold. I don’t drink it.

Axel sits beside me, his cheek still red from where Dad hit him. He hasn’t said a word since we left the house.

The doctor steps out. He shakes his head.

The world clicks to silent and never fully unclicks.

A social worker arrives. Then a police officer. They ask questions I can barely hear. Where’s your father. What did she take. Who gave her the pills.

I tell them the truth. Axel tries to answer, but his voice breaks, and he can’t finish.

They let us leave hours later. A social worker drives us home. The house is dark. Empty. Dad’s truck is gone.

Inside, the milk has dried on the floor, sticky and sour. The pill bottles are still on the counter. The couch cushion is crooked where Dad shoved his hand underneath.

Axel goes to his room and closes the door.

I lock myself in the bathroom. The tile is cracked, grout stained yellow. I open my palm and study the pill under the harsh white light. There’s an imprint code stamped into the surface—letters and numbers, tiny and precise.

I will learn every name for poison. I will memorize every code, every clinic, every lie. I will never let it touch what’s mine again.

Control. That’s the only thing that matters now.

I close my fist around the pill until the edges cut my skin, a thin line of red across my palm.

Some nights freeze you so hard you don’t thaw for years.

This is one of them.