25
ANDY
Andy had pinched his eyes shut for what he thought was a few seconds, maybe a minute, but when he opened them, he suspected more time had passed than he first believed.
The chair opposite him was empty; the man was gone.
So was the glass of water. He was alone in the room with only the rabbit in the glass bowl and the remaining items on the table.
The rabbit had settled in for a nap. It rested against the side of the glass, its breathing slow and deep.
Andy’s breathing was anything but slow and deep—every time he drew in air, it felt like he came up short.
Like he was at the top of some mountain and the air was thin, lacking the oxygen his body craved.
Those empty breaths only made him want more.
Is this what it feels like to drown?
The idea of drowning made him think of the missing water, and thinking about the missing water glass made him think of the heroin, and then he was looking at it.
Once he was looking at the heroin, he couldn’t look away.
Gooseflesh popped across his skin, every inch, like his pores were reaching for those needles.
If he said yes, it wasn’t like he slipped, right?
This guy wasn’t giving him a choice—he needed water or he’d die.
If he had to do the heroin to get to that water, so be it.
He’d bring the water glass back if Andy agreed to do the heroin, right?
Nobody would fault him for that. How could they?
And there was no way one of those needles was really loaded up with fentanyl.
No way. That was more mind fuckery on the part of his host. The man was just screwing with him; he wouldn’t kill him.
Even if one of the needles did contain fentanyl, there’s no way he’d inject him; that would be murder.
This guy didn’t have it in him, did he? A rabbit was one thing, but he didn’t even kill the rabbit; he only used the rabbit to scare him.
This guy was all smoke and mirrors and assorted bullshit.
He was no killer. Andy had run into tougher people standing behind the QuickMart on Third after midnight.
So what if he got high?
Why did this jerk-off even give a shit?
Andy heard a phone ring.
Not a phone somewhere in the room, but a phone in his head. An honest-to-God ringing line in his head, and Andy’s first and only thought was that the hallucinations had started. Why a phone? He had no idea, but there it was. Two rings, three, four, then a voice as the call was answered—
“Hello?”
Two things clicked for Andy at that moment. The ringing wasn’t in his head; it was coming from a Bluetooth headset the man had somehow placed in his ear when he was unconscious. The second was the voice—he knew that voice.
“Moms?”
“Andy? I don’t . . .”
She sounded as confused as he was. He hadn’t talked to her in what, a year?
A year and a half? Not since she shacked up with that asshole, Rodney.
Not since Andy had run away. Moms always used burner phones, so her number changed from week to week.
Where she slept changed just as fast. He had no idea how to reach her, so how—
“Andy, I’m in some real trouble here. This guy . . . I don’t know about this guy . . . he said if I don’t shoot up, he’s going to kill you. Where are you? Tell me you’re safe . . .”
A shot of adrenaline passed through Andy. His body jerked up, tried to sit up straight, but couldn’t with the ropes holding him back.
“Where are you, Moms?”
“I think it’s the Hillside Motel out on 94, but I’m not sure. He knocked me out somehow, and I woke up here. The wallpaper looks familiar, though. Those ugly-ass paintings of sailboats, too. I ain’t ever seen those anywhere but the Hillside.”
“Get out of there!”
Andy didn’t mean to shout. He didn’t want to scare her, and Moms scared easily. When she did, she sometimes froze.
“I can’t, baby. He’s got me tied up.”
She sniffed, and Andy knew she’d been crying. She was trying to hold it back now, but he could tell.
“Is he there right now?”
“I think he’s standing behind me, pretending he ain’t, but I can hear him breathing.”
That’s when Andy heard something behind him, too. A quick shuffle of feet on the carpet, then silence.
What the fuck? Are there two of them? One here, one there?
Andy jerked at the ropes again, put his entire body into it. The heavy chair bounced, but only barely. There was a thump as the back legs left the ground and came back down. He hadn’t moved enough to see behind him. He’d barely moved at all.
“Quit dicking around and get out here where I can see you!”
Andy meant the words to come out with defiance, but instead, they were weak and thin. He nearly coughed; his throat was so dry, and shouting only made his headache worse.
“Where are you, Andy? Who you talking to?”
Andy tried to get a better look at the room. Could he be at the Hillside too? Not a house or an office, but maybe just a different room at the Hillside? Was this creep going back and forth between rooms?
Wait.
One of the ropes had come loose.
His right hand.
There was some play that hadn’t been there before. He jerked at it again and felt it give a little more.
“He’s got two needles here and said I have to pick one.”
“Don’t do either of them, Moms! One of them is poison! It’ll kill you!” Andy pulled harder at the rope, felt it dig into his wrist and forearm, but he was nearly free.
“He said . . . he said if I don’t pick one, he’ll kill you.”
“Moms, don’t!”
“He said it’s my payback for sending your father away. Not ‘payback.’ He used another word. ‘Pence,’ maybe? For doing smack when I was pregnant. He said I have to do this.”
Penance. Not pence.
Andy wasn’t sure how he knew that, but he did.
Andy only knew what penance was because he had hooked up with this John once who was knee-deep in the program and was working on that step about making amends.
He kept babbling about how it should be ‘penance,’ not ‘amends,’ like Andy gave a shit either way.
Andy had finished what he needed to do and gotten out of that car as fast as he could.
Ran a good three blocks before he even looked back over his shoulder to make sure the annoying fuck wasn’t behind him.
“Andy? He says I have ten seconds to pick.”
Andy yanked at the rope binding his right hand.
The knot slipped slightly and brushed against his fingertips.
He stretched to reach it while twisting his head and shouting over his shoulder at the man behind him.
“Don’t hurt her! She hasn’t done shit to you!
Tell whoever you got with her to back the fuck off! ”
There was no response to that.
The man said nothing.
No shuffling or breathing, either.
Was he even back there? Maybe Andy was at the Hillside in some room near his Moms, and this guy was going back and forth.
When he heard the man’s voice again, it wasn’t coming from behind him, but instead, it came from the Bluetooth headset in his ear.
“She can’t hear me right now, Andy. Only you.
Just you. And I’m going to let you in on a little secret.
Unlike your needles, both of hers contain fentanyl.
Also, unlike you, she clearly wants to do them.
She’s not tied up to keep her from leaving.
She’s tied up to keep her from shooting up.
I had to wrestle her into that chair and secure her hands.
If I untie her, she’ll go for the needles.
I’ve already tied the rubber around her arm.
I did that earlier. She won’t have any trouble finding a good vein. Not that it would matter.”
“Don’t hurt her! I’ll do it!”
“It’s too late for that, Andy. I gave you a chance.
That’s why the water is gone. That’s why I felt the need to involve your mother.
And let’s be honest, the world will be a better place without her, right?
She doesn’t contribute. She doesn’t better society.
She’s a drain. Your mother is only happy when she’s high, so we can give her that—you and I—one last time.
What’s the harm in giving her exactly what she wants?
Don’t you want to make your mother happy, Andy? ”
Andy jerked at the rope again and his right hand came free. He expected the man to grab him from behind, stop him, but he didn’t. With the ropes around his torso, he still couldn’t turn enough to see him, but Andy didn’t try; instead, he went to work getting his left arm free.
“Andy, my ropes came loose. He said if I don’t shoot up right now, he’ll kill you. I have to, baby. I have to do it . . .”
“Moms, don’t!” Andy got his left arm free, and the rope around his torso went slack. He grabbed one of the needles from the table and flicked off the plastic cap. “I picked one, see! I picked one! I’ll do it! Don’t hurt her!”
As he spun around, Andy jabbed the needle into his upper arm.
He forced the plunger down. He felt the warm liquid enter his body.
He did all this in a millisecond as he spun around.
It wasn’t until the needle was empty that he realized his mistake.
The needle was empty, and he saw what was behind him.
When he saw what was behind him, what had been behind him the entire time, he understood—none of it mattered.