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That’s how you knew an addict.
Sometimes, it was easiest to take them and wait for the effects to slowly roll in. Other times, if you had the patience to stop and take a minute to crush them up, you could feel it almost instantly when you sniffed it.
I’d done both, desperation sometimes taking over.
Even now, as I sat here in full panic, watching him take those pills, there was an itch in the back of my brain that wanted to ask for one. The addict was always in me. That part never had left, and I was sure it never would. She was just quieter some days than others.
And the longer I kept her back there, the more she faded into the darkness.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Jason glanced over at me with a smile before heading out through the foyer to the front door. The creak of it pulling open felt like someone had their hand wrapped around my internal organs, and they were squeezing.
“Hey, come in. I’m Jason!”
“Vince Martelli.”
I was going to be sick.
“Come through, she’s just in here,” Jason announced, the footsteps getting louder.
“How’d you get hold of her?” Vince questioned, their eyes instantly falling on me as they came through into the lounge.
Jason grinned. “Shay and I go way back. Her brother actually is a close friend of mine. I’ve known them since they were stealing money to pay for a couple of oxys as teenagers.”
Vince raised his eyebrows, glancing between the two of us. “Shay was a druggie?”
“Not anymore,” I snapped. “I’ve been clean for ten years.”
“So she says,” Jason said, rolling his eyes. He walked over and reached for the pill bottle, shaking it a couple of times like it was some packet of dog treats, and I would roll over and beg for them. “You can see it in her eyes. She still wants them.”
Vince was back to that composed, put-together bastard he seemed to be able to pull off when I wasn’t pushing his buttons. This was Hyde. Jekyll was there, though, just beneath the surface. “I’m grateful for the help in getting her into my possession. I’m sure Shay and I are going to learn a lot more about each other over the next few hours.”
I was confused about his use of words. Why the next few hours? What did he plan on us doing together?
“So… shall we… talk money?” Jason prompted, his drawn-out words and slow speech a sign the pills he’d taken were hitting his system. “You gozz cash?”
Vince smiled politely, reaching into his back pocket. I expected to see a wade of cash, but instead…
“Oh my—”
Bang.
Jason was too slow.
So slow, in fact, I wasn’t even sure he knew what was happening when the bullet was sent careening through the center of his skull, spreading blood and brain fragments across the bookshelves behind him.
My chest heaved, my breathing became ragged and uneven, and the thump of his body hitting the floor made me jump. “Holy shit,” I cursed, shaking my head. “No.”
“Oh, don’t act like you’re disappointed,” Vince berated as he walked over to me. “That guy was a fucking asshole. And stupid. So stupid.”
He was.
Jason was an idiot for thinking Vince Martelli was going to walk in and hand him that much money when the cold-blooded asshole murdered his parents that morning. His own flesh and blood.
Vince reached into his pocket, pulling out a Swiss Army knife. He flicked the blade open, and I flinched, making him laugh as he slipped it through my restraints. When he was done, my entire body tensed, ready to fight.
I needed to fight.
