“Chris? You alright?” I ask, racking my knuckles on the bathroom door.
When he fails to answer me, I rattle the doorknob. It’s locked.
“Chris!” Brax shouts, ensuring his deep timbre is heard over the heavy flow of water. “Did you pass out again? I told you not to have that last shot. You’re such a soft cock.”
My heart thumps against my ribs when Chris fails to respond to Brax’s rile. That isn’t like him at all. It doesn’t matter if he is as drunk as a sailor on shore leave, if Brax is stirring the pot, Chris adds more spice. Brax knows this, which is why he used it as a tactic to coerce him out of the bathroom.
“Go grab the crowbar out of my patrol car,” I advise Brax before pushing my ear against the door to seek any signs of life.
If Chris has passed out, I hope he is on his side. I don't want him choking on his vomit like he nearly did on his twenty-first almost a year ago.
“What do you want with a crowbar?” Brax asks, half-chuckling, half-confused. “Gonna knock some sense into him?”
“Just go get the fucking crowbar,” I snarl, my voice void of the humor Brax’s has.
Can’t he feel the tension in the air? It is so thick, it’s nearly suffocating me.
While Brax races to my patrol car parked half a block down, I continue coercing Chris out of the bathroom. “You know Molly will be pissed if you use all the hot water again.”
I rattle the doorknob for the second time, praying the lock will give out to the force of my spin. Unfortunately, it is one of those industrial-sized locks that barely wobbles when a size thirteen boot kicks it.
"Come on, Chris. It's been a long ass day, and I'm not up for more antics. We're all tired. How about we call it a night?" If he thinks I’m a nag, he’s about to be taught a hard lesson.
“Brax is into your private magazine stash. He’s gonna color in all the centerfolds again. . .”
My words trail off when a coolness hits my feet. It is wet and sloshy.
Bile surges to the back of my throat when I drop my gaze. Water is seeping under the bathroom door, soaking the shaggy green carpet under my bare feet.
“Chris!” I scream, banging my fists furiously on the door.
When he fails to answer me, I take a step back. Pain rockets up my leg when I slam my foot into the strip of titanium separating us, but I continue kicking down the door, only stopping once the solid paneled wood fragments at my feet.
My panic surges to an all-time high when my eyes lock in on the cause for the overflowing water. Chris is slumped in the bathtub. He has a needle stuck in a vein in his arm.
“No, Chris. No. No. No. No,” I mutter on repeat, racing into the room.
Hooking my arm around his torso, I drag him out of the bathtub. The water seeping into his clothes makes him triple the weight he usually is.
“R-ry. . .” he barely whispers when I lay him on the slippery floor.
“I’m right here. Just stay with me, okay?” I answer while tugging the needle out of his arm and loosening the plastic hose wrapped around his bicep. “What did you take, Chris? Was it heroin? Cocaine? How much did you take?”
“N-N-Noah.”
He’s not stammering from the whiskey he's been guzzling down all day but from the big shakes hampering his body. The water in the bath was freezing, nearly as low as his body temperature.
“P-p-promise me, Ry. Promise me you’ll look after him.”
I shake my head. I’m not promising him that. If I promise him that, he won’t fight. He’ll give up like everyone has given up on him the past four years. I won’t do it. I’m not giving up on him.
"Noah needsyou, Chris. He doesn't want me helping him. He wants you," I reply while grabbing every towel in the vicinity to wrap around his body. If I don't get his body temp up, he could go to hypothermic shock. "I need to know what you took and how much. Was it heroin? Did you take heroin?"
I slap his cheek with the back of my hand, returning his focus to me when his glassy eyes stare into space. “Tell me what you took, Chris. Tell me, then I’ll promise.”
Chris locks his light brown eyes with mine. I can see the hope in them. “H-h-he—”
“You took heroin?” I fill in, my voice as shaky as my hands.
