Little resealable bags with a cartoon crocodile printed on transparent plastic. The grinning reptile rippled over the red crystals that filled each small, deadly sack. Blood drained from her face. It couldn’t be.
TheRage, a drug that had been sweeping through poorer neighborhoods, like the one where she lived and taught. The drug that dealers were known to be selling to all ages, even grade school kids.
How could Rey be involved with this? All he had ever talked about was getting into law enforcement, a step up from his current jobs, after his failed stint in the army.
And he knew how Lily felt about kids. Aboutherkids, that she had felt particularly protective of because of the conditions in which they were raised, the environments which their parents fought to survive.
How could he bring something like this into their home?
As if he were summoned, Lily heard the sounds of the lock turning at the door. She was already moving towards the kitchen where the entrance was before realizing it, the open bag in her hand, and a determined look on her face.
“Querida, I don’t have time for dinner—” Rey stopped mid-sentence, Lily standing in front of him. She felt his eyes first registering the uncharacteristic angry expression on her face and stiff set of her shoulders. And then his eyes fell on the duffel bag, the contents open to view.
Instantly his face closed up, his eyes narrowing.
“What thehell, Rey?” Lily’s voice was loud, but she didn’t care. She thrust the bag at him, her arms shaking.
He grabbed the bag from her, tossing it easily to the side before he took a wide stance, his 6’1” muscular build easily towering over her. She fought the instinct to cower. She had to stand up to him. For her kids. Forallkids in the neighborhood.
This crossed a line she had never known needed to be drawn.
“You don’t take that tone with me,querida.” His sneer made the term of endearment a mockery.
Lily mustered up as much calm as she could. She had to reason with him. She lowered her voice, as she would with her pre-schoolers when they were upset.
“I’m sorry, Rey. It’s just a shock. You know how I feel about drugs.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But ask me if I care.” He moved towards her and she stepped back involuntarily.
It didn’t matter. One of his hands whipped out to clamp down viciously on her upper arm, and the open palm of the other slammed into the side of her head before she could even move to block it.
“Rey, no—!”
He propelled her against the wall, her body making a loud thud as it connected, underneath her cries and screams for him to stop.
As his knee rammed into her stomach, her phone flew out of her back pocket, hitting the floor. It chose that moment to come alive, ringing and lighting up as Lucie’s face filled the screen.
Rey bellowed with rage, the veins in his neck standing out in harsh relief.
“Didn’t I tell you that bitch is no good for you?”
Lily screamed as he stomped the ringing phone with one steel-toed boot, smashing the screen, the jagged lines of broken glass warping her friend’s face into a billion fragments. And even that wasn’t enough.
He swooped down to grab the piece of hardware and she flinched, expecting him to strike her with it. Instead, he hurled it into the sink, where it entered like a missile in between the soaking pots and pans to a watery death.
Rey stood there, heaving. And then he turned to Lily who shrank with fear at his clenched fists and face, still mottled with rage. Long moments passed, the ticking of the kitchen clock as loud as a snare drum. Rey looked at it, and cursed. Lily cringed, and he returned his glare to her.
“Fucking bitch, you’ve made me late.”
Only in this universe would it be Lily’s fault that Rey had to take time out to beat her.
“I came home to get this, so I could deliver it before my shift begins tonight.” He picked up the black duffel bag where it lay, and then turned to Lily, an evil smile on his face.
“Jerry’s on my left nut about being late. I’m already on two strikes so you know what, baby girl? You’re going to have to make this drop off for me.”
No!
He shoved the bag into her hands before she could get the word out from between her swollen, possibly split lips.
