AllFreeNovel
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She’s dead weight. Unconscious, and I round the banister. “Get up. All of you. Get the fuck up,” I tell the four guys on the couch, a boulder in my lungs.
They stand with their pipe and drugs, and I place Luna on the lumpy plaid cushions. Crouching down to her face, I touch her cheek tenderly. “Luna?”
She looks asleep. I press my fingers to her neck, feeling the slowthump, thump, thumpof her pulse.
“Is she dead?” someone asks.
“Fuuuck,” another guy curses. “I’m not going down formurder.”
“Let him take the fall. He offered. We should let him.”
More agreements.
“Nah, she’s just playing,” someone says.
“Just kick her. That woke her up the last time I did it.” He laughs, and my head whips in the direction of that voice.
Patrick.He’s a foot from me, and rage flames like lit gasoline in my veins. I stand and whirl around on him, my fist slamming into his face with the strength of my entire fucking body—physical, brute strength that I never had as a kid, not to this degree. Thecrackof his nose causes a few “ooohs” and winces from cousins, but no one assists him.
And no one stops me.
Not even as I throw a second, a third, a fourthfuriouspunch into his face, and he’s on the floor. My knuckles sting. My muscles and lungs sear, and I inhale the fire of my wrath like toxic fuel. Anger isn’t a darkened boiling pool I ever blister this deeply inside, but I can’t crawl out. A fifth, a sixth, a seventh fist to his face. I’m beating the shit outta him—he should be writhing or moaning, but he’s trying to block my hand. He spits out a tooth. And he’s laughing.
I hate meth.
He’s numb to this pain. Now at least, and it staggers me back and on to my feet. Panting, I twist towards Luna, safe on the couch. I hover over her thin frame, about to lift her in my arms. She needs a doctor now.
“Shhhh!” my dad yells. “Do you hear that?”
Everyone goes quiet. I freeze, only hearing my heavy breaths.
And then…sirens.
“Cops,” Colin says, sprinting to the backdoor, but it’s too late. Every entrance whips open, and police swarm the row house.
“Hands up! Everyone!” Cops chase after my cousins who try to hurdle furniture and flee out kitchen windows. “Stay where you are! Don’t move!”
“Shitshit,” cousins curse.
“Fuck.”
I raise my hands, my pulse jackhammering. I haven’t taken my eyes off Luna, so I don’t sense a cop at my back.
I’m shoved hard to the floor. Chest meet Ground. His knee digs into my spine, and I turn my head so I can see Luna. “She needs—”
“Shut up,” he sneers, yanking my wrists painfully behind my back. Cold metal clips around my wrists.
I can’t leave her. I promised I wouldn’t fucking leave her.I’m unblinking, knowing not to struggle, but I can’t leave her. I can’t leave Luna.
“On the floor!”
“Against the wall!”
“Hands behind your fucking back!”
The commands are jumbled with grunts, curses, and bodies thumping around the house. Police are saying something about the drugs and collecting evidence. I’m a second from shouting how she needs a fucking doctor, and then in sprints my best friend.
Farrow is running straight for Luna, his trauma bag already half-unzipped, and for a brief second, his eyes flash down to me. I’m handcuffed. On the ground. His focused gaze is suddenly stabbed with pain.
