“What is all this?” I asked.
“Breakfast,” he said straight-faced. “You get to choose one item from the tray and one only.” He sat down across from me on the bed.
“Is this a joke?” Who the hell would choose drugs for breakfast?
Nikki, I thought.
“Choose wisely, girl.” He pointed to the tray.
I grabbed the sandwich and tore off the wrapper before he could finish his sentence. I took a monster bite that contained both sandwich and paper.
“Slow down,” he warned. I detected amusement in his warning. I ignored him, choking when I tried to swallow down half-chewed bites, but the feeling of chewing and swallowing was euphoric. I kept going until the sandwich was completely in my stomach.
I didn’t need drugs. I was high on food.
I wiped at the mess I made on my face and licked my fingers clean. He handed me a glass of water, and I downed it in three big gulps. I sat back on the bed and patted my bare stomach, no longer caring that I was practically naked in front of this stranger. I opened my mouth to speak when a sudden wave of nausea washed over me. I sat up and held a hand over my mouth.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, as I frantically looked around for something I could throw up in. I didn’t see anything within arm’s reach, but it only took him a second to realize what it was I needed. He leapt up and grabbed a metal wastebasket from the corner of the room and ran back, just in time for me to empty the entire breakfast into the basket. Every little bit of barely-chewed, undigested sandwich came back up in waves until once again my stomach was completely empty.
“I told you to slow the fuck down.” He walked to the far side of the room and opened the window, tossing the entire basket out. “I’ll hose that out later.”
I never cried when I woke up in the hospital and couldn’t even recall my name. I didn’t cry when I was told I might never regain my memory. I didn’t cry when I was thrown into a group home full of perverts. I didn’t cry when I ran away and had to live on the streets. I didn’t cry when I came to the realization that using my body was the only way I was going to be able to survive. I didn’t cry when a bullet grazed my ear. I didn’t cry when I was handcuffed to a bed by a tattooed psychopath who I was certain was going to kill me.
But losing the first full stomach I had in weeks?
I cried.
Not just a few little tears. I sobbed. Loud and long. Shoulder shaking. No end in sight.
Ugly cry.
Hope. It’s something I hadn’t yet given up, but right then and there, I was ready to throw in the towel. I didn’t care if I stayed attached to that bed until I died and the skin rotted away from my bones.
I was done.
I’d been dealt all I could handle, and I was more than fucking over it.
Over being afraid. Over being hungry. Over redheaded hookers. Over being shot at.
Over this sorry excuse for a life.
I sat back on the bed and rested my head against my arm, which hung at an awkward angle. I let my body go limp. Looking out the window, I noticed the sun was out. I didn’t even know what time it was. I didn’t care.
No one looked for me when I might have been someone, so no one would be looking for me now that I was absolutely no one.
It’s ironic really. I’d been wishing for a bed and a roof over my head and in a really fucked up way, for however long they kept me alive, I had it.
The guy whose name I didn’t know left the room but left the tray on the bed. How much of that stuff did I have to take for it to be lethal? Half? All of it? Maybe, King’s plan was to inject me with the drugs himself. Or maybe he was a coward and would order his friend to do his dirty work for him.
Maybe, if I was lucky, my death would be quick. Just a nice bullet to the head.
Either way, it didn’t matter how I was going to go. I just knew it was the end, and oddly enough, it was comforting to come to terms with it instead of spending my remaining hours fighting it.
I was beyond exhausted.
Maybe, King thought I would make things easy on him and off myself with the drugs. I huffed. I wasn’t about to give him that satisfaction. If he wanted me dead, he was going to man-up and do it himself. I used every ounce of strength I had and kicked the tray off the bed. The mirror bounced off the carpet. The coke billowed into the air in a white cloud of fine powder.
And I laughed.
I laughed so hard my entire body shook and tears ran down my face. I laughed so hard that the sound of my laughter got caught in my throat. There I was. Half-naked. Handcuffed to a bed. Puke on my face. A tray of drugs scattered on the floor.
Manically laughing like a schizophrenic who’d skipped out on her meds.
The door opened again and in walked the same guy from earlier. I didn’t acknowledge him, just continued to stare out the window as the sun began to set.
“Do you know how much that shit is worth?” he asked with his eyes wide.
“Nope. And don’t know why you would bother bringing it to me since I already told your friend that I’m no fucking junkie.” I rolled onto my side, turning my back to him. “Why don’t you just kill me, and get it over with.”
“It was a test,” he said, rounding the bed. He propped himself up next to me, his back against the headboard, a steaming ceramic bowl in his hands. “You passed.”
“A what? What the hell does that mean?”
“King. He wanted to know if you were telling the truth, so he tested you. A junkie would’ve said ‘fuck the food’ and dove nose-first into the dope.” He extended the bowl out to me. “Here. I’m Preppy, by the way.”
Odd name for an odd guy. He looked like a cross between a thug, a teacher, and a surfer.
I’d seen him briefly the night before, but I didn’t take the time to really look at him. Preppy was close to six feet tall. He wore light jeans and a short sleeved yellow collared shirt with a white bow tie. His sandy blonde hair was tied back into a wild ponytail on the top of his head, but beneath it his head was shaved clean on both sides above his ears, revealing intricate vine tattoos that started at his temples and circled around his head. His arms, hands, and knuckles were also covered with ink. He had a dark beard that didn’t match his hair color. At first glance, you’d think he was much older than he was, but it was his eyes that gave away his youth.
“What is it?” I asked, staring into the steaming bowl.
“Chicken broth. Drink it slowly so you can keep it down. How long has it been since you ate?” He crossed his legs at the ankles and rested his hands behind his head.
“Not sure.” I don’t know why but saying the words out loud made me feel ashamed in a way I hadn’t thought about before. “Days, I think.”
Hesitantly, I took the bowl from his hands. It was warm on my palms and instantly made the ache in my weak hands subside. I lifted it to my mouth slowly, relishing the feeling of the steam against my cheeks and the warmth of the liquid as it spread down my throat.
“Why are you even bothering with feeding me?”
“You say you’re not a junkie, but your fucking ribs are practically poking through your skin, and I could sharpen my knife on that collar bone of yours. King’s not the kind of guy who starves someone to death.”
“So, he’s not going to kill me?” I asked, hopefully.
“Didn’t say that. Just said he wouldn’t starve you to death. Bears crew has a lead on the redhead. If we catch up to her and we find out you weren’t in on it, he might let you go.”
“Might?”
“He’s not the most predictable guy, and he’s been away for a few years. Hasn’t been acting like himself, so there’s no telling what’s running through his head right now.”
“Years?” That’s when I remembered that the party last night was supposed to be a coming home party. “Where was he?”
“State.”
“College?”
“Prison.”
Prison made much more sense than college.
“What did he do?” I was pushing my luck by even asking. But I thought that maybe, if I knew more about King—knew what made him tick—I would have more of a chance of convincing him to let me go.
“You sure ask a lot of questions, little girl. Why do you want to know?”
I shrugged and sipped more of my broth. “Just curious, I guess.”
“He killed someone, got caught,” he said casually. I swallowed a huge mouthful of broth in one tight gulp.
“Who?” My curiosity made my mouth run faster than the speed of my usual word vomit.
Preppy smiled. His dark brown eyes glistened with excitement. I knew then that there was a lot more to him than what I saw on the surface. Something sinister was lying just beneath the tattoos and bow tie.
Something that made the hair on my arms stand on end.
Preppy leaned forward, resting his chin on the back of his folded hands.
“His mom.”
Chapter Eight
Doe
There was no doubt in my mind that King was capable of the kind of things most normal people couldn’t fathom, but what kind of person kills their own mother?
Preppy asked me the same questions King had about who I was, and I told him my story. The difference between Preppy and King is that Preppy actually listened to me.