Released (Caged #3)(3)

Back at the table, I looked over the paraphernalia and tried not to let myself feel physically ill from the familiarity. It was so f*cking easy to go back to this—too easy. Quick stop at Max’s place, throw down the cash I had, come on back here, and forget the world around me. Money was already an issue, but there were ways of dealing with that, too.

I remembered the chick on the couch with Max and her offers of fellatio for a quick hit. He’d take her up on it, too. I knew for a fact he went both ways but refused to think about or remember anything like that. I ran my tongue over my dry lips and swallowed back the taste in my throat before going back to my task.

I got the needle set up to go, wrapped my arm, and positioned the tip at the vein.

“What the f*ck are you doing?”

I swallowed again—hard. The end of the needle lay against my arm, and I felt the slight sting as it started to pierce the skin. My breath came out in short pants as I clenched my fist, forcing the vein up.

“She’d hate this.”

I grabbed the needle and slammed it down on the kitchen table before dropping my head into my hands. I was f*cking talking to myself, and if that didn’t make me crazy, I wasn’t sure what did. My stomach burned and my hands started shaking. I wanted to throw up but knew I wouldn’t be able to.

“I don’t want to feel like this,” I heard myself whisper. “I don’t want to feel anything.”

A weird sound came out of my throat, but I didn’t know what it meant.

“Bang it—perfection awaits.”

I started to reach for the needle again, but I paused for a second.

“It always ends.”

I shoved myself back from the table, half-walked, half-stumbled to the bedroom, dropped most of my clothes to the floor, and fell into bed. I wrapped my arms around my head and buried my face into the mattress. I wanted to just melt into it—disappear into the blankets and pillows forever—but instead, I turned my head to the side and stared at the window.

Though I didn’t recall having gone to sleep, I must have dozed off because I was suddenly engulfed in her scent. My eyes flew open, and my heart leapt with hope, but my arms were only filled with Tria’s pillow.

I was still alone in the bed.

Hugging the pillow to me, I buried my nose in the fabric and inhaled deeply. My legs throbbed, and my eyes burned, but I squeezed them shut and tried to blank it all out. I knew how to do that—I was good at it. I’d practiced forcing unpleasant thoughts from my head for years. If it got worse, there was already a needle ready for me in the other room.

Rolling over, I grabbed her pillow and tossed it to the other side of the room where it landed on top of all the dirty laundry. I mentally smacked myself for thinking about how much better going to the laundromat had been with Tria to go with me and turned over to face the window again. I liked the empty black pane as it looked out onto the night.

Another large breath helped clear my nose of her scent—sort of—and I closed my eyes to try to go to sleep again. This shouldn’t be that hard. I’d done all this before. I was an expert at shutting out everything and everyone around me. Being alone was nothing new.

In fact, I preferred it—always had. That was why every time I f*cked a girl in the past, I always went home right afterwards. It was always better that way because I didn’t want them to end up too clingy. That’s what I should have done with…with her in the first place. I could go back to that again—no problem.

And Tria could go back to…what?

A brand new sense of panic came over me, and my mind no longer seemed willing to block anything out.

Financially, Tria had been almost completely dependent on me. Yeah, she had a part-time job, but it wasn’t enough for her to be able to afford rent on her own place. She still had a few weeks left before her first year of school was over. She had nowhere to live, no steady income to speak of, and she was pregnant.

And alone.

I shook my head and clenched my teeth.

She wouldn’t have to stay alone, though. She was intelligent and beautiful, and she could probably capture the heart of the first guy she ran into on campus. There were a lot of them out there, and a sob story like hers about her *, junkie boyfriend knocking her up was bound to call to one of them. Hoffman was pretty much known for only choosing the highest quality applicants to go to school there, so there was hardly a dud in the whole bunch. She’d have someone good to take care of her and the baby.

My baby.

I swallowed down bile.

Some other guy was going to end up with her, raising my child. She might even give it to Nikki and Brandon, and the baby would grow up in that little town, dragging lobsters out of traps.

“No!”

I sat straight up.

“No f*cking way!” I yelled out into the dark, empty room. “No f*cking way is my kid going to grow up in that f*cked-up loony bin! No one’s gonna raise my kid but me!”

I jumped out of the bed, yanked on my sweatpants and boots, and ran out of the house. My feet pounded the cement as I ran for the bus stop, realized that at four in the morning it was going to be at least an hour before another bus came by going the right way, and took off running again. Even with a lot slower run than I usually managed, I made it to the subway in less than ten minutes.

The security guy gave me a bit of a look, like maybe he recognized me from the other day, but he was going to let me on until I realized I didn’t have any money on me. I yelled a bit, but it wasn’t helping, so I ran back out to the street and hiked my way to the other side of downtown. I ran the last four blocks in the early morning drizzle. The hospital loomed in front of me.