Trapped (Caged #2)(66)

With shaking hands, I stood up, slowly pulled my jacket around my shoulders, and walked out. I didn’t even bother to lock the door as I left, just headed down the hallway and out into the street. I made my way across the pavement and to the alley heading south.

My heart pounded in my chest, and my throat tightened and ached. I tried not to think about where I was going or what I was going to do. I had given my word I wasn’t going to do this again, and I was about to violate that promise.

Yolanda would have killed me if given the chance.

The smell was exactly how I remembered it. Sweat, urine, unwashed bodies—it was like a VW van in the middle of Woodstock if Woodstock was held in a nasty old swamp instead of out on a farm. Max was sitting on a couch at the far side of the room with some strung out chick hovering around him, begging for a slam and offering to blow him for free if he just gave her a little. I approached him slowly as she looked up at me with dead eyes.

“Teague!” Max cried out as I came near. “How ya doin’, bud? Haven’t seen you in forever! Damn, you look like you’ve been hitting the gym! I thought you were all cleaned up or some such shit now. You got a job at a bar or something, Lee?”

Max had a tendency to ask a lot of stupid questions, none of which he actually expected to have answered.

“Hey,” I said, trying not to cringe at the use of the nickname, which had never been a favorite of mine. “What’s been shakin’, bro? I need a bit.”

“You know I’m your man,” Max said with a grin. “Anytime, anywhere! You name it, I got it. Weed, blow, meth—what you want, bud?”

“Just some H, bro,” I told him. I didn’t know why he was bothering to ask—I never touched the other shit. I hadn’t even smoked weed more than a handful of times. It was always about the smack. I just didn’t see any point in going halfway on such shit.

Max shoved the girl off his lap and turned to the side. He opened up one of those boxes that was meant to hold fishing lures and started rummaging around in it. There were all kinds of baggies and needles inside. He had everything I needed.

Tyrannosaurus’s Tackle Box, I thought to myself.

My hand clenched at my side involuntarily, and I had to swallow a lump in my throat.

The chick with the dead eyes watched me as I pointed out everything I needed, and Max named a price. I swallowed, handed him most of the rent money, and walked away with a fresh needle and a rock of brown heroin. I shoved them deep into my jacket pocket as I walked slowly back down the street. I passed other junkies, hookers, pimps, and dirty cops without giving them a second glance as I made my way back to my apartment.

My apartment.

Not ours.

Not even the apartment anymore.

Just mine.

Inside, I went straight for my dresser. I pulled out the long-unopened box stowed away in the back behind the jeans and opened it. I pulled out the slender rubber tube and a charred spoon. Dropping the box on the floor, I headed to the kitchen and laid everything out on the table. Images of mashed potatoes and casseroles and shit peppered the back of my head as I got set up, reminding myself over and over again why I had to do this. I couldn’t survive this way. I just couldn’t. I wasn’t about to try to fool myself into thinking that I could.

It was amazing how second nature it was as I grabbed everything I needed. I filled a small bowl with warm water and grabbed one of the porn mags that had been hiding, forgotten, under the couch since last summer. I tore out one of the pages from the middle and laid it flat on the table. I ripped the plastic off the needle and put it off to the side. Max had the good stuff—the easy stuff—so once it was crushed into powder on top of the magazine paper, I only needed to mix it with a little water in the cap of my rig to get it to dissolve. It was only a couple of minutes before I had the needle prepared.

“Still a f*cking pro,” I muttered to myself.

I sat still for a moment, then shook my head and wrapped my arm with a bit of tubing Max had given me. My veins were easily accessible now, though I remembered a time when they had collapsed and I had to shoot up through my leg. I tapped the inner part of my arm a couple of times, but that was more from habit than necessity.

Habit. That was kind of funny.

I clenched my fist twice as I prepared both my arm and my mind. There was a voice screaming in the back of my head that I hadn’t done it yet. As long as I hadn’t shoved the rig into my arm and pushed the plunger, I hadn’t done it yet.

I paused, bit down on my lip, and let thoughts of Tria rush over me.

Memories came in waves without any kind of order to them. I remembered the first day she moved in and what a f*cking mess the place was. I thought about how she helped Krazy Katie attach cigarette packs to her wall and how we all went grocery shopping together. I remembered how Tria looked when she dug around in that huge f*cking purse trying to find her lip gloss.

A weird sound came out of my throat.

“Can’t do this,” I whispered.

There was sweat on my forehead and the back of my neck as I took a deep breath and positioned the point of the needle on top of the vein. My muscles tensed, my mind screamed, and the memory of Tria’s scent as I held her in bed sent me over the edge. All I had to do was push it in and inject it.

So easy.

As long as I didn’t do it, I was still clean.

But it was so, so easy to do it. Once it was done, I wouldn’t feel like this anymore.