The Purest Hook (Second Circle Tattoos #3)(64)

Arnie straightened his collar and wiped his forearm across his mouth to wipe away the blood. “I’m going to ruin you, Sarah-Jane. And I’m going to ruin lover-boy too. You had your chance to pay up and make this go away. Now you better be prepared to face the consequences.”

*

He couldn’t have heard right, because Dred could have sworn he heard the man yelling at Pixie say she was a washed-up druggie. And there was no way the universe was playing such a cruel f*cking trick on him.

But the look of abject horror on Pixie’s face told him his hearing was perfectly fine. And when Trent had stepped between the two of them to hug her and tell her that everything was going to be okay because the guy hadn’t told them anything they didn’t already know, his stomach churned like waves hitting the sand down by Hermosa Beach Pier.

The whole time, Cujo glared at him. Dred could feel the penetrating stare, and the weight of the expectancy that he would snap out of it and step up to Pixie any minute to hold her. Or perhaps Cujo was waiting for him to repeat Trent’s words that it was okay, when it wasn’t. It was so f*cking not okay.

With a deep breath, he reached for his anchor, gripping it in such a way that the anchor’s bill dug into his palm. But even the sharp pain couldn’t detract from the sheer devastation he felt that Pixie was a junkie like his mom.

Cujo wrapped his arms around Pixie and whispered something that made her cry. He rubbed her back and continued to speak words muttered so low Dred couldn’t hear them.

He felt like an outsider, like he was having an out-of-body experience.

Pixie wiped her face, and Cujo let her go before walking toward him, coming to a stop when their faces were inches apart.

“That’s your f*cking girl, and she’s hurting more than you can imagine,” he growled. “You make her feel worse and I swear on Drea’s f*cking life, I will pound the crap out of you so f*cking hard you won’t know whether to shit or go sailing.”

“You want us to stay out here with you, Pix?” Trent asked all the while glaring at Dred.

“No. Please. Go inside.”

Dred watched Cujo and Trent disappear back into the studio.

“You’re an addict,” he spat.

Pixie walked over to the steps to the studio and sat down. Her movements were jerky. Like her body was about to give out on her. But he’d seen that before with his mom.

“Yes,” she said, her eyes looking like they’d had all the sunshine ripped out of them.

Dred paced and pulled on the anchor so hard the cord broke. Of all the moments in his life, when he’d pulled on the anchor to compose himself, he’d never broken it. Until now.

Drowning in fury, he roared as threw it as far as he could down the alley.

Drugs and lies surrounded him. They always had. He couldn’t remember a time when his mom hadn’t been an addict. But she had always told him she wasn’t. She’d told him she could stop any time, but every attempt she made to go more than one day without a fix ended up with fits of anger and violent shaking and that desperate need for more drugs.

The first time he was taken into care, she’d screamed for him, but only lasted two days in the treatment center. Two hellish days where he’d been placed with a family of older boys who’d made his life miserable. When she’d taken him from school, swearing she was clean, she’d sneaked them onto the green-and-white GO train headed for Toronto without any tickets.

The very idea that drugs had touched his snowflake made him want to weep. He’d built an illusion of her. His perfect girl, yet she was no better than anybody else.

“How long were you a user?” he asked without looking at her.

“Two years, but it’s not what you think, Dred. I’ve been clean for six years.”

Six years. It felt too convenient. He needed to check. “Have you used while we’ve been together?

“No. I haven’t used since the day I set foot in Miami. The very next day I met Trent and Cujo and they helped me get clean.”

Dred paced the concrete, itching to let go of the last thread of control, to hit something hard enough to bring about a different kind of pain to the one currently cleaving him in two.

“But when I asked, you said you are an addict, right?”

“Yes, I did. I’ll always be an addict, but I’m sober. You know this. You’ve seen it with Nikan.”

“Don’t you dare bring my brother into it. He had his reasons.”

“And so do I!” Pixie yelled back at him.

He marched over to her, stood mere footsteps away, torn between wanting to believe her yet needing to leave. “Yeah. And what are they? Wanted to fit in with the cool kids?”

“You’re being an *, Dred. I was scared of telling you because I didn’t know how you’d respond. If I’d known it was this,” she said, tears filling her eyes, “I would never have bothered getting involved with you.”

“Yeah, well, I have enough junkies in my life without adding another one.”

“You’re not going to give me a chance to explain, are you?”

“Explain what? You’re an addict, and I don’t want anything to do with that. I don’t want my daughter around that. Good-bye, Pixie.”

She stood on the third step, bringing them close to eye-level. “Just like that, we’re done?”