Cutter's Hope (27 page)

Marlin gave me a nod, my sister was in the seat this time which was an improvement over yesterday’s floorboard adventure. She stared at me through the passenger side window and put her hand to the glass. Cutter pulled us up even so I could put my hand over hers. I held up three fingers, the classic sign for ‘I love you’ and she did it back. She looked so haggard, so worn and tired and like everything sparkly and vivacious about her had been strip mined out of her and I felt helpless.

The ride back to Florida was a fucking long one after that. We had the better part of a day ahead of us, we’d only been about an hour out of Louisiana when we’d been forced to pull off for my lame ass the day before… or was it earlier today? Man everything was such a mess. A jumble of time, too much happening in too short a span of time and the days just blurred together. I had no idea what time it was let alone what day it was. I knew the sun was out, but that was about it.

I hugged myself to Cutter’s strong, lean back and let the vibration of the bike, the rushing wind and the blur of pavement beneath the wheels lull me, almost hypnotize me. It didn’t help as much as I would have liked.

I knew when we crossed the Florida state line, not by any signage but by the guys popping off their helmets with joyous whoops. I even brought mine off and the fresh blast of wind in my face, man was it nice. I let my hair whip back in the wind and it was like it blew out the cobwebs some. Reviving, that was the best way to call it.

“I want to check on my sister!” I shouted and Cutter nodded. He held up his hand and shot a series of hand signals and we started dropping back in the pack. I hugged my casted arm around his waist, my wrist through the chinstrap on my helmet. We rode alongside the crash truck’s passenger side and I reached up my left hand. The window rolled down and my sister reached down and we clasped hands for as long as we could.

“I love you, Bubbles!” I shouted over the wind and a ghost of a smile teased my sister’s lips. She laid her head down on her arm and Cutter gunned it just a little bit and the link of our hands was broken. I held onto my lover and he took us back up front to lead his crew. It was still an hour and more to Ft. Royal.

When we hit town, hand signals were thrown and some of the guys started peeling off to go to their respective homes until finally it was just me and Cutter, Trike on Marlin’s Harley, and Marlin and my sister in the truck. We rolled up to the house we’d all left from and the ride from hell was over.

I stood and stretched and Cutter did a few last minute things before shutting off his Indian and getting off of it himself. I was already helping my little sister down from the truck.

“It hurts,” she whimpered and I frowned.

“What hurts?”

“Everything,” she moaned.

“She’s Jonsing for a fix
hard
right now,” Marlin said coming around.

“I want it but I hate it and I don’t know what to
do,
Buttercup,” Faith was whining and it broke my fucking heart.

“Come on Sis, let’s get you inside and figure out what to do from there,” I looked at Marlin over my sister’s head and he nodded, the sigh he heaved unmistakable.

“Take her on up to the master bedroom,” Marlin called after us.

I helped my sister and the guys let me do it and as soon as we were in the house my sister hissed at me, “Hope, who are these guys?”

“Easy there, tiger. They’ve gone above and beyond helping me get you out of there. I’ve got questions too, like what the fuck happened?”

My sister whimpered and we took the stairs slowly, one at a time as she moved like an old woman. Like her entire body was arthritic and pained her.

“That bitch, she sold me, Hope… Tonya
sold me…”
and then she started to cry and I really didn’t feel so fucking bad that the bitch had met her end, in fact, I found myself sort of hoping that it’d been real slow and painful, terrifying even. What kind of bitch did that make me? A vengeful one. That’s what.

I got Faith into the big king sized four poster bed and got up in it with her. I held her hand with my good one and we lay facing each other. She wept, big wracking heaving sobs and I held her, smoothing her tangled, brittle blonde hair back from her face. The fucking drugs they kept pushing on her had ravaged her, I was terrified beyond repair. I fingered the black leather cuff bracelet that her two thin wrist practically swam in and wondered what it meant. I’d never seen it before. It was a wide brace of leather, with an old fashioned key-hole plate riveted to it.

It had been on the closed lid of the toilet when she’d been in the bath and she’d had an epic freak out, panicking and screaming, thrashing when I’d swept it into the plastic grocery sack we were using as a trash bag. Marlin had immediately gone for it with a baleful look in my direction, and had spent the next five minutes convincing Faith that it was okay, that it was there and that no one was going to throw it away. We had to keep it in her sight or she would have a whole new meltdown over it and as soon as we’d gotten her out of the dirty bathwater with drowning head bugs in it, she’d snatched it to her and had held onto it for dear life.

I tried asking her again now what it was, why it meant something but all that did was set her into a fit of crying harder. So I lay still with my sister until she’d cried herself to sleep and sighed. I didn’t know what to do. How to help her. Fuck.

“C’mere, Sweetheart. Marlin and I need to talk to you,” Cutter murmured from the doorway. I slipped out of bed and left Faith sleeping and went down to the kitchen with them.

“I don’t know what to fucking do,” I confessed and rubbed my eyes.

“That’s what we wanted to talk to you about,” Marlin said.

“I’m all ears, shit… start talkin’,” I told him.

“Marlin here is confident he can get her physically better, I pulled another favor with the SHMC up North, got one of their members, a bona fide doctor coming down to check her out. Bloodwork, and the more unpleasant things that go along with this kind of thing.”

I nodded wearily and Marlin and Cutter exchanged a look, a look I didn’t like, “What was that look for?” I asked, immediately on the defensive.

“Now, just hear us out,” Cutter said softly. I gritted my teeth and nodded slowly. I mean fuck, hadn’t these guys earned at least that much?

“I want to help your sister, I have some experience with this kind of thing, I can get her clean. Now I gotta ask, have you ever been with a junky kicking dope before?” Marlin was giving me a rather intense once over. I shook my head.

“First week is going to be hell on earth, for her but also for me as she goes through the physical symptoms of withdrawal. I’m talking vomiting, diarrhea, excruciating pain, begging, pleading… it’s not pretty Hope.”

I swallowed and nodded, but I couldn’t look at either of them, “What do you need me to do?” I asked.

“That’s just it, I need you to do nothing,” he said and he fixed me with an intense look.

“Wait, what?” I frowned.

“I need you to go upstairs, kiss your sister and go with Cutter and stay the fuck out of this house for a week, you get me?”

“Oh no, I can’t do that.” I was shaking my head emphatically and Marlin crossed his arms.

“I mean it, I need you to trust me on this, the first week or two is the worst, the physical withdrawal is… well it’s something you don’t need to see. Your sister is going to be a complete basket case. She’s going to be going through shit you can’t possibly imagine and you don’t need to be here for it. She isn’t going to want you to be here for it. Trust me.”

I was shaking my head softly back and forth. I wanted to reject everything he was saying. I wanted to be here for my little sister like I always had been. I swallowed hard, eyes welling.

I would fight him on this. I would, but then Cutter’s voice cut through my unreasonableness, “Why haven’t you called your littlest one?” he asked, and I jolted.

“Because she doesn’t need to be here for this part,” I said and Cutter came to stand right in front of me, he put his hands on my shoulders and I looked up into his sorrowful face.

“Neither do you, Sweetheart. We’ve helped you this far, Baby. I know you’re tired and I’m telling you, your sister may hate you for a minute for you not being right physically there but I promise, she’s gonna be glad you weren’t when it’s all over.

“Shouldn’t this be up to her?” I asked softly. I was seriously torn by now and Marlin sighed.

“Right now she is craving that shit with every fiber of her being. She wants it so bad, just to make the pain stop that she’d do anything for it. Pretty soon she’ll come to the realization that she ain’t got no way to get it, then the real begging is gonna start. The kind where she starts begging you to kill her. Trust me, Hope. We’ve all seen the lengths you’re willing to go to for your family. It’s part of why we like you so much. We’re glad you’re with the Captain here, but
you’re with the Captain now.
Which means you’re one of us and you’re our family now, too. You ain’t gotta carry this alone. Let us help you.”

It was a moving speech, it really was but… “Faith is my sister, she’s not a burden, she never has been, but she is my responsibility – ” Cutter cut me off.

“Babe, you aren’t listening to Marlin here, she’s
our
responsibility. You only thought you were joking when you cracked that you’d been adopted,” he shook his head, “You have, you really have, you’re mine, Hope; and I’m tellin’ you, you ain’t gotta do it all by yourself.”

“Is it really going to be that bad?” We whirled and there was Faith, leaning hard against the wall where the kitchen started.

“Not gonna lie to you, Baby Girl, it’s gonna be that bad and worse…” Marlin said and his tone more than anything put me at ease. It was low and soothing but more than that, when he spoke to my little sister it was deferential.

Faith got teary, dashing at the moisture on her lashline with her fingers like she used to when she was little and had scraped her knee and my fucking heart broke all over again.

“It’s up to you, Peanut,” I said and sniffed myself, “I went through Hell in gasoline boots to find you, I never gave up and I’m not giving up now. It really is up to you. I’ll do whatever you want.”

My sister pursed her lips and looked like she was having a hell of a time deciding, she was lucid for the time being but who knew how long that would last?

“Does Char know you found me yet?” she asked finally.

“Not yet, Babe, I gotta call her.”

“Don’t. I don’t want her to see me like this, I don’t want
you
to see me like this… Let me get better first, please?”

I cracked, little pieces of me tinkling to the floor and the tears ran free. I nodded and it killed me, letting her go. Letting her be all grown up.

“I’m not going anywhere, this is a small town, Faith. You change your mind, you need me, you tell Marlin and I’ll be here. You understand me?” She nodded a bit too rapidly and came to me then, we hugged each other fiercely and cried.

“About two weeks,” Marlin said, “For the absolute worst of it, one but two if you want to be out of feeling physically crappy… the emotional part takes a lot longer. A month, month and a half… although you got a lot more going on than just addiction issues on that front.” Marlin didn’t sound happy at all to be delivering the tough news but I appreciated him for it. So did Faith, I think. She pulled back and nodded.

“Okay, when does this start?” she asked bravely.

“Now,” Marlin swallowed hard and looked a little green around the gills, I could tell this was going to hurt him too. Fuck, what a goddamn mess. The whole thing.

“We’ll stay on the Mysteria Avenge,” Cutter said, naming his boat.

“Can you go by the Scarlett Anne for me, Bro? Pick me up some clothes and shit?” Marlin asked.

“Yeah, let me get Hope settled and will do. You hang in there, Firefly,” he said to my sister and she nodded. We hugged one last time and I swore I would be doing a preemptive lice treatment, we’d be swinging by a pharmacy on the way to his boat. I loved my sister, lived for them both, but the head bugs and the thought of getting them made my skin crawl. I couldn’t help it.

“I love you, Peanut,” I whispered and Faith shook, so frail, and whispered it back…

“I love you too,”

Leaving my little sister in the care of someone else at a time like this killed me. Destroyed a part of my soul I wasn’t ever going to get back. I followed Cutter out to his bike and he asked me…

“Need anything?”

“Yeah, swing by the local pharmacy, then take me home. Do whatever it is Marlin needs you to do and then get your ass back to the boat because I can’t be strong forever and I’m under some extreme load here.”

“I hear you, Sweetheart. Come on, let’s go.”

He took me to the pharmacy, he took me to his boat; he kissed me hard before he went to run the other errands that needed to be done… It was the most agonizing alone time I’d ever spent… waiting for him to get back to me which was rough for the girl who was always alone, who was used to carrying it all and all by herself. It was real damn rough.

Chapter 30

Cutter

I made record time, leaping across docks and boats to the other end of the harbor to Marlin’s sport fishing vessel he lived aboard. He was right across the harbor something like ten slips away and yet most of the time he and I were on opposite ends of the planet, which truthfully had never bothered me until now.

I knew Marlin was a standup guy, knew the tragedy he’d come from and how much it affected him, still, my girl had a lot riding on this. On him succeeding this time. I threw a bunch of his shit in a duffel I found randomly in one of his cupboards and slinging it over my shoulder, locked up and dashed back across everything.

I rode back to my house and found Marlin and Faith sitting across from each other in the living room, talking quietly. Faith looked scared, and I didn’t blame her. This was bullshit. Hardcore bullshit that she had to go through this on top of everything else. She looked blasted apart, freaked out but her aquamarine eyes held that glint of stubborn, a subtle flicker of that fire her sister Hope held inside.