Rock Bottom (16 page)

Chapter Thirty-four

I woke in the morning with a sense of regret so deep it hurt my bones. Or maybe that was the withdrawal. Either way, I knew it was time to go.

Elijah snored softly beside me and my heart warmed at his face slackened with sleep. He was no longer the boy I’d left behind. He was a man. I’d seen the change in his eyes last night, but now I could see it in his body, as well. The thicker forearms, toned shoulders, solid back. His air of ‘I don’t give a shit’ had evaporated, replaced by something heavier. Something that dared you to screw with him and promised that the results would not be pretty. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was a result of more time spent with Andy, an attempt to protect himself when no one else would. His frayed edges had turned sharp, and yet I didn’t fear them. Wrapped in his arms, they felt like a shield, protecting
me
.

I knew getting in his car would only lead to grief. To
this
inevitable moment. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to leave him. To walk away. To say goodbye. Again. He deserved more. But as was the case with most things in my life, I didn’t have a choice. Rafe was waiting, and with him, relief at the other end of the painful tether between us.

A small pad and pen printed with the hotel’s logo were laid out on the nightstand. I took them with me as I went in search of my shoes and stopped to leave him one last message before escaping back into my reality.

Car horns blared. Pedestrians shoved their way through the morning rush hour foot traffic. The smell of hot tar and sweat already hung heavy in the air. I hurried along, ignoring the blisters on my feet, the appalled looks, the crude comments, and was nearly clipped by a man in a suit biking to work as I crossed the street to the apartment. But none of it unsettled my already jittery nerves as much as the roar of Rafe’s voice the minute I stepped inside.

“
Where the hell have you been?
” He stormed into the kitchen and I took a step back, trapped against the door.

“W-working.”

“You were
working
? All night?”

I reached into my bra to show him the cash Elijah had given me and realized I’d left it behind. “I-I . . .”

“You
what?
”

“I forgot it.”

“You
forgot
my money?”

“I didn’t—”

The slap came out of nowhere. Completely unprepared, I stumbled into the counter.

“You worthless . . . You’ve become nothing but a fucking liability. Damien called last night looking for you and you know what I had to tell him? Do you?”

I shook my head and took cover behind my arms when he raised his hand to strike again. He didn’t. He dropped his hand and glared at me.

“I had to tell him that I didn’t know where the fuck my girl was. Do you know how big an idiot that made me look?”

“I didn’t—”

“Tell anyone where you were going? No, you didn’t, did you?”

“There was no one to tell. The others were already gone.”

“Then you stay on the fucking street until they get back, so I know where the hell you are.”

“Okay. I’m sorry, Rafe. I didn’t know. I was just working.”

“Working? No, sweetness. Working is something I get
paid
for. You’re out of control. Damien thinks you’d be worth a shit-ton more clean and I have to say I agree.”

“What?”

“It’s time you get your shit together, Rylie.  Men like Damien—men with deep pockets—don’t want strung-out whores. They want escorts. Capable, intelligent arm candy. Not just a body to bang. That’s where the real money is. It’s time you stepped up your game.”

He wanted me to do this
sober
?
“I . . . I can’t. Rafe, no, I can’t. I need it. Please, Rafe, I need it. I need it now.”

“What you need is to get your ass in gear. Let’s go.” He took my arm and hauled me back out to the front of the building where his car was waiting for us.

I was tossed into the passenger side where I sat, jonesing so hard my entire body shook with need as scenery blurred by. I had no idea what lay ahead, but I knew enough that terror coiled in the pit of my stomach like a snake ready to strike.

***

“Get out.” We pulled up outside of a small, two-story green and white house. It sat off the main road a ways, and the first thing I noticed was that there were no neighbors in sight.

“Rafe,
please
. What are we doing here? I’m so sorry I messed up. I won’t do it again. I swear.
Please
. Can we just go home, Rafe? Please?”

“No, you won’t mess up again. Because from now on you’re gonna have a clear head.” He pushed me up the walk and through the front door without bothering to knock. I considered running, but even if I could get past him—which was doubtful with the shape I was in—there was nowhere to go.

Inside, the two men I’d met at Rafe’s a lifetime ago greeted us. The one who’d helped him give me my first shot of heroin stood and proudly announced, “Welcome to rapid detox.”

Right then and there, I decided it didn’t matter where I went. Anywhere was better than here. But it was too late. Hard hands closed around each of my arms as Rafe and the man dragged me toward a solid door leading off the kitchen.

The second partner—the one with a bald head, a wicked looking scar running from the back of his right ear to the tip of his chin, and a distinct dent in his nose—remained seated, relinquishing no more than a disinterested glance as I started to struggle at the sight of the lock securely fastened to the outside of the door.

I struggled so hard their fingers bit into me, bruising my skin. I struggled so hard that we all nearly lost our balance as they dragged me down a flight of dirty wooden stairs. I struggled so hard that Rafe finally released me and threw a fist into my face to get me to stop. I tumbled onto a bare mattress set on a creaky metal frame.

I was still recovering from the shock when I felt the cold bite of metal around my wrist. I tried to move, but found that I couldn’t.

“
No!
Rafe, no. Please. Please don’t do this! Please, help me. Please. Please, no!” I sobbed and struggled some more while the men stood back and watched me.

It was useless. The restraints were secure. I wasn’t going anywhere they didn’t let me. Finally, I gave up the fight and collapsed onto the cold plastic.

“You finished?” Rafe’s cruel voice was a dull drone in my ears.

“Yeah.” I was most definitely finished.

“Good. Now, you're gonna stay here until you’re clean. Then you can get back to work.”

“We'll bring you food and water,” my second escort explained. “At all other times you’ll be on your own. No one can hear you so don’t bother screaming. And if you try to get free, you’ll only end up hurting yourself worse.” He indicated my shackled wrist that I’d already managed to tear bloody and raw with my futile attempts. “It won’t be fun. It won’t be easy. In fact, it’s going to suck like a bitch. But it’s for your own good, so I suggest you just let it happen.”

With those words of wisdom, the men cleared out, leaving me to my misery.

No. No. No. No. No.
I didn’t know if the word continued to pour from my lips or just through my brain. It didn’t matter. There was no one there but me to hear it anyway. Me and the bed and the filthy commode set up directly beside it just within reach. The dirt strewn floor. And, maybe, the spiders spinning their webs in the exposed rafters over my head.

I didn’t care. I didn’t care about where I was, or what was happening, or when it would stop. All I cared about was getting my next hit, or
not
getting it. That morning I couldn’t have imagined the pain getting any worse, but it did. Oh, how it did. My stomach cramped so hard I felt certain it would shrivel up inside of me and I suddenly became very grateful for that dirty toilet. I also became aware of the reason behind the lack of bedding.

With no lighting besides the single bare bulb dangling from the ceiling, I had no way to mark the passage of time. It didn’t take long, though, for my clothes to become soaked through with sweat. Sometime after that, the chills set in. My head throbbed while my stomach continuously rolled. I’d never felt so sick in all my life. My entire body felt like it had been hit by a Mack truck.
Twice
.

Now and then, food would appear beside the bed, though I never saw who brought it as I drifted in and out of delirium. I possessed no strength to actually eat any of it. The same went for the bottles of water. Just breathing seemed to require more energy than I possessed as fever ravaged my body. Eventually they would be taken away, only to be replaced with more of the same.

I laid there in agony, staring at the condensation streaking down the side of the water bottle, feeling the sandpaper grit in my mouth, trying to will myself to grab it, but I just couldn’t move. And, after a while, I didn’t want to.

Chapter Thirty-five

Little by little, as the drugs started to clear my system, mental clarity slowly returned. That was worse than anything I’d been through in the days before. Without the cloudy haze to hide in, I was forced to face the truth. To see myself and what I had become. I didn’t like what I saw.

Then there were the memories. I could almost live with where I’d ended up, but how I’d gotten there was unforgivable. I’d hurt so many people in my selfish quest to be . . . what?
Happy?
So much for that.

My father was a hard man to please and brutally honest in his expectations and disappointments, but he’d only ever wanted the best for, and from, me. I couldn’t escape the words he spoke the day I left.
You take one step outside that door you had better be prepared to never come back in it.
Those eighteen words plagued my drug riddled brain for months— disownment, abandonment—but they sounded different to me now. They sounded like the idle threat of a frustrated parent that I’d pushed too far. He hadn’t meant it. I knew my father. If I’d just gone back home, he never would have turned me away. Never.

And my mother . . . My heart broke just thinking about her. I could still see her standing in the driveway, watching me leave. How much must my disappearance have hurt her? Was she sad? Scared? Was she angry with me for my stupid, selfish behavior? Did she blame Dad? Had I destroyed their marriage?

Angela and Carrie. We’d been friends since kissing a boy would give you cooties. Years of laughter and tears and support. Neither of them deserved the way I treated them in the end. I hoped they hated me enough that my absence meant nothing to them, but I knew it probably wasn’t true.

And Declan. I’d gotten him suspended from school just for trying to help me, and then couldn’t even bring myself to face him at that party. No wonder Elijah had shown up on that street corner. Why he hadn’t been surprised to find me there. In my self-absorbed brain, I hadn’t even thought to ask. I hadn’t asked him a lot of things. Mainly because I was too much of a coward to hear the answers.

Elijah. Just the thought of him sent waves of guilt crashing over me. If anyone,
anyone,
in the history of the universe did not deserve the kind of love and devotion he’d shown, it was me. How he could ever have loved me was a mystery, but he had. Despite all of my unforgivable flaws, he’d loved me. And I’d thrown it away.

Worse than that, I’d failed him—in the worst possible way. When he’d needed me, when he’d stood right in front of me with the evidence of how much he needed me on his swollen, discolored face, I let him down. I hadn’t loved him enough to be what he needed me to be. I’d been more concerned with my own selfish drama and where I’d get my next hit than the fact that he was standing there, hurting, right in front of me. I’d loved the drugs more than him.

And me. I’d loved the drugs more than myself, too. I sold myself out—body, mind, and soul—time and time again for just one more hit.

For that, for
all
of that, there was no forgiveness.

I didn’t deserve forgiveness.

I could never earn forgiveness.

I’d damned myself into this hell of my own making and that . . .

That,
I deserved.

In my small windowless cell, I couldn’t find distraction from these thoughts. Not even sleep offered a reprieve from the torments that raced endlessly through my mind. I hated myself with a bitterness I’d never felt toward anyone—not even Rafe. I
hated
myself.

As my body grew weaker, so did my will. I knew it had been too long since I’d had anything to eat or drink, but I couldn’t find it in me to care. If I died down there, who would know? Who would care? It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.

I shut my eyes and willed it all to go away. I was tired of fighting. Tired of hurting. I was just so damn tired. Then . . . I heard his voice, quietly shouting for my attention.

It matters to me
.

Who would care? Elijah would care.

Despite everything I’d done and failed to do, Elijah would care. He would
care
. He’d proven as much, and that scarred my heart. Someone still cared about me. I still mattered to someone. I wasn’t lost or forgotten or abandoned like the drugs wanted me to believe. Like
I
wanted to believe to give myself the excuse I needed to keep using them.

I was a coward and a fool before. I wouldn’t be again. I wouldn’t take the easy way out. I would
try
. I would
fight
. I owed Elijah at least that much.

Ignoring the agonized screams from my body begging me to be still, I forced myself to open the warm bottle of water and drink. I tried to sip it slowly, knowing my stomach would reject more than a little, but it was difficult not to chug the entire thing. The more I drank, the better I felt. Each time my stomach reacted, I’d make myself stop, breathe, let it settle, and try again. Slowly, I drained the entire bottle, and the soreness in my muscles began to ease. The pounding in my head soothed, and even the storm raging in my stomach seemed to calm.

For the first time since I’d been in that hellhole, I slept.

***

When I woke again, I wasn’t alone. I had no idea how much time had passed, but my body didn’t hurt so badly. I ached like I’d had a long day at the gym, but nothing like it had been the past few days. My head was sore, yet clear. And my stomach seemed to have found solid footing and expanded back to its normal size.

“Welcome back.” It was Rafe’s friend—the scarred one—standing over me. “How are you feeling?”

I wanted to tell him that I felt better—that he could let me go—but all that came out when I opened my mouth was a raspy groan. Probably not the most convincing response, but he bent over to release my restraints, anyway.

“That good, huh?” He chuckled as he helped me sit upright. I nearly flopped back down on the disgusting mattress in exhaustion, but he caught me and hauled me to my feet. “We’d better get you cleaned up. Rafe will be here soon.”

I wanted to ask a million questions.
Why was Rafe coming? Where were we going? What would happen to me now?
But I didn’t, I followed him silently up the basement stairs, using all of my intense focus to simply remain upright. The man led me into a bathroom and turned on the shower, checking to make sure the water was warm enough.

“You gonna be alright in there on your own, or you need some help?” It didn’t come across as an overtly sexual question, but the thought of letting him see me naked was enough inspire my near violent response.

“No.” I shook my head adamantly. “I-I’m fine.”

“If you say so.” He vacated the room, leaving the door open a crack behind him.

I shut it before stripping off the caked on clothing and stepping into the lukewarm stream of water. Turning it up as hot as I could get it to go, I lingered there until the water ran cold and I began to shiver. Scrubbing my skin to the point of near rawness had removed the grimy sweat and dried vomit, but it wasn’t enough. I washed my hair three separate times, and still I felt dirty. The memories of all of the things I’d allowed to be done to me made me feel rotted . . . inside. Where a shower could never reach.

How could Rafe expect me to continue to do those things without the drugs? It was cruel. But that wouldn’t matter to Rafe. All he’d ever seen when it came to me was dollar signs.

The pipes groaned and the drain gurgled when I shut off the shower. Behind the curtain, I found a pile of clothes folded neatly on the toilet seat and that damn door was open again. I shut it and reached for a towel. The clothes were mine. I recognized them from my closet. That’s how I knew Rafe was there.

“Look at you! Bright and shiny new.” Rafe practically glowed with excitement when I stepped into the kitchen. “And just in time. I’ve put together a more . . . permanent engagement for you starting tomorrow. For tonight, we’ll just get your feet back under you on the corner. Get a little more practice in.” He winked at me and I nearly vomited. I probably would have if there had been anything left in my stomach at all.

Shadows were starting to creep into the room and I knew there would be no rest. Evening was falling and Rafe expected me to be ready to work.

I was more than a little surprised when we made a side trip to the apartment first, but I didn’t bother asking why. It didn’t matter why. Some small part of me desperately hoped he’d taken pity on me and was taking me home to rest. That part was obviously a moron.

“Look at this.” Rafe thrust several sheets of paper into my hand with barely legible numbers scrawled across it.

“What am I looking at?”

“Let’s call it . . . your portfolio. It’s a financial statement, outlining your earnings in comparison to the debts you’ve accrued over the past few months.”

I was no mathematician, but there were an awful lot of negatives on that page. According to the parts I could actually read, I owed him for housing, food, clothing, other supplies, and of course, the heroin, which didn’t come cheap. The positives column was almost laughable.

“So you understand?”

My eyes misted over at the hopelessness of the situation laid out before me, making it even more difficult to decipher. Not that it made a difference. The conclusion was pretty clear. Rafe owned me. And he would continue to own me for a long, long time.

“Now that you’re clean, you have the chance at a more lucrative job.”

Was that . . . hope?
“What job?”

“Damien was quite charmed by you the other night, it would seem. He’s interested in acquiring you for a prolonged amount of time." I knew that must have been a direct quote, because they definitely weren't Rafe's words. "He's renting your sweet ass for as long as he wants it to do with as he pleases. And he's paying good money to do it." That sounded more like Rafe. "It may become a more permanent situation if he chooses to buy you."

"
Buy
me?" My heart turned over in my chest.

"He'll pay off your debt to me, plus a nice little chunk of change, which means you'll owe him, instead. But I doubt he'll be giving you the opportunities I have to pay it back. He's much more interested in keeping you for himself."

"Then how am I supposed to get out of this? How am I supposed to earn my freedom?"

"Simple, sweetness. You're not."