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“What about the corners? The hot spots? The places where johns take their girls?”
It takes me until the last part of that sentence to figure out he’s already insinuated that Oscar’s mom is prostituting. I reach out and squeeze Oscar’s hand. I don’t know if it’s to help support him or to remind me why I shouldn’t kick this guy’s ass right fucking now. He’s supplying the drugs to all these helpless people. He’s giving them their Achilles’ heel. What could these people in the other rooms do if they weren’t hooked on whatever this asshole is cooking up?
“How about a guy named Gregory?” Oscar asks. “You heard of him? You know where he is? Last I knew, he had my mom.” His voice gets even more strained the longer he talks. Hard, coldness creeps into his questions until I can tell he’s barely holding it together. At this point, it will be me holding Oscar back from kicking this guy’s ass, and I’m not even sure I want to do that.
Aww, morality. So blurry sometimes.
“Listen, I don’t know where she is. If you’re not buying or dealing, you should leave. I’ve got shit to do.”
“Lives to ruin, you mean.”
The guy has the audacity to smirk. “Aren’t you in the Crew? Looks like I’m peering in a mirror, brother. You might want to step off that high horse. You’re in the first circle of hell like the rest of us.”
I hold back on Oscar’s arm as he attempts to step forward. The guy isn’t even worth it. If he does know where Gregory or Oscar’s mom is, he won’t say anything. I doubt many would. Not without incentive, and because we’re keeping this from the Crew, we can’t use K’s name to get what we want. “Fuck him,” I whisper to Oscar.
He finally turns, and we walk back out. Oscar switches on his phone flashlight and shines it everywhere. We get pissed off remarks, but they’re all too high or tired or just plain fucking killing themselves slowly that they don’t even have the energy to do anything other than grunt in annoyance.
We exit out the rusty door, the groaning hinge greeting us to the outside world. The sun is bright as it shines overhead between the two buildings. Then again, anything would be brighter than what we just saw in there.
Oscar marches back toward his bike, the helmet in his hand swinging by his side. “I fucking hate going to places like that. All I think is I can’t believe she would willingly do that to herself. Does she never wake up sober and realize what a shitshow her life has turned out to be? Does she never wonder what I’m doing? Does she never think that there’s a nice bed and food in our fucking apartment?”
I run after him to catch up. I still his swinging hand. The truth is, I have nothing to say to him. Everything he said is right. I thought the same thing when we were inside, but the truth is, neither of us have had a drug problem. I don’t know what it’s like. I can guess. I can theorize. I can wonder just like him, but it doesn’t do us any good. “When we find your mom,” I say, “...we should get her out of the Heights.”
“I feel like we’ll always be stuck here.I’llalways be stuck here,” he says finally. “Do you think I can go to college with my mom being pimped out on the streets? I can’t go live in a dorm not knowing if she’s living in one of these damn boxes.” Oscar gestures toward the home someone made for themselves. “I can’t fucking do that, Princess. Fuck. What kind of person would that make me?”
I press my palm to his cheek. “Then we’ll get her out. If that’s what you need to feel like you can leave, we’ll get her far away from here. We’ll figure it out.”
“I tried,” he finally says. “I fucking tried. I did it. I got us out of here.” He shakes his head. “All roads lead back to the Heights. That asshole was right. We’re in the first level of hell. Nothing is going to change that.”
He sits the helmet on my head and helps me arrange it before clicking the chin strap, effectively ending the conversation. I could keep talking to him. I could keep telling him there’s a chance, but Oscar’s not in that space right now. Hell, we can’t even find his mom, so anything I say will just be background noise.
What Oscar needs—what all these people need—is actual action.
My to-do list is getting lengthy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I care about these guys too much not to help them in any way I can.
10
Oscar and I stop at a small corner shop. I swing my leg off the bike, looking around at where we are while taking the helmet off. I’m sure I run my fingers through my hair to get rid of the helmet hair, but Oscar doesn’t seem to mind. He takes the helmet from me and kisses my temple before threading his fingers through mine.
I gaze down the block, looking around for drug dealers or prostitutes or someone who might know where Oscar’s mom is. “Um, where are we?”
Instead of checking down more back alleys, Oscar leads me into the store. A bell rings overhead when we walk in, and a husky male voice says, “Drego! Another phone?”
Oscar smirks and gazes over at me. “Someone doesn’t know how to take care of her things.”
“Ohhhh,” the shop owner says. He’s a huge, dark-skinned man with a thick mustache and a shining bald head. “This is the girl, huh?”
“This is her,” Oscar says.
The guy gazes at the two of us with almost a twinkle in his eye before moving his stare to me. “I never met someone who was so hard on their phone.”
I chuckle to myself as he inspects my face. He’s probably eating his words right this very second. The bruising surrounding my eyes is very in line with the fact that I’m “so hard on my phone”. He must meet a lot of Crew people because he doesn’t even bat another eye. “I don’t even have any excuses,” I tease even though I have a ton of excuses. Explosions. Shootouts. Certainly, one of those could work, but what’s the use? He’s probably heard it all and then some.
Oscar sets his helmet on the counter in front of the guy. “Can we get another one? Crew tab again.”
“Of course. Let’s see here.” He turns and fiddles with a lower shelf. I move back to find a bunch of displayed phones in the case. He takes the best smartphone there is with a huge screen and sets the box on the counter. He takes it out right in front of us, setting it up and then handing it to me. “All you need to do is input your contacts...again.”
I smile. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”