Page 47 of Hounded (Fire & Brimstone)

47

Indy

Pretty in Pink had completed its third repetition, and I’d eaten two more packages of Pop-Tarts and polished off the milk. If Loren hadn’t flushed my pills, I would have finished those, too, then spent the next six hours blitzed and blissful instead of physically feeling the minutes drag by.

Blake was right. Rehab wasn’t a cure, and I was so damn sick. Sick for wanting the things that had literally killed me, for craving them so much I thought about venturing to the campground office to see if they had any allergy meds I could crush and snort in a pinch.

How did I know this shit?

Why was my brain full of the knowledge of how to feed my addiction yet empty of the man who was driving across the country at this very moment, risking his life for me?

I shoved off the couch and went into the kitchen, searching for food despite my stomach being so full it must have been bulging. There was nothing to do but sit and wait and eat and try not to wonder if the next-door neighbors had any painkillers I could buy or bum. A long shot, but one of the guys was older. He might have had achy joints and a prescription stashed somewhere.

Shit.

It got bad fast.

When did it get this bad?

Over-fucking-night.

I leaned against the kitchen counter, looking out the window at that old guy and wondering what he would say if I meandered over there and casually asked about his pain management routine. Then my phone buzzed against my hip. It was unusual for anyone to call me, enough so that I nearly fumbled the thing getting it out of my pocket.

When I saw Sully’s name on the screen, I sighed before answering and putting the cell to my ear.

“Sully? Did Loren make it okay?”

“Is Lore with you?” she asked.

We spoke in unison, talking over each other so our words garbled together. But I understood what she’d said. In fact, I was so sure of it that it felt like all the food I’d consumed was about to make an immediate, violent exit.

“What?” I asked between gulps of air and bile.

“What?” Sully echoed.

Putting my back to the cabinets, I slid down until I was sitting on the wood-planked floor. Images from the auto shop attack flooded my mind. Flashing claws and people that snarled like animals while black blood splattered everything. Then, those same people—not people, Loren said—engulfed in flames. I wasn’t sure how I did it or where it came from, but it felt divine. Better than a high. Far better than I felt now with Sully’s words slowly sinking in.

“He’s not there,” I said flatly. He wasn’t here, either, and now she knew that, too.

“Maybe he’s running late,” Sully replied. “We’ll give it a bit, all right? Don’t worry.”

Pulling the phone away from my cheek, I checked the clock. Seven hours had passed since Loren made me a snack and turned on a movie. Since he’d kissed me and told me he’d be right back.

I’d checked the drive time from this campground to Brooklyn. It was barely a six-hour journey. But he’d been late before, the day he was supposed to pick me up from rehab. It was a fragment of hope, and I latched onto it.

“Did you try to call him?” I put the cell to my ear again. “Before you called me?”

“I did,” she replied, then added quietly, “A few times.”

But he didn’t answer. That part was implied.

“He’s in trouble,” I said, and my shard of hope snapped in two.

Sully made a dissenting sound. “He might’ve gotten held up. Stopped for dinner or something.”

“He wouldn’t stop for dinner ,” I spat the words. “He wouldn’t stop for anything. He’s coming right back, and it’s not gonna be like last time. It’s not.” Tears welled up, and I had never been more certain that being a crybaby was my foremost superpower.

I crushed the phone to the side of my face while I curled into myself.

“Sweetheart, I’m sorry,” Sully said. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sure everything will be fine.”

She was patronizing me. Coddling the stupid, forgetful boy who couldn’t take care of himself. Couldn’t be trusted with the truth about who and what he was. Couldn’t be left alone for three fucking weeks without diving headlong into a baggie of pills.

“Loren said the same thing,” I said, “and I didn’t believe him, either. They treat him shitty, Sully, he has scars everywhere…”

I’d seen them first in the bathhouse, then studied them the night we had sex, when he’d stood in my bathroom in just a towel like a gift from heaven. The view was amazing, but the thought of anyone putting marks on that man, injuring him and making him bleed, stirred me to sickness.

I didn’t mean to ramble, but Loren didn’t like to talk about himself, or much of anything, so Sully became my sounding board as I carried on.

“They didn’t want him to leave, but he got out, and he came back for me, and now they’re gonna hurt him worse.” Tears strangled me so my last statement came out as a croak. “I know it.”

Sully’s voice became a drone while my mind raced. I barely knew Loren, but it felt like I’d known him forever. When I dreamed, it was about him. When I got high, he was there. I’d let him kidnap me, for god’s sake. I was ready to let him drag me across the continent because I believed him when he said he would take care of me. I trusted him implicitly.

I wanted him from the moment we met. Now, I was certain that I needed him, too.

It felt like my head was underwater, like I was drowning until one thought dragged me to the surface. It didn’t make me less afraid. If anything, it made me much more so.

“Sully, I love him,” I blurted, unsure if or how that statement fit into the conversation she’d been carrying on.

She paused for a handful of seconds, then replied, “Of course, you do.”

“I should’ve told him. I wanted to—”

“Indy?” Sully cut in, stopping me from sliding down the spiral of panic. “Hang tight. I’m coming to pick you up.”

“Okay,” I said, then I said it again, but I didn’t believe it.

It wasn’t okay. I wasn’t. Maybe I never had been and, when my mind drifted again to the campground office’s first aid section, and I wondered how much cough syrup I could drink before it made me puke, I worried I never would be.

But Loren needed to be okay. He had to be because I loved him, and I was going to tell him so the moment I saw him again.

The phone line was still live, and I heard Sully moving around, grabbing car keys and probably a purse on her way out the door.

I’d told Loren to be safe, and it hadn’t done a bit of good. So, for Sully, I had a different message.

“Hurry.”