Page 81 of Under Cover
“They’re your father’s friends. You deserve better.”
Junior huffed out a breath. “Yeah, but they can get me the job working the night deliveries with the big bitch—that’s where the money is. I’ve told you that.”
He had, but Crosby hadn’t put it together as important, and suddenly it seemed like something he should be telling Garcia and Harding.
“Man, you don’t need the prime shift. Work the shifts you got and spend your money on rent,” Crosby told him and punctuated that by wiping blood from his lip. Shit. Priorities.
With a grunt, Crosby began to dress the cuts on his face, taking off his T-shirt to use as a washcloth since it was pretty wrecked. Slowly and patiently he washed off each cut, applied antiseptic, and then, if needed, a tiny butterfly bandage before moving to the next one. When he was done with his face, he started on his knuckles, and somewhere in there, his nose stopped bleeding, and he finally got to—very gingerly—clean up the mess on his upper lip and chin.
Finally,finally, he looked less like a disaster survivor, and he turned toward the front room so he could find himself some clothes.
And caught Junior staring at him with naked hunger.
Oh. Well shit.
“Junior,” he said quietly, “you can’t look at guys that way within a mile of your father and his friends. You know that, right?”
Junior met his eyes and swallowed. “It doesn’t matter. They use me and call me a fag anyway.”
Crosby closed his eyes and breathed softly through his mouth. “Like I said,” he told the boy, “you deserve better. But I can’t be it.”
“’Cause you’ve got a girl,” Junior said glumly.
“’Cause I’m taken,” Crosby agreed, wanting to say the truth, even if Junior didn’t know the difference. “But more than that. ’Cause right now, with your dad and his friends, I’m dangerous. I’m toxic.”
With a sigh he went to the mini fridge and pulled out a water, opened it, and swigged half of it before it even hit him that he hadn’t heard the crack of the seal—and the fridge had been unlocked.
The bitter, medicinal aftertaste burned his nasal passages as the liquid hit his esophagus when he swallowed.
The drugs struck him like a mallet, starting with the surcease of pain, and he stared at Junior in outrage. “Man, I was nice to you!”
Junior looked surprised, and Crosby fought not to fall down. “What? My dad gave me water to bring up here!”
“And you bought it?” His vision was swimmy. Fuck. Narcan—did he have his Narcan?
“He said you were always bringing us beer like a friend. I should bring you some water since you were too good to get high with us.” And if the kid could pick the locks on his door, the mini fridge had been no big deal. Even with swimmy vision, Crosby didn’t miss the look on Junior’s face when it hit him.
“God, kid,” Crosby slurred. “You’re so fuckin’ dumb.”
Frantically he rooted in his pants pocket while his heart thundered in his ears. He had no idea if he’d OD’d or not. He’d started sweating profusely, and it was hard to breathe. Was this what an OD felt like? Was this just being high?
His knees went out from under him right as he pulled the package with the ampoule in it. Junior knelt beside him, eyes rolling wildly. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked. “Ricky, what’s the—”
“Drugged,” Crosby managed. “Open this. Shoot it up my nose.Now!”
He fumbled the ampoule into Junior’s hand as his vision went from swimmy to wild, wonky, and dark, and his head bounced off the cheap tile floor before he knew he was going over backward. There was a debilitating freeze of all his nerve endings. His heart thundered hard enough to drive a freight train, but he couldn’t move his limbs. His skin burned, his lungs burned, the darkness all around him burned….
Then cooled, so soft, so soothing, that’s right, just fall into it… fall into the darkness and—
He sat up suddenly, the burn in his nose and nasal passages acidic and painful. The nastiness of it all tripled when he leaned over and vomited mostly water onto the floor.
For a few moments, all was silence as the roar in his ears subsided and his breathing—still fast—slowed down enough to think.
About the time he registered that every body part and joint ached like it was in an acid bath, he finally remembered Junior, who was crouched back against the bed, arms around his knees, still clutching the exhausted ampoule of Narcan and crying.
“Thanks, kid,” he rasped. His brain was still fogged, the world swimming in front of his eyes, his muscles shaking with, well, everything from an adrenaline dump to… fuck. Meth? Fentanyl? Narcan?
It was all rushing through his bloodstream, and the only clear thing was that he had to get out of this flop, out of this building,right the fuck now.