Donny follows me down the hallway and toward my room. I pause beside Delilah’s door, the crying and banging coming from the other side.

“Your friend Dylan gave up his girlfriend pretty easy to get himself out of this mess,” Donny says, nodding toward the door. “Something you maybe should have considered.”

I force back the vomit in my throat as the crying gets louder and louder, then suddenly stops. How did I get to this place? How did I think living this life would be better than being dead?

Donny nudges me along and I go into my room, feeling this strange numbness wash over me, like my mind’s trying to shut down. As I’m getting the crystal out from under my mattress, I notice that a small area of my roof has caved in, right where the water stain used to be, and now there’s a giant hole in its place. Everything’s falling apart and I don’t want to fix it anymore.

I get what crystal I have left and toss it to Donny. “Here you go.”

He catches it and then stares down at the small quantity in his hand. “Are you f**king kidding me? You said you had a few ounces.” He holds up the bag. “This is barely a f**king line.”

I shrug. “I guess I miscalculated how much I had.”

He clutches the bag in one hand and the tire iron in the other. “You said you knew where Dylan’s stash was.”

“I lied.” I’m surprisingly composed.

He stares at me for a moment, baffled that I’d screw him over, although I have no idea why, since that’s what everyone seems to do to everyone else around here. His bafflement shifts to anger, his face tinting red as he raises the tire iron to hit me. I’m disappointed that he doesn’t grab the gun, because it’d be over more quickly. But instead he hammers his fist into my face. I don’t even flinch as he collides with my jaw. When I fall to the floor, I don’t get up, even when he kicks me in the rib cage repeatedly, steps on my hand, stomps on my face, asking me why I seem to enjoy getting my ass kicked. I keep waiting for him to pull the gun out, but he never does. I wonder if he knows just how much I want this to all be over, that that’s why I don’t run. Maybe he can see it in my eyes that I want to die and that by not killing me he’s making this even more painful. I don’t know, but what I do know is that when he walks away without killing me, I feel disappointed. I lie there for a while on the floor before I finally sit up, my lip bleeding, my whole body feeling exactly how it did the first time Donny beat me up.

After a while Delilah appears in my doorway. Her shirt ripped and her shorts unbuttoned. Her face is smeared with mascara, her lip is split open, and large welts cover her arms and thighs.

“You should go,” she says numbly. “Dylan’s not going to let you walk out of here breathing, if you’re here when he gets back.”

I put one of my hands down on the floor and ungracefully push myself to my feet, my body aching in protest. “Where is he?” I ask, hunching over.

She shrugs, her face emotionless. “He took off after he offered me up, but I’m sure he’ll be back.”

I brace my hand on the wall for support, feeling sorry for her. “Do you need any help with anything?” It sounds so lame when she looks so broken and I can barely stand.

She laughs, but it sounds hollow. “You’ve got other problems to fix,” she says, turning her back to me. “Before you showed up, Trace and a few guys took Tristan out back. And he was barely coherent, since he just shot up.”

“Shit!” I hobble out the door, pushing her out of the way as I stumble down the hall. The pain in my body is blinding, but I know it’s going to be minimal compared to the internal pain I’m going to feel if anything happened to Tristan. If I’m too late again, like I have been in the past. Always too late.

I limp across the balcony for the stairs, past memories swarming through my head like bees as I run into the unknown again, not knowing what waits for me ahead.

“Lexi, God no!” I cry out to the stars. “Please don’t leave me.”

I drag my ass down the stairs, my heart knocking in my chest, my skin coated with sweat. My legs are so sore it feels like they’re going to give out on me and my hand might be broken, but physical pain is nothing. I’ve felt a lot of it over the last few years and it’s the most bearable part of life.

Her body goes limp in my arms, her head slumping against my chest, which is split open, spilling out blood—life.

I look into Lexi’s eyes, but there’s nothing left inside them, and I know that pretty soon nothing will be left inside me, so I lie down on the ground with her and take her hand, allowing myself to bleed out.

The Cadillac is gone, but I’m not sure if I’m relieved or not, since it means that whatever they were going to do to Tristan, they’ve probably already done to him. I limp off toward the back of the apartment building, my arms and legs sore and stiff, my movements lethargic.

Everything is stilling inside me—I can feel it. Darkness sets in as my life slips away. I can feel myself being pulled somewhere and I swear I can feel Lexi with me, so close, yet at the same time so far away. Don’t leave me. But she is, or maybe I’m leaving her. I feel myself being pulled back, people calling out my name. I hear the beeping of machines, feel needles sinking into my skin, giving me life, and I hate them for it. I want them to take it away…

I round the corner and see someone lying on the ground, arms and legs sprawled out, unmoving. Hang on. I rush up to Tristan and I shudder at the sight of his face, slit open and bleeding onto the rocks below his head. His eye is so engorged it blends in with his face and his arm is scraped raw. The only good thing about the sight is that he’s breathing, and when I check his pulse, it’s erratic and unsteady, but I’m not sure if it’s because he’s on smack or because he’s been beaten up.

“God dammit, Tristan,” I say as he rolls over, groaning about needing it to go away while his body trembles. “Why did you have to screw Trace over?”

“I…don’t…know,” he mutters, pain straining his voice, and his syllables are all messed up so it’s hard to understand. “I…fucked up. And I tried to fix it—give them money. But it wasn’t enough.”

I’m not sure what to do, but I know I’ve got to get him out of here, in case the guys come back or Dylan shows up with his stupid gun. I’m not even sure where the hell they went, if they’re planning on returning, or if they’re done here. The entire situation is a mess and I need to get Tristan up and out of here, because from the look of him, if there’s a next time, he won’t make it out alive.

I drag my fingers roughly through my hair, looking around at the desert behind me and then at the stores and old houses to the side of our building. I need to find somewhere we can hide out for a little while, someone who might let us stay with them. I need a lot of things at the moment, like a line or two because I feel like I’m melting under the pressure, heat, and emotions inside me. If I’m going to handle this—keep it together enough to help Tristan—I can’t be crashing.

Blowing out a breath, I lower my hand and reach down and grab hold of Tristan’s arms. “All right, we got to get you out of here,” I say, then lift him as best I can and try to get him to his feet, grunting and cursing as he puts most of his weight against me.

I manage to get him standing, but I’m not sure if he’s even aware of it—if he’s aware of anything going on right now or if he’s got too much smack in his system, or whatever he was on when they showed up. I get his arm around my neck and then support most of his weight as he drags his feet and struggles to walk back toward the front of the building.

I can barely walk myself and I end up going to Nancy’s, since it’s close and she’s a somewhat decent person and I know she’ll probably let us crash at her place, although I’m sure we’ll owe her for it. But I’ll figure out that part later. Right now I just need to get Tristan inside and a few lines into my body because it’s screaming at me to feed this, otherwise I’m going to break. And I can’t break yet.

Tristan leans against me as I knock on Nancy’s door. She doesn’t even look surprised when she answers it. She’s wearing a robe, her hair pulled up, and she easily lets us in.

“I knew he was going to get into trouble one of these days,” she says as she shuts the door behind us and I help Tristan sit down on the torn sofa in the living room. When I move my arm away from him, he collapses to his side and presses his puffy cheek to the cushion. It’s actually oozing out blood on her plaid seventies-themed couch, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

“Do you have something to clean his cuts up with?” I ask Nancy as she stands near the back of the couch, watching Tristan with fascination. Her pupils are dilated and ringed with red and she keeps sniffing. I know she’s on what I want and I wonder if she has any she’ll share, but then again, if she does, it probably won’t be without a price. But I don’t really care. I just want it. Need to breathe again. Forget everything that’s happened over the last couple of minutes. Hours. Days. Forget who I am and what I’m feeling. Things are so much easier that way.

She tightens the tie around the silk robe she’s wearing. “Let me get some towels,” she says, then strolls off to the bathroom at the back of the house. I wait for her in the small living room that’s dark because she has curtains hanging up and no lights on. There’s a pot steaming on the stove in the kitchen and a pile of dirty dishes in the sink and it reminds me a lot of our place. As soon as I think it, another problem smacks me in the face.

Shit, where are we going to live?

When Nancy returns she has a wet rag in her hand and a plastic bag with a small amount of crystal in it. Tiny crystals my body yearns for, and my thoughts and worries drift from my head as my senses instantly heighten. Wanting. Wanting. Needing. Wanting.

Now.

I almost snatch the bag from her hand, but resist the urge with all the control I have left in me, worried that if I do, she’ll kick us out. She sets the wet rag gently down on Tristan’s forehead and Tristan groans as he presses his hand to it, taking sharp, raspy breaths. Then she sits down on the floor in front of the coffee table that’s scratched up and has old magazines stacked in the middle of it. She looks at me and I can see the want in her eyes, but I’m not sure exactly what it is she wants—the drugs or me. Still, when she pats the spot on the floor, I more than eagerly sit down, then watch with hunger as she pours the crystal onto the coffee table and picks up a razor.

“You look like you could use this,” she says, eyeing me as she chops up the clumps and forms two lines that are small enough they’ll barely give me a boost. I need more and I can’t help but think of the stash up in my room. Gone. No more. What am I going to do?

I fight to keep my hands to myself. “I could.”

She stops chopping up the clumps and swipes her finger across the edge of the table, cleaning off the remnants of crystal and then licking her finger clean. My heart thrashes inside my chest as I watch her, wanting to taste it myself. When she leans in, I sit perfectly still, knowing what she wants—knowing I can taste it on her if I let her kiss me. She touches her lips to mine and for a moment I tense, thinking of Nova and the revelation in the car. How I realized that I love her. But something bigger overtakes me, the hungry beast inside me stirring awake and wanting to kill every emotion out of me. Everything’s moving so fast as my body and mind crash and spin out of control. I need to pull myself back together so I slip my tongue inside her, kissing her back, hating myself for it, but self-hatred is all I am anymore.

When she pulls away, she lets me have a line, and then she sniffs the last one herself before taking my hand. She pulls me to my feet and leads me back toward her room.

“I need to keep an eye on Tristan,” I tell her, looking back at him on the sofa with the rag draped over his face, his chest rising and sinking. “Trace and his guys beat him up pretty bad.”

“He’ll be okay for a few minutes,” she assures me, her eyes fixed on mine as she walks backward, guiding me with her. “I have more back in my room. If you’ll come with me, I’ll share it.”

I hesitate, glancing back and forth between Tristan and her. Tristan or her. Tristan or drugs. My feet follow her as I tell myself that Tristan will be okay for a few minutes and that once I get a few more lines in me I’ll be able to focus on helping him, instead of needing a hit. When we get back to her room, she gently pushes me down on the bed, then takes my shirt off and runs her fingers up my chest and along my scar.

“You never did tell me where you got that scar,” she says, pressing her hand over my heart, just like Nova did at the roller coaster.

I gently shove her hand away, not able to stand her touch being connected to thoughts of Nova. “I put it there myself,” I lie, wishing she’d just get the damn drugs.

Her brows furrow as confusion masks her expression, but the look evaporates as she leans in and kisses me again. I move robotically, letting her kiss me, letting her fingers wander all over my body as she gasps and moans, wanting more. Guilt consumes me. Devours me. And I almost yell at her to stop. But she pulls away on her own and removes her robe. She only has a bra and panties on and she smiles at me as she goes over to her dresser to get more from her stash and I know that when she comes back, I’ll have to pay for each line I take. And I know I’ll take more than a few, even though I don’t want to pay for any of them.

I lower my head into my hands and wait, feeling my pulse throb, my lips quivering, my mind aching as I feel myself sink further to the bottom, feeling any life left inside me dissipate.