Her heart races as she presses her breasts to my chest and belly to mine. Once again wanting to get closer to me, and I feel for the first time today I have her back. She’s mine again.
The day I stop fucking her will be the day I lose her. She needs my touch like I need the air she breathes.
“I think I might be able to sleep now,” she whispers and then smiles against my lips.
“Sleep well.” I keep my voice calm and soothing, rubbing my arm up and down her bare back as she settles her head on my chest, a new habit of hers. One I approve of.
Looking up at me with her head resting on my arm she tells me, “Sweet dreams.”
I kiss her gently as she drifts off to sleep in my arms with the faint taste of lust still on her lips.
Addicts will get high on anything. My father’s words ring in my ears. The white lights are too bright. I wince.
Where am I? My head lolls to the side; it’s so heavy I can’t lift it. Everything hurts.
Slowly, I feel each of my limbs. My wrists won’t move, pinned against a metal chair. The same with my ankles and every inch of me is in pain, but the worst is radiating from my stomach.
I heave up a breath that squeezes my chest, coughing up blood.
Fuck.
My right eye is swollen, and I try to open it, remembering how my mother’s pills fell into the gutter. No, we needed that money.
My father said the addicts would buy them, but hardly any of them did. I stayed out all day, and only two buyers paid me anything. And then the men showed up. Talvery’s men.
“How long was he there?”
I hear someone from across the room ask the question and open my eyes to see a swinging light and a man in a crisp suit with long black hair slicked back tossing my wallet across a metal table littered with tools.
A groan tears from me as I try to move. Try to get away. I know he’s going to kill me. I know it.
But it’s hopeless.
“I’m sorry,” I spew and more blood spits up. “I didn’t know,” I try to say but my throat is so dry and feels bruised. I don’t think they heard me, so I repeat myself, pleading for mercy. “I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t know what, kid?” a man hisses in front of me. Pain spikes at the back of my scalp as he grips my hair and shakes my head to look at him. “You didn’t know you were dealing on my turf?” His eyes are a pale blue and ice cold. “The whole east side knows it now. So, you’re fucked.” He spits out the words then leaves me, picking up something from the metal table.
Every crunch of bone, every rip of my skin, every deep gouge pushes me closer and closer until I’m holding on to life by a thread.
I even cry out for my mother.
They all laugh in the room. But still, I cry out for her. Praying she can’t see this and what’s happened only weeks after her death. Shame and regret and pain make my head feel light and slowly I feel weightless. So close to death.
Please, just end it. I don’t want to live anymore. I can’t.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
At first, I think they’re guns that wake me, stopping me from drifting to lifelessness.
Bang. Another bang at the door so close to me, yet impossible to reach.
“Please, I need you,” someone says, and her voice sends a chill through my body, but at the same time, warmth. “I need you.” The words are feminine and soft, but with a plea that begs me to listen.
She needs me.
The pain is still vivid with every move of my limbs, but I can hear her if I listen.
The voice turns harder, colder and the air goes frigid.
“I need you, Carter,” she says again but this time there’s no negotiation in her tone. “I need you!” she yells at me.
The anger rising and a storm brewing around me, she screams at me, her voice reverberating in the room, “I still need you!”
Chapter 13
Aria
His arm feels so heavy. I can barely hear my groan as I wake up and try to push away Carter’s arm.
I struggle, but he only squeezes tighter.
My shoulders twist and I push against his arm, but the muscles are coiled, and his grip is too much. I can’t breathe.
My eyes shoot open, realizing this isn’t a dream.
“Carter!” I cry out in a strangled breath, fighting his hold and letting the anxiety rush through my blood to make me kick backward, shoving and heaving to get him off of me. “Wake up!” My heart pounds harder.
I struggle to breathe. My voice croaks and my lungs burn as I yell, “Carter!”