“We need a safer location. Won’t be long before they come to check this place out. I’m sure my father had identification on him. They’ll find it when they search his body.” I avert my eyes and clench my jaw so hard my back teeth hurt as they grind together. I try to avoid registering the look of sympathy Elias shoots my way. He gets me. Pop and I weren’t close, but that doesn’t mean his death doesn’t hurt. You can’t repair a relationship when the other person doesn’t fucking exist anymore.
“Where do you want to go? Your place?”
“My place is a hellhole,” I cut him off. Muttering, I add, “Don’t need Molly there.”
Elias crosses the foyer and locks the door before turning back toward the stairs. He claps me on the shoulder as he passes. The gesture is comforting even though I’d never say that aloud. “Guess we’re headed to my place. Pack a bag.”
“With what shit?” I yell after him. This isn’t even my fucking house.
Well, it is now, but none of my stuff is here. The reminder of all that I’ve lost burns inside me until I have no choice but to release it. That release comes in the form of my fist flying through a sheet of paint and plaster.
“Fuck!”
I punch it again before sending my booted foot flying into the entryway table.
Elias’s hand clamps down on my shoulder, but I shake him off. I didn’t even hear him come back. I thought he went upstairs.
“Whatever you need, I’m here, but you gotta keep it together. She’s up there and doesn’t need to see you flying apart.”
“Right,” I mutter without feeling. Shouldering past him, I head up the stairs.
“What’s the damage, Doc?”
The sight of Molly laid out sends the liquor swirling again. I’ll take every drop of discomfort as the beginning of my penance for what I’ve done.
“She looks like hell, but I’m not finding much for internal injuries. Her stomach is soft and not distended. There’s evidence of some previous fractures that haven’t healed properly. Look at her left arm.” He carefully lifts it from the bed, showing me the slight bend in her forearm. “A few other places are like that too. However, I’m not finding any fresh fractures. The swelling seems to be superficial. Cuts, bruises. Someone beat the living crap out of her, that’s for certain.”
“You think?” I reply snidely.
If he hears me, he doesn’t respond. “She’s also been drugged. Heavily. Track marks.” He turns that same arm over, exposing the scabbed flesh riddled with holes.
“What do you think she’s been on?” Elias asks.
It’s like I’m in a different world, so I tune them out. My fingers graze the marks on her pale skin. The contact is like a lightning bolt to my stomach. My knees give out, and I crash to the floor beside the bed, wrenching up my own sleeve and laying my arm next to hers. We’re twins with our matching trail of inflamed abused flesh.
“Heroin,” I choke out. The words are hardly loud, but in this silent room filled with ghosts, I know they hear me.
“Possibly. Could be any number of drugs.” Doc’s voice is professional and sad at the same time.
I cut my gaze to Elias before moving it to Doc, cowardly avoiding Molly’s face. “You’re right. Could be any cocktail, but considerin’ the availability and cost, I’d guess heroin. I should know,” I mumble under my breath.
My stomach pitches with shame and guilt. Molly was adamantly against drugs as a kid. There were no second chances if she found out a friend was a user. That person got cut from her life so fast it was like they never existed in the first place. And she didn’t dwell on it. That was my Molly. Her heart was strong and stubborn, but she had her beliefs and held them tightly. Nothing could sway that girl.
I’ve betrayed her. I know what it feels like to shoot up, and I welcome that high with open arms. Molly would never, and to know she’s had it forced upon her almost has me spraying the floor with vomit.
“I’d like to get her in for a CT to be on the safe side. It’s the only way to rule out swelling in her brain. If I wait until she wakes up, it might be too late.”
My feet carry me to the side of the bed. “Thought that was unsafe.”
“The hospital would be unwise. Too open. However, I’ve made a call to a trusted colleague. Dr. Sader is one of the top neurologists in the county. He’s agreed to meet us after hours at his specialty clinic. She’ll be safe there.”
Richard catches my eye and gives me a nod of approval.
I look back at Molly’s still, thin form lying in bed. God, she’s so damn broken.
“All right. Do it fast, though. I don’t want us out in public longer than we have to be.”
***
Molly still hasn’t woken up.
The CT was normal, but that was two days ago. Doc said she’s been through a trauma, and her body is in recovery mode. That she’ll wake up when she’s ready.
With each hour that ticks past, I become more worried she’s never going to wake. That would be the ultimate punishment for my fuckup, right? Cruel trick, universe, giving me back my sister only for her to be comatose for the rest of her life.
Couple that with the fact it’s been days since I’ve been high, and I’m a fucking mess. The withdrawals are hell; I knew they would be. Each hour that ticks past is worse than the last. It’s all for Molly, though. She needs me clean so I can help her become the same.
We’ve settled at Elias’s place. He has an extra room where we put Molly, and I’ve been crashing on his couch. More like the floor in the spare room, but he doesn’t need to know that. I just can’t leave her alone. If something else happens to her, I need to be there. It’s the least I can do.
That’s where I find myself two days after Molly came back to me, but this time, it’s with less anticipation and more confusion.
Her face has started to heal. The swelling has gone down significantly, and the cuts are starting to fade. Purple bruises still cover most of the surface, but those will take a little longer to disappear.
The problem isn’t the bruises.
The problem is that with each new change, her face looks less and less like the Molly I remember and more like a stranger. And I don’t know if it’s because I haven’t seen her in a while and she’s lost a lot of weight, or maybe…fuck, I don’t even want to think it.
Maybe this isn’t even Molly.
It burns, that thought.
I must be paranoid. It’s been days since I’ve had something to numb my existence—booze, drugs—so this must be a withdrawal effect.
A knock sounds at the door. “You need a break?”
“No.”
Elias appears deaf as he wanders farther into the room. “Her face is looking better.”
“Yep.”
“A little different too.”
My hands curl into fists so tight the tension solidifies my forearms. “Don’t.”
He holds his hands out, palms facing me in a placating gesture. “Not a bad thing. What she’s gone through…I’m not surprised she’s a little different.”
“She’s not different!”