CHAPTER TWO
1240 Words
CHAPTER TWO
Across town, that same night
Brianna Silverman needed it, needed it so badly she’d do anything to get it. All her usual sources weren’t holding or weren’t answering. She hadn’t had any since yesterday morning, when she’d shot up in her private bathroom while Daddy had a big senate meeting in D.C. and Mother went off to do whatever the hell she did all day.
As Brianna drove her BMW convertible through a working-class neighborhood in Phoenix, she thought about that last time. She had taken the tiny little glob of beautiful black tar, cooked up, and eased the needle in between her toes. The arm was better, but even her clueless parents might notice the track marks. She had to be careful. The h****n had rushed into her veins and filled her with an untouchable sense of well-being. She had sat there on the toilet, nodding off for two hours.
But that had been yesterday morning, and now the first stages of withdrawal warned her of imminent t*****e. The tenseness in her muscles that would soon turn to cramps and spasms. The irritation in her skin that within another hour would become unbearable itching. The thirst that would soon parch her throat and make her voice come out in an old woman’s gasp.
She needed to get some. She’d have plenty of privacy tonight. Daddy wouldn’t be back for a week. Rosie had done the cleaning and cooking and had left. And Mother? Well, Mother wasn’t ever really there.
As she drove deeper into the neighborhood, Brianna barely heard the thudding music of the block party on the next street over or saw the run-down look of the houses she passed, or the curious and hungry stares her expensive car got. It was late in a bad neighborhood, and Brianna knew she shouldn’t be here.
But she could take care of herself. She had street smarts, and more importantly, she finally had a connection.
After a whole day of calling and visiting dumpy neighborhoods like this one, she had finally gotten a lead. A dealer who she had met at a party one night, a friend of a friend of her usual source, had told her about another house where you could get h****n. He had told her as “a favor.” She had to do him a favor in return.
She tried not to think about that.
Finally! Brianna saw the house up ahead. The porch light was on, but no one was outside. Light shone dimly from behind dark curtains.
Brianna’s hands shook a little as she parked, and a shudder ran through her body. Almost there. The symptoms always got worse when you were almost there.
Her contact had called to tell them she was coming, so she shouldn’t have any trouble. Within an hour, she’d be back in her room with the one thing in life she really needed.
She parked, and in her rush forgot to look around her and forgot even to lock her car. Instead, she jogged through the barren dirt yard and up the three warped wooden stairs to the front door.
Brianna pounded on it, desperate now, the first cramps wracking her body. She heard movement inside. The peephole darkened.
“Who are you?”
“Santiago’s friend,” Brianna replied through clenched teeth.
Pause.
Come on. Come on.
She heard a latch click open. Brianna almost sobbed in relief.
The door opened. A muscular Hispanic man with a shaved head and a tattoo of some Spanish words across the front of his neck studied her.
“I’m Santiago’s friend,” she said.
He looked beyond her, taking in the car, the street. He gave a quick nod and stepped aside. Brianna rushed in. The guy closed and locked the door behind her.
Brianna found herself in a dingy living room. Empty beer bottles covered a battered coffee table. Three other guys lounged in armchairs, staring at her. In the air hung the smell of m*******a.
“Santiago told me you were coming,” Neck Tattoo said. “What you looking for?”
“H.”
She said this with no nervousness, no hesitation. She knew she was in the right place. Five years of experimentation, ever since she was fourteen, and two years of hard addiction, had made her an expert.
He nodded toward a back room. Brianna followed.
It was a bedroom, probably his bedroom considering the ease in which he moved through it, pulling open a sock drawer and pulling out a small wooden box. He opened it and showed her the contents. Inside were a hundred little plastic bags with black tar.
Brianna laughed. Too loud. Almost a cackle.
“How much you want?” the dealer asked.
“A gram.”
“Two hundred and fifty.”
Expensive, and this stuff was probably cut. She didn’t argue. She pulled out her wallet, fumbled it, caught it before it landed on the floor, and hurriedly pulled out some money, not even bothering to count it properly.
Neck Tattoo did. He snickered and handed her back her change.
Brianna was too desperate to feel embarrassed. She just fidgeted, moving back and forth from one foot to the other as the dealer pulled out ten little bags.
She grabbed them and stuffed them in her pocket. Another cramp gripped her body, making it impossible to scratch the all-body itch that made her want to scream.
Neck Tattoo studied her for a second.
“You look pretty bad off. You can shoot up here if you want to.”
And wake up on that bed n***d and pregnant? No thanks.
“Gotta go,” she husked, and turned for the door. She hoped she had enough self-control to get home without crashing.
The sound of a door being kicked open in the front room made her yelp and jump back.
Shouts from the guys in the living room, cut off short by three quick shots. Brianna looked around for a place to hide, saw a bathroom at the far side of the bedroom, and ran for it. Neck Tattoo yanked open the drawer on a bedside table and pulled out an automatic pistol. He flicked off the safety, turned to the bedroom door, and fell back with a bullet through his skull. Blood spattered on Brianna, rooting her in place at the doorway to the bathroom.
For the first time all day, she had stopped thinking of her withdrawal symptoms. No, she had something much, much worse to fear.
A man she hadn’t seen before strolled into the room. The first thing Brianna noticed was the huge pistol in his left hand. Thankfully it wasn’t pointing at her. Then she looked more carefully at the man carrying it. He looked Mexican, dressed in expensive black slacks and matching dress shirt. On his feet were cowboy boots of finely tooled black leather. He had a lean, graceful body and a confident way of moving that told her this wasn’t the first time he had killed someone.
And it wouldn’t be the last.
Brianna struggled to speak. “D-don’t kill me. My dad’s Senator Silverman.”
The man stood there, not responding, a curiously blank look on his face.
“Senator Silverman. You know? Republican for Arizona? He’s rich. He … he can pay. Whatever you want.”
The man smiled and stepped toward her, raising his g*n.
- Writer
