CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER ONE
Stars everywhere.
Merry Summerhill laid back against the battered old sofa in her trailer, her fingers losing their grip on the plunger of the syringe. At that moment, the moment she injected that liquid gold into her veins, nothing else mattered but those stars. She felt herself speeding into outer space like a rocket at full speed, like going into hyperspace in Star Wars, where everything seemed to blur around her.
The crash would come soon. Too soon. It came quicker, now. Meth had helped her to lose her flawless complexion, her smile, her job, her family, and most of her friends. But could she give it up? Did she even want to?
No.
She savored the feeling of weightlessness, caring about none of those things. She didn’t even know what day it was, what time it was. Her shades were pulled low, as always. Merry hated the sunlight. She hated the outdoors, and with good reason.
There were people looking for her, out there.
Inside, she was safe. She had a g*n, stashed in the coffee table, and she wasn’t afraid to use it. Here, with her meth, she had everything she needed.
A moment later, the curtains moved, the stars had disappeared, and the urge was back. She wanted that next hit.
She scrambled off the sofa and looked at her stash. She’d gone through hell to get it. She found two sad, deflated bags with only a trace of the powder left.
Funny. She’d only just gotten them. How could she have nearly blown through it all? She couldn’t remember when, how, or with whom.
Dammit, she thought. Mick was all the way at the other end of the town. And she probably wasn’t his favorite person right now. She’d slept with him and all of his friends—nameless, faceless guys she wouldn’t even know if she saw them in broad daylight— to earn a bag, but when they left, and she saw it all there, laid out in front of her, she was like a kid in a candy store. She’d taken two, figuring he had so many, he probably didn’t count them.
But Mick wasn’t an i***t. He was a businessman, first and foremost, so maybe he did count them. And he definitely wasn’t the kind of person you wanted to piss off.
She shouldn’t have done it. It was too big a risk.
But right then, she wished she’d taken three bags.
She leaned over the coffee table, trying to see if she could arrange enough of the white powder to give herself another hit. As she was trying to scrape it together, she heard tires, kicking up gravel in front of the house. The beam from headlights slashed across her line of vision.
Merry stood up, grabbed the g*n, and went to the door, just as someone began to bang on it. “Merry! I know you’re in there.”
It was Mick.
She looked around at the two empty bags on the table. Quickly, she scooped them up and shoved them in a drawer, then went to the door.
“Merry!”
“Go away, Mick! I’m warning you . . .” she called out.
“I’m not leaving until I get my money!”
That was the truth. If Mick was anything, it was persistent. She wouldn’t get rid of him until she gave him something.
She opened the door and smiled in response to his scowl. Mick looked scarier than usual, with his shaved head, tattooed neck, and red scar, running from temple to chin. His black eyes focused on her, his pierced lip curled into a snarl, and he held out a big hand, waiting for her to drop something into it.
“Hi,” she said innocently, slapping his palm. “Are you looking for more fun?”
He scowled and ran his eye around the place. “Don’t give me that bullshit. You took an extra bag from my stash. I want it back.”
She widened her eyes innocently. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I took one bag. And that’s paid in full.”
“Like hell you did. You took two. I know. I’d just counted them before you got there.”
She tossed her blonde hair over her shoulder and folded her arms over her tank top. “If you’re missing some, don’t look at me. It must’ve been one of your friends—”
“It’s you.” He pushed open the door, shoving her out of the way, but she met him with the g*n, pointing it at his chest.
“Get out.”
He lifted his hands at once. “Hey. Watch it.”
“You watch it!” she shouted, and he took a step back, then another, until he stumbled on the front steps. “I want you out of here!”
He shook his head. “I want my bag.”
“I don’t have it.”
“You used it already? Then I want my money. Three hundred,” he demanded.
She rolled her eyes. “I told you. I don’t have—”
“I know you took it. And I’m expecting payback.”
She c****d the g*n. “Get out.”
He looked at it and backed off. “This isn’t over.”
“Whatever,” she said, rolling her eyes. She reached over and grabbed the door handle, pulling it shut.
Then she slumped against it. No, it wasn’t over. He’d arrange some sort of payback, eventually, and the cost would be dear. She knew that.
Merry meandered back through the kitchen, grabbing a beer from the fridge before settling down on the sofa again. She twisted the cap and took a long swig, then opened the coffee table drawer and stared at the empty bags. Her hands shook, just as if she were going through withdrawal. It would get worse if she didn’t find her next hit, soon. So bad that she couldn’t sleep, eat, or think about anything other than the d**g.
She was already getting there.
She pulled the baggy out and licked it greedily. All she tasted was plastic. The night seemed to stretch on before her, long, lonely, and empty.
When she was younger, in school and full of dreams for the future, she’d hoped to go to college to be a vet tech. She’d spent most of her teenage years babysitting all the young brats in the neighborhood, making money so that she could get a car, go to school, and make something of herself.
But she’d gone through all that cash she’d amassed in a matter of months.
All for the meth.
Now, she had nothing.
She’d heard of people who’d given their lives up for the d**g, and Merry had promised her older sister, Shilah, who cared for her, that would never be her.
That promise seemed so long ago, made in another lifetime.
Nothing had gone according to that naïve, rose-colored-glasses plan of her teenage years. Shilah had gotten into her own troubles, and toted off to prison. She’d been stuck, watching Shilah’s son Rocky, her nephew, and he and the other kids she was babysitting, were a handful. Holding down a babysitting business and taking care of a headstrong twelve-year-old boy hadn’t exactly been her idea of easy. The only time she ever got reprieve was when he’d hole up in his bedroom to satisfy either his p**n or video-game addiction—she didn’t care which, because it allowed her to be alone.
And then her boyfriend—that loser, Dirk— introduced her to something that would take the edge off.
She’d used only occasionally, up until Shilah got out of prison and Rocky moved out to live back with her. Then, it was to take the edge off. Gradually, though, it became every night. Dirk provided everything she needed—for free. But then, Dirk went and cheated on her with her best friend, Amanda, and then that girl Lily at the bar. After having her own dalliances with other men, fighting every night, she eventually kicked Dirk out. Then she found out pretty quickly how expensive her habit was. Now, in a matter of a couple months, here she was, penniless, friendless, hopeless . . . and at the absolute bottom of the hole she’d been digging herself into over the past three years, since graduation.
Merry, you’re an addict. You need to get help.
Crumpling the bag up, she threw it down in disgust. She couldn’t live like this anymore.
Sliding off the couch, she decided right then and there that this was enough. Grabbing the beer, she went to the sink and emptied it down the drain.
That was when she heard the sound.
A scratching, coming from inside her bedroom. It sounded like someone was trying to pry open the screen on the window.
She swallowed. “Rocky?” she called, but there was no answer.
No, it can’t be Rocky. The little horndog’s been back with his momma ever since she got out of the pen. And she doesn’t work tonight. Try again.
Her heart leapt into her throat, until the realization dawned.
Mick.
Of course. He wasn’t going to let her go this easily. She should’ve known he’d try to get back at her tonight, probably by sneaking up on her and roughing her up when she least expected it.
You’re not nearly as crafty as you think you are, Mick, she thought, grabbing the g*n and creeping down the hallway. I heard you a mile away.
Holding the g*n at the ready, she inched her way to the door of her room and pushed it open, expecting to see him weaseling his way through the window.
But he wasn’t there.
The window was gaping open, the thin muslin curtains billowing in the breeze. It’d been closed before, but there was no one there now.
Confused, she reached for the light switch. But she never got there. A form was looming right in front of it, large and imposing. Between them, like a flash of white-hot lightning, a blade gleamed. Before she could even think to aim her g*n, the figure plunged the full of the knife into her middle. She felt the skin giving way, the searing pain, the scrape of the metal against her rib bones, and when she looked down, she could feel the warm blood, spreading over her center.
Her vision wavered and bent as she tried to blink some sense into what had just happened. This time, as she fell to her knees, she saw stars of a different kind, more beautiful and brilliant than she’d ever seen before.
And then, nothing.
