With that, I left my bike at the clubhouse and took one of the cars, heading out to stock up on food and then some clothes for Bethany. I grabbed a couple extra sets of sheets and heavy blankets, knowing she would be sweating but also more cold than she had ever been in her life. Like the flu on steroids. I grabbed extra Advil and anti-nausea chews and figured that was about as good as it was going to get.
Nothing was actually going to help.
But at least it would make things somewhat easier.
I climbed out of the car and made my way up to my apartment with about fifteen bags slung up my arms and six bottles of Pedialyte against my chest.
I had barely gotten the door unlocked and pushed it open before I heard the sound.
It wasn't quite crying but not as pathetic as whimpering either- just a pained, constant sound that I was familiar enough with to know.
It had started a little sooner than I expected, leaving me to wonder how long she had been using and how much. I should have gotten that fucking information before I left.
Oh well.
Too late for regrets.
I put the bags down, reaching in to grab the painkillers and anti-nausea before moving into the bedroom.
Finding that empty, I peered into the bathroom to find her sitting against the wall, knees to chest, head to knees, body rocking back and forth as her right hand clawed at the skin on her right arm.
"Bethany," I called, my voice quiet, not wanting to freak her out.
She didn't start though, likely having heard me dropping the bags and moving toward her. Her head rose slowly, turning to look at me, her eyes small and pained.
And then she said four words I was all-too familiar with.
"I can't do this."
FOUR
Bethany
I wanted him to come back.
I knew that was warped. He was holding me in his place against my will, forcing me to detox, committing a whole laundry list of crimes against my well being.
But as the hours passed and withdrawal started to set in, all I could think was that I didn't want to be alone. That made me sound weak and pathetic, but I was beyond caring.
I felt like I was coming out of my skin.
Like how when I watched a TV show where thousands of bugs burst out from underneath the skin of a character and it made me feel like my own skin was teaming with insects.
That was how it felt. My skin was crawling. It was no longer a part of me. It was like its own entity. And I wanted nothing more than to claw it off me, to get relief from the sick sensation.
I was pretty sure the reason I wanted him back was so I didn't do something completely mental like grab one of the readily available knives from the kitchen drawer and start slicing parts of myself off just to try to get the feeling to stop. Even though I knew it was mental and it wouldn't matter if I peeled back every layer of skin, fat, muscle, tendon, and bone. It would still feel like it was there.
There were minor aches in my joints, but all that was completely blocked out by the stronger crawling sensation. Though I knew that sooner rather than later, the pain would become almost overwhelming.
I could feel the sweat already. That was how you knew it was getting worse. The hair at the back of my neck was damp by the roots. Soon it would be my whole head until I looked like I was dunked in water. Then it would be under my arms, across my back, belly, chest, and eventually... arms and legs. Every inch of my body would be wet like fever while I shook with chills.
Again, I was just genuinely bone-deep terrified to be alone through that. And seeing as I had no one to be there for me, my captor was the next best bet.
So maybe I was having some sort of temporary Stockholm Syndrome thing going on. But I could deal with that when I was clean and clear-headed again.
Right then, I just wanted him back.
So when he called my name, it was very possibly the most beautiful sound I had ever heard in my life.
Which was really, really sad if you thought about it.
"Yes you can," he told me, moving close until he was right at my side, going down on his knees beside me and touching my arm where I had raked some pretty decent nail marks into the skin, making the blood bead up bright red on the surface. I hadn't even realized I had done it until he drew attention to it.
"It's only going to get worse," I said, not caring how pathetic I sounded.
"Yeah, it is," he agreed, not sugarcoating it which I was equal parts thankful for and annoyed by. Some platitudes, while I would know were bull, might have been nice right about then. "And then it will slowly but surely start to get better."
"My skin is crawling," I admitted.
He nodded at that, taking his hand off my arm and reaching up to touch my face for a second. "Burning up too," he observed. "Getting cold yet?"
I nodded tightly at that, relieved I wouldn't have to spell every minute little thing out.
"Alright, come on," he said, moving to stand and reaching a hand down for me to take. There was barely even a hesitation before I did so, letting him pull me to my feet, feeling an achy-ness in the muscles of my thighs. "Not yet," he said when I made a move for the bed. "Let's try some preventative measures," he added oddly as he pulled me toward the main room where a dozen or so bags were piled.
He released my hand suddenly, making me aware for the first time that he was even holding it. My palm felt odd without the contact and I had to curl it into a fist to stop myself for reaching for him again. Which was nuts. He went to the table and grabbed a bottle of some really awful orange-colored juice.
"What's that?" I asked, brows drawing together as he pulled off the top and held the bottle out to me.
"Pedialyte."
"The stuff they give to babies?" I asked as I reached for it, bringing it up to my nose and taking a sniff. "Oh, God," I grimaced. "It smells like straight sugar."
"Pretty much," he agreed. "But it will hopefully ease the dehydration symptoms so drink up."
Understanding that logic, I took the bottle and tipped it up, choking down a long chug. Maybe it would help the dehydration, but there was a good chance it would jumpstart the vomiting it was so disgusting. Apparently that thing I read in science in school was right; babies had a different amount of tastebuds than adults. And the tastebuds they had, well, they were seriously messed up if they liked the taste of orange Pedialyte.
Lazarus handed me two Advil that I took with the rest of the bottle of Pedialyte.
"That's about all we can do," he told me, sounding apologetic though it wasn't his fault. "I'll put the anti-nausea and stomach meds on the nightstand. I also got a few changes of clothes I will put in the bathroom and..." he said, rifling through the bags, "two new heavy blankets," he said, pulling out the blankets in question- one gray and fluffy-looking, the other black and knitted.
He handed them to me and I held them to my chest, feeling a pit of hopelessness settle in my belly. It was really going to happen. I guess it hadn't fully sunk in until I was taking 'preventative measures' and being handed blankets because I was about to be racked with chills. There was no going back. I was about to go through hell with no escape from it but time.
"Oh, and yeah..." he said, turning toward the kitchen cabinets and going under the sink to pull out a bucket, going back to grab a garbage liner and putting it inside before turning and giving me a shrug. "In case you can't make it," he explained, making humiliation flood through my system so quickly that it made every inch of me feel squirrely and uncomfortable.
In case I was going to throw up and couldn't make it to the bathroom.
My life was truly glamorous.
"Bethany, you go through this once and it's over," he said, trying to comfort me. "It's not pretty. You're not going to be able to save your pride. But after a couple days, the really bad part will be over. After a few weeks, all the symptoms will be gone."
That was true.
If I wanted to get my life back on track, I had to go through this.
Once it was over, I promised myself, it was over. No slipping up; no relapsing. I was going to commit to moving forward, whatever that would take. If I had to move. If I had to cut ties with everyone I knew. I wasn't going to let some drugs eat the rest of my life away.
"You hungry?" he asked, sounding like he already knew the answer to it.
My stomach was in knots. Some of it was from nerves, sure. But more of it was the withdrawal- the precursor to the vomiting that would be coming sooner rather than later.
"I think I am going to be holding off on the food for a while," I admitted, taking the bucket from him.
"Alright," he said, calm. He was so damn laid-back about everything. Instead of comforting me, I found it almost irritating. "You go settle in; I am going to take care of all this," he said, waving to the bags.
Glad for the escape, I hightailed it to the bedroom, putting the bucket down beside the bed and getting the blankets out of their packaging, spreading them out on the bed in layers. With nothing else to do, I grabbed for the remote and turned the TV on to old sixties reruns and climbed into bed, waiting for the misery to truly start.
In the other room, I could hear the occasional rustle of plastic bags and closing of cabinets, the running of the sink, the ring of a cell and then the slow, smooth cadence of his voice as he answered.
There was comfort in that- in his presence, in his understanding of a bad situation. I didn't know him. He was holding me captive. But I was glad he was there at the same time.
On that, I floated in and out of sleep for an hour or two, rest my body desperately needed before the full withdrawal set in- waking me up with barely a minute's notice that had me flying out of bed, slamming the bathroom door, and heaving into the toilet, almost painfully aware that I had an audience and more than a little embarrassed by that fact.
I got up, noticing the pile of clothes by the sink alongside two bottles of mouth wash and a wrapped toothbrush. I rinsed. I brushed. I rinsed again. And by then, my head was back in the toilet.
Over.
And over.
And freaking over.
My stomach was in a vice grip from both the cramps and the after effects of the vomiting. The chills had set in and when I was sure there was nothing left in my stomach, I rinsed, brushed, rinsed and went back out into the bedroom, crawling miserably under the blankets, curling up on my side, and shaking.
I wasn't sure how much time passed, focused only on trying to breathe through the urge to throw up again, rocking to try to keep warm, the sweat covering me seemingly everywhere, and the pain that shot across every nerve ending from the bottoms of my feet to the scalp on top of my head.
I was only half-aware of the bed depressing until I was momentarily pulled from my misery when I felt the blankets lift and a strong body slide in behind mine, his legs cocking up behind mine, his arm going over my hip to settle on the mattress beside my belly.
"Can hear your teeth chattering in the other room," Laz explained, voice low, soothing as it could be to my frazzled nerve endings.
"I'm... all... sweaty," I managed to object between the chattering, almost hyper aware that his whole body was plastered to mine and he was going to be soaked through as well as me soon enough.
"It's fine," he said, genuinely sounding like he meant it, but well... I might have been in the midst of genuine torment thanks to my own addicted body, but I was still 'me' enough to be completely disgusted at the idea of sweating all over some random hot guy. "Stop," he said, arm tightening around my stomach when I tried to pull away. "You need to warm up before you crack a fucking tooth at this rate."
He wasn't wrong. And while it was painfully bruised, my pride wouldn't let me stay in the bed. "I'm gonna be sick," I lied, making his arm release me immediately as I flew into the bathroom, slamming the door.
The bathroom floor felt like sitting on ice to my freezing body, made worse by my clothes that were soaked through with sweat as I brought my knees to my chest and tried to not cry.
Tried.
It was all of two minutes later before I was a complete blubbering mess. And it was about then too that the door opened and I could hear Lazarus moving toward me.
He didn't stop beside me though, he kept moving toward the shower, reaching in and running the water. I could hear the water filling, almost obnoxiously relieved at the idea of a hot bath, anything to help the fever and chills.
What I didn't anticipate however, was Lazarus walking back to me, reaching down, pulling me to him, and carrying me to the tub where he lowered both of us down into it fully clothed.
"Figure this solves the problem," he said into my ear as he settled back, rearranging me until my back was to his chest, his arm around my belly like an anchor.
The water was scalding, too hot for comfort for any normal person and, without the chills of withdrawal, I didn't know how he was tolerating it.
"Why are you doing this?" I heard myself ask, not conscious of even thinking it before it was out of my mouth.
Beneath and behind me, his chest expanded as he took a deep breath and slowly let it go, his free hand that wasn't around my stomach moving up to brush my hair behind my ear.
"Do you believe in signs?" he asked oddly.
"Like burning bushes?" I asked, smiling a little.
"Maybe not so dramatic, but essentially."
Did I?
I wasn't sure really. I personally didn't think I had ever had the experience, but I knew many people who were firm believers in them. Like when my friend in high school was debating 'going all the way' with her boyfriend and then fell and fractured her leg in three places only to find out that he had already slept with every girl in her squad. Or how a coworker once told me she was driving late at night and a truck pulled out in front of her carrying a bunch of street signs to a destination, the most prominent one saying "slow down" which she for some reason heeded the advice of before the truck turned off and suddenly a dark-clad figure ran across the road and, had she not slowed down, she likely would have hit and killed him.
So maybe there were signs.
For other people.
"I guess," I allowed, shrugging.
"Are you religious. Or, at least, were you raised that way?"
"I went to Sunday school as a kid," I acknowledged, leaving out the fact that I had lost my faith sometime around middle school and never got it back.
"Do you remember who Lazarus was?" he went on, making me take a minute to try to bring the name up.
"The man Jesus brought back from the dead," I supplied, about ninety-percent sure that was correct.
"Mmhm," he mumbled, his fingers no longer tucking my hair, but moving up and down my arm in a way that shouldn't have felt so good, but did. I was half-wanting to blame the fact that I just felt godawful in general and that it was nice to feel something that wasn't pain or a crawling sensation. But a bigger part of me maybe thought there was something more to it. "Lazarus was a follower of Jesus and he was sick and his sisters sent word to Jesus to try to heal him. Only when he showed up, he had already died and was in his tomb for four days."
It was ringing bells as he brought it up.
Though I couldn't see how the hell this had anything to do with signs of any form.
"And he raised him from the dead," I said, a little impatient to get to whatever point he had to make.
"Yeah," he agreed, his hand moving down, his palm over the top of mine, his fingers sliding between my fingers and curling in. Holding my hand. He was holding my freaking hand. "Any idea what city that was in?"
City? I barely remembered the main details of the story, let alone specifics on things as unimportant as the city.
At my head shake, his hand squeezed mine slightly.
"Bethany."
I felt my stomach clench oddly at that, at the strange coincidence that could, well, maybe be seen as a sign to someone who was a firm believer in them. Even being somewhat on the fence, it did seem rather poetic in a way.
But if he was maybe having some psychotic beliefs that that meant we were like... fated or some crazy thing like that...
"I'm not overly religious, but that part of my learning as a kid flew back to me when I saw your ID. If I was on the fence at all about trying to help you, I think all the doubts went away right then."
Alright, so that wasn't completely terrifying.
It was borderline weird, but maybe if I believed more in signs, I would have seen it the same way.
"Bethany was the city where the sick went to be healed," he added, making my belly do the clenching thing again at that, maybe seeing a bit more why that could be seen as a sign. I sure as hell had been sick. And I would continue to be.
"So you're... back from the dead?" I asked, wanting to see where he fit into the situation.
"Yes and no," he agreed, nodding.
"Care to elaborate on that?"
"Sure. But not just yet. You feeling a little better?" he asked, his breath warm on the side of my hair.
I was. I didn't feel great- far from. But I wasn't shaking and the hot water was easing some of the muscle ache, just enough to make it more tolerable.
"I think I will just live in the bathtub from now on," I said.
"How long have you been using?" he asked, making my body jump instinctively.
I didn't talk about using.
I didn't have friends who were addicts.
I didn't have family who gave a shit about my addiction.
I functioned.
I went to work; I paid my bills; I did all the things I was supposed to do to keep up appearances of being normal and healthy.
So no one ever asked.
And it made it so that I never had to speak of it outside of my own inner monologue.
It made it worse, I found, to have to confront it in such a way. My belly twisted enough to make me seriously wonder if I was going to throw up as my heart picked up speed again.
Lazarus (The Henchmen MC Book 7) Page 5
