Bitter Angel

by Megan Hand

  Trigger—I remembered!—sat by himself in front of us, H was driving, Brandon was in the front passenger seat, and my stomach was back to freaking killing me.

  I doubled over and tried to keep the moans in my head. “Hey,” I whispered at Heather.

  Her head was resting on Nilah’s shoulder. Nilah’s cheek was flat against the window, her breath fogging the glass.

  “Hey, guys,” I repeated a little louder.

  “Mom?” Nilah asked in a pitiful voice.

  Damn. Right when I needed my friends, they bailed. Although, for what it was worth, I didn’t think I had ever seen them this drunk either.

  The boys’ conversation in the front caught my attention.

  “Nice crop back there, eh?” Brandon said.

  “Yeah,” H snickered. He turned the stereo volume up, smacking his palm to the wheel along to the beat of whatever viciously offensive rap song rattled the windows.

  Trigger wasn’t speaking. My eyes were closed, so I couldn’t see his face, but my ears were struggling to stay on high alert. The guys’ tone was sending chills down my spine, compounding the nausea.

  Get me home. To the hotel. Somewhere with a bed! I pressed a tight hand to my forehead.

  Brandon spoke again, barely audible over the music. “You know Alpha’s gonna be madder ’n shit when he sees we got three.”

  “Man, fuck Alpha,” H returned. “These chicks are prime. Nines and tens. More for the money. Alpha’ll appreciate it when he gets there.”

  “I think he’s gonna strip your scout card, man. You know the rules, and he wasn’t too happy after last weekend’s set.”

  H punched the wheel. He was pissed. “They fit all the specs! And they’re way hotter than last weekend’s.”

  “Shut up, you two,” Trigger snapped. “The one can still hear you.”

  The one? I have a name, dipshit.

  H’s voice was harsh. “Did you give her the water?”

  It took a few seconds for Trigger to reply. “Yes.”

  “Then what the hell are you cryin’ about? She’ll be knocked out soon enough. You’re gonna have the fucking time of your life, so shut your damn mouth.”

  Holy freaking hell!

  My brain kicked into overload. Warning flares went off like the grand finale on the Fourth of July.

  The water? Something was in the water? Was that same something also in our drinks? No way. I was there.

  But I was in the bathroom for a half hour.

  Oh God.

  Despite the jabbing pain in my head, the twisting agony in my stomach, and the double vision, a survival instinct I had never known kicked in. Still hunched over, I began pounding on Nilah and Heather’s legs. Wake up, damn it! Something’s wrong!

  Nilah let out a series of soft, sick cries. Heather was silent. As the SUV rounded a corner, her entire body weight fell into me. My heart cut into a sprint. I’d never seen her like this. I pushed her back, forgetting about my own pain. Looking her in the face, I jammed my thumb to a vein on her throat.

  Nothing. No pulse.

  That was when I turned away and finally vomited.

  Saturday, 1:07 a.m.

  “Wake up, baby.”

  I felt Jay shaking my shoulders. After he played my song, I must’ve dozed while we were watching Conan. It was Jay’s favorite night show. I always tried to stay awake to watch it with him, but sometimes I failed.

  I stretched and yawned from where we were huddled together on the couch. “Sorry, babe.”

  “It’s okay.” He kissed my forehead and took my hand. Pulling me to my feet, he led me to the bathroom. I heard more than saw the water running, and then I felt something long and skinny in my hand—toothbrush.

  “You think my girls are having the time of their lives tonight?” I asked around a mouthful of toothpaste.

  He chuckled. “Chances are they’re too drunk right now to be pissed at you for ditching them, but I bet you’ll hear about it tomorrow.”

  I laughed, spit into the sink, rinsed, and kissed Jay on his sexy man lips. After inhaling his minty fresh breath, I sighed. “Oh well. I’ll deal with their whining later. It was worth it.”

  He gave me a lopsided grin that sent pleasant shivers down my arms and legs. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” I laughed softly.

  I poked his bare chest, and he snapped the strap of my cami. He hopped away, prompting me to chase him out of the bathroom. We landed on my bed in an embracing heap, sharing a few tender kisses before I turned off the lamp. Snuggling close together on my bed, I tucked the comforter under our arms and sank into the feel of his bare skin against my back.

  I felt the weight of our earlier conversation returning. “I am thinking about it,” I promised him.

  He linked his fingers with mine and kissed the spot just beneath my ear, spreading a wave of goose bumps over my arms and legs. “Lil?” he asked hesitantly.

  “Yeah?”

  He sighed noisily. “I don’t mean to be a pushover, and I did want you to stay with me tonight. Obviously. It’s just that…”

  “What?” I turned over to face him.

  There was turmoil in his eyes. “I want you to choose me. Like tonight, I didn’t want to be an ass and make you stay. I want you to fight for me sometimes. For us.”

  That deflated me a little. “I do choose you,” I tried to convince him. “I do choose us. We’re still together. Most long-distance couples break up long before a year.” I swept that stray curl above his forehead. “This isn’t forever. It’s only a few years.”

  He absently played with my hair, running his fingers through the length of it. “I know,” he said, but he was looking past me, not at me. When his eyes returned to me, there was pain there. “I know you think I’m a pussy sometimes.” He ran his thumb across my bottom lip. “What you don’t see is that I am fighting for you. But when I do, you push back. Like tonight, sort of. I know it’s not your fault. It’s your natural instinct to retreat, but this is me.” His voice rose with passion. “This is us, remember? I choose you, every time. If it weren’t for your damn stubbornness, I’d transfer here. But I know you’d kick my ass, so I’ve stayed in Chicago.” He put his nose to mine. Our faces were so close, my focus zeroed in on him. “You’re my butterfly, Lil. But it’s hard to catch her when she keeps running away.”

  Involuntary tears sprung to my eyes, and I swallowed hard. ‘Butterfly’ was a dream reference. His grandmother always referred to dreams as butterflies. She was a saying collector like Jay, always speaking in little quotes of wisdom. Butterflies were her favorite. Can’t chase a butterfly running backwards, and the best way to catch one is by standing still, she’d always say.

  I didn’t always know exactly what she meant. She wasn’t actually Jay’s grandmother. She was his aunt, his mother’s sister. But she was much older than Jay’s mother and acted like a grandmother to him. She passed away this past summer from breast cancer, and we both missed her dearly.

  The tears were for her and for him. I didn’t mean to run away from him, figuratively. We were still together, but I knew what he meant. I wanted to be with him. I was just avoiding it. Honestly, I was scared.

  Jay wasn’t running backward. He was faithfully moving forward, never dwelling on his awful past. And he would try to stand still for me sometimes. I was the one that wouldn’t stop moving. Like tonight, steering us away from the topic of leaving Tennessee when I got uncomfortable. And the fifty conversations we’d had before about it.

  Sensing he was overwhelming me, Jay smiled, easing us back to normal. “Either way, thanks for tonight. For choosing me.”

  I turned back around, settling against him again. He kissed my neck and sighed a heavy breath into my hair. The weight of his arm draped over my waist eventually went slack.

  I laid awake a while, staring at the shadow of my lamp against the moonlit wall. I turned those three words over and over in my head, for choosing me. They broke my heart. I loved him so much. I wanted him. A future, a lif
e, the works. The idea of no Jay in my life was an impossible one. It stole the breath from my body.

  I didn’t know what exactly I was afraid of. Was I worried that starting our life together so young would ruin us like it did my parents? That definitely played a part. Sometimes, I felt this need to sort out my dysfunctional past on my own. I’d never been great at leaning on others. It pissed me off, though, that I couldn’t quite pinpoint my issue. There was nothing more frustrating than not knowing your own inner self.

  As my eyelids grew heavy, I was thinking that I almost wished I had gone out with the girls tonight. Then a strange, almost painful sensation enveloped me. An overwhelming guilt I couldn’t explain.

  I fell asleep in Jay’s warm and safe arms…and into a nightmare.

  I was standing in the middle of a field, bending over Heather and Nilah’s lifeless bodies. I gaped into their unseeing eyes. Heather was clean, gorgeous even in death. Nilah was a mess. Her once sleek hair was matted with blood, her open mouth frozen in a silent scream. At the sight of them, my knees seized up, and my own scream hung at the edge of my lips.

  Before I could move or make a noise, the scene changed, and I was at their double funeral. Something heavy lay on my shoulders—Jay’s hands. The circle of people around their graves was massive. Hundreds were gathered. Sobbing. Crying softly. Weeping, weeping, weeping trails of tears that puddled on the grass.

  Everyone but me.

  Then a tear squeezed from each eye and trailed down my face. One landed in my right hand, the other in my left. But when I looked down, they were no longer tears. My hands were filled with blood, overflowing and dripping through my fingers onto my black dress shoes. My breath quickened as I discreetly tried to wipe it on my dress, but it only flowed more heavily, smearing on my skin. I collapsed to the ground and rubbed it into the grass until I was surrounded by crimson.

  Jay’s hands were still on my shoulders. I couldn’t see his face, but it didn’t matter. I felt the condemnation under the weight of his touch. I lifted my still bloodied hands to my face, and in the middle of the pastor’s speech, I let out a bloodcurdling wail.

  Somehow, I knew their blood was on my hands and it would never wash off.

  Saturday, Early a.m.

  Heather had a heart condition.

  I had never actually known what it was, but we’d known about it since we were five. Her mom had threatened to follow us around if we ever dared her to run the length of the flagpoles at school again. In the fourth grade though, she’d taken a month off to recover from what was supposed to fix this heart problem. She’d never be an Olympic runner or a pro-football player, but otherwise, she would be healthy. Young. Active. Vibrant. Able to get smashed if she so desired.

  She’d never had an issue before.

  After I puked all over H’s probably expensive SUV floor, I began ranting at the top of my lungs that my friend was in trouble. We needed to take her to the ER. H, of course, swore loudly and pulled over.

  Uncontrollable tears streamed down my face as I continued to press my fingers to Heather’s neck, begging them to feel something. I took her head in both of my hands and shook. I pried her eyelids open and shouted at her unresponsive pupils. Damn it, Heather! You will not go like this!

  My bawling and shrieking managed to somewhat pull Nilah out of her stupor, but it finally hit me that whatever they’d given her, me, us was in her system. She was useless to me. I was it. I had to get us out of this.

  Whatever this was.

  I felt the vehicle stop. Cold air blew in behind me as H tore the door open.

  “Goddamn it!” He was assessing the half-digested chunks of my dinner on his floor.

  “Is it bad?” I heard Brandon interject.

  H’s eyes narrowed on me. “What the fuck is going on? Let me see her.”

  Yanking me by the wrist, he tossed me out onto the concrete sidewalk. I landed hard. My tailbone felt bruised, but all I could think about was Heather.

  I did a quick survey of the area. Deserted. No use in screaming for help. No use in running. I didn’t even know if I could run. If I did, I didn’t doubt they’d leave my ranting ass and haul off with my friends.

  No way. I was way too hysterical for Heather. I swayed as I tried to rise. My head was still pounding, and my stomach was rolling. For whatever reason—I had a million by now—I fell to my hands and knees, scraping them in the process, and vomited again.

  What the hell is wrong with me? Then I realized—this was a good thing. It meant that whatever poison that had been put in my system was now more than likely out of it. Still, I knew alcohol was weighing me down, and I didn’t feel any better. With the back of my arm, I wiped leftover spit from my mouth and came to a wobbly stand.

  H poked his head out. “She has a pulse, you psycho bitch. Now shut your mouth, and maybe we’ll let you remember tonight.”

  In my haze, I hadn’t realized Trigger was behind me. With both hands, he practically lifted me onto the front bench seat. He sat next to me and held my shoulder tight. Whether it was for comfort or to restrain me, I couldn’t tell. The car jerked into motion.

  Still half out of it, I continued my watery plea. “Please. Let her go. I’ll do anything. You can do anything you want to me. Just drop her off at the ER.”

  That was a lie. There was no way in hell they were laying a pinky on me. Once Heather and Nilah were safe, I was getting out of this freak show.

  Trigger’s arm was a vice around me. He whispered hot in my ear, “Shut up or they’ll make it worse.”

  With slit eyes and flaring nostrils, I eyed H, plotting ten different ways to wring his neck and take control of the vehicle. An idea snagged my attention, and I eyeballed the door I was butted against. The street we were racing down now was lined with bars and laughing patrons stumbling about. Again, I couldn’t jump ship without Heather and Nilah. I had to figure out where we were going, or find a way to get the attention of someone outside.

  Discreetly, I reached a hand to the window control. Trigger must’ve felt me moving or noticed the demonized look in my eyes because he added even quieter, “And don’t get any ideas. It wouldn’t be…wise.”

  The way he said “wise” made me sicker to my stomach, but I didn’t care. I was not the kind that went quietly.

  I began kicking the back of H’s seat hysterically. “LET US OUT! LET US OUT! LET US OUT!”

  H bellowed a mouthful of obscenities and jerked the car to the curb once more. Facing the window, I screamed even louder. I kicked my legs, trying to rock this tank of a vehicle and yanked furiously at the door handle. It didn’t budge. The drunks staggered past us. I was invisible to them. Is this thing soundproof?

  H gave Trigger a deathly glare from the rearview mirror. “You got the needle?”

  I felt Trigger shiver next to me. “That’s only a just-in-case.”

  “I don’t give a shit!” H reached under his seat and pulled out something long and skinny. “Tie her up and dose her, or this ends now, and it won’t be fucking pretty!”

  “Goddamn it, H,” Brandon griped. “This is why we don’t do three. Something always goes wrong.”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  H jerked the car back onto the road, and I watched my chances of being noticed blow away like dust particles in a light breeze.

  Trigger took the thing from H’s hands and locked my wrists together behind my back. For his skinny stature, he was surprisingly damn strong. The long thing was a zip tie, and I freaked even more when he tried to restrain me for real.

  “No.” My panic sounded more like a pathetic whine. I wasn’t in a good position to knee him in the balls or try any other defensive maneuvers. With all the alcohol and whatever else still in my system, I was running out of steam. “No, please. I’ll be quiet. I’ll be good.” I was disgusted at how weak I sounded.

  This was not me. I’d never given up, and I sure as hell had never gotten myself into these kinds of situations.

  Not that I could fully blame
myself. Who would’ve seen this coming? But I couldn’t stop the question: how could I have let this happen? It was plaguing me, becoming the tempo my head thumped to.

  I squirmed and fought the zip tie as best as I could until Brandon was forced to unbuckle and hold me down.

  “No, no, no, no.” I was crying again and twisting my head toward my unconscious friends.

  My one possibly dead friend.

  That concept was not something I would let sink in though. I have to fight! Using my heels to my advantage, I rammed Brandon in the shin.

  “Ow! Shit!” He crouched against his seat, rubbing his leg.

  “Trigger!” H barked.

  Trigger’s face twisted with aggravation, a look that said, I told you so. Brandon found his footing again and tacked my feet to the floor while Trigger pulled the zip tie so tight it cut into my wrists. I cried out in pain only to realize the horror wasn’t over. Trigger had turned away. I heard a soft click, and then a needle glimmered in the glow of the streetlights.

  Instantly going still, I swallowed a whimper and backed into the window so hard that I really thought my fingers might break. Liquid squirted from the needle.

  “Hold her good,” Trigger told Brandon, quiet and resigned.

  After the needle emptied into my arm, it was an excruciatingly long minute before I felt the drug take affect. The whole time I couldn’t see Trigger’s face. All I saw was Brandon. His eyes were pumped with malicious desire as he watched me go unconscious, a greedy, evil spark that I imagined must match a serial killer’s while he watched the life go out of his victim’s eyes. The only thing I could think in those last few seconds before the drug towed me under was, how could I have missed that?

  Saturday, Early a.m.

  Somehow I knew that it was still the middle of the night because my body was so exhausted it was telling me to sleep. As I exited my daze, eyes adjusting to the light, my pulse shot into the hot zone. Everything that’d happened in the car and beforehand came back in pieces, fractured and distorted like a shattered house of mirrors. Yet I instantly registered that I was in an unfamiliar place.