Six Feet Under (Mad Love Duet Book 1)

by Whitney Barbetti

  No, he checked that a photo was still there.

  Before he could stuff it away, I grabbed it. Curiosity always wins over manners.

  The photo was of a young woman with a little girl on her hip. Judging by the creases on the corner, and the wrinkle across their faces, the photo was an old one.

  I barely had a chance to brush my finger over the face of the woman before Six snatched it from me.

  “Is that your family?”

  He didn’t answer me, stuffing the wallet in his inner coat pocket and then zipping his coat up.

  “That’s not going to stop me,” I told him slyly. “I’m resourceful.”

  “Goodbye, Mira,” he said, and left.

  I watched after him as he climbed into his sleek black car and heard the rumble of the engine as he left the parking lot. I stared after him. He’d unsettled me, from his lack of reaction to me stealing his lighter and then to the extreme reaction from the photograph. And the fact that he left first, when that was my M.O.

  The photo of the woman and the girl hung in the forefront of my mind, and like the obsessive person I was, it was all I could think about.

  Because I was an addict, I wasn't immune to overdosing. I'd overdosed once before and come close a few more times. I wasn't afraid of death. I had no one to disappoint, no one to love, and I preferred to stay that way. I was Mira the Lonely, destined to roam the earth until my bones gave out, crumbling to dust. I was speeding up the process with my frequent drug use, which meant my heart might give out before my bones did.

  What a lot of people don’t understand about mental illness is that it can’t be cured with a magical pill. You can't put a Band-Aid on the parts of the brain that have been wounded. You can't ice the parts that hurt. You can't staunch the bleed of hallucinations.

  There is no magic cure; there is no number of kindly spoken words of wisdom that can make it better. It’s just torment, forever.

  And the night after I stole Six’s lighter, I couldn't tell if I was hallucinating or if I was in a real-life nightmare.

  The nightmare had begun when I'd tracked down my dealer, the one who'd given me the shit drugs the night I first saw Six. I'd demanded better product or he'd lose a client. I knew there was no way to get my money back, and that's not even what I wanted. Money was inconsequential. I wanted the high.

  His hands had shaken as he'd opened the bag of whatever the fuck it was he was offering to me. A dozen brightly colored pills had fallen on the sidewalk, rolling away to freedom.

  “Fuck,” he muttered, dropping on all fours to grab them.

  Not missing a beat, I fell to my knees on the cold concrete beside him, picking up a few of the pills.

  “Give those back, Mira,” he said, his voice squeaky and high, while he held a palm out.

  I slid the pills into my pocket and hopped back up to standing. Jeremy? Jerry? Jared? Whatever his name was, I didn't care. “Listen, these are dirty. You don't want them anyway.”

  The dealer stood and ran a hand under his nostrils. “How many did you get?”

  I fingered the pills in my leather jacket. Six. The number made my lips curl. “Two.”

  He squinted into his baggy, looked at the pills. “Show me,” he said, not believing me. Not that he should. Addicts weren't exactly known for their honesty.

  With my fingers, I grabbed two and was prepared to show him. “Oh fuck, Jeremy,” I said, my body tensing up as I looked over his shoulder and saw the unmistakable lights of the cruiser coming closer.

  He frowned. “Who's Jeremy?”

  I guessed I could cross Jeremy off the list of suspected names. “The block is hot. Penelopes incoming.” I turned around, walking away as casually as possible.

  “Penelopes?”

  Idiot. I rolled my eyes. “You've been grinding here for two years, Jerry. Get with the slang.”

  “Shit,” he cursed, seeing the cop cruise closer. “Penelopes are police?”

  “Yes. Unless you happen to know any Penelopes?” I looked up at the brick building as the police drove by. “Got a hot piece of ass named Penelope?”

  Jerry shrugged beside me. “Nah. But if you're interested-”

  “I'm not,” I interrupted, whipping around once the cops had driven by. “Bye, Jerry.”

  “Who's Jerry?” he called after me, but I was on the move. It wasn't until I was about twenty feet away that the dipshit remembered the drugs I'd picked up. “Yo, Mira!” he called. I picked up my pace. “How many did you grab?”

  For the second time in less than five minutes, I thought, “Idiot,” and took off at a run, down an alley and out another side of the street. I slipped a hand into my pocket and pulled out two of the yellow pills. I popped both in my mouth and swallowed them in an instant as I waited for traffic to slow enough for me to cross the road. I didn't question what the dealer had inadvertently given me. I knew it was good, because the familiar bitter taste hit my tongue, and a feeling of comfort settled over me.

  When I saw a clearing in the traffic, I ran, hard. I ran to the other side of the street and then down the block, around a corner, and around yet another corner.

  My tennis shoes pounded on the pavement, bouncing through puddles and splashing gutter water onto my jeans. I rounded a corner and went down another alley. I was just one block from my apartment.

  As I neared my apartment, closer and closer, I slowed my pace, wanting to be fully immersed in the hallucinations once I was behind the closed door. Before I made it to the entrance, my entire view shifted, the ground picking up and moving several feet to the right, shattering my vision. I lifted a heavy hand to my face, tried to focus on something.

  This wasn't an earthquake; at least, not one anyone else could feel.

  I knew this drug. I'd used it before. The effect it was having on me was different this time. Had I taken too many? I didn't care. I felt nothing. No fear, no pain, even as I fell off the curb and rolled into the street. I lost track of the space my body occupied and rolled, over and over, laughing.

  At some point in my disassociation, I got up and ran straight into a wall. My eyesight was fractured with light, like a kaleidoscope of color, forcing my lids down, falling and falling into something.

  I didn't feel fear when hands closed on my limbs. I was underwater, I was in the air, my reality was suspended, and everything felt right and nothing was wrong.

  3

  My eyes opened slowly before I shut them right away.

  Pain was the first thing I registered. The only thing I registered.

  I focused on where the pain was coming from but couldn't pinpoint any spot in particular. My legs were numb. My arms ached. I tilted my head and felt the ache at the back of my neck flare up. That was all the pain I could feel without sitting up.

  I tried opening my eyes again. I let the light from the fixture above splinter into my retinas.

  Mine, I knew immediately. Only one lit bulb out of three in the old ceiling fixture meant I was home in my bedroom.

  What the fuck had happened?

  My nostrils burned as I inhaled, and I winced as the burning hit the spot between my eyes. What was that? What had I taken?

  Gingerly, I lifted an arm and brought my palm to my forehead. I was warm to my own touch, but not alarmingly so. I wasn't sick, but I'd had some kind of accident, that much was sure.

  I rolled on to my side, felt the pain deep in my chest. Bruised rib, likely.

  I exhaled heavily and rolled to the edge of the bed, sliding my feet off the side and onto the floor. Gripping the bed, I pushed myself to standing and felt the pain in my chest, lower back, hips, and legs. Down to my bones, I ached.

  The first odd thing I noticed was the glass of water on the nightstand, filled nearly to the brim. A glass like that alone might not have been suspicious were it not for the straw inside it.

  I didn't own straws.

  I looked toward my bedroom door before I remembered to slow my movements. I winced, and I waited for the spinning to stop bef
ore I looked at it again. My bedroom door was shut.

  I never shut my bedroom door.

  I heard a noise just outside the door, a noise that meant I was not alone in the apartment. My first instinct was to reach for my nightstand, for the knife I usually kept there. Nothing. I didn’t have a second to panic about that because my hands brushed soft T-shirt material. I looked down and took in the oversized heather gray shirt that hung to my mid-thighs.

  What the fuck?

  I wasn't afraid, not with the straw and the fact that whoever was in my apartment had dressed me. But I was still considerably alarmed because as far as I could remember, I hadn't invited anyone inside.

  A noise in the kitchen reminded me that I needed a weapon.

  I settled on an empty bottle of vodka that was still in the bathroom from the night before and inched toward the door, not wanting to alert the intruder or whoever it was that I had awoken.

  Cracking open the door, I peeked out into the main living space and saw nothing. But I smelled something distinctive: bacon.

  What in the actual, ever-loving-fuck, was going on?

  I tightened my grip on the neck of the bottle and moved slowly toward the corner to the kitchen.

  I heard the whoosh of the refrigerator door opening, the glass bottles inside clanging against one another—but my fridge had been empty. There shouldn’t be bottles rattling inside of it. With a deep breath, I held my bottle up while the refrigerator door blocked my view. My shoulder ached, and my arms trembled with the weight. My heart thundered painfully in my chest as I waited for the door to close.

  “Put it down, Mira.”

  That voice. I knew it.

  I didn't put the bottle down, just tightened my fingers on it and braced myself as the door closed.

  Before I could see his face, a hand came up and clamped on mine, holding the glass bottle still above my head. My instincts kicked in, and I reached a leg out to kick, but he moved deftly to block it. I was imbalanced partly due to my aches and being caught by surprise, and fell flat onto my ass, the bottle dropping with me and bouncing twice on the floor.

  Wincing, I rubbed my back as I stared up at him. “What are you doing in my apartment, Six?” I asked, backing away on all fours. I was trying to fight the headache that was quickly burning a hole straight through my brain, and the pounding that had started up in my ears upon waking.

  I searched my brain for an explanation, but no memories came. Nothing.

  He stood tall in my kitchen, his stance nearly taking up the width of the room.

  “You don't need to fear me.” That voice. It felt like it'd been lifetimes since I'd heard it, but also it felt so familiar that I was sure I had heard it only hours earlier.

  “I'm not afraid of you,” I uttered defiantly, still scrambling back until I hit the lone armchair in my apartment. “What is going on?”

  “I brought you home.” He was watching me carefully, as if poised to shield himself from any outburst.

  “From where?” I glanced around the room, looking for something to protect myself.

  “You don't remember?” He looked shocked, and I wrapped an arm around myself in defense.

  “Jog my memory,” I said slowly.

  “Have you even looked at yourself?”

  I hadn't, but knowing the ache I felt all over, I stood and walked around him, back to the bedroom and into my bathroom. I closed the door and locked it before flipping on the light switch.

  My hair, its jumble of black and purple curls, looked as if I had teased it within an inch of its life. I brought my hand to it and came away with a few blades of grass and mud.

  My eyes traveled down my reflection, took in the slightly bruised cheekbone, the blood on my lip and nose, and the puffy red marks under my eyes. I brushed at the crusty blood, flicking it off my skin. My hands pushed my hair back as I took in the rainbow of colors coloring my face.

  Gliding down, I saw the straight line of pink and purple on my neck. I swallowed, felt the rawness of my throat. I vaguely remembered feeling fingers in my mouth and suppressed the vomit that threatened.

  I ripped the shirt off and tossed it on the floor. Black polka dot marks the size of fingertips decorated my chest and my shoulders, coupled with a stripe across my ribcage. Someone had beaten the shit out of me.

  I couldn't remember anything that had happened. I couldn't recall the chunk of time from yesterday, when I'd slathered lotion on my unmarred skin, to this moment, seeing the havoc wreaked upon my body.

  I stepped away from the vanity and looked down at my legs. Bruises littered the skin around my knees and crawled up my thighs in deeper color.

  I was wearing underwear. My fingertips grazed the simple black edge, and that's when I finally realized, to some degree, what had transpired the night before. I hadn't left my apartment in this pair. I remembered that. My brain gripped that memory in a tight fist, willing it to stay in the forefront as my desperate hands ripped the underwear off, and shaky legs kicked them across the bathroom.

  I placed a hand to myself and felt nothing. I didn't feel what I expected—no soreness, no scabbing.

  I hadn't been raped. This time. Relief lit through me, washing my body in thankful chills.

  Six knocked on the door. “Mira.”

  On impulse, I jumped to my feet and braced a hand on the vanity, my head spinning from the sudden movement. I took in my bruises, felt belated fear. And then I ripped open the bathroom door and lunged for Six.

  My hands clawed his skin and from my throat came a noise that was inhuman. I attacked him, hitting, scratching, kicking, screaming, until he flung me like a ragdoll on the bed.

  Before I could retaliate, he flung the comforter over my body and climbed over me, pinning my arms to the bed. Between heaving breaths, he growled, “I don't want to do this to you, but listen to me.”

  I struggled against his hold, limbs lashing out under the blankets. Survival mode had birthed a fear I hadn’t felt in so long.

  “You bastard!” I imagined my eyes like knives, slashing his face. “Get off of me!” I screamed.

  He leaned down, his face inches from mine. “I didn't hit you.” He spoke quietly, but nothing about his words was soft. “If you think I did, you're mistaken.”

  “I remember!” I screeched, my entire body thrashing. “You were there. I remember you shoving your hand in my mouth,” I spat.

  He pressed harder, spoke louder. “To force you to vomit whatever it was you'd taken.” He held me firmly, but gently, like he knew I was strong, but he still didn't want to hurt me. His irises were nearly black, bits of broken blood vessels splattered across one white eyeball. I found myself focusing on it, as I felt my heart slow to a steady rhythm.

  The power behind his words seeped into my bloodstream and slid though me like Xanax. His eyes were hard, but I felt no more fear. He wasn't lying to me. I thought about how he'd thrown the comforter on my naked body before pinning me down.

  I swallowed. “Fine,” I said, my throat raw. “But let go.”

  A moment later, his hands left my wrists, and he climbed off the bed, standing a few feet away.

  “Who did it?” Or rather, who tried to do it?

  It. I didn't want to say the word aloud. I didn't want it to fall from my lips and become a thing. My body had been through the war of it; my body had been on the losing side of it. I hadn't been raped, but I felt the intention on my skin like dirt. The person who had hit me, who'd knocked me out, had left their plan on my skin.

  Six shook his head. “Don't know.”

  He didn't look at me like I expected him to, like I was someone to be pitied. Someone to be held while my tears drowned us both. Because that wasn't me.

  “Did you...” The words were thick in my mouth. “Did you see him?”

  His jaw clenched in answer. I nodded my acknowledgement and clenched my fists under the comforter.

  “It was dark.”

  My eyes snapped up to his. “I figured.”

  �
�Do you...” He ran a hand over his head. He didn't know what to ask, how to ask. And he didn't seem to enjoy feeling off balance.

  “I'm fine.” I wasn't, but I wasn't hurt. I didn't know what had happened to me, but I knew whatever it was, Six had interrupted it.

  It. The two-lettered word held so much weight.

  He took a step toward the bed. He watched me for any sign of resistance before he continued. He lowered himself carefully, sitting on the edge, and turned himself to me.

  “What can I get for you?”

  I tilted my head to the side and regarded him wondrously. Most people in his position would give me platitudes. They'd yammer and stammer and stumble over words they were too uncomfortable to say. Instead, Six offered help.

  I watched his hands once he'd placed them on the bed, taking in the gnarly skin of his knuckles.

  “Tell me what happened to your hands.”

  He flicked a glance at them before looking at me again, that green steely gaze fixed on me. “I pulled him off.”

  I think you did a little more than pull. “What time is it?”

  He lifted his wrist to just under his nose. “Ten after eleven.”

  I nodded. “How long have I been out?”

  “I brought you here around one this morning.”

  I nodded again. “Were you making food?”

  His body adjusted just slightly, allowing me a peek into the cracks. He was guarded, careful to conceal his thoughts. His body language barely gave away what he thought or felt. “I was,” he mumbled.

  “Great.” I sat up and let the comforter slide down my body. Six turned his face away and stood up.

  “Here,” he said, yanking a shirt from the laundry basket beside my bed. He tossed it at me and strode out of the bedroom, back into the living area.

  He wanted me covered, protected. I thought of the new pair of underwear I'd been wearing. It was obvious that he'd undressed me when he'd brought me back here. But then he'd redressed me in comfortable clothing and underwear.

  Six had protected me, not just with his fists, but from himself by putting me in new clothing and underwear. No one else would have done that for me. My brain started humming.