by Chloe Walsh
Watch her with him.
"I love you," I told her. "But I can't watch it."
"Watch what?"
"You," I snarled. "With him." I shook my head and bit back a growl. "I've been watching it for months, and I can't do it anymore. Not now."
"You know how I feel –" she began to say, but I cut her off, needing to get this shit off my shoulders.
"It's not enough for me. Your words? Your promises? None of it is ever going to be enough for me," I practically roared. Goddamn this woman could make me lose every fucking ounce of self-control. "Not until you're mine," I added. "All mine." Sighing heavily, I said, "I was never good at sharing the things I wanted, Hope. And I've never wanted anything as badly as I want you."
"I feel the same way," she cried. "And I am yours!"
"Then leave him," I demanded. "Leave him because you want me more. Leave him because you love me more!"
"I do," she strangled out. "I will."
"Then call me when you act on your feelings," I hissed. "Because I’m done with this, HC. I'm through with being your sidepiece."
****
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Hope
He hung up on me.
Numb, I sat on the couch and stared down at the phone in my hands.
The house was a total wreck and I knew I should get up and clean, but I just didn’t have anything left inside to give.
I could hear the sound of Jordan retching and gagging from the bathroom upstairs, and still, I remained on the couch. Just staring lifelessly at my phone.
I sat like that, empty and frozen to the bone, for what felt like an age before finally giving into the overwhelming feeling of exhaustion.
Reaching up, I pulled the blanket off the back of the couch and wrapped it around my body, desperate to ward off the cold in my bones.
I kept the light on because the dark affected me now.
I was no longer the carefree woman I once was.
The woman who was unafraid of the shadows lurking in corners.
I was wary now.
The loud, booming knock on the front door several hours later caused my nerves to go haywire, and my heart to slam against my ribcage.
I knew exactly who was at the door, he came around this time every night, and it made me sick to my fucking stomach.
The knock sounded again and was shortly followed by heavy footprints on the floorboards upstairs.
Anger coursed through my body and I threw off my blanket and stalked into the kitchen. Grabbing the sharpest knife I could find, I hurried to the door, desperate to get there first.
When I swung the door inwards, I was greeted by the same tall, disheveled, rat bastard drug dealer who'd been preying on Jordan's addiction for weeks.
"Get the fuck away from this house," I snarled, holding the knife out in front of me.
"Hey, lady," the guy said, hands up when he noticed my weapon. "I don’t need no trouble."
"You better leave him the hell alone and never show your face at this door again," I warned. "Because if you do, I will cut your fucking heart out."
"Hope!" Jordan shouted from behind me, but I didn’t stop. Instead, I feign-lunged towards the dealer, causing him to stagger backwards in surprise.
I slammed the front door seconds before I was being roughly yanked backwards by Jordan.
"Why'd you do that?" he demanded, shaking me like a ragdoll, eyes crazed. His pupils were so dilated there was hardly any green left. "Fuck, you're so stupid."
"And you aren’t you right now," I screamed, dropping the knife so I could literally wrestle myself out of his hold. "You don’t know what you're doing to yourself," I hissed, backing myself up against the front door to barricade him from going outside and getting his next fix.
I was terrified that the next time would be his last.
"Get out of my way," he barked, twitching violently. When I didn’t move, he roared, "Get the fuck out of my way, Hope!"
"No!" I screamed back, finally managing to shove him off me. "I can't watch you do this to yourself –"
He hit me.
Shock encompassed my features and I could do nothing but gape in horror at the stranger in front of me and hold my stinging cheek.
His hand bit down on my arm, and I was dragged away from the door, causing me to land roughly on my butt. Shocked to my core, I watched as threw open the front door and stalked out of the house, chasing after the man who held the ingredients that had turned him into the monster he had become.
I'd read all about this; how crazy and selfish and plain evil addicts could be when they were chasing a fix.
And now I'd witnessed it first-hand.
My face bore the brunt of his addiction.
****
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Hope
"Hope!"
"Hope, please…"
With the couch shoved up against the living room door, I sank down, curled myself into the smallest ball I could, and tried to block him out.
It didn’t matter how hard I pressed my hands to my ears though; I could still hear him.
And it broke my heart.
"Don’t leave me here."
"I'm dying here!"
"You're not dying!" I screamed back, losing my temper. "But you will die if you keep putting that shit in your body."
"You're a fucking whore!"
"Fucking bitch."
"You want me to die!"
I wasn’t going to give into him.
He could call me all the names he wanted, but I was not feeding the demon possessing his mind.
"Please… I'm in so much pain."
"It burns!"
With tears burning my eyes, I reached for the remote control and switched on the television, desperate to drown out the sound of his voice.
"I wish you were dead, the way you've killed me, you fucking bitch," was the last thing I heard him say before the sound of the television drowned him out.
Trembling, I reached for my phone, I quickly scrolled through the contacts list before finally landing on the one name I never imagined myself messaging.
Karen Valentine.
Inhaling a deep, calming breath, I steadied my nerves and tapped out a message.
Hope: Karen, it's Hope. I'm not even sure if this is still your number, but I need you to come home. It's Jordan. He's going through some stuff right now. If you could come up here, I think it could really help. He needs help, Karen. Come see him. Please.
****
Chapter Thirty
Jordan
It felt like a truck had mowed over my body.
I knew what was wrong.
Of course, I fucking knew.
Reality was crashing in on top of me like an unwanted tsunami of torture, bringing with it every horrible image and memory I tried so hard to block out.
I knew of only one way to stop that from happening.
One way of protecting myself.
Of escaping.
I couldn’t breathe.
My throat was closing in on itself.
The walls were closing in on me.
My body was sweating. I couldn’t tell if I was burning up with fever or freezing to death in the summer sunshine.
My muscles felt like they were trying to rip through my skin.
Scratching violently, I shuddered and rocked all while thrown on top of the toilet bowel, unsure which end of my body was going to explode.
Diarrhea and vomit.
Fuck, I was hurting so badly.
It was all her fucking fault.
I was in this pain because of her.
She fucked it up for me.
Everything.
Now I was dying.
Jesus Christ.
Dropping to my hands and knees, I managed to crawl into my bedroom. Groaning in agony, I managed to grab a hold of my cell and dial the first number on the list.
"Jordan?" Annabelle's voice came down the line. "Are you okay?"
"Annie," I panted,
curling up in a ball on the floor. "Annie, please…" I dropped the phone as a huge shiver rolled through my body. "I need a score," I croaked out, pressing my face down on the phone. "Please…"
"Jordan," she sighed. "I can't do –"
"I'm dying," I roared, begging. "Please. One more time. Just…help me!"
There was a long pause and then she said, "I'll be over soon."
Exhaling a ragged breath, I wrapped my arms around my body and trembled. "Please… fucking hurry."
****
Chapter Thirty-One
Hope
Teagan: Lucky's back in Boulder.
Hope: At your house?
Teagan: He was. He left thirty minutes ago. Said something about getting a beer.
Hope: Oh god.
Teagan: Move your ass, Carter. I heard him talking to Noah in the basement. He's not back for long.
"Where are you going?" were the first words I heard when I stepped off the bottom step of the stairs on Thursday night.
My heart sank into my butt.
I thought he'd be passed out by now.
That was the norm, after all.
Not bothering to respond, I continued rummaging through my purse for my car keys, dutifully ignoring him.
The need to find Hunter was choking me.
I had to find him.
Speak to him.
The need to see Hunter overrode all my fears and worries. I could figure those out later.
Right now, I needed to get to him.
"I asked you a question, Hope," Jordan continued, breaking through my thoughts as he stumbled down the staircase, hot on my heels. "I'm talking to you!" Following me down the rest of the steps, he reached out and grabbed my forearm, halting me in my tracks. "Answer me."
An overwhelming amount of fear swept through me, all linked to the hand he had wrapped around my arm.
Get off.
Get off.
Get off.
"Don’t touch me," I warned him as I tried and failed to yank my arm free from his hold. The stench of whiskey on his breath was stifling "Let go."
Twenty-nine days.
I had spent twenty-nine days holed up in this shithole of a house, having abuse hopped off me like shit off a shovel.
Spending every hour of every day being devalued and persecuted.
And I was done.
Done being beaten into submission with blackmail antics and dangerous threats.
I was so through with living in fear of drug dealers, angry outbursts, and being blamed for him slowly killing himself, and then getting slapped around when I tried to help.
He wouldn’t let me call his father, threatening to break our deal if I did, and his mother never got back to my message. I was all out of options. And pity? I had run out of that, too.
I was done, period.
With all of it.
"Tell me where you're going," he repeated flatly.
"I'm going to see Teagan," I lied, glaring at the hand he had wrapped around my arm. "Or would you rather I stay locked up in this hell hole for the rest of my life?"
"Will he be there?" There was a glazed over look in his eyes and he was swaying on his feet. "At Teagan's?"
"No," I snapped, finally managing to free my hand from his grasp. "He doesn’t live there anymore."
"Hope, I don’t want to –" Jordan began to say, then quickly cut himself off. He took an unsteady step towards me, but stopped and bowed his head. "Don’t forget our deal."
"How could I?" I snapped, pulling the front door open. "I'm living with the consequences every day."
"Fuck you, Hope Carter," he whispered, glaring at me like I was the devil. "For destroying me."
"Fuck me?" I snarled, hand gripped on the door handle with so much force my knuckles had turned white. "No. Fuck you, Jordan Porter," I shot back cruelly. "Fuck. You."
When I slammed the front door shut, I thought I was free from confrontation for a little while.
Oh, how wrong I was.
"Running back to lover boy?" Annabelle sneered as she balanced a bag of groceries against one hip. "Slut."
Stifling a groan at the sight of the blonde she-devil, I jutted out my chin and proceeded to walk towards my truck. "That's right," she continued to taunt. "Go on and run home to daddy. Bury your head in the sand and have him make all your problems go away with a flick of his credit card."
"Stay out of my business, bitch," I retorted.
"Whoa," Annabelle taunted mockingly. "Bad words for a good girl."
Stopping just short of my truck, I swung around to glare at her. "What the hell is your problem with me?" I demanded, having had quite enough of her shit to last me a lifetime. "You don’t know me," I added. "You have no idea who I am."
"No," she replied. "And neither does Jordan. He holds you on a pedestal of perfection when we both know that's not the case, right Hope?"
"What the hell did I ever do to you?"
"It's not what you do to me, it's what you do to him. Every day. Looking at him like he's a rescue puppy you need to save. News flash, Hope: he's a man with a hell of lot going for him. A good man. One who overcame a hell of a lot without anyone's help! Not his parents. Not yours. He's not a requirement either. And if you can't love him with all of your heart then step out of the way because there are plenty of woman who can and will."
"Are you fucking kidding me?" I shot back. "What cloud are you living on?" Furious, I stalked over to where she was standing. "He hasn’t overcome anything," I growled. "Because of people like you who cover up his lifestyle and feed his addiction."
She paled and opened her mouth to reply, but I wasn’t having it.
"I know what you've been doing," I sneered. "Bringing him drugs? Fucking spoon feeding him into an early grave." I shook my head and gave a look of pure disgust. "Some fucking sponsor you turned out to be."
"I love Jordan," Annabelle strangled out, face turning bright red. "And unlike you, I can't stand back and watch him suffer like this."
"Then you're sentencing him to death," I shot back emotionless. "Because what you're doing is wrong, Annabelle."
She jerked forward, but I stood my ground, too riled up to take another ounce of crap from these people. "Do it," I hissed, getting in her face. "Put your hands on me again. I dare you."
"You're not worth it, honey," she sneered, then stepped around me. "You're nothing but a convict's whore."
"And proud of it, sweetie," I called after her.
Bitch.
****
Chapter Thirty-Two
Lucky
Hope: I need to see you.
Hope: Hunter please.
Hope: Can you just let me know if you're even getting my messages.
Hope: I love you.
Hope: I'll meet you anywhere you want.
I stared at my phone and inwardly groaned.
I was too fucking drunk to be reading these messages.
Had I been sober, I would have known better than to switch on my own phone.
Had I been sober, I would have found the strength I needed to stay away.
I would have known better.
But I wasn’t sober.
Hope was throwing me a bone and like the goddamn ravenous animal I was, I took it.
Like the glutton for punishment I was, my thumbs hovered over the screen, tapping clumsily.
Fuck knows what I was writing.
I just couldn’t stop.
I wasn’t strong enough to block it out.
To block her out.
I felt like I'd been here a dozen times in the past year.
She was playing me like a fucking fiddle and I was supplying the woman with an unlimited supply of strings.
Every time she cracked a piece of me, I handed her another fucking string. I was so damn sick of it all.
"You good, sweetie?" the female bartender asked, distracting me from my thoughts.
"Good?" I chewed the word around for a moment, and then laughed humorlessly. "I'm something
."
"Oh, you're something alright," she teased. "Hard day at work?"
"Could say that."
"Don’t tell me," she purred. "You're one of those guys who are married to their job?"
Again, I responded with a simple, "Could say that."
Leaning over the bar, and giving me a perfect fucking view of her plastic tits, she whispered, "Got something stronger out back." Her long red hair brushed against my forearm. "Wanna come back and help me find it?"
"Here's what we'll do. You keep on filling that glass with a steady flow of Jack," tossing back what was left of my whiskey, I slapped the glass back down on the counter and pushed it towards her, "and I'll keep on drinking, so you can keep on staring, but that's the best I can offer, Red, because I sure as fuck ain't filling anything tonight."
She turned bright red, but took my glass anyway. "Your loss."
****
Five beers and countless shooters later, Hope walked in, looking like she belonged anywhere but this shitty, run-down bar at the edge of town.
The minute my gaze landed on her, I knew I was fucked.
Absolutely fucked.
Ruined.
This woman had the ability to knock me on my ass with one glance.
She had on this modest, blue maxi dress and long-sleeved white cardigan, making her stand out like a fucking angel from the short skirts and even shorter dresses every other woman in this place seemed to be wearing. Her brown curls were free from their usual confinement, flowing freely down her shoulders, her blue eyes wide and full of nervousness as she scoped the bar, clearly looking for me.
She looked like she should be in church not a seedy bar full of Boulder's undesirables.
Another man's wife, Luck, I continued to chant to myself as I desperately tried to fight down the hope roaring to life inside of me. Ain't never gonna be yours, man.
