Sloane

by V. J. Chambers

  “You don’t know anything about cocaine,” he said. “How can you know it’s bad if you haven’t even tried it?”

  “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.”

  He held out the rolled-up bill. “Try it. Try one crazy thing. One thing that will make you lose control.”

  “I’m not going to let you goad me into this,” I said.

  Axel grinned at me. And there was something about the way he smiled. Especially when he wasn’t all dressed up in his coiffed suits. He looked so good, and I knew I couldn’t touch him. But God, I wished I still was. I wished I hadn’t stopped him.

  I didn’t know what it was about him, but when I was with him, I didn’t seem to be able to do the smart thing.

  He unraveled me.

  I lurched across the room and snatched the dollar from him. I bent over one of the lines, closed a nostril, and sucked it all up.

  “Whoa, go easy,” said Axel.

  Ouch.

  It stung. It burned.

  I sat back, holding onto my nose and squeezing my eyes shut.

  And then… and then it coursed through me, like liquid courage and fire, and I threw my head back, sucking in breath and shaking. “Shit,” I whispered.

  * * *

  “More,” I said. “I want more.” We were still sitting on the floor next to the coffee table, but there had been a lot of cocaine in the past… however long it had been.

  Axel laughed. “We just did more.”

  “Did we?” I giggled. “That seems like it was… years and years ago.” I wasn’t sure how long the cocaine snorting had been going on, but it seemed like a long time. All I knew was that, from the minute I’d felt the first wave of it, all I wanted was more. More. More. More. I wanted more of it so badly that I couldn’t even quite enjoy how I was feeling, and I was feeling really, really good.

  I wasn’t the least bit insecure. Usually, I’d worry a little bit about what I was saying, but now I felt as if I was simply bursting with brilliant pieces of conversation. I could hardly keep my mouth shut.

  Axel and I had been chattering at each other, back and forth, interrupting each other, laughing and connecting. We were both so crazily amazing. Everything we thought was perfect and achingly cool.

  Man. If Axel was snorting this all the time, no wonder he was a self-centered asshole. That was a really cool thought. I had to say it out loud. “I figured out why you’re such a jackass.”

  “I thought we weren’t going to call me that.”

  “It’s because of this. Because of the blow. The blow makes you think that you’re brilliant.”

  “How do you know what I think?”

  “It makes everyone think they’re brilliant. That’s what I mean. By ‘you,’ I mean everybody.”

  “Ah.” He nodded. “But does it actually make you brilliant?”

  “I don’t know.” I furrowed my brow. “Actually, probably not. Like, I was thinking that you and I were the most intelligent, awesome people in the history of the world—”

  “That’s funny, because so was I,” he said. “I was thinking that we were basically living gods.”

  I giggled. “But the thing is, we probably sound like idiots. Or else, we’re really annoying.”

  “We only annoy mere mortals,” he said. “They can’t understand our brilliance.”

  “Maybe.” I bit my lip. “Axel,” I whined. “I want to do more.”

  He burst out laughing. “All right, all right. We’ll do more.” He started laying out the lines.

  At the sight of them, my whole body tensed in anticipation. I could taste it. The harsh, cool bite of it against the back of my tongue. It was almost sweet. I thought it was my new favorite thing to taste. “This stuff is evil,” I said. “Like I just did it once, and I already think it’s the best thing on earth.”

  “Well, yeah,” said Axel. “I mean, why did you think people did it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I thought they were stupid.”

  He straightened up the lines. “Well, we probably are. But it’s not that bad. I mean, it feels good, and it’s fun, and it makes for a good time.”

  I chewed furiously on my lip. I wasn’t sure if I was having fun or not. My heart was pounding out of my chest. I felt wide awake and ready to tackle anything. And I thought I was the most brilliant person in all of history. And… I really wanted more cocaine. “I don’t think I ever want to do this again.”

  He gave me a funny look. “You just said you wanted more.”

  “Well, I do now. But… I can’t just keep doing lines forever. I mean… can I?”

  He held up a finger. “No. That’s a bad thing. You really shouldn’t do that.”

  “Am I always going to want it like this?”

  He paused, hovering over the lines he was cutting up.

  “Oh my God, Axel, what the hell did you do to me? You are such an asshole.”

  “Hey,” he said. “You’re the one who made the decision to do this.”

  “Yeah, because you pushed me into it,” I said. “I mean how many times did I say no? It’s like you just keep pushing, and pushing, and pushing, and—”

  “Maybe,” he said. “I don’t know. Earlier, I hadn’t done any. And then after I had some, I didn’t want to do it alone. I wanted you with me. Because otherwise you’d just fall asleep and I’d be alone.” He handed me the rolled-up bill. “You first.”

  I took it from him. I tried to find the willpower to say no to it, to say that I wouldn’t snort any more of it ever again. But it was stupid to fight, and so I lowered my head and sucked it up.

  He took the bill back from me. “In answer to your question, no, you will not always want it like this. It’s worse after you start. You can’t stop after you start. But if you don’t start, it’s not nearly as bad.”

  I rubbed my face. “Oh my God. Oh my God.” I felt so good. I was invincible. I was the queen of the universe. I moaned.

  He snorted up the next line. “I’m sorry I made you do it.”

  I rested my forehead against the edge of the coffee table.

  “You’re right.” He sighed. “I am a jackass. I don’t really feel bad about it right now. But I feel like I should. Does that mean anything?”

  I lifted my head. I stretched my jaw. I’d been clenching it. “I don’t think it does.”

  He laughed helplessly. “Why are you even spending any time with me?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. I felt just as helpless. “It’s like I can’t say no to you.”

  “You only say no to me. What are you talking about?”

  “You’re like…” I surveyed him. “The devil. You are the devil incarnate. You’re all the bad things in the world, and you make them seem fun. You make me feel like I haven’t ever lived. And whenever I’m around you, you make me feel like I’m something special. Like I matter. Which I know is bullshit, because I don’t matter to you at all. Nothing matters to you.”

  “That’s not fair.” He looked offended. “Things matter to me. And you are, you know, special.” Then he made a face. “Did I just say you were special?”

  I snickered.

  He started giggling wildly.

  I hugged myself. “Oh my God, Axel. I have so many things I want to tell you.”

  “So tell me.”

  “No.”

  “See, there you go again.”

  “I shouldn’t be doing this. I’m supposed to be saving everyone, not sitting here in your apartment getting fucked up.”

  “Oh yeah,” he said. “I totally forgot about the fact that Leigh was kidnapped.”

  “I did too!” I smacked him. “You made me forget.”

  “I didn’t. You made yourself forget. You can blame me all you want, but you wouldn’t be doing these things if you didn’t want to do them.”

  “How do you know that? Maybe you have some sort of control over my brain.”

  “Look, let’s start thinking about how we’re going to save them. We’re all lit up.
Our brains are firing on all synapses. We can figure it out now.”

  “Can we?” I squeezed my eyes shut.

  “We totally can.”

  “Well, the problem is that we don’t know where the secret lab is. So we have to find someone who knows, and we have to find a better way to get information from them than capturing them and shoving guns against their heads.”

  “Okay, so who knows about the secret lab?”

  “Armstrong, but he’s dead.”

  “Who else?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know who works there or who helps him. When I was under cover as an intern there, I knew all about the way that things worked, but—” It was like a light bulb went off in my head. “Interns!”

  Axel nodded. “Interns would know. And you know what? I happen to know where interns from places like Costello Labs hang out. There’s a couple bars in town where they go a lot.”

  “Really? You do. So, that’s awesome. We’ll go there, and we’ll talk to them, and—”

  “Yeah, we’ll just buy them drinks until they’re trashed and then—”

  “You can flirt with them,” I said.

  He raised his eyebrows. “What? Me?”

  “Yes!” I got up. I was excited now. “You’re good at that. You find some girls that work for Costello Labs and turn on your charm, and they will tell you everything.”

  “So I get to help, then?”

  “Are you kidding? I need you,” I said. “I can’t flirt worth a damn.”

  Axel hugged me. “I’m so glad you’re letting me help.”

  I hugged him back. “I’m so glad I have you.” I squeezed him. “Is there any more blow?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I opened one of my eyes. I felt like someone had run over my body with a truck. “What?”

  Axel bent over me. I was lying on the bed in his guest room. His hair was all messy. “I just wanted to see you were awake.”

  “What time is it?” We’d gone to sleep when the sun came up. Axel had given me some kind of pill to counteract the effects of the cocaine. Within a half hour of taking it, I’d fallen asleep, which was good, because I didn’t think there would have been any way to get to sleep otherwise.

  “Three,” he said.

  “In the afternoon?” I groaned.

  He gave me a wry smile. “Welcome to my life.”

  I flung an arm over my head. “I feel really bad.”

  “You want me to let you go back to sleep?”

  I thought about it. Then I struggled to sit up. “No, that’s okay. I need to go back to my hotel anyway.”

  “Actually, I was thinking about that,” he said.

  “What’s there to think about?”

  “Well, if we’re going to work together to get Leigh and the others back, it only makes sense for us to be, you know, around each other. And I was thinking that my apartment would be a good sort of headquarters.”

  I put the heels of my hands against my eyes and applied pressure. I wasn’t sure exactly how to characterize how terrible I felt. For one thing, my nose and throat were sore. They burned really badly. And for another thing, my whole body ached. And… I felt groggy, but I thought that might have been a leftover effect of the downers I’d taken. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m saying you should stay with me.”

  I yawned. Oh, man. My entire jaw hurt. Too much teeth clenching. “Axel, I can’t stay with you. You bring out the worst in me.”

  “I’m going to be good from now on,” he said, grabbing my hands. “I promise. No more blow. I’m not going to do any, and I’m not going to let you do any. Not until we get Leigh back, okay?”

  I pulled my hands away. “Yeah, but if I stay here, you’re going to expect me to sleep with you.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “You slept in this room tonight, didn’t you? We’re both adults. We can keep this professional.”

  I groaned. “I don’t know, Axel. If I go back to get my stuff—”

  “That’s already done,” he said. “I had someone go and pick it up. I got your hotel key out of your purse, and I had my driver bring everything here.”

  My eyes widened. “But I have guns.”

  “My driver used to work for the mob,” said Axel. “Trust me, it’s no big deal. Anyway, it’s all set.” He kissed me on the forehead.

  I furrowed my brow.

  “I got breakfast.” He gestured out of the room. “So, if you’re hungry, come on out. But if you want to take a shower first, that’s fine.”

  What the hell had just happened?

  He started for the door. “Oh, and if you snort some water up your nose, it’ll help with the burning feeling.”

  * * *

  After eating breakfast, I went back to bed. I slept another two hours. By the time I woke up, it was early evening. Axel was already up and about. He was way too cheery in my opinion, because I still kind of felt like crap. But I guessed that he was used to living this way. Staying up all night. Sleeping all day. I ate some of the leftover breakfast stuff, which was cold, but still scrumptious. Axel had ordered it in from someplace, and I made a mental note to get him to tell me where.

  He was full of plans for our night out to get the interns drunk and get the secret location of the lab. He’d already gotten me more clothes for going out. Another dress—this one a sage green color. And he was already dressed in a brown suit. He had a plaid, maroon scarf instead of a tie. Again, we were dressed in complementary colors. I was beginning to think that somewhere deep down, Axel was part girl. Or maybe he’d just picked up all of this kind of stuff from his model mother.

  I told him it didn’t matter what I was wearing, because the interns wouldn’t see me. If they saw him there with another girl, then they wouldn’t open up as easily to him.

  He scoffed at this, because he said that any time you were in the position to be seen by someone else, appearance mattered. And then he grinned. “Besides, it’s fun dressing you up.”

  Which made me blush.

  But I decided not to worry too much about my attraction to Axel. It was horrible, and I needed to squelch it, but we were focusing on the mission now, so it didn’t matter. Once I got through this, I’d deal with being drawn to him. For now, I’d ignore it.

  I dug through my suitcase until I found my Bluetooth earpiece.

  “What’s that?” said Axel.

  “It’s how I’m going to hear what’s going on and coach you to ask the right questions,” I said. “See this thing goes in your ear, and then it’s basically invisible. And this thing goes inside your shirt.”

  “Do you have one of those because you used to be an assassin?”

  “Sort of,” I said. “You can buy them online. But I bought it because I used to be an assassin.”

  He grinned.

  “I’m really glad I brought it,” I said. “This will actually be the first time I’ve had a chance to use it, but I knew it was going to come in handy someday. Griffin thought I was taking too long to pack for Boston, but when we break him out, I’m going to tell him it was a good idea that I took all this time looking for this, because I used it to save his ass.”

  “So…” said Axel, “do I have to take off my clothes for you to put that on me?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I thought we were going to be professional.”

  * * *

  I sat on the other side of the bar, watching Axel with one of the girls. She was the third girl we’d talked to tonight. Most of the interns at Costello Labs were freaking clueless. They might have heard of the lab, but they had no idea where it was. All of them had been quite interested in Axel, however, who was really in rare form.

  He was gorgeous, I realized, as I watched him from across the bar. He had delicate features that were almost elfin, but he was so self-assured that he oozed masculinity. I was pretty sure that any girl would be powerless against his charm. She’d spill all her secrets.

  This girl, however, was playing it p
retty coy.

  Despite Axel’s attempts to get her to drink faster, she was sipping at the margarita he’d bought her. She was obviously interested in him. I could see from the way her body was angled towards him, from the fact that she kept blushing after he complimented her.

  And he was doing that a lot.

  It was actually starting to annoy me.

  “So, you’ve probably got everyone in that whole place wrapped around your little finger,” Axel purred at the girl, whose name was Julia.

  She giggled, blushing again. “I’m only an intern.”

  “Yeah, but you’re obviously really intelligent. And from the way you’re talking, I bet you’re very talented. It’s pretty clear you know what you’re doing.”

  She took a sip of her drink, embarrassed but enjoying the praise.

  “And on top of that,” Axel said, his voice dropping an octave, “you’re so gorgeous. With all that going for you, I bet they let you move all over that place. I bet you know all its secrets.”

  The girl looked down at the table. “Well, if I knew secrets, I couldn’t say anything about them, now could I? Then they wouldn’t be secrets.”

  Oh, that was a sign. She was admitting that she knew about secret things going on at Costello Labs. I spoke into the tiny microphone on my lapel. It went straight into Axel’s ear. “She knows. Push her.”

  Axel didn’t even acknowledge that he’d heard me, which was good. A lot of people have trouble keeping up a conversation with another person’s voice in their ear. But not Axel. He was a pro at this sort of thing. He’d barely needed any coaching. Took to it like a duck to water.

  His lips curved into a smile. “Well, but if you don’t say anything about them, how am I supposed to know if you actually do know secrets.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “You’re the one who said I knew them.”

  He leaned forward and ran his fingers over her arm.

  She shuddered, visibly affected.

  “So,” he urged, “do you or don’t you?”

  She closed her eyes. “I might know some things.”

  Axel’s fingers traveled further up her arm.

  Did he have to have his hands all over her like that?

  She opened her eyes. “But I can’t tell you anything. Why are you so interested in my internship, anyway?”