Page 138 of Demo
“Knox, just tell her the truth. Tell her I’m a fucking idiot—”
“I’m not telling her I came here!” He spun on me when we got to the top of the stairs, and we lingered in the hallway for a minute. I had to use the wall as a support to stand. “Jenny, I’m not doing this again, understand?”
I nodded. “Yes, Knox. I’m never coming back, I swear.” I swayed as my vision started to blur at the edges. My mouth was dry. My eyes were dry. Everything tingled.
“Shit,” Knox said under his breath. “What did you take? How much?”
“Um, I think it was X. I took … It was two pills.”
He huffed in frustration. I couldn’t even look up at him. “Come on,” he said as he gingerly took my elbow and steered me down the hallway.
“No,” I said, and pivoted. “This way.” How I even knew which way was out was beyond me, but Knox followed my direction.
And then he stopped. Because Marcus was standing at the front door, arms crossed over his chest.
Shit.
“Thing is, Knox. I don’t know if your girl here told you, but she accepted a couple pills from us. Smoked some good shit, too. So, she kinda owes us.”
I saw Knox’s head turn slightly, and his eyes darted over our shoulders. I didn’t have to look to know someone came up behind us.
“Yeah. Yeah, no problem,” Knox said, releasing my arm and pulling out his wallet. “What does she owe you?” He started rifling through his wallet and I saw he didn’t have much cash. Or at least it looked that way to me, but I was kinda seeing double.
“Shit,” Knox said, looking back up at Marcus. “I don’t have enough cash.” Then he looked at me. “Jen, when you plan on partying could you give me a heads up? That way I can come prepared.”
I put my hands up and played along. “Hey, I had no intention of partying,” then looked at Marcus and tried to be playful. “You coerced me. All I have on me is my ID and my credit card. I was headed back to Netflix and chill until I was talked into coming here.”
Marcus was unmoving, so Knox spoke again. “You live here? You’ll be here tomorrow? I’ll bring cash tomorrow.”
After a beat, Marcus looked to the side and cracked his neck loudly. “We don’t really take rain checks, do we Vin?” Again, I didn’t have to turn around to know the guy behind us was nodding in agreement. “So, how about Jenny stays here, while you run to the ATM and grab some cash?”
I finally turned around to look atVin. He was pale and had a shaved head. He was about Knox’s height, but he was just as bulky as Marcus.
“Dude,” Knox said. “No offense. But I’m not gonna leave her here alone with anyone. She’s fucked up. You’re all fucked up. Sorry, but I’m just not comfortable with that. We’ll go to the ATM and come right back.” He took me by the elbow and started to take a step forward, but was pulled back by the neck of his T-shirt. “Seriously?” he let out, still somehow sounding almost playful. “What the hell, Marcus? Come on, man. You know us. We’ll be right back.”
Marcus unfolded his arms and stepped right up to us. “Yeah … Still, I’m gonna need some leverage.” He raised his left hand and trailed the back of his fingers down my right arm, slowly, all the way down to my hand, where he intertwined our fingers, and gave a little pull. In my state, I practically fell into him. “Unless,” he continued, looking down at me, “you wanna pay me back in another way …”
Knox jerked away from Vin and grabbed my upper arm to pull me out of Marcus’ grip, but arms came around Knox’s shoulders as he was pulled back and slammed into the wall.
“Knox!” I yelled, and as I tried to go to him, Marcus grabbed me around the waist and pulled me back into him. “He’s fine, sweetheart,” he said into my ear, as I watched Vin land a punch in Knox’s gut, and he doubled over and fell to his knees. Then he took a right hook to the face.
“OK!” I shouted, and spun around. “Marcus, what do you want. You want me to—”
“No.” Knox grit out, and I looked over to see him spit a bloody gob on the floor. “Let’s all go get the cash. Together.”
Marcus looked down at me, then over to Vin, who shrugged. “Now that’s a plan I can get on board with,” he said. Vin started patting Knox down, then pulled Knox’s wallet from his back pocket and slapped it against his palm a few times as he stepped around us, and Knox rose to his feet.
“You drive,” Marcus said to Knox, and raised his hand before us, gesturing for us to follow Vin out the door.
When we got to the truck, Knox got in the driver’s seat, I got in the passenger side and then Marcus scooted me toward the middle so he could climb in next to me. Vin jumped in the back. “We pass a cop, and we’re getting pulled over for that,” Knox said as he hooked his thumb behind him, toward Vin.
“We’ll be fine,” Marcus replied. “We’re just headed to the mini-mart up the street.”
Knox pulled away from the curb and drove quickly to our destination, and while I was glad he was trying to make this quick, the potholes he was driving over made me feel like I was on an amusement park ride, and combined with the high, I felt like I was gonna puke.
I closed my eyes and breathed through my nose as I braced a hand on the dashboard to steady myself. Knox side-eyed me. “You OK?” he asked.
“Yep. Just keep driving.”
