Page 14 of Ballistic

I stared at the bottle of painkillers sitting on the shelf of the medicine cabinet, just begging for me to crack them open and send me on one hell of a trip. The kind that stripped away the insanity of having to remain idle. Phantom tingles shot across my skin at the memory of nights I’d lain in bed without a fucking care in the world, pondering the simpler shit in life.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss those days.

I closed the medicine cabinet, shutting out the temptation.

My apartment had somehow gotten smaller while I killed the hours with whiskey and cigarettes. Two years, I’d vaped, only to fall back on a pack of Camel’s from the liquor store one block up the street. I lifted weights more hours in the day than I ever had before, just to exhaust the pent-up energy constantly buzzing through my body. I wasn’t used to being holed up somewhere.

No lie, watching Nicoleta go through that shit put me on edge. Like déjà vu, all over again, for me. Only, my poison was fentanyl, not a street grade sex drug.

I could’ve dropped her off at some clinic. Told ‘em I’d found her on the streets, or something. I’d done it before, the bleeding heart bastard that I was, unable to bear seeing a junkie left to die alone in some abandoned shithole.

Tesarik would find her there, though. In fact, the clinics would probably be the first place he’d look, assuming he had any clue how hard it was to kick Hedonic.

The sharp edge of the business card scraped against my fingers as I stroked it inside the pocket of my jeans. If her father had been keeping tabs on me, no doubt he’d have noticed I hadn’t been around in a week. Unless he thought I was dead, but I didn’t want one of my friends to end up on a chopping block to test that theory. For two days, I’d debated calling the number on the card. I’d wanted to wait until the girl had at least gotten through the shittiest part of her withdrawals—literally—before shuffling her around to somewhere new.

I’d done Hedonic withdrawals before, myself, and all I could say about it was something as mundane as getting my ass in the shower had felt like I’d been pummeled with a club the whole way there. Whoever said the comedown was mild failed to mention the withdrawals were absolute hell.

Besides, I’d welcomed the distraction the last few days. Losing Tesarik again had fucked with my head, and if not for taking care of the girl, I might’ve trashed my apartment in a drunken rage.

Fuck. I rubbed a hand down my face and slipped the card out of my jeans. Couldn’t really afford any more distraction, though. I’d rescued the girl, and could mentally check that part of it off. I’d done my good deed. Could let her go and walk away.

Except, I couldn’t.

I’d searched for her for too goddamn long, to hand her over to some swinging dick who claimed to be her dad. Even if the guy didn’t have a shady ass agenda, he probably knew fuck all about withdrawals. Particularly Hedonic.

Between the pain, the throwing up, the shitting and the sleeplessness, the body constantly craved. More. But the what part was the hell of it. Not even clinics had a good handle on Hedonic, which was still a relatively new drug on the streets.

Nicoleta wasn’t out of the woods yet. And I wasn’t quite ready to send her packing. Not until I knew she’d be okay.

Screams echoed down the hallway, and I strode out of the bathroom to the back bedroom, where she sat on the bed, knees pulled into her body, arms restrained, her eyes fixed on something at the opposite side of the room.

I followed the path of her stare, scanning each corner of the room, but couldn’t pinpoint what had her face looking like she’d just seen someone crawl out of the wall.

Her wide eyes shifted back and forth, chest rising and falling with rapid breaths. Looked like another nightmare in play.

“You okay?” I could see she wasn’t, the way her body trembled, rattling the restraints against the bed, and the sickly shade of white her skin carried.

She didn’t answer, her gaze bouncing around the room, and down to the borrowed T-shirt of mine that sat just above her knees. She tugged on the restraints, clanging them against the headboard to which they were attached.

I stepped toward her, and she kicked back against the wall. “Are you cold?”

At her slight nod, I darted toward the blanket crumpled at the foot of her bed. As I spread it over her body, she hesitated before sliding back down the mattress.

Her throat bobbed with a swallow, and she turned her head away from me. “What is this?”

Asking questions about her surroundings was a good sign that she’d become more aware and coherent.

“This is … my old roommates bedroom. My apartment.”

Her gaze trailed over the room, and her face pinched with confusion. “Who are you?”

“Name’s Dax.”

“Tesarik … he’s …” She jerked on the bed, lifting her head as if the bastard were standing out in the hallway.

What I wouldn’t have given to see that little cocksucker standing there. “He’s not gonna hurt you anymore. You’re safe here.”

She tugged at the binds and glanced back at me, brows furrowed. “Safe?”