“Why?” Levi asked, voice flat.
There was a long pause. “What?”
Levi walked to the worn couch and flopped down. “Why bother? She’ll have a beer in her hand fifteen minutes after yourelease her from the hospital. Save your care for someone who wants it. It’s not like we can afford to pay the bill anyway.”
“So, you are aware that she’s an alcoholic?” Dr. Claymore asked.
Levi gave a humorless laugh. “My mother has never been sober a day in my life.”
The man on the other end sighed. “That would explain her labs. She’s a very sick woman. Her liver and pancreatic labs came back grossly elevated, she’s severely deficient in several vitamins and electrolytes. She has a low platelet count, severe dehydration. She’s underweight and her tox screen showed positive for amphetamines and marijuana.”
Levi made eye contact with Nico whose mouth was a flat line, his anger radiating off him. If there was anyone who hated Naomi more than Levi, it was Nico. He was a good friend. “I’m not trying to be rude, doc, but do you need something from me? Because I don’t really understand why you’re telling me all this.”
“You’re her emergency contact in her phone.”
Levi shrugged as if the man could see him. “Okay?”
“We just thought you should know where she was in case you went looking for her or in the event she took a turn.”
“Well, now I know,” Levi said, tone flippant.
“Mr. Akira, when your mother is sober, we’d like to talk to her about treatment options. I’m not sure about your…financial situation, but given your mother’s appearance and your comment about not being able to afford the hospital stay, would it be safe to say she is indigent? I just want to make sure our social workers are looking for facilities who can take her free of charge.”
Levi snorted. “Yeah, we’re broke. She’s unemployed. She’s on food stamps and lives in government housing. But none of that matters. She will never allow you to send her to rehab. She loves beer way more than she loves being alive.”
“We were hoping you would be here when we had the talk with her? Sometimes, family members are the push we need to finally get through to them.”
Levi’s laugh tasted bitter. “She loves beer more than she loves me, too. I wouldn’t waste my time. Just sober her up and let her go home. Save yourself a lot of time and unnecessary phone calls.”
“Mr. Akira?—”
“Just call me Levi.” Mr. Akira was his father. Another useless piece of shit.
Dr. Claymore’s tone was pitying. “Levi, I know when a loved one is in the throes of addiction, it can feel hopeless?—”
Levi cut him off. “When I was eleven, my mom sold me to our landlord—repeatedly—in exchange for beer and access to the forty-five dollars a month on his EBT card. One of my first memories is my mother leaving me in the trunk of her car so she could go to the bar because she didn’t want me ‘getting into anything’ while she was gone. I was three. She didn’t care then, she doesn’t care now. I’m just the guy who delivers her booze and her groceries. The only person she cared about disappeared a long time ago.”
“I’m—”
“Have a nice day.”
Levi hung up on the man and then just sat there, staring. Nico came to sit beside him, resting his head on his shoulder. He didn’t say anything. Nico always knew when to just let things be. He knew Levi wasn’t sad. Levi wasn’t anything. He’d closed that box a long time ago. He wasn’t opening it now.
“Wanna get Arsen and Ever and go eat greasy diner food until we puke?” Nico finally said.
Levi gave a slow nod. “Yeah, let’s do that.”
Shiloh burrowed deeper into his green puffer coat, partially to hide the swelling and bruising on his face and partially because he was cold. This place was always freezing. And loud. Loud and jarring, making Shiloh’s eardrums feel like they were vibrating. Everything echoed. Everything. And the acoustics were weird. Things that sounded close could be on the other side of the building or right beside you. And you wouldn’t know it until it was too late.
It was all the metal bars with their peeling mint green paint. But it was even worse on the inside, a hellscape made of artificial light and concrete. Shiloh hunched his shoulders, making himself smaller than he was. There were too many guards, too many guns. The whole place made him feel caged in, like a bear about to step in a trap, like the guards could tell he belonged there and would refuse to let him go.
Guilt shot through him like a lightning bolt. Mal was there because of him. Because he’d protected Shiloh from Micah’s wrath one time too many. Under different circumstances, Malmight have been a truly gentle soul. He loved music, art, and dance. Anime and graphic novels.
Mal wasn’t meant for darkness. To Shiloh, he was all light. But now, thanks to life, he was a light that flickered on and off like a no vacancy sign, based on who he needed to be that day. No, Mal wasn’t meant for darkness, but he dwelled there just the same. For Shiloh. To protect Shiloh.
Mal would say he deserved to be there. He thought himself no better than Micah. He’d hurt people, killed people, even, and didn’t have a shred of remorse. But there was no part of Mal that was even a little like Micah. Malachi hurt bad people, killed bad people. Mal only wanted the world to be interesting and bright and pretty. Micah wanted to build a world on a pile of rotting corpses.
Micah deserved to be in this concrete hell, not Malachi.
