Pixie backed away.“No.Like hell I will.Please ...she’s just a baby.Don’t hurt her.”
“You need to hand her over,” Arnie said, stepping toward her.
“Fuck you, Arnie.You’ll get Petal over my dead body.”
Arnie reached around his back, and retrieved a gun that he pointed straight at her.“That can be arranged, Sarah-Jane.”
“Please,” Pixie begged.She was outnumbered.And very much alone.“I was just on the phone with Dred.He’s on his way home,” she said, wishing she could control the trembling in her lip.
“He isn’t,” Sam replied, “because I just checked in with their producer, and they’re locked up in the recording booth and plan to be there all day.”
Pixie thought about the message she’d been in the middle of leaving.Was it still recording?Would it cut off after a certain amount of time?Discreetly, she looked over to her phone, but the screen was dark.All she could do was pray Dred listened to his messages sooner rather than later.Hopefully it had recorded enough information to help Dred find them, because she was all out of ideas, except kicking and screaming like hell as they attempted to remove her from the apartment.
She looked around the kitchen, damning the ultramodern interior.There wasn’t a single item on display, except the kettle.Knowing Sam was looking to get Petal from her, she wasn’t prepared to put her down while she figured out a way to fight, and couldn’t afford to take the risk of Petal getting hurt.
The first step was to keep them talking.Hopefully it would give Dred more time to see he missed her call.“Your agreement?Tell me, Sam.Don’t you think Dred will be suspicious when he comes home to find you here, but not me?”
“Not when he finds these,” Arnie said, pulling a small bag of white powder, a lighter, a syringe, and a small spoon from his jacket pocket.“You see, your son-of-a-junkie lover won’t do shit once he thinks you’re using again.”
“Wait, how do you ...”
“We need to get on with this,” Sam said, wiping his forehead.
Confusion crawled over her, as nothing made sense.“Wait, Sam.You told Arnie about Dred’s mom?”
“I did what I had to do to stop you from disrupting my plans,” he replied.
“What plans?I don’t understand?Are you going to kidnap us?Kill us?”she asked.She knew tears wouldn’t help, but futility overwhelmed her.She couldn’t see a way out of the mess she was in, and the thought crushed what was left of her fighting spirit.
“When your boyfriend assaulted me in the alley, I contacted Sam with plans to sue his fucking ass, but Sam offered me a surprising deal instead.”
“Arnie.Enough!”Sam shouted.It made her jump and Petal started to scream in her arms.
“What does it matter if she knows?With the money you paid me, we’ll be out of state and locked down before anyone can do anything about it.”
Pixie let the weight of Arnie’s words settle.Sam was paying Arnie to make her disappear.“Am I really that big of a threat to you?It will kill him if you hurt either of us.And if you let Arnie take me, are you really going to sit there with Petal and wait for Dred to get back?And say what?I came over and found her using so I kicked her out, and like a good girl she left?”
“Listen, you stupid bitch,” Arnie shouted, moving right up against her, the gun pressed up against her cheek.“Hand.Sam.The baby.”
Pixie sobbed, kissed Petal on the top of her head, which smelled of lavender and soap from her bath.Little beads of sweat were forming on Sam’s brow.He wasn’t comfortable at all.Arnie on the other hand looked nonplussed.If she had any chance of getting out of this, there was only one person she needed to convince.“He’s going to know it’s you, Sam,” she cried.“You honestly think he’s going to walk in and believe your bullshit story?”
“Shut up,” Sam snapped as he reached forward and attempted to take Petal, but missed her body and ended up pulling her by the arm.Petal screamed out in pain, her shoulder joint wrenched so awkwardly it looked dislocated.
“Leave her alone!”Pixie screamed.“Don’t hurt her.”Pixie let go and Sam took her away.
She reached for Petal, but Arnie had his arm around her waist.Tears of frustration began to fall.She kicked her legs and dug her fingernails into Arnie’s forearms earning nothing more than a grunt of pain.Being barefoot, her feet were of little use against him.He pressed the gun back against her cheek, the cold, hard metal pressing roughly into her skin.
“I know what you need, Sarah-Jane,” he said as his fingers tightened around her ribcage.“You need something to take the edge off.”
He was going to give her drugs.Drugs that would numb her, take her away.The man who started her addiction in the first place would desecrate a year of getting clean, years of being sober.
She thought of her friends.Of Trent and Cujo and the kindness they showed her.Of Dred’s confidence in her to remain clean after everything he had gone through with his mom.Of her sponsor.Of Lia.Even Petal, who was screaming in Sam’s arms.She needed to keep her wits about her.
“No,” Pixie shouted, knowing full well he had her at a huge size advantage.“Never.”The thought of being shot paled in comparison with the fear of becoming addicted again.That was the kind of hell she could only go through once.
Pixie screamed as loud as she could, a piercing scream right against Arnie’s ear.Immediately he yelled in pain and released her to cover his ear with his hand.She hurriedly crawled out of his reach and moved toward Sam.Scrambling to her feet, she continued to scream and shout for help, praying that one of her neighbors would call the police, or building security, or hell, try to take down the door with a baseball bat.
She was nearly to Petal and could see the shock on Sam’s face.Whatever plan they’d had when they walked into the apartment had changed.
