Tommy seems obliging enough. He pushes me to have as many drags as I like, and soon enough the thrill is spreading through my body. I like weed; I like the kind of buzz it gives me. Tommy doesn’t have any, even when I press him. But that only occurs to me halfway through the damn thing.
“I’m done for now,” I say, when he urges me to keep going. “Any more and I’ll green out, buddy.”
He gives me the once-over and carefully presses out the glowing end of the spliff on the metal bar holding up the upper bunk bed. “What’s he like?” he asks. There’s something in his tone that makes me open my eyes again. I was going to lie down, get comfy, let the weed work its magic, but I can’t, not with a guy sounding like this.
“Who?”
“Luca D’Amato.”
“Stone cold asshole.”
“No. I meant, what’s he like in bed?”
Definitely something wrong here. “You ask all the passengers what their men are like in bed?”
Tommy gives me a long, hard look, and I know what it means. It means it’s time to get the hell out of here before things escalate. I stand up, clunking my head on the bunk as I do, and I’m swaying slightly.
Whatever I smoked was laced with something.
“You know what, I think it’s time I go pretty myself up for my husband. He’s due back any second now.” I try to slide past him, but Tommy is faster than me. He’s built like a goddamn tank but he moves like a viper to shove me back and slam the door shut.
“How about we enjoy ourselves right here?” he asks, and then he loses the dumb act and gives me the grin that shows who he really is, and who he really is is someone I don’t want to be around.
Even high as fuck I can see that.
“You know what, Tommy, I think I’m just gonna—”
He takes out a kitchen knife from where he had it stashed in his pocket and chuckles at the look on my face when I see it.
It’s not large, but it’ll do the job.
Chapter Nineteen
FINCH
“You know what,” I slur, the drugs making my vision blur now, “I really think I should—” I try to push past Tommy again, and the guy totally bitch-slaps me, hard, so my teeth slice open my lip, a spray of spittle-blood hits the sheets, and I go flying. Only there’s nowhere to fly, not in this tiny room, so I just slam into the wall with the one window I was happily staring out of till Tommy showed up, and I crumple to the floor.
The next thing I hear is an almighty fucking crash as the door Tommy was standing against explodes open. Tommy stumbles towards me, and I make myself as small and as invisible as I can, because in the doorway is my husband.
Only he’s not my husband, or not as I’ve seen him. His eyes are stone, and he has a gun in his hand. I don’t know anything about guns, but I can see that this one, whatever it is, is as much a part of him as the hand at the end of his arm; it’s just a further extension of his being.
And as I think that, it fires.
It’s fucking loud, loud enough to make me think I’m going deaf, and it cracks again and again, I lose count, my arms over my head, but I don’t scream. I have no breath left. All I can think about is Mom.
The silence afterwards is eerie. My hearing starts to come back, muffled, and my head is still spinning from whatever shit was in that dope, but someone is pulling me, dragging me up, and making me move from my safe little corner.
“Please don’t,” I whimper.
“Don’t look,” a voice says. His voice.
And he pulls me close, throwing one arm around my waist so he can half-carry me, and the other around my face, keeping it smushed into his chest.
“You need to stop wearing Old Spice,” I hiccup, and try to look up, but I’m losing him, I’m losing the whole world, it’s slipping away from me…
* * *
I feelmy head throbbing first, the back of it. Then my mouth starts to ache, and my nose. I cough, and then I cough and cough again, my throat dry and sore.
