“Shit. What the hell happened? I feel like an elephant sat on me.”
“I gave you CPR until the paramedics showed up and got your heart beating again,” Brooks told him. “You have a few cracked ribs that are going to hurt like hell for a while, especially since the doctors can’t give you any pain medication.”
That seemed to catch the kid by surprise, and he stared at Brooks in confusion for a second until a lightbulb flickered on. Ruben’s face crumpled, and he closed his eyes. “I overdosed, didn’t I? Up there on the roof.”
Brooks sat on the side of the bed. He would have preferred a chair, but they didn’t have any in the triage cubicles in the emergency room. They were trying to find Ruben a room, but that was going to take a while. The paramedic had transported fifteen patients out of that party—nine ODs in addition to the six gangbangers with broken bones and concussions from the fight on the rooftop. People were lined up in the hallways of the emergency room, waiting to be seen.
“Yeah, you overdosed,” Brooks said softly. “Your heart stopped beating on its own multiple times. There was synthetic heroin in those energy drinks you were downing. If Selena and I hadn’t been there…”
Ruben looked up sharply, another frown crossing his face. “I kinda thought there were drugs in those cans, but I drank them anyway. Everything was like a dream—a bad dream. I remember you fighting the guys I’d been hanging with and Ms. Rosa grabbing me as I fell off the roof.”
There was silence for a time, and Brooks let it linger so Ruben could process the memories and deal with what happened. “Any chance you heard who put those cans on the street? How they got into that party?”
Ruben shook his head. “I heard a bunch of guys from the gangs talking about the stuff, saying they were making a lot of money off of it. But I didn’t hear anything specific.”
Brooks cursed silently. If they didn’t get this drink off the street, it was going to kill a lot of kids just like Ruben. But there was nothing he could do about it right now. They’d have to keep digging for a clue that would lead them to the person making this crap.
“Did I really fall off the roof?” the kid asked. “Did Ms. Rosa catch me? Was that real?”
Brooks nodded.
“It’s all so blurry, but I swear Ms. Rosa had fangs when she lunged at me. Her eyes were glowing, and at the time, I thought she was a monster or something.” He looked at Brooks. “Pretty crazy, huh? The drugs I guess.”
“You had a lot of drugs in your system,” Brooks agreed, glad there was a reasonable excuse for what the kid had seen. “Your memories are going to be a mess for a while. But that’s okay. The important thing is that Selena was there to save you. That’s the only part you need to remember clearly.”
Ruben nodded, his eyes closing again and his big body crumbling in on itself once more. Brooks thought the kid was going to start crying, but he didn’t, somehow holding it together. “Is Ms. Rosa here at the hospital?”
“She’s in the cafeteria with Marguerite, getting something to eat.”
Ruben opened his eyes, chagrined. “Marguerite knows I OD’d, too?”
“Yeah. We would never have been at that party looking for you if it wasn’t for Marguerite,” Brooks said. “She knew you were in trouble and did what she had to do to get us there. I think she cares about you a lot, something you might want to keep in mind when you get out of here. It’s not a stretch to say you owe your life to both of them. You’re lucky to be alive.”
Ruben winced as he tried to sit up. “Grandma. Damn, does she know? Did anyone call her?”
Brooks gently nudged the kid back down. “Yeah, Selena called her. But she downplayed the worst of it and made sure your grandma knew you were okay. Selena convinced her to wait until morning to come see you. I’m not sure how she cleared all the paperwork with the doctors, but she did.”
“Grandma. Ms. Rosa. Marguerite.” Ruben sighed. “I guess I really let everyone down, didn’t I?”
Brooks got the feeling Ruben wasn’t the kind of kid who wanted the truth sugarcoated. “Yeah, you did. I guess the big question though is why you did it. You saw what getting involved with the gangs did for your friend Pablo. Why go down the same road unless you want to end up in prison just like him? Why go to that party and let them give you drugs?”
Ruben shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“I’m pretty sure you do,” Brooks pressed. The kid needed to hear this, even if he didn’t want to. “Why did you start hanging out with the Locos and Riders all of a sudden?”
Brooks didn’t think the kid was going to answer. In fact, he thought Ruben might retract into a ball and shut down completely.
Instead he sighed, shoulders slumping in defeat. “I just wanted to belong. To be part of something. For people to stop laughing at me all the time. Is that so bad?”
“No, it’s not bad to want to be part of something or have that feeling of knowing where you belong. And nobody likes being laughed at,” Brooks said. “Your only mistake was thinking the gangs would give you what you needed. That’s not how gangs work. They don’t give you anything. They take from you until there’s nothing left.”
Ruben was silent for a moment. “What do I do instead?”
Brooks remembered a time in his past when he’d been looking for someone to tell him which way to go. Jack Walker had changed his life. Now he hoped he could change this kid’s.
“You decide who you want to be and if you want to be something more than you are now,” Brooks said, telling Ruben the same thing Jack had told him all those years ago. “Then you find people who will help you be that person. If you’re looking for a place to start, I’d suggest Marguerite. Because something tells me she’s seen something more in you all along.”
Ruben seemed to consider that for a while, then nodded. “I think I’ll do that, but I’d like to do more. To pay everybody back for helping me.”
