The accident.
The cops.
The hospital.
The contempt in Dylan’s face.
He left me. Shit.
But none of that really matters.
All that matters is getting rid of this churning feeling in my stomach. I can almost feel the chills coming on, and I know that the pain in my clavicle is nothing compared to what I’m about to start feeling if I don’t get my hands on some meth soon.
Only, I’m not in the hospital room anymore. This looks like a trailer, and a disgusting one at that.
“What the fuck?” I mutter as I sit up.
“Ah, you’re awake. How wonderful.”
I almost hope I’m so deep in withdrawal that I’m hallucinating. Dope sickness would be kinder than this man. Much kinder.
“Carlos?” I say uncertainly, blinking and trying to seem confused. “What is going on?”
Can I pull off amnesia? What’s the right play here?
Carlos continues twirling a vaguely familiar ring between his thumb and index finger. “Can’t you guess?”
My mind is racing. Could it be? Has that stupid bitch actually followed through on her threat?
Puppy-eyed Marissa? I almost scoff. No way.
“The last thing I remember is being in a car accident…” I trail off.
I pray that his machismo responds to my vulnerability, but his gaze is cold and cruel.
“The time has come to pay your debts, Rebel. You’ve been given more chances than most people in this life, and you’ve managed to squander them all.”
“My brother already paid you back,” I protest.
Fuck. I am itching all over, and wanting to claw my skin off is making it really hard to be appealing and demure.
There has to be some way out of this. There always is.
Carlos used to love me once upon a time. Not as much as Dylan, but enough to temporarily quell that insatiable hunger inside me. Not all of that can be gone just because I took some money. He’s fucking loaded.
“You think this is about some pocket change? I can’t believe I never noticed how stupid you were,” he says, looking like he’s disgusted by me.
Surprisingly, that hurts.
I suddenly remember Sly telling me that Carlos had called Marissa lovely and remarkable when they met. It ignites a flashof jealousy that I haven’t felt since the early days of my affair with Slim.
There’s no reason to be jealous of her. I took her man almost effortlessly, didn’t I?
“You’re just a thieving junkie, and I didn’t want to see it,” Carlos adds.
“Carlos, please,” I plead, but he lifts his palm to silence me.
There’s no getting through to him. Is it possible that he found out about Luis?
