Page 5 of Addicted

“Fuck you!” I spat at him, literally. My saliva hit him right in the eye.

He wiped it away and then backhanded me so hard I saw stars. The metallic taste of blood filled mymouth.

“Indie!” Ish was screaming, still fighting against the men holding him.

“You lucky I don’t shoot your ass right here,” Gold Teeth said, pulling out his own gun and pressing it against my temple. “But Stone gon’ wanna deal with you himself.”

My heart was racing, but I refused to show fear. I stared him dead in the eye, even with the gun pressed against my head.

“Do it then, pussy. Pull the trigger.”

He looked surprised for a second, then laughed. “You got heart, I’ll give you that. Too bad it ain’t gon’ save you.”

“Fuck you,” I spat back. “You put your hands on my brother, you lucky I didn’t shoot you in your fucking face.”

They shoved both of us into the back of the van and Gold Teeth climbed in after us.

“Indie, please stop talking,” Ishmael begged, but I was too pissed to listen.

“Nah, fuck that! You out here trying to sell drugs? Are you fucking stupid, Ishmael? After everything I do for you?”

“I’m tired of you taking care of me like I’m a kid, Indie!”

“You ARE a kid, you dumbass! You’re sixteen! You supposed to be worried about school and girls and basketball, not selling drugs on some corner!”

“Both of y’all shut the fuck up,” Gold Teeth said, but I ignored him.

The van was moving fast, taking turns that made me slide across the seat. I didn’t know where we weregoing, but I knew it wasn’t anywhere good. Still, I couldn’t stop myself from going off on Ishmael.

“Do you know how hard I work? Do you? I’m out here bartending and dancing and doing whatever I gotta do so you don’t have to live like this! So you don’t have to be in the streets like Mama was! And this is what you do?”

“I didn’t ask you to do all that!” Ishmael shot back, and even though his voice cracked a little, he tried to sound tough. “I can take care of myself!”

“Clearly you can’t, since we’re in the back of a fucking van right now!”

“I said shut yo’ ass up!” Gold Teeth yelled. “You don’t know when to quit, do you?”

I stared him dead in his eyes. “Apparently not.”

We all sat in angry silence for a while after that. I could feel tears burning behind my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I had to stay strong. Had to figure out how to get us out of this.

We drove for what felt like forever but was probably only twenty minutes. When the van finally stopped and they pulled us out, we were in front of an old warehouse. It looked abandoned with broken windows, graffiti on the walls, and weeds growing through cracks in the pavement. The kind of place where people disappeared and nobody ever found them.

Fuck.

My heart was pounding, but I wasn’t about to let them see me scared. Ishmael looked nervous though, and that made my anger flare up again. This was his fault. If he hadn’t been out there trying to play drug dealer, we wouldn’t be in this situation.

They dragged us inside, through a dark hallwaythat smelled like mildew and old concrete, and into a room that was mostly empty except for two chairs in the middle.

“Sit,” one of them ordered.

They tied us to the chairs with rope that bit into my wrists. I tested it, trying to see if I could slip out, but it was too tight.

“Stone’ll be here soon,” Gold Teeth said, looking directly at me. “And when he get here, you gon’ wish you never pulled that gun on me.”

“I wish I would’ve pulled the trigger,” I shot back.

He stepped forward like he was about to hit me again, but one of the other dudes stopped him.