I was hurting. My head throbbed, and my stomach felt like someone was spinning it around in an industrial strength washing machine. Day three of no sleep, and I felt the impending crash. I was basically there, hovering just in front of it. I looked at Vanessa’s sleeping form on the couch. The need for sleep eventually surpassed her fear, but it eluded me. It had to. The situation was not ideal.
I tugged the baggy out of my pocket, poured some powder on the less fucked-up hand, and snorted. It hardly did a thing to quench the devil’s thirst, but it would keep me awake.
When I sat up, she had just begun to stir. She woke up, swiveling her head as if trying to figure out if she had awakened from a bad dream. If she had, she’d gone from a bad dream to a living nightmare. The furrow of her brows, the panic setting into her breaths, and the overall look of disappointment in her expression made me feel a bit bad. There was a hint of disgust on her face, her lips drawn tight at the sight of me, which was fair. I looked like a psychotic, homicidal drug addict at that moment. I knew that.
“Can I please have water?” Vanessa asked.
The thought of it churned my stomach, but I got up and searched her cabinets for a glass. After filling it, I brought it to her. She stared at me as I offered it to her, forgetting that I had taped her wrists behind her back once more. It was hard to remember shit when your head was in a vise.
She sat up taller as I put the rim of the glass between her full lips and tilted it so she could drink. Water slipped past the corners of her mouth, wetting the front of her white t-shirt. I didn’t try to pretend I wasn’t staring at her nipples as they tented the fabric. When she noticed, her cheeks flushed and she stopped drinking.
“Thanks.” She eyed me for a moment. “You don’t look well,” she whispered. Which was real fucking rude, but if I looked anything like I felt, then she was correct. “Have you tended to that cut on your hand?”
I looked down at the soiled black fabric wrapped around my hand. No, I hadn’t thought much of it, except for trying not to get it wet. I loosened the tie and it spread away from my skin. The cut was deeper than I thought, with frayed edges that curled outward. I don’t know how I didn’t feel it, so wide open like that.
“Let me see it,” she said as she leaned forward and craned her neck toward me. “Yeah, that’s not going to heal on its own. You need a hospital.”
“You’re a nurse.”
“Yeah . . . a nurse. Not a doctor.”
“I’m not going to the hospital,” I told her firmly. I was not about to walk into any medical facility with a hand injury when the news was still reporting about the murderer with an injured hand.
She scoffed. “I have some Steri-Strips, but you need something better.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my knife, cutting through the tape again. She rubbed her wrists before taking my hand in hers. Her skin was cold, as if she wasn’t getting enough circulation with her hands cuffed behind her.
“May I?” she asked as she stood and motioned toward the bathroom. Her voice had an edge of annoyance as she asked for permission.
I nodded. “I’ll come with you.”
I followed her to the bathroom, and she dug around for a box of Steri-Strips. She grabbed a bottle of alcohol and tugged my hand over the sink. She became methodical, as if she was working. Her touch was tender as much as it was firm, and I couldn’t help but think she was probably an excellent nurse.
It fucking burned like the devil’s asshole when she poured the alcohol over my wound. I puffed out my cheeks and tried not to scream out. My jaw ached from the pressure as I tensed it.
“Man up, killer,” she said with a sneer, and it made my lips twitch upward. I wouldn’t let them go all the way into a smile, though, and neither would she as she poured more of that hellish liquid into my cut. “What’s your name, anyway?” she asked.
“I’m not at liberty to discuss that information,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Fair enough.”
When she finished torturing me, she blew on the cut, her cold breath soothing the residual pain. She applied the Steri-Strips and released my hand back to me. “That will do for now,” she said as she wiped her hands on her shorts. “But like I said, you need a doctor.” Her eyes met mine. “And I need to go to work, you know.”
“Call in.”
“I can’t just ‘call in.’”
“You sure as hell can, Vanessa, and you will. Tell them you’re sick. You’ll be out the rest of the week. I’ll be out of your hair by then.”
“The week? You’re going to stay here for a fucking week?” she asked with her mouth gaping.
“What’d you expect?”
“That you’d take what you need and get going.”
I should have. That would have been the wise choice. But I was about to crash—hard—and what better place than with a nurse?
“And miss out on this world class TLC? No thank you,” I goaded. Her lips tightened in anger. I felt like myself for a single moment. Well, the me I used to be.
“What else do you need? Your hand will heal.”
I hardened my stare. “Withdrawal.”
She shook her head. “I’m not helping you through withdrawal. Way beyond my scope. You need a hospital.” She pushed past me and I followed her, half expecting her to go for the door again, but she knew her pistol rested at the small of my back and that I actually knew how to use it.
She spun on her heels to face me once more. “How many days have you been awake? You keep talking to yourself. Pacing around the house.”
“None of your business,” I snapped. Fuck her and her judgement.
“If you want me to help you, I need to know.”
“Three days.”
“And you’re still on methamphetamines?”
“Don’t be so clinical about it,” I said with a groan.
“When was the last time you used?” Her nurse voice came out again—caring, with a hint of condescension.
“A little this morning. I don’t have much left.”
“When you crash, you’re going to crash hard, and I don’t have the ability to take care of you like a hospital would.” Her gaze softened. I was tugging at her nurse heartstrings. I felt the pull between us. “I have some Xan—” she began, but I interrupted her by pulling the bottle from my pocket. “Thief,” she snapped as she ripped it away from me. “Why the hell am I helping you?”
“Because you took an oath,” I said with a smirk that dropped from my face as the nausea crashed over me again. I ran off to the bathroom and puked my guts into the toilet. No amount of vomiting cured the wringing of my insides, though.
I expected her to take the opportunity to run. I’d pocketed her keys, but she didn’t know that. I thought I’d have to chase her down, and my body was not prepared for it.
She showed up in the doorway.
“How long have you been using? Daily?”
“This is beginning to feel like an intake form,” I said, a gag chasing my words.
Her hand landed on her hip. “Are you going to answer or not?”
“Casual until last month. Then all day, every day.”
“Do you snort it? Inject it? Smoke it?”
“I just snorted. I tried smoking it once . . . not for me. There’s something uncouth about a meth pipe.”
Her lips twitched, and I thought I might get a smile out of her, but she sobered real quick. “Any cardiac history? Ever had seizures?”
“No and no.”
I rose to my feet and stumbled against the sink. My body demanded sleep, but my brain was still wide the fuck awake. Amphetamines crawled along the recesses of my mind, prodding me to keep my eyes open. And the devil still murmured in my ear. Had I listened to him and taken her like I fantasized about, she wouldn't have been willing to help me. Not a chance. But then again, she might have been waiting for me to crash into a deep sleep so she could escape. I knew I had to stay awake because I didn’t trust her not to turn on me. I’d sure as fuck turn on me.