Rock Bottom (15 page)

Chapter Thirty-two

Declan looked as stunned to see me as I was to see him. “Ry?”

This couldn’t be happening. Not him. Not here. He didn’t belong here. He was from another life. A life that had absolutely no place in the same reality as my new one. The collision struck deep and hard, and I gasped. The plate magically disappeared from my hand—probably dumped all over the buffet table—as I continued to stare at him, at a complete loss for words.

“What are you doing here? Rylie, where have you—?”

No way. I had to get out of there.
Now
. There was no way I could tell Declan where I’d been or what I’d been doing. No way, knowing full well who it would eventually get back to. I’d closed that chapter of my life. Moved on. Let it go. Or so I told myself . . . repeatedly. I couldn’t let one chance encounter tear it back open again.

“Rylie!”

I knew I was acting erratic as I fled the room, but I didn’t care. I had to find Rafe. He wasn’t going to like it, but I had to go. After frantically scanning the living room, I spotted him standing near the fireplace talking to an older gentleman. I pushed and shoved my way over to him, not caring what anyone thought, and tugged on his sleeve.

“What is it?”

“I . . .” I took a deep breath to compose myself. I had to at least try to make this as painless as possible. I’d managed to keep Rafe happy this long, I couldn’t screw that up now. I couldn’t afford to. “I’m not feeling all that well. I’d like to go if you don’t mind.”

“You want to go home?” He looked surprised, which was understandable after my excitement all afternoon, but not angry.

“I just . . . I’m not sure I should stay any longer.”

“Alright, then.” Stunned was not a strong enough word to describe my reaction to his response.

“Really?”

“Sure. I was just speaking with a friend of mine who would very much like to take you home. I asked him to wait until tomorrow, since this is supposed to be your night off, but if you’d prefer to work . . .”

And there it was—my life bitch slapping me in the face yet again—but what choice did I really have? Go home with Rafe’s ‘friend’ or stay at the party and be interrogated by Declan. It was no choice at all.

“I’ll work.”

Rafe turned back to the man he’d been speaking with and smiled. He looked refined in his pressed tux with silver hair gleaming at his temples, but he wasn’t. Underneath it all, he’d be just like all the others. Resigned to the rest of my evening, I allowed Rafe to make the introductions and pasted on my best plastic smile.

Declan’s confused gaze followed me from across the room as my companion for the evening looped his arm through mine and led me to the exit. I kept moving forward, afraid that if I looked back even for a moment I’d give in and go running back to a life that no longer wanted me.

***

“All night. Well done.” Rafe welcomed me home with a syringe full of heroin after my first full night engagement.

I hadn’t had any since before the party the previous night and I was really hurting for it. Within minutes, my muscles relaxed, the knot in my stomach eased, and the pain that had tormented my heart since I looked into Declan’s dark blue eyes disintegrated, leaving nothing but me, my bed, and my happy place.

“Get some rest. You’re back on the corner tonight.”

Each day rolled into the next, broken up only by the sweet release of heroin methodically flooding my system. Each face blended into the next. Nothing stood out. Nothing changed . . . Until everything did.

I leaned against the broken bricks, allowing the sun warmed surface to thaw my chilled body. Days were getting longer, but despite the thick heat that settled over the city, my insides still felt frozen solid. I was exhausted and the night had only just begun.

Venus was off on a two hour engagement and Candy was sick, which left just me and Marissa. She was leaning in the window of a car whose license plate I’d already committed to memory as I waited for her to let me know how long she’d be.

“Back in thirty,” she called, slipping into the passenger seat.

I’d avoided working as long as possible, but I was the only one left. Come what may, I was up next. As soon as Marissa was out of sight, a rusty, white station wagon rolled up. The kind of car usually driven by desperate husbands not getting what they wanted at home.
Just great.

Forcing a smile, I strolled to the passenger side as the window lowered and leaned in—sure to show off an unmistakable view of what my mama gave me—and promptly forgot how to breathe. I could feel my lungs pleading for oxygen as I stared into his sharp silver eyes, but my brain couldn’t quite remember how to supply it.

Chapter Thirty-three

“Rylie?” A horrified look creased Elijah’s face and his eyes saddened, but he couldn’t mask the disgust.

That snapped me right out of it.
How dare he look at me like that?
He was the one cruising for a hook-up. This was my life, my
new
life. If he didn’t approve, then too damn bad. I hadn’t brought it to him. He’d barged in all on his own.

“What are ya looking for?” He wanted to see what had become of me, I’d give him the full show.

Elijah closed his eyes and dropped his head back against the seat. “
You
. I’ve been looking for you.”

That . . . was unexpected.

“Well, you found me. Congratulations. Now I have work to do.”

“Wait.” He stopped me before I could move to a second car that pulled up behind him. “How much?”

Also unexpected. He wanted to
hire me
?

“How long you want me?”

“How much for the night?”

“All night?”

“Yeah.”

“Two-fifty.”

“Two hundred and fifty dollars for the whole night?” Dark brows spiked toward his hairline.

“What can I say? I’m cheap.” Hurt flashed across his face at my dismissive attitude, but I didn’t know what he expected. He wasn’t getting a freebie, if that’s what he thought. “And you need to pay half up front.”

“Fine. Get in.” He pulled his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and passed me the full amount.

Feeling as though my whole world turned on its head, I slid in beside the ghost that haunted all of my lucid memories. This was a bad idea. A horrifically bad idea. I had no idea what I was thinking other than I couldn’t bear to walk away from him again. Not yet.

And I was going to regret it.

We drove in silence across town to a slightly nicer hotel than what I was used to. When we stopped outside the office, I realized he hadn’t prepared for this in advance. I waited in the car until he returned with a room key and followed him, silently, upstairs.
What the fuck was I doing here?

The place was nice with a large bed and clean sheets. That’s all I really noticed or cared about as far as hotel rooms went. Elijah wandered toward the small television stand and started unloading his pockets, wallet, phone, keys, change . . . 
Okay then
. He’d bought my services, now I had to provide them, no matter how much the thought sickened me worse than ever before.

“What are you doing?” I’d removed my shirt and was moving on to my shorts by the time Elijah finished inspecting the room and turned back to me.

“Getting the show on the road.”

“Rylie . . .”

“What? You paid for my body, didn’t you?”

“I paid for your
time
. That’s all I want.”

I didn’t know how to take that, or even what it meant, so I stood there staring at him, half dressed.

“Put your clothes back on.” He dropped his gaze to the floor until I’d donned my shirt and zipped my shorts. Then he looked at me. Just
looked.

Minutes ticked by while he did nothing but stare. He was at least five feet away from me and it still felt like the most intimate thing I’d done with anybody in a long, long time.

“Rylie—” Whatever he was about to say was interrupted by a knock at the door.

I watched, confused by who else could be there—confused by a whole hell of a lot, actually—as he answered the door and paid the delivery guy holding the pizza box.

“I asked the guy at the desk to call in the order,” he explained after setting the box on a small round table.

“I don’t understand. If you don’t want me to . . .
you know
, then what
do
you want?”

Elijah took a steadying breath, clearly clinging to his self-restraint, and threw the box open. “I want you to eat.”

My eyes flicked from the pineapple pizza—my favorite—to Elijah and back again. The once delicious concoction no longer held any appeal for me. Noting did. I only ate when absolutely necessary.

“Jesus Christ, Ry!” That restraint was obviously slipping. “At least pick at it. I bought your damn time and this is what I want you to do with it.”

“I should have charged you more,” I grumbled, dropping onto one of the chairs as he placed a thick slice of pizza in front of me and took one for himself.

“You set your own prices?” Elijah took the seat across from me.

“No.”

“Then who—?”

“Don’t, Eli.” He winced at my use of his informal name as I meant him to. I didn’t want him thinking this was some kind of damn reunion. We weren’t friends anymore. We weren’t
anything
anymore.

“Rylie . . .”

I stuffed a bite of pizza in my mouth and Elijah sighed, taking a bite of his own. We finished our slices in silence and when he tried to give me another, I waved him off. One more bite and I’d be sick. He didn’t look happy about it, but he gave in, folding up the box and setting it aside. I leaned back in my chair, trying to appear more comfortable than I was.

“Have you been here this whole time?” Elijah’s fingers danced over the table top in a staccato rhythm.

“Pretty much.” I wasn’t going to get through tonight without answering some questions, I knew that. As long as we stuck to benign crap, maybe I could put his mind at ease and send him on his way.

“Doing . . . doing
this
?”

“For a while.”

“W—” His jaw hardened and he had to look away from me. “Why? Why, Rylie?”

“I . . .”
Why?
There really wasn’t an answer to that. This wasn’t something I chose. It wasn’t something I
wanted
. It wasn’t like streetwalker was my new ultimate goal in life. It just sort of . . . happened. Forget why, I didn’t even know
how
. “I don’t have a choice.”

“Is someone making you—?”

“That’s not what I meant. No one made me do anything. I did this to myself. So no one has to feel guilt, or pity, or whatever the hell it is that brought you here.”

“You want to know what I feel?
Angry
, Ry. I feel angry. I am pissed the fuck off.”

“I—” The stunned look on my face must have finished the sentence I couldn’t find the words for.

“You don’t think I have the right to be angry with you? You come to my house, hysterical, talking about wanting it to ‘end’, and then drop off the face of the Earth. Do you have
any
idea what I’ve been going through these last months trying to find you? Hoping like hell you were still
alive
?”

“You’ve been looking for me?” He’d claimed as much earlier, but it hadn’t really clicked until now. “This whole time?”

“Of course I’ve been looking for you.
Christ
. And then I find you, standing on some godforsaken corner. And you're still using, aren’t you?”

I folded my arms self-consciously, trying to hide the evidence of my worsening drug problem, but all I succeeded in doing was drawing his attention right to it.

“What is that?”

“Wha—?”

Elijah was up and out of his seat, prying my arm away from my body before I could even finish the question.

“
Holy shit.
What the fuck is that, Rylie? What the hell have you gotten yourself into?”

I tried to pull my arm away, but Elijah held tight in a gentle yet firm grip that refused to let me hide my shame. “Please.”

“Answer me. What are you using?”

“Elijah . . .”

“
What?
” He’d never yelled at me before and it startled the answer right out of me.

“Heroin.”

His eyes went wide as he finally released my wrist, dropping onto the edge of the bed. Both hands threaded through his hair as his head fell forward. He sat there, staring at the floor, back heaving with each forced breath, for a long time.

“I . . . I don’t know what to say. I don’t understand, Ry.” When he lifted his head again his eyes were glassy. “I don’t understand what happened to you. How did this happen?”

I didn’t really understand that myself. “I don’t know.”

“Please, Rylie.
Please
try to explain this to me.”

“I honestly don’t know. I don’t know how things got so messed up. They just . . . did.” The sting of tears was so foreign to me, I almost didn’t recognize it. I couldn’t remember the last time I cried. I never cried. The drugs made sure I never had to.

“Come here, Princess.” Elijah held out his arms like nothing had changed at all. But it had changed. Everything had changed and now he wanted me to tell him how it had happened.

I stared at his arms, warring with the overwhelming desire to accept what he was offering. Instead, I turned away.

His disappointment hit me like a hurricane. “Where did you go when you left my house that day?”

I answered his questions honestly, too exhausted not to. The facts fell into line, piecing together the story of a stranger. Some girl I barely even remembered anymore.

I breezed over a few of the more explicit details of my time at Rafe’s, leading up to . . . “Rafe brought me to the city with him. At first I was excited, but . . . but then he started telling me that I owed him. That I had to earn what he gave me. And I needed it. I
need
it. I can’t—”

“He got you addicted on purpose, Ry. He got you hooked so he could control you.”

“I know.” On some level, deep down, I knew that. I’d known it all along, but it didn’t make a damn bit of difference, did it? Whether I knew the game we were playing or not, he’d still won.

The late hour combined with emotional toll of the day and the fact that I hadn’t had a hit in far too long were catching up with me. I wrapped my arms around myself and groaned.

“Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“I hurt. You got anything to take the edge off?”

“No.” Elijah shook his head adamantly. “I’m clean. I haven’t touched that shit since you walked out on me.”

Shame and disappointment swelled and I buried my face in my hands, feeling tears on the rise. I needed those damn drugs and I needed them now.

“Come lie down.” He patted the bed and the promise of a soft mattress to cradle my achy body was too good to pass up. I crawled past him and collapsed onto the pillow, hoping like hell he wouldn’t ask any more of me tonight.

Elijah brushed the hair away from the back of my sweat dampened neck. “You’re really hurting, aren’t you?”

“It doesn’t m-matter.”

“It matters . . . to me. It
still
matters to me.”

I took a shuddering breath to combat the tears. I didn’t know if they were happy or sad. All I knew was I couldn’t stand to feel anymore right then.

“Close your eyes.” Elijah rolled me onto my side and tucked my back to his chest. “Can I just hold you tonight, Ry? Please?”

“It’s your money.”

I couldn’t make out his grumbled response, but his arm wrapped around my waist, holding me tight, making me feel safe and warm inside for the first time in forever. I tried to stay awake, to cling to the feeling despite the way my body screamed for relief, but within moments I drifted off.