SPEED (A 44 Chapters Novel Book 2)

by BB Easton

“What’s her name?”

  “Staci.”

  “What’s her stripper name?”

  “Sapphire…Starfish…S something.”

  I made the mistake of glancing back into Harley’s begging blue eyes.

  “Sapphire Starfish?” I repeated with every ounce of sass I possessed.

  Harley smiled. “I dunno. Maybe she has a sparkly blue asshole.”

  That shit made me crack. Harley and I both started laughing, but I quickly reined mine in and pulled my bitch face back on. Just as I was about to resume my interrogation, Harley leaned forward and scooped me up into his arms.

  “Harley, put me down!” I commanded, trying to sound serious, but it’s pretty fucking hard to get someone to take you seriously while you’re being cradled like a baby.

  “Hmm…” Harley scrunched up his nose like he was really thinking about it. “No.”

  “Put me down, goddamn it!” I yelled, smacking him on the chest a few futile times.

  Harley just chuckled. “What’s the magic word?”

  I wanted to say Sapphire Starfish and have a good laugh, but I wasn’t quite ready to play nice yet. So instead, I reached for Harley’s right hand, which was wrapped around my left thigh. I had every intention of pulling his little finger backward until it broke off or he let go—whichever one came first—until I saw what was scrawled across his knuckles.

  “Lady,” I whispered.

  “Nope. Sorry. Try again. I’ll give you a hint; it rhymes with funnilingus.”

  “Harley,” I squealed. “Your hand! It still says LADY. How is that even…when did you…oh my fucking God!”

  Setting me back down on my feet, Harley held his right hand up with his knuckles facing me and grinned. “Now, when I jerk off, it’s like you’re right there with me.”

  “You seriously got it tattooed on?”

  “Fuck yeah. I love it,” he said, turning his hand around so that he could admire the Old English.

  I love it…

  Love it…

  Love.

  Now, that was the magic word.

  Standing there, in the golden light of spring, smiling and joking and using words like love, Harley James had me right back under his spell. His sweetness, playfulness, his hard body, his beautiful, boyish face—they were smoke and mirrors, designed to enchant. To make me forget. My traumas, my guilt, his transgressions, my responsibilities—Harley made them all go away. I couldn’t even remember what I’d been so mad about. Hell, I couldn’t even remember my own name. The only name that existed anymore was the one tattooed across my hunky boyfriend’s knuckles.

  Swoon!

  And, as if his looks, swagger, and silly Southern charm weren’t enough to disarm me, Harley had one more trick up his sleeve. Well, technically, it was in his pocket. And it was more of a potion than a trick.

  Somewhere, somehow, Harley had acquired an entire vial of liquid LSD.

  I remember the exact moment I realized I was fucked up.

  I was sitting on a barstool in the corner of a pool hall that I’d never been to before, smoking a bright pink cigarette with a gold filter and clutching an entire quart of orange juice to my chest—the kind that comes in a tall cardboard box with a screw-off cap. The cold, wet condensation had soaked through my Joan Jett tank top and cutoff jean shorts, but the air was so thick and hot in the bar that it was a welcome sensation.

  As I stared at the swirling cloud of cigarette smoke before me, the collective spirals and puffs began to resemble a scene from Sodom and Gomorrah. It was like a wispy gray orgy undulating above our heads. I took a swig from the orange juice container, which was missing the cap, and glanced at my foreign cigarette, which had a solid two inches of ash hanging off the end of it. It was as if I had fallen asleep sober and had woken up in the middle of someone else’s acid trip.

  The parts of my brain that were still capable of forming coherent thoughts began rattling off questions that the other parts of my brain were in no position to answer. Questions like, Where am I? How did I get here? Who keeps playing David Allan Coe songs on the jukebox? Where is Harley? What’s with all the OJ? And, Why is my cigarette the color of a pig’s vagina?

  Their answers floated in and out of my murky consciousness like a jigsaw puzzle that had been dumped into a bayou. The images surfaced first—Harley holding an eyedropper over my outstretched tongue; Harley using a hundred-dollar bill to pay for a carton of OJ, a bottle of tequila, and a pack of rainbow-colored cigarettes at the liquor store; a neon sign that read Empty Pockets Billiards with at least three letters burned out; and Dave holding a pool cue and smiling in front of a life-sized poster of Bill Murray.

  The audio clips surfaced next.

  “Here. Drink this. The vitamin C will make the trip smoother.”

  “Holy shit! Harley! They sell those colored cigarettes that Lori Petty smokes in Tank Girl! Will you buy me some? Pleeeease.”

  “Change of plans. We gotta swing by the pool hall on our way home.”

  “Dude, I love pool! My dad has a pool table in our garage that I play on all the time.”

  “This is more of a business meeting, but shit, if you’re any good maybe we can make a couple of bucks while we’re there.”

  “Y’all play without me. I’m just gonna find the restroom. This OJ is going straight through me.”

  I suddenly became aware of the pressure in my bladder and looked around to find a few women to my left, standing outside of a door marked with a female silhouette.

  I sat down on a barstool while I was waiting in line for the restroom! Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!

  A laugh percolated out of my effervescent body at the victory of figuring out what the fuck was going on.

  Standing, I stamped my cigarette out into the Astroturf-like carpet, set my orange juice down on a nearby table, adjusted my purse strap, and joined the line of full-bladdered women with my head held high. Most people have an act-casual pose but not me. For some reason, whenever I didn’t want people to know I was fucked up, I donned an act-like-you-own-the-place pose instead.

  I successfully negotiated the restroom process, even in my compromised state, and strutted back through the pool hall like my name was Kate Moss. Eventually, I found the James brothers and a handful of scrappy-looking rednecks hovering around a pool table near the front door.

  Dave saw me first. He immediately grabbed me and pulled me aside.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

  “I just went to the restroom. Relax,” I said, staring him in the face. I was aware that my eyes were open too wide—I could feel it—but I was powerless to do anything about it.

  “Yeah,” Dave said, reaching down toward my crotch. I was just about to slap his hand away when he grasped the waistband of my cutoff shorts and buttoned my fly. Then he untucked and smoothed my disheveled tank top. “I can see that.”

  Oops.

  “Your pupils are the size of dimes, girl. How much did Harley give you?”

  “Just a couple drops,” I said, feeling suddenly super self-conscious.

  “A couple!” Dave exclaimed.

  “Dude, you’re kinda freaking me out right now,” I said, my eyes darting over his shoulder, around the bar, looking for a friendly face. One that wouldn’t make me feel like a freak show. I could almost feel myself growing horns as we spoke.

  “Here,” Dave said, handing me his can of Natural Ice. I took it in confusion as he pulled a little orange prescription bottle out of the pocket of his jeans. Shaking a skinny white tablet into his palm, Dave recapped the bottle and said, “Take this. It’s a benzo. It’ll bring you down.”

  A what?

  I held out my hand, and Dave dropped a pill with the letters X ANA X stamped on it.

  “Oh, Xanax!” I giggled in relief. Finally, something familiar. I chirped, “My mom gives me this stuff all the time!” Then, I whispered, “Especially when I have PMS.” I popped the pill into my mouth and washed it down with a swig of Dave’s b
eer.

  “It’ll take a little while to kick in, so just try to stay close until then, okay?” Dave clapped his hand down on my shoulder and gave me a reassuring smile.

  Damn, he has a lot of eyelashes. How many eyelashes is normal? Like a hundred? A thousand? I wonder how many Dave has. Let’s see…one, two, three, four—

  “BB?”

  “Huh?”

  “You sure you’re—”

  Dave’s question was interrupted by chaos as a cacophony of gunshots, screaming, and squealing tires crashed over our conversation. Dave pulled me to the floor behind the pool table, then jumped up and sprinted for the front door.

  “Dave!” I called after him, peeking out from behind one of the table legs.

  But the screaming was so loud that he couldn’t hear me. Or he simply had bigger things to worry about.

  Looking around, I saw clusters of grown men and women huddled on the floor under other pool tables.

  This shit is really happening.

  I’m alone, on fucking acid, and some asshole outside has a gun.

  And where the fuck is—

  “Harley!”

  I could hear yelling outside but no more screaming or gunfire, so I Army-crawled toward the front door. I wasn’t afraid of being shot. I was afraid of finding out who or what had been shot.

  Please let Harley be okay. Please let Harley be okay.

  Please don’t let me see a dead body. I am way too fucked up to see a dead body.

  Before I could reach the entrance, the door swung open and a familiar pair of black boots stomped inside. A hand with my nickname tattooed on it reached down and grabbed me by the arm.

  “We have to go. Now!”

  I stumbled, trying to gain my footing, as Harley dragged me out into the poorly lit parking lot. I didn’t like it out there. The wind whipped through the parking lot and lifted my shirt, chilling my condensation-soaked stomach. The inky-black sky churned with unusually light-colored clouds, looking like something out of the movie Ghostbusters. Like some supernatural portal was about to open and fry us all with a laser beam shot straight through the open gates of hell. I also didn’t like the way Harley’s hand felt on my arm. It wasn’t that it hurt or was too tight. It was like my skin didn’t like the feel of his skin. The energy coming off of it felt bad. Mean. Everything out there felt bad.

  Mean.

  It didn’t make sense, but I dug in my heels and resisted. I should have been relieved to see Harley. I should have wanted him to take me away from the place where the people were screaming and hiding under billiard tables, but the drugs were telling me to go back into the building.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Harley asked, yanking on my arm.

  When he turned around, the face I saw scared me worse than any other threat that might have been lurking out there. Harley’s eyes were two black holes. His teeth gnashed. Veins bulged in his neck and temple. And the scar along the side of his head resembled the seam of a second angry mouth. He looked inhuman. Demonic. Deadly.

  I screamed in shock and clamped my free hand over my eyes.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

  “Get in the fucking car!”

  I refused to look at him. I simply shook my head with my eyes still covered.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he snarled, giving my arm a shake.

  “I’m fucked up!” I yelled. “I’m fucked up and I’m freaking out and I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what the fuck is going on!”

  “I’ll tell you what the fuck is goin’ on!” Dave shouted from somewhere behind Harley. “Motherfuckers shot up Harley’s ride, and they’re gettin’ away! Now, either you’re comin’ or you ain’t!”

  They what?

  I opened my eyes and looked beyond Harley’s heaving, snarling, raging presence to find a half-dozen silvery bullet holes peppering the Boss’s driver’s side door. My hands flew to cover my gaping mouth as my eyes met Dave’s. He was standing next to the open passenger door, looking only slightly less murderous than his brother.

  “They’re gettin’ away, goddamn it!” Dave yelled, slapping the roof of the car.

  The demon that had possessed Harley’s body released me with a shove and shouted, “Fine! Stay the fuck here then!” He turned and sprinted toward the Boss, holding his low-slung Dickies up with one hand. As he bent forward to climb into the driver’s seat, his T-shirt lifted up in the back—just enough to reveal the handle of his 9mm tucked away underneath.

  Even the Boss sounded demonic as it roared to life and peeled out of there, leaving me in its dust.

  I stood, blinking into the void left by my boyfriend’s sudden departure and wincing into the wind as it lashed my face with my own hair.

  He left me.

  He fucking left.

  I didn’t even know where I was. Looking back at the pool hall in the hopes that its facade would trigger a memory, I saw that a small crowd of people had gathered outside to watch the spectacle.

  Shit.

  I looked down at myself and tried to wring every last drop of logic out of my fucked-up, freaked-out, malfunctioning brain.

  Maybe I can leave. Can I do that? Will the universe even allow it, or am I stuck in this purgatory forever?

  Looking down, I realized I still had my purse—the long strap slung diagonally across my body—and looking up, I realized that my car was sitting in the parking spot next to the one Harley had parked in.

  That’s right! We drove separately because of my curfew!

  I found more breadcrumbs to help me get home inside my purse—keys, cigarettes, a lighter, a cell phone.

  Oh my God. I can. I can just go home. I can go home and pull the covers over my head and pretend like none of this ever happened.

  A loud crack of thunder tore through the atmosphere, startling me and setting my feet in motion.

  Maybe it’s not the gates of hell, I tried to reassure myself as I speed walked to my car. Maybe this is just the rapture. Maybe I’m just gonna get raptured up. I’m a good person. I mean, I don’t go to church or anything, but my mom got me baptized. That has to count for something, right?

  Another clap of thunder boomed—that time, so close it made my ears ring. I dived inside my car not a moment too soon. It wasn’t the rapture.

  It was a fucking monsoon.

  I got the car started and rolling on muscle memory, but things like turning on headlights and windshield wipers required a lot of cognitive effort. As did figuring out which way to go. I didn’t have the faintest idea where I was. I’d never been to that pool hall before, I didn’t even recognize the shopping center, and the entire drive over was a blur.

  Right, a voice in my head said. Right means the same thing as correct, so you should probably go right.

  Solid advice. I took it.

  And drove right over the curb.

  Whatever. I was out of the parking lot and onto the road. As my speed increased, however, my grip on reality began to deteriorate faster. The acid was causing me to see trails, so every raindrop that whizzed past my windshield appeared to be pulling a streak of light behind it. I wasn’t driving a Mustang anymore. I was piloting a spaceship at warp speed through a field of stars. They created a beautiful tunnel of light around me as they zoomed past but not all of them. Some stars splattered on my windshield. I felt bad for them. The casualties of my space travel.

  Off in the distance, a fuzzy red orb of light appeared.

  Interesting, I thought. It’s getting closer. Oh, look. It’s going to fly right over—

  The sound of horns blaring and tires squealing brought me back down to earth like the snap of a rubber band. I had just run a fucking red light, in the pouring rain, going God only knows how fast, while on an acid trip across the Milky Way. My heart pounded in my chest and thrummed in my ears at the realization of how close a call I’d just had. I could have gotten myself killed.

  Or worse.

  I could have killed someone else.

  I ha
d to get off the road. I rolled down my window so that I could see the lines on the road better, and at the first break in the curb, I cut the wheel to the left, pulling into an eerily familiar parking lot. The rain was so heavy that I couldn’t see three feet in front of my car, but something about the terrain, the texture of the crumbling asphalt, or the way the tiny hairs on my tiny arms stood on end told me that I’d been there before.

  I parked in the first thing resembling a parking space that I could detect through the downpour and killed the engine. Taking a deep breath, I sat with my eyes closed and let the rain blowing in through my window and the Xanax flowing through my bloodstream calm my nerves. Then I crossed myself like I’d seen my Irish-Catholic mother do a thousand times and said the only prayer I knew.

  Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

  Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven.

  Give us this day our daily bread.

  And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

  And lead us not into temptation, but—

  Doodleoodleoodleoodleoo.

  A digitized scale of notes came pouring out of my purse.

  Doodleoodleoodleoodleoo.

  Grabbing my bag off the passenger seat, I dug around inside until I found the blinking, vibrating menace.

  Doodleoodleoodleoodleoo, it cried in my hand.

  I looked at the caller ID and felt a fresh wave of panic trying to fight through the Xanax as a number I didn’t recognize flashed on the screen. I was in no condition to deal with the unknown.

  Doodleoodleoodleoodleoo.

  Oh, fuck it.

  Holding my breath, I jammed my thumb into the talk button.

  “Hello?”

  If someone was there, I couldn’t hear them over the sound of the rain assaulting my metal roof and crashing like waves outside my open window.

  “Hello!”

  Dial tone.

  I hung up and stared at the screen, trying to jog my memory for clues as to where I might have seen that number before. My mind went blank, but my nose…my nose was picking up notes of warm, cinnamony cologne and cigarette smoke on the breeze. I inhaled as deeply as I could, trying to grab that hallucination and hold on to it for dear life. God, that smell. I wanted to wrap it around my body like a blanket. Or a straitjacket. How long had it been? It was May, and I hadn’t seen Knight since—