by Anna del Mar
“I do if I want the foot and I need the foot if I’m going back.” He gave me a half shrug.
“I saw several guys at the hospital wearing prosthetic limbs,” I said. “They seem to be getting along fine. You saw the doctor. And I met this woman today. Her husband lost both legs and his sight. Despite all of that, they’re getting ready to have a baby.”
“She must be someone really special,” Ash said.
“Maybe he’s the one who’s really special.”
He gave me a probing stare.
“Look, I’m no expert at this, but you have options,” I said. “You don’t have to hurt.”
“Lia, don’t.” He grappled for words. “You’ve been living with me lately. Can you imagine me in a wheelchair for weeks—months—at a time? Can you see me crippled for good, an invalid, depending on strangers for everything? I’d be a total jackass, unbearable, much worse than I’ve been lately, a wretched, miserable ass.”
“You can be a little testy at times, but you’re not so bad.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think I could stand it.”
“It’d be a temporary situation.”
“Who the hell knows for sure?”
Pain gleamed in his stare. His brow wrinkled and the lines of his mouth tightened, making him look older, grimmer. All that sadness clobbered me. How could I, of all people, console the inconsolable?
Well, at least I had to try.
I wet my parched lips. “You’re one of the strongest, most determined people I know.”
“Then you’ve been hanging around with losers all your life.”
He was probably right on that one, but I stood my ground. “You’re smart, skilled and disciplined. You’re the original overachiever. Whatever goal you set your mind to, you will reach it.”
He scoffed. “Don’t be so sure of that.”
“What if the best is yet to come?”
“Jesus, Lia, that’s a huge cliché and you know it.”
“Well?” I said. “What if it’s true? What if the life you haven’t lived yet holds as much adventure, challenge and satisfaction as your old life did? What if the future holds the same, or even more, promise than your past? Wouldn’t you want to see the changes through if it gave you the chance to discover your alternative future?”
He rolled his eyes. “What if all of this talking is psychobabble or wishful thinking?”
“What if it isn’t?” I countered. “People get hurt all the time and they still have happy and productive lives, like that guy whose wife is having a baby.”
“He’ll never serve again,” Ash said somberly. “They won’t want him.”
“I suppose you’re right,” I said. “But maybe he’ll be happy doing something else.”
He shrugged. “What if he doesn’t want to do anything other than what he did before?”
Ah, now we were getting at the crux of Ash’s worries. “Life is all about change. We all suffer. We all fail. We pick up the pieces and try again. We have to forget about the past and reinvent ourselves.”
He fixed his eyes on me. “Is that what you did?”
I shrugged. “Sometimes, that’s all there’s to do.”
“Well, at least you’re not denying your fucked-up truth, whatever that is.” He exhaled a long breath. “Do you want to come into the store or would you rather wait in the truck? You don’t have to come in if you don’t want to. It’s up to you.”
I considered the supermarket before me. I hadn’t been to one in ages. It was tempting, but there were a lot of people in there, not to mention a lot of cameras.
Was I being paranoid? Surely, after all this time, I could venture out for a few minutes. What were the chances that a random one-time stop at a supermarket could hurt?
I put my hat and sunglasses back on. “Okay.”
We walked through the automated doors together. For a moment, we both stood there like petrified trees, blinded by the fluorescent lights. Neil stood between us, looking from Ash to me. I don’t know who was more nervous, Ash or me, but Ash’s eyes worked the place as if the grocery carts were piled with IEDs and the Taliban waited in ambush somewhere behind aisle three.
The muscles between my shoulders knotted into tight wads, but I offered my hand. Or did I need his hand to tap into his courage?
He seized my hand and clung to it with a grip that surprised me. “Let’s roll.”
It took a few minutes, but as we wandered down the aisles, Ash began to relax. Eventually, after we got a cart, so did I. The store was huge and full of interesting things. Hat low on my brow, sunglasses on, I enjoyed browsing, pushing the cart as Ash filled it with all sorts of stuff.
“Do you like oranges?” he said, grabbing a two-pound sack.
“I love oranges,” I said, “but I’m on ramen until I get paid next week.”
“Not while I’m around.” He dropped the sack in the cart.
I stared up and down the long cereal aisle. “They don’t have this many brands of cereal at Kailyn’s convenience store.”
“They don’t have these many choices in Afghanistan either.” He examined the boxes. “What do you think, Almond Clusters or Honey Bunches?”
I shrugged. “No clue.”
“Fuck it.” He dropped both boxes in the cart. “Let’s go see how many types of milk they can squeeze out of the same cow.”
It was a measure of our respective situations that two really screwed-up people could find such fun at the grocery store. On the leash, Neil trotted alongside, wagging his tail and sporting his red vest and his dog-at-work happy smile. We were at the register, checking out, when the display next to the magazine racks caught my attention.
Small red packets sat by the register in tidy rows. Botanical Incense, big bold letters announced at the front of the display. Catch the Rush. There was something familiar about the little red packets, but I couldn’t quite figure out what it was.
I pulled one out of the rack. On the back, a yellow happy face with crossed-out eyes hovered above a line that said not for human consumption. I turned the packet around. The product was called Red Rush. The stylized Rs in the name were reversed.
My fingertips burned as if singed. The packet fell out of my hand. A shot of adrenaline quickened my pulse. I couldn’t breathe. My knees rattled, my throat went dry, my stomach pitched and roiled. It was as if a black hole had opened beneath my feet. My hand went to the back of my neck, where the same inverted R had once been inked into my flesh. A patch of thickened skin was the only remnant of a time I wanted to forget. I’d hoped never to see that brand ever again.
“Lia?” Ash said. “Why are you upset?”
I squeaked. “Me?”
Ash gestured with his chin to the German shepherd, pressing his body against my legs. “If Neil thinks you’re upset then let me tell you, you’re upset.” He reached out and took my hands. “You’re shaking.”
“I...” A bomb had gone off in my mind. My capacity to think had been shattered. I gagged on the bile that surged up my throat. I wrenched my hands from Ash, squeezed between him and the register, and ran.
“Lia!”
I stumbled out of the store and made a straight line for the trash can in the parking lot. I barely made it. I retched like a drunk after a binge.
What should I do? What could I do? The fact that Red Rush was being sold as incense in a national supermarket chain meant that Red was in expansion mode once again. Red. How I hated to even think of his name. It felt like a knife stabbing at my brain.
I’d been forced to take Red Rush once, when it was but one of many of Red’s “prototypes.” He’d tied me down and strapped a mask over my nose and mouth. It’d been the last time he tried one of his prototypes on me. My heart raced in my chest as if it was about to explode. My blood pressure shot
up and my head felt as if it was about to blow. My pupils had dilated until I could barely see. I’d suffered tremors, hallucinations and violent seizures that landed me in the hospital. Afterward, I’d been sick with nausea, vomiting and an excruciating migraine that wouldn’t let up for days.
Red Rush was most definitively not a harmless pack of botanical incense as marketed. It wasn’t a simple variation of marijuana either, but something much worse: a dangerous, powerful, addictive synthetic drug that enslaved its users, ruined lives and was responsible for accidental overdoses, many of which had resulted in deaths. The addictive nature of Red Rush guaranteed Red’s market share. I thought of the kids and families that could be destroyed. My stomach churned all over again.
I couldn’t stop it. Could I? I’d tried before and lost everything in the attempt.
Walk away. Don’t think about it. There was nothing I could do about it. Worry about surviving. Surely someone else could deal with this. If they figured it out before it was too late. If they could. I retched some more.
I spotted Ash and Neil making their way toward me. I wiped my mouth and tried to suppress my emotions. I’d already paid the price. It wasn’t my fight anymore.
Neil shoved his head into my hands. Petting the dog calmed my nerves. Ash parked the shopping cart next to the truck and met me by the trash cans.
He queried me with a grim stare. “What the hell happened back there?”
“My stomach,” I said. “I think I ate too much.”
“You didn’t eat that much,” he said. “Can you walk?”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“And I’m Peter Pan, high on Tinker Bell’s dust.” He offered his arm. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yes.” But I took his arm.
“You’re such an awful liar.”
Ash unlocked the truck’s door and lifted me up to the seat. He grabbed a Gatorade from the grocery bags, opened it and handed it to me. I sipped on the Gatorade, nursing my queasy stomach while he loaded the groceries. My nerves were shot.
“Lia,” he said once we were back on the road. “What happened back there?”
“Nothing,” I said.
I curled up on the seat and closed my eyes, if only to escape his probing gaze. I leaned my head against the window and pretended to sleep. It wasn’t easy. For the entire hour-and-a-half drive, I kept seeing Red’s brand as if it had been seared inside my eyelids.
Chapter Seven
When we returned to the cottage, I stuffed the milk in the fridge, the vegetables in the pantry and the fresh fruit in a basket. I was about done when I spotted something at the bottom of one of the empty bags. With two squeamish fingers, I lifted up the little packet marked with the inverted R and set it down on the counter. How on earth had my nightmare followed me home?
“You dropped it on the conveyor belt,” Ash said, stacking a set of steaks in the freezer. “I thought you wanted it.”
“Oh, no—well—I guess...”
If nothing else, the glaring red packet on my kitchen counter was a sign. The entire ride home, I’d tried to convince myself that Red Rush wasn’t my problem anymore. But I failed, probably because I’d been brought up right and taught to care about other human beings. I couldn’t justify other people’s suffering with my puny excuse for a life.
I waited until Ash went upstairs. Reluctantly, I found an envelope and addressed it to the one person I knew who could raise the alarm. This is it, I wrote on the red packet. I warned you this would happen. Do something about it.
I dropped the packet in the envelope and sealed it. I added a postage stamp, but left the return address blank. I might be reckless, but I wasn’t stupid. I’d have to drive across state lines before I could mail the warning and, even then, I’d have to take precautions to ensure that the envelope couldn’t be traced back to me. The whole thing was a huge, dangerous gamble that increased the odds against me. But how could I just stand by in silence when so many innocent people—kids especially—stood to lose from Red’s machinations?
“What are you doing?”
I jumped three feet in the air.
Ash leaned against the threshold, watching me.
I dropped the envelope in my purse and picked up my keys. “Going to work.”
“I thought you didn’t start until later today.”
“Mario needs me early.”
“Is that so?” Ash cocked his eyebrows and crossed his arms. “Maybe you ought to skip work tonight. You’ve had a long day and you were sick earlier.”
“I’m fine,” I said, avoiding his gaze.
My cheeks were on fire as I mumbled a rushed farewell and bolted to my car. I drove as fast and far as my clunker could go. Two hours and seventeen minutes later, somewhere around the neighborhood of Cheyenne, Wyoming, I pulled into a rural subdivision, found an isolated postal pavilion and dropped the envelope in the mailbox. At least I could breathe a little easier now. With my mission accomplished, I rushed back to Copperhill.
By the time I got to Mario’s, it was already past seven and the bar was in full swing. Gas crews from three states had gathered at Copperhill for the night and Charlie Nowak showed up to add to my bruise collection. It was my turn to close, so I was relieved when it was time to lock up around 2:00 a.m.
When I turned the ignition, the car wouldn’t start. To be fair, it was a 1980 Chevy Citation, way past its expiration point and I’d added too many new miles to an odometer that didn’t even turn anymore. I’d bought the car at an auction for two hundred and eight dollars cash. If it had been headed for the scrap pile back then, it was beyond scrap now, more like total crap. It had never run well, but lately, it really wanted to go to car heaven.
I slapped the wheel and groaned. “Oh, come on.”
I popped open the hood and got out. I took off my shoe, banged it against the carburetor and slipped it back on. As if my troubles weren’t enough, Charlie Nowak’s truck pulled into the parking lot. Two of his drunken buddies slumped in the vehicle as Charlie climbed out and stumbled crookedly across the asphalt.
I slammed the hood down and dove for the door, but Charlie beat me there.
“Does our little Lia need help?” He slurred, pulling up his pants. “I can help, yes I can.”
“It’s late, Charlie.” I edged around him. “Go home.”
“If you come home with me,” he said, “I can help you out really well.”
“Charlie,” I said, “You’re a nasty drunk. I don’t want to hurt you, but if you try anything, I might have to.”
Charlie’s cackles echoed in the night. “You? Hurt me? That’s hilarious. Let’s be friends, Lia. Let’s be real close friends. I can take you home and show you my baseball cap collection. I think you’d like my basement.”
The fine hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. The word basement threatened to push me over some proverbial cliff. I clutched my keychain and clenched my fist. I’d decided long ago that I would never be a victim again.
“Be decent, Charlie,” I said. “Step out of my way.”
“Sure.” He opened the driver’s side door and, giving his friends in the truck the thumbs-up, stepped away. “Whatever you say.”
As I went to get in the car, he lunged. He grabbed my wrists with one hand and pinned me against the side of the car with his body.
“You’re so fucking hot.” He planted a slobbering kiss in the vicinity of my mouth, reeking of stale beer and cigarettes. “Girls like you play hard to get, but you’re no frigid bitch. I told my friends. There’s a real woman under that hide and I’m gonna skin her out tonight.”
“Get off me.” I struggled against his bulk. “Let me go, right now!”
“This ass, these boobs.” His free hand rubbed all over me, pulling and squeezing. “Come on, honey. I’m gonna give you what
you need.”
I glanced at the truck, hoping his friends would come to my aid or at least try to talk some sense into Charlie. No such luck. They were as drunk as him, if not worse, hollering obscenities out the window.
Charlie doubled me in size and weight, but he was drunk and panic lent me the strength to claim my real estate. Drawing on Ash’s training, I planted one foot forward and smashed my knee against Charlie’s groin.
He bent over and hollered. In that instant, I turned my wrists and snatched them out of his hand. I found the small tube hanging from my key chain, flipped the safety switch and squeezed.
The pepper spray hit him fully on the face. He stumbled, enraged, and groped for me blindly. I dove into my car, shut and locked the door, and turned the ignition.
“Please, God. Please.”
The clunker rattled to life and I stepped on the accelerator. The wheels spun on the blacktop, then gained traction. The sounds of my frantic breath filled my ears as the staggering drunk grew small in my rearview mirror. A new bruise formed on my wrists, where Charlie had clutched too hard.
I forced myself to breathe and pay attention to the road. I didn’t want to end up in a ditch tonight. Why did stuff like this happen to me? Did I have a target painted on my forehead? Had I been born just to be someone’s victim?
Breathe and cope. I couldn’t afford to think like this. It was the emotional response that could sink me for good. I pushed back on the black hole that threatened to swallow me. No panic, no hysterics. I tried to still my shaking hands. It had been a long day and I was exhausted, but I was alive and basically unhurt. My safety measures had worked, Ash’s training paid off and the pepper spray had done its job.
The car conked out for good at the bottom of the cottage’s driveway. No amount of pleading and banging could revive it. I trekked uphill under the freezing rain for half a mile. By the time I got to the cottage I was exhausted, sore and drenched.
I went around to the barn and checked on the animals. They were settled for the night. Neil met me at the door with a happy woof, but not even the handsome dog could cheer me up.