I complied, knowing that it would only make it worse if I refused his order. I blinked in the kitchen light, fear trickling down my spine as I realized he’d tied me to a kitchen chair beside the table. My heart sank as my eyes found him. This was going to be a bad night.

He was smiling at me, but it was an evil, ugly grin. His arm was slung around the neck of a woman bursting out of her clothes, leaving little to the imagination. Her makeup was heavy and dark, making her look older than I imagined she was, a little trashy, and a little sexy in a hardened, edgy kind of way.

He turned to her and said, conversationally, “Amber, this is the poor little rat I told you about. See how pathetic she is? Can’t even be where she’s supposed to be when she’s supposed to be there. I swear, I spent so much time training her to be the perfect little woman to keep my home and this is the thanks I get. But see how cute it is when she thinks I’m going to actually be nice to her? Stupid little cunt. She can just sit there like the pussy little bitch she is and watch our fun, then, huh, Tina?”  Greg’s voice was gleeful, almost childlike with giddiness and I knew he was high on something. He shook his head as his companion laughed, sneering at me as she ran her hand up Greg’s chest.

She snarled and corrected him. “Amber!” before she continued. “So, what do you need me for then, Greggy-baby, if you’ve got her here waiting on you?” she pouted in a creepy little girl voice, walking her fingers up his chest and back down over the placket of his jeans.

He pulled her in and kissed her, opened mouth with lots of tongue, groaning, and heavy breathing on both their parts. When he pulled away from her, her red lipstick was smeared across his face, looking eerily like blood, like a sinister omen.

He stared at me boldly, daring me to try to move, to say something as he pulled a syringe, a lighter, and a tourniquet, the rubber kind nurses use to take your blood, out of his pocket, along with a small foil packet, and a small piece of cotton. He grinned as he strode to the drawer and pulled out a spoon.

“Cause I’ve got the good stuff you want, doll, and then we’re gonna have a little fun with the prude over there,” he answered.

Amber giggled and then moaned, pressing herself against Greg’s back as he sat at our kitchen table and proceeded to unwrap the foil packet, placing a tan-ish looking lump in the bowl of the spoon, crushing it up into powder with the flat end of the plunger on the syringe. He handed the syringe over to Amber who prowled across the kitchen like she owned it to the sink, where she drew a small amount of water into the syringe.

She moved back to him, sitting it on the table beside him without a word, but you could see the wanton desperation, the anticipation clearly written on her face. Greg picked up the syringe and squirted the water into the spoon over the powder before he flicked the lighter to life and held it under the spoon suspended carefully in his fingers.

I watched the process silently, not looking away no matter how much I was screaming on the inside, sickened by what was happening in front of me. This was new, the drug use. I didn’t know what it was, but I suspected it was heroin. I didn’t want to watch, I wanted to run screaming from the room, but that would just make things worse…not to mention the fact that I was tied to a chair currently. Maybe he would just get high and pass out, leave me alone…but I’d still be tied.

Once the process was done and the drug pulled into the needle, I watched Greg pick it up and, after a brief, pensive pause, he swung the needle towards my arm where it was lashed to my own thigh. I could feel the panic rising, my heart beating like a runaway horse as he shook the syringe mockingly in my face.

“Want some of this, little whore? I should do it…I should jab this needle in your fucking arm and give you so much of this shit that you OD right here in front of me so I can fuck the shit out of Tina while I watch you die.”

I flinched when I heard a slap, bewildered when I realized it wasn’t me getting slapped this time. The oh-so-lovely Amber had taken offense to Greg calling her by the wrong name again that she smacked him upside the back of his head, screeching, “My name is fucking Amber, you asshole! Who the fuck is Tina?”

Greg shrugged her off, raising his hand threateningly at her, which only made her laugh.

He turned to me again, the needle still waving hypnotically in his hand, coming closer and closer to my skin. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes again…I didn’t want that shit in my body…God, why was I such a weak ass loser? Why hadn’t I left him the first time he hit me?

“I think she might want to try a little, what do you think, doll face?” He grinned evilly and seized my arm between rough, pinching fingers. He jabbed the needle sharply into my skin cruelly. I bit back my scream, but a whimper still escaped.

“Greg! Don’t waste that good shit on her! I ain’t gonna be no party to no murder, either, so quit fuckin’ around and give it to me!” Amber yelled.

He jerked the needle out of my arm and I thanked God and anyone else who was listening that he hadn’t depressed the plunger on the syringe to release the drug. Instead, he tied off Amber’s arm with the tourniquet, inserted the needle into her arm and shot her up. Her head lolled for just a second before she looked up with a smile.

“God, that’s such a fuckin’ rush…just enough to take the edge off, eh, lover? Just enough to make you wanna fuck me right here on this table?” she said, her eyes glazing over.

Greg took the needle out of her arm, tied off his own, and shot himself up with the rest of the syringe’s contents. He sat there for a few seconds, looking slightly dazed before his nostrils flared and he stared at Amber like she was the last piece of pie left on earth and he had a craving.

I tried to block it out, to float off inside myself like I would normally do, but I couldn’t block out the sounds…couldn’t block out the sight of Greg stripping down, tearing off Amber’s clothes, and then positioning her on the table, right in front of where I was sitting. He spread her legs and she laughed as he slid her towards me, her hairy, unkempt snatch now just inches from my face. I fought a gag as the stench of an unwashed, sweaty body invaded my nostrils before he pulled her back and mounted her, right there in front of me, one hand on her ass to hold her still, and the other tangled in my hair, forcing me to keep watching while tears poured, unchecked, down my bruised cheeks.

“NO!” I screamed as I woke, my body shivering, as I tried to shake off the effects of the memory afforded to me by my dreams.

I blinked into the dimly lit room, taking a second to realize that I was in a hotel room, and everything clicked into place. Brandon pushing me away even as he pulled me to him…my own hang ups that fuck everything up…my life in general.

With a sigh, I grabbed my cell phone and powered it back on, groaning when it immediately began chiming and pinging with incessant notifications of voice mails and text messages.

I opened my texts, knowing that I would find a lot of pissed off people, including my brother. What I wasn’t prepared for was a text from my mom. It was simple, to the point…and devastating.

Greg is out.

Chapter 9

Three little words made me sick. Literally.

I clung to the hotel room toilet after having lurched in there to empty the contents of my stomach as the words my mom texted ate at my soul. I don’t know how it’s even possible, given what transpired to put him in prison, but it was true. It had to be because my mom is not a liar and she wouldn’t be that cruel.