Saving Rain(13)

“You know the deal,” I said to him, keeping my voice low with a cool warning. “You don’t come back to me for at least a couple of weeks. And I’d better not catch you asking anybody else to buy for you. I have eyes all over this place. You understand me?”

It was a rule I stupidly believed would do some good. They could pop a pill, maybe share it with a friend, and have a good time, but that was it for a while. I figured if these kids weren’t coming to me constantly for a fix, they were less likely to become dependent on the shit—or so I told myself.

I guessed, deep down, I knew they were just going to someone else. I mean, there was always Levi Stratton—who had in recent years become something of a rival—and that creepy asshole he always hung out with, Seth. Neither of them had gone elsewhere since I’d started swiping Mom’s pills and selling them to my peers, so I knew business had to be worth it for them still. But … I dunno. I supposed I liked to think it at least wouldn’t be my fault if they got hooked, never stopping to realize that I was also holding their hand on the dark, filthy road to addiction and dependency.

The guy insisted he understood, thanked me, and wandered off like a kid who’d just gotten done raiding a candy store as I headed back to Tammi.

I’d known her for years—from the moment she’d asked me for my name and age five years ago. I knew she’d been interested ever since—she didn’t keep it a secret with her frisking eyes and bottom lip clamped salaciously between her teeth—but she had never made her move until I was legal. Now, at twenty-three, she loved teasing that she was a cradle-robber.

Me? Well … honestly, I just liked getting laid.

“You wanna give me one of those?” she asked, holding out a hand and waggling her fingers.

“No,” I said, perching myself on an old, rusty bench someone had dragged into The Pit way before my time.

“Come on, baby.” She climbed onto my lap and straddled my thighs. “I’ll suck your dick.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not letting you suck me off for pills, Tammi.”

“Why? I’m your whore, aren’t I? Treat me like one.”

Okay, can I be honest?

I didn’t like Tammi a whole lot. We had nothing in common. Kissing her was akin to licking an ashtray, she wore enough cheap perfume to make the strongest lungs asthmatic, and the way she spoke made me cringe.

Still, I was also eighteen, feeling a little too much like hot shit with the cash lining my pockets, and it was nice to have someone as sexy as her hanging from my arm and sitting on my lap.

It also felt nice when we fucked.

But I always respected her and treated her right, and I’d never give her pills in exchange for sex.

“You’re not a whore,” I told her flatly, tipping my head back to catch her eye and wrapping my arms around her waist.

Tammi pouted. “Levi liked when I was his whore.”

I hated it when she talked about Levi.

Hell, I thought I just hated Levi altogether. Him, that guy he hung out with, and every one of their friends.

“Well, he’s right over there if you wanna go suck his dick.” I nudged my chin in his direction.

The guy was twenty-four and way too old to be hanging out with high school kids. But I saw him now for what he was—a predator—and I often wondered if I’d be like him when I was his age. The thought scared me, but what I did now scared me, too, and yet I couldn’t see an end in sight. I was in too deep, and I—we, Mom and me—depended on this too much.

Tammi glanced over her shoulder and stared at her ex-boyfriend like maybe she was considering it. But she made a contemplative sound before saying, “Nah, I don’t feel like it right now. Yours is bigger anyway.”

I wanted to grumble a sardonic thanks because I didn’t doubt for a second that, if my dick had in fact been smaller, she would have sauntered her way back into Levi’s arms without a second thought. But before I could say anything, my thoughts were blown apart by a bloodcurdling scream not twenty feet away from where I sat.

Tammi turned her head abruptly in the direction of where the sound had come from. “Wha—”

She couldn’t get her sentence out before I shoved her off my lap.

I bolted from the bench and ran toward the scream that had now turned into a girl’s pleading voice, saying, “Stop it! Please, get off of me! Get off!”

Her frantic, desperate words crushed my soul, and what I found made my blood boil.

A young girl I had never seen before was pinned against a tree by the body of Levi’s buddy, Seth. One of his hands was on her chest while the other was working at getting his fly undone. She was writhing, struggling to get away from him, as she cried and gasped and begged for someone to help her in a field of dozens of people who were ignoring her.

But not me.

Without a moment of hesitation, I grabbed Seth from behind, gripping his shirt in my fists and pulling him off her with such force that we both fell backward into a couple of other kids.

“What the hell, man?!” one of them asked, as if they hadn’t been aware of the girl being violated against her will mere feet away from them.

Seth rolled away and out of my grasp. “Get the fuck—”

My fist stopped his words from coming out, and a spray of blood hit my face as I broke his nose.

“Motherfucker!” he cried in agony, cupping his hands over his face. “You piece of fucking shit!”