Tap-tap-tap.
Trev, are you tapping on the aquarium like I told you not to?
“Good,” she said. “Now get rid of the air bubble.”
He tested the plunger, holding the syringe up to the candlelight so he could watch the air leave the plastic tube. A trickle of liquid slid down the needle. At any other time, Callie would’ve licked it off.
She told him, “You want the vein, okay? It’s the blue line. Can you see it?”
He leaned down so close that she could feel his breath on her leg. His finger pressed into the abscess. He looked up quickly, making sure it was okay.
“It feels good,” she told him. “Press harder.”
“Fuck,” Andrew whispered, digging in with his fingernail. He practically shivered. Everything about this was exciting to him. “Like this?”
Callie winced, but said, “Yes.”
He caught her eye again before tracing the tip of his finger along the vein. She stared at the top of his head. His hair spun out from the crown the same way Buddy’s had. Callie remembered running her fingers along his scalp. The embarrassed look from Buddy as he’d covered the thinning patch.
I’m just an old man little dolly why do you want anything to do with me?
“Here?” Andrew asked.
“Yes,” she told him. “Put the needle in slowly. Don’t press the plunger until I tell you it’s in the right place. You want the needle to slide into the vein, not through it.”
“What will happen if it goes through?”
“It won’t go into the bloodstream,” Callie said. “It’ll go into the muscle and it won’t really do anything.”
“Okay,” he said, because he had no way of knowing the truth.
She watched him return to his work. He shifted on his elbow to get more comfortable. His hand was steady as the syringe moved toward the center of the abscess.
“Ready?”
He didn’t wait for her acquiescence.
The tiny prick of the needle made a sound come out of her mouth. Callie closed her eyes. Her breath was coming as fast as his. She tried to pull herself back from the brink.
“Like that?” Andrew asked.
“Slow,” she coaxed, her hand sliding down his back. “Move the needle around inside.”
“Fuck,” Andrew groaned. She could feel his erection pressing against her leg. He rocked against her, sliding the needle in and out of her vein.
“Keep doing that,” she whispered, running her fingers down his spine. She could feel the flex of his ribs as he breathed. “That’s good, baby.”
Andrew’s head fell against her hip. She felt his tongue on her skin. His breath was hot and wet.
She reached into her jacket pocket. She popped the cap off the 20-ml syringe.
“Okay,” she told Andrew, her fingers locating the space between his ninth and tenth rib. “Start pushing it in, but do it slow, okay?”
“Okay.”
The sickness from the first taste of heroin nagged at her like a virus.
She pulled the syringe out of her pocket. The blue liquid looked dull in the candlelight.
Callie didn’t hesitate. She couldn’t let him walk out the door. She stabbed down at an angle, puncturing through the muscle and sinew, driving the needle directly into the left ventricle of Andrew’s heart.
She was already pressing down on the plunger before he realized that something was very wrong.
By then, it was too late for him to do anything about it.
There was no fighting her off. No screaming. No cries for help. The sedative nature of the pentobarbital took away any last words. She heard the agonal breathing Dr. Jerry had warned her about, the brainstem reflex that sounded like a gasp for breath. His right hand was the last part of his body that he had under any control, and Andrew pushed the heroin in so fast that Callie felt her femoral vein turn into fire.
Her teeth clamped together. Sweat poured off of her body. She held tight to the 20-ml syringe, her thumb shaking as she pressed the thick blue liquid through the needle. Adrenaline was the only thing that kept Callie from collapsing. There was still half a dose left. She watched the slow progress of the plunger going down. She had to give him the full dose before the adrenaline burned off. Leigh was going to be here soon. This couldn’t be like the last time. Callie wasn’t going to make her sister finish the job she had started.
The plunger finally sank to the bottom. Callie watched the last of the drug flood into Andrew’s black heart.
Her hand dropped away. She fell back onto the mattress.