Blink. Her brother. Blink. Her brother—
“That shit kills people.”
No kidding, she thought.
“Only if you give him too much,” she said. “And I know . . . how to titrate it. I won’t let him have too much.” Rio went around the foot of the bed and stood in front of the man. “Take me to where it’s cut. I can test it. Then we come back here and help your friend. Partner. Husband, whoever he is to you.”
Apex slowly rose to his feet. God, he was huge, a living, breathing billboard for a beatdown.
He jabbed her in the shoulder. “I don’t need shit from you.”
Why am I doing this? Rio asked herself.
Well . . . because she could see more of the building. He would know how to get around, where the drugs were processed. Helping the patient would help her.
“You don’t need me?” she demanded. “Really? Well, for one, you’re sitting how many rooms away from the solution to his suffering and you clearly haven’t considered it. Two, do you know the dose? Enough to give him relief but not kill him? His respiration is already compromised, and I’m guessing his blood pressure is low. You don’t know where that line is, do you.”
“Are you a nurse?”
She thought back to all the conversations with ER docs immediately after, and since, her brother’s death. She’d had to know exactly what had happened, down to the molecular level, from his body weight to the cut of the drug, to what else had been in his system. She’d had to . . .
“No, but I know a lot about overdoses.”
The man stared down at the patient.
“He is never not in pain,” she said hoarsely, picturing her brother’s face whenever he’d thought no one was looking at him.
Apex passed a palm over his eyes. “Never. He suffers constantly.”
“Show me where the drugs are. I’ll take it from there.”
There was a long silence. Then Apex shook his head. “You don’t need to come with me. I’ll bring it back—what do you need?”
As he stared at her, there was a blank look in his eyes.
Rio frowned. “Do you know the difference between the heroin, any cocaine or meth, and the cutting product? And what about fentanyl?”
“Of course. So what do you need?”
He was lying, she thought.
“You know this with enough certainty you’re willing to risk killing him?”
“And how are you such an expert.”
“I’m betting my life on my knowledge, aren’t I,” she said. “If he dies, you’re offing me, right.”
As she just leveled a stare at him, he shrugged. “So tell me what you need.”
A drug dealer who didn’t know his wares. Unbelievable.
“What do you do around here other than look after your partner,” she murmured.
“He’s not my partner.”
“Brother.”
“No.”
“Friend, then.”
The patient coughed a little. And as they both turned toward the man, a slight smile marked the distorted mouth.
“You must excuse him,” the patient said. “He doesn’t know what a friend is.”
Rio leaned over the bed. “We’re going to get you something to help with the pain.”
There was a shuddering breath. “I do my best to bear up. I am weary, though . . . and growing wearier.”
She reached out to pat his arm, but caught herself. “We’re going to take care of it.”
Looking up, she pegged Apex with dead serious eyes. “Aren’t we.”
As she waited for his answer, she saw her brother standing just inside the curtain, dressed in the jeans and the Nirvana t-shirt he’d been wearing when she’d found him dead.
Luis was so real, she felt like she could reach out and touch him.
And that was when she was forced to recognize the real reason she was doing this, the true driver.
She was revisiting her brother’s overdose and using what she’d had to learn. Like if she could ease the suffering of the patient . . . it would somehow recalibrate the too-much her brother had shoved in his vein all those years ago.
It was some existential algebra that didn’t make a lot of sense.
Nothing was going to bring her dead back. Or set right all the bad things that had happened afterward.
These were two totally unconnected events, and no matter the outcome here, it would have no bearing on what had come before.
“Aren’t we,” Rio repeated.
As Lucan faced off at the Executioner and dared the motherfucker to shoot him in the heart, he was picturing all kinds of happy things. Like biting the vampire on the front of the throat. Then ripping the flesh free and spitting it out.