Lies and Other Drugs (Lies Trilogy Book 1) Page 14

  I pressed against the barrel of the gun until it hurt. My skin felt pinched. One little twitch was all it would take. I glanced in Samuel's eyes, cool green looking back at me. And for a moment, I saw all his steel resolve that wasn't there before. He was imagining it. Behind his stone face was a smile as he imagined the blood and the gore. It wasn't until then that I realized he might actually do it.

  Chapter 20

  I was a firm believer that we create our own realities. You just had to ask the world for what you wanted. And after seeing the intent to kill in Samuel Smith's eyes, I wanted to live. It was a strange sensation, fear. I’d purged that emotional response from my soul long ago. There were cobwebs on my tremble. A distant echo to the way my heart raced. And yet, it was still there.

  Just as Samuel was on the cusp of deciding whether or not to kill me on the spot, the classroom door opened. I swallowed just as Renon, The Drug Dealer, walked into the room. It was also in that moment that I decided he would always be called Renon the Drug Dealer in my mind. He paused to take in the scene, absorbing the danger and whatnot, then he slipped into his easy-going smile. I felt myself relax at his calm nature.

  "Well, I was going to cancel. I had another pompous party to attend at the other university where everyone's got sticks up their asses. But I guess I'm glad I decided to crash this little shindig after all," he said with a frown before marching forward. He looked good. The white shirt he wore accentuated his deep tan. I recognized the fearless way he spoke as a tactic I often used. It wasn't a way to mask some underlying fear. I sensed that it was just his natural response to danger. Intrigue and sarcasm. Delicious.

  I frowned at him, not sure why I was mad that he interrupted. Just moments ago, I wanted to live, and now I'm mad that it's him coming to save the day. Beggars can't be choosers, that was a lesson I learned long ago. But I wouldn't have chosen Renon the Drug Dealer had the universe or God or Oprah hand-selected the handsome asshole themselves. The brain was a fickle thing, right? Always wanting something else, always changing direction. Destruction could switch to preservation on a dime, but being selective seemed to be my only constant.

  I couldn't tell if he was here to help or hinder. Not to mention, I still had a pistol lodged in my chest. The metal was biting at my skin, so I kept my frown placed on my face. The solid thing was anchoring me in my discontent for this entire situation. Shouldn't someone be dead by now? Preferably Samuel. Or maybe it was supposed to be me. I was impulsive and manic—and crazy—remember?

  "Get the fuck out of here," Samuel growled out his order while narrowing his eyes at Renon. The tone of his voice made me once again wonder why I hadn't noticed before how much of a prick he was. Charm was his mask. A distractingly beautiful mask. Even now, I found myself wanting to stare into his green eyes.

  "No, I think I'll stay," Renon answered while crossing his arms over his chest. The movement accentuated his large muscles and the tattoos swirling in fixed strokes around his tanned skin.

  "I don't think we've had the chance to properly meet," I said with a smirk. At that, Samuel dug the gun further into my chest, almost enough that it truly did hurt. I knew that a bruise would probably form tomorrow, and I leaned back to ease some of the pressure. "I'm Octavia Wilson," I said through gritted teeth.

  "I know who you are," he said, his voice dark for a moment before he slipped back into his easy-going grin. For someone having a standoff with a gun-wielding lunatic, he sure didn't seem bothered or phased. Oh. Maybe that was because the gun was currently lodged into my chest. Or maybe because, like me, he’d assumed that Samuel was all talk. "I just figured maybe if I showed up here, Sam over there would finally pay me that money he owes," he added with a threatening growl.

  Samuel finally dropped his arm, and the relief was palpable, blood rushed to the area where he was pressing the metal against me. Samuel looked like he was about to take a step towards Renon, but he stopped to look at me. Raising his free hand, he delivered a weak but clipped backhanded slap that made me want to show him how a real man hits. I didn't even have time to throw him a defiant expression.

  I've been hit many times in my life. Sometimes they were painful, and sometimes they were like this. But one thing was always for certain. The trick to being hit was to go with the fall. If you braced yourself, it always ended up hurting more. But if you moved with the hit, if you reacted with instinctive fluidity, the pain wouldn't be as intense. I was used to bracing myself, been doing it my whole life. So luckily for me, Samuel was a weak prick that couldn't follow through on his threats, nor could he follow through on his hits. He hesitated just before his skin connected with mine. "You hit like a pussy," I said in a bored tone while rubbing my cheek.

  Samuel looked stuck between wanting to hit me again and wanting to address Renon the Drug Dealer. "I don't know what it is about you rich boys always falling behind on your debts," Renon said, taking control of the conversation once more. "It's the people that have all the money in the world that seem the most unwilling to part with it. Sixty thousand, Smith. Now."

  Samuel tilted his head in that manic way I knew meant nothing good. "Actually, I'm starting to think there's an easier way to solve this." In a painfully predictable move, Samuel lifted his gun and pointed it at Renon's head. I wondered then if he was a good shot.

  "Predictable," I said with an exasperated sigh, and Renon the Drug Dealer then snapped his eyes to me in amusement instead of focusing on the gun being pointed at him. Was I supposed to be more cautious about this situation? Social norms weren't really my forte.

  "She's a firecracker, that one," Renon the Drug Dealer said, his voice equal parts shocked and disbelieving. I kind of liked that I was keeping him entertained. Might as well make the last moments of our lives entertaining. Besides, I was competitive. He couldn’t be the coolest person in the room. I was the one not supposed to give a fuck.

  That was about when Samuel lost it. I wasn't sure if it was because we weren't showing him the fear he craved, or if it was because he was just desperate for blood. But unlike with me, Samuel pulled back the safety of Mrs. Mulberry's gun and pressed on the trigger. There was a flash, a bang, the whole deal. I expected blood splatters and crumpling bodies. Screams. It was me screaming—more because I felt like I should and not because I actually felt shocked. But Renon the Drug Dealer didn't fall. He didn't clutch his chest like they did in movies. He smiled. "Shooting blanks, Samuel?" he asked. "You always were all talk."

  Motherfucking Mulberry. I poured out her alcohol. She put blanks in my—I mean her gun.

  I laughed, a sad sort of manic laugh but a laugh all the same.

  "Is this some kind of joke?" Samuel asked before turning to me, as if it were my fault the gun I stole, which he then stole, was ineffective.

  "Ah, Mrs. Mulberry. Always the prankster," I looked up at the ceiling and pointed, pissing off Samuel even more. Now I really wasn't afraid of him. There were footsteps approaching outside. Concerned voices. People heard the pretend shot, and Samuel was holding the gun. Renon the Drug Dealer reached in his holster hidden in his denim jeans and pulled out his own weapon, one that I was ten thousand percent sure was very real and very lethal. Now we were talking!

  "We're leaving. You're not going to say shit. You know we have enough on you to make your cock-sucking father more ashamed of you than he already is," he said with a cruel smile. Samuel simply stared at us as Renon opened the window and crawled out. I stood there for a moment longer, contemplating the benefits of getting caught.

  "Hey, Wilson," Renon the Drug Dealer called to me while holding his hand out for mine through the open window. I kind of liked how he called me by my last name, but also kind of hated it. "You don't want to play on his turf. They can afford to cover shit up here," he said.

  Good point. So this guy was smart. A drug dealer, but smart. A cocky, sexy drug dealing asshole, but smart.

  “Alright, Renon the Drug Dealer. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 21

  He drove a se
xy car I didn't know the name of. It looked like the typical bad boy ride, the black paint and leather interior had probably seen more orgasms than I had. It was completely ostentatious and ridiculous for New York. Who actually owned a car and lived in the city?

  I settled into the passenger seat with a smile, which contradicted how I was processing things on the inside. Samuel fucking Smith. That murdering bastard. That pansy-ass elitist prick. I wasn't too bothered by the fact that he and I had sex. He didn't really mean anything to me. What bothered me was how right he was. I hated that there wasn't just one person to blame.

  And one of the men that deserved a middle finger pointed at him was currently situated next to me in the driver's seat. "You knew who I was at the restaurant?" I asked. I caught him glancing at me from the corner of his eye, and instead of answering me with the confidence he had in front of Samuel, he simply nodded.

  "And Samuel owes you money?" I asked.

  "He owes me a fucking lot," he answered. I watched as his grip tightened around the steering wheel. He was strong, yes. He also had that broody attitude I found irresistible in men. I liked people that felt more than I could.

  "You feel bad for William's death?" I asked. I expected him to give me some bullshit condolences about how he never intended for it to happen. But instead, he laughed. He fucking laughed.

  "No," he said between chuckles. "I stopped feeling bad for shit a long time ago, lady. Samuel didn't take my warning, and your brother took the pills.The only thing I take is money.”

  Hmm, how...refreshing. At least he wasn't bullshitting me like the rest of the world. So he was a narcissistic, honest asshole. My blood pulsed, and I clenched my thighs. I had a type, apparently. And that type was “fucked up.”

  "Where am I taking you?" he asked, and for once, I didn't know the answer. If I went back to the hotel, then I'd have to face Noah, and considering he was the only person that I actually cared about, that option seemed incredibly unappealing. I could go to Young, I could tell him that his best friend is a backstabbing, selfish, murderous twat waffle. But that seemed premature. Samuel would have likely already concocted some story about how I attacked him. And since I didn't necessarily make my plans to murder someone a secret, he'd believe him.

  "Where do you live?" I asked with a grimace.

  Again, he laughed. I was starting to like the sound of it. "I'm not taking you where I live. I don't really owe you anything. And if I'm being honest, you seem like one of those crazy chicks that would have my name tattooed on her cunt by the third date."

  Now it was my turn to laugh. He couldn't be more wrong even if he tried. I didn't do the clingy shit. Or the relationship shit. Or anything that could tie me to anyone. Not since William died. This entire world was temporary. I'd never give someone the power to hurt me like William did. Never. Attachments made people weak.

  "I don't do tattoos. Too permanent," I answered with a smile, enjoying the distracting flirtatious banter for a minute while I figured out what to do.

  "What do you do then?" he asked while driving down the highway. We were leaving the city, I just didn't know where we were going.

  I thought about my answer for a moment while unclasping my bra and pulling it off through the top of my dress before tossing it in the backseat with the other graveyard of women's clothing. "Whatever I fucking want," I replied.

  And we drove. We drove until the city was long gone. We drove until the roads went twisty, and trees created a spring canopy over the pavement. "Okay okay," he said. "Let's play Marry, Kiss, or Kill," he said. We'd been playing games this entire time, stopping only for him to get fuel and for me to piss at a gas station shadier than Samuel Smith.

  "That's a dumb game," I grumbled. The sun was coming up, an orange haze filling the edges of the night sky with a warm glow. "I'd just kill everyone," I said automatically.

  "Says the girl with a gun loaded with blanks," he teased. So yeah, I told him what all had led up to this point. I told him about William. About Mrs. Mulberry. About how I wished I could have met Noah's daughter or seen Young and William interact. Were they affectionate, or did they do that cheesy shit where they just looked lovingly across the room at one another?

  "I didn't know," I groaned for what must have been the thousandth time. “No one ever taught me how to shoot a gun!" I cried in mock outrage. The cool air blasting through his vents was keeping us both awake. Halfway through our impromptu road trip, he started getting phone calls. One after another. He just kept ignoring them. I didn't care enough to ask who was calling.

  "Wanna learn?" he asked.

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  I closed my eyes and sunk back into my seat. "Because I'd rather ruin him in other ways." I knew that I had already ruined him for other women. He wouldn’t be able to be with anyone else without thinking of me. We were too good together, and he was too addicted to the power of knowing what he did and watching me submit. I was going to ruin his family. His standing at the school. His reputation with women.

  "I like the sound of that," Renon said before pulling a U-turn on the road and heading the opposite direction.

  "You going to help me?" I asked with a grin.

  Renon tightened his grip on the steering wheel, while twisting his face into an introspective expression. "I don't really do the whole 'help' thing. I kind of take care of myself, you know?"

  Rolling my eyes, I responded. "Shocker, a selfish druggie.”

  "For the record, aside from the occasional edible, I don't actually do drugs. I prefer to be addicted to power. I take paychecks."

  Rolling my eyes, a gesture I seemed to be doing a lot of lately, I leaned back in his seat and rested my feet up on the dash. He scowled like any normal man would do when my bare feet were propped up, but he had the good sense not to ask me to remove my feet. "Wow," I began. "That was almost poetic. You should definitely put that in your next rap song."

  Renon looked at me out of the corner of his eye. It didn't take much for me to be comfortable with a person, I just naturally owned who I was, and people generally fit within that. There was a certain freedom that came with not caring what others thought. It made it easier to befriend people. It took the pressure off, and our little road trip was just an easy ride between two people who knew that it didn’t matter and long term expectations were pointless.

  “So what now?”

  “Now I take you home.”

  “What about Samuel?” I asked. Why wasn’t I ready for this to end?

  “What about him? Samuel Smith will pay up, one way or another.”

  Yeah. He will.

  Chapter 22

  Renon the Drug Dealer dropped me off at the hotel. I wasn’t even sure if Noah was there. The self-destructive part of me was thinking he’d gone back to LA to reconcile with his wife or some shit like that. I didn’t really say goodbye to Renon. Just before I got out of his sexy as sin car, we just exchanged that awkward wave two people shared that had an intense, deep moment but knew it was only fleeting.

  I paused before getting out, cars honking at us to hurry. “You never told me how you knew William,” I said. I braced myself for his answer, not really sure I wanted to know that my brother was actually doing the one thing we hated most in this world.

  Renon let out a sigh. “He was still on your parents’ health insurance and didn’t want them knowing that he was depressed. I was giving him Prozac. The legit stuff, too. The dude would have had a prescription if he weren’t so afraid to disappoint people. I see a lot of that shit in my line of work, people too embarrassed to get help, so they self-medicate,” he explained with a shrug that looked forced, like he wanted to seem unaffected. Renon looked outside for a moment before continuing. “But...he was a cool dude. Sad. Kinda spacy. But cool. What Samuel did was fucked up.”

  I immediately responded. “I’m going to kill him.”

  Renon let out a laugh and nodded towards the door, indicating that I should hurry up and leave. “Just make sure you use a g
un that works next time? And if you could wait until I get my money, that would be divine.”

  “I’ll do my best, Renon the Drug Dealer,” I said with a wink before leaving his car and feeling both bad and good about how my night turned out. He sped off without a second glance.

  The moment I stepped inside the hotel lobby, the heavy weight of an impending confrontation settled in my bones, making me trudge to the elevator and upstairs. It wasn’t a fight that had me feeling anxious, it was a fight with Noah. He didn’t let me bullshit my way through a conversation or hide behind my anger. And after an exhausting night, I just really wasn’t in the mood to question my existence or fall further in love with a man I would never allow myself to have. I slid my room key inside the lock and wasn’t surprised to see Noah standing there and staring out the window, looking over the street below.

  “Who dropped you off?” he asked.

  “My fourth boyfriend...or maybe my third. Samuel admitted to killing William last night, so it’s looking like he’s off the ballot, unfortunately. He had such a nice dick, too.” Noah didn’t laugh at my joke. When did he stop appreciating my humor? Oh yeah, probably last night when I abandoned him at a bar to give in to his addictions instead of hold me back.

  “Nathaniel tried calling. He’s worried about you. Samuel said you attacked him last night,” Noah said, keeping his tone even. “I should have taken your...condition...more seriously. I know better than this. Been too caught up in my own shit to do my job properly.”

  “Your job? This has never been a job for you, Noah,” I said. “You woke up with me in your house and liked the distraction I offered.” Sitting on the bed, I removed my heels, sighing in appreciation while flexing the arches of my feet. “I mean, Samuel stole my gun. Lodged it in my chest, then nearly killed my new boyfriend/drug dealer/strange man I just rode around in a car with all night,” I replied with a shrug. Deflecting was a hard game, had to confuse them with a hint of the truth, just enough to keep them guessing.