Covet (Sinful Secrets 3)

“Valium, GABA, 5-HTP, Sam-e, Clonidine…”

I see her face in my head: her doe eyes widening, even as she does that thing with her mouth where she bites her lip, trying to look chill when she isn’t.

“You were taking those then?”

I almost want to laugh. Her tone is cautious—as if I’m made of fucking glass.

“It’s the subs and Valium I was coming off. When you’re quitting benzos, Valium’s just the thing you taper off. And Clonidine and the other shit is just to make it better.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“The other shit was shit to help with withdrawal.”

“It was all in the one bottle?”

“Smart, huh?” I had important shit in one giant ibuprofen bottle I could carry around when I was jonesing, and over-the-counter stuff in another one. When she walked in on me, I had been squeezing it, trying not to take a top-off dose of Valium.

Silence swims between us. Even though I’m distracted by my throbbing head, I can feel her biting her tongue. Not askin

g the thing she really wants to know. So I just spare her.

“Always been an addict, Siren.” I want to add since seventh grade, but I know that I could never get that out. “Started early. I can quit. That’s not the problem.”

“What is? Do you relapse?”

I nod. I’ve detoxed—big detoxes—twelve times total, but I can’t stay clean. It’s my superpower. All-star pitcher. Carnegie. Closet addict. Puts the junk in junkie.

I rub my eyes. I’m tired of my own thoughts, the endless looping track of them.

“So now you know my secret.” I force myself to look at her. “I’ll be better on my feet soon and can help you more.”

“But now?” It’s murmured. Siren’s looking at me through her lashes—one of her shy tells.

“Right now, you’re on your own, chief.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she says softly.

“Sleep will help me.”

I wait for her to call bullshit. When she doesn’t, I wonder if she’s noticed I can’t sleep…I just lie here. If she knows, she doesn’t call me on it.

Pretty soon, that drifting thing is happening again—the one where I feel like half of me is somewhere else. Like all the blood in my body is blinking. Once, when I was herding on the Alps, I ran into someone’s electric fence. That’s what this is like: like that first half-second when your muscles jerk, before the sizzle.

Still, I feel her there beside me. Blood booms in my ears, obscuring all my other senses, but I feel her worry. I wish I could tell her not to. Someone who doesn’t know benzos from subs shouldn’t have to deal with this shit. She shouldn’t be stuck in here with me.

I turn my back to her again and sink my hands into my hair.

Nineteen

Finley

I can scarcely stand to swing the hammer at the rock, despite knowing it’s the best thing. Everything in me yearns to go to him…to sit beside him, talk to him. To joke with him. Even, I realize with alarm, to touch him.

I do nothing of the sort, however. He’s made his desires clear—from the moment I hugged him beside the stream and he murmured “please don’t” to the end of our conversation, where he turned away from me. Declan doesn’t want me nearby.

I’ve spent enough time in his presence now that I can read his face. I can see how poorly he is. He’s still pale, with those poor, lost-looking eyes. He can’t stop shaking, can’t stop sweating or tossing about the covers. He must be so miserable. But he doesn’t want my comfort.

Where before, he looked at me and spoke to me to fill the hours, now when he sits up and peels open a bar, he won’t even lift his head in my direction. He chews a bit—not much, I think—and turns back on his side, away from me.