The Original Crowd (A Whole New Crowd 0.50)

Fucking nothing.

An hour later, still nothing.

I spied her Kleenex box. And I tore it open and in the corner, and found one small bag of Vitamin R.

Fucking uppers.

But she owed five grand—there was no way that this little bag equaled five grand.

I flipped the bed mattress up and saw one of the corners was slightly ripped. Jamming my fingers inside it, I found another little bag.

Then I looked around again, I walked into her bathroom that was connected to her bedroom.

I stood on the toilet and ran my hands along the top of the wall cabinets, the highest to the ceiling, and found a box full of Vitamin R. A whole fucking box stuffed with baggies, all filled with pills. And one by one, I dumped them into the toilet.

It took me an hour. A whole fucking hour.

I told myself to breathe. In and out. Just breathe. But the energy was wrenched from me. I felt like I’d hurdled off the side of a cliff.

When I was done, I stumbled to my bedroom and curled on my bed. My arms wrapped around my knees, curled in the fetal position.

That was how Tray found me. I didn’t know how long I laid there like that. Frozen.

“Hey,” he said softly, sitting next to me on the bed. I flinched when he tentatively touched me.

“How’d you get here?” I asked. I didn’t know what else to say.

“Carter showed up. I had him drop me off here.”

“Was Mandy there?”

“Yeah…why?” He frowned, his hand resting on mine.

“Because—”

“Because why?”

“Her drug dealer came up to me and wanted me to pass a message to her for him,” I bit out, starting to seethe inside again.

“What?” Tray froze, the small circle his thumb had been moving in stopped. “What did you say?”

“Mark Jenkins. That’s his name,” I bit out bitterly.

I realized that Tray still hadn’t said anything.

I scrambled to a sitting position. “Do you know him?”

“Yeah,” he said slowly, not looking at me.

“Do you know who he works for?”

“Yeah.”

“Who?”

“No, Taryn. You’re not getting involved in it. I’ll handle it.”

“Fuck that.” I got up, standing in front of him. “She’s my sister. I do not want my sister on drugs.”