Lazarus (The Henchmen MC 7)

"They'll hear you," he agreed, nodding. Calm. He was so freakishly calm talking about holding me hostage.

And it got me that he agreed they would hear me in such a nonchalant way- like whoever he was or something was enough of a threat to keep them from calling the cops even if they did hear me scream.

I dropped back down on the bed, cradling my head in my hands. It was starting already. It was too soon, but I could feel the itchiness of my skin, the fogginess of my brain. I was already starting to withdraw. I needed to focus, to think things through, to figure out a way to get through to the freaking sociopath I was stuck in an apartment with.

"Hey," he said, close. Too close. I snapped upward to find him right in front of me, squatting down so his eyes were a bit lower than mine and I didn't find coldness there or evil. I saw... understanding and warmth and maybe a bit of... pleading?

What was he pleading for?

I was the hostage.

"I want to go home," I tried. It was a lie. I really didn't want to go home to an apartment that felt like a prison, left alone with nothing but my dark thoughts.

"You will," he said, nodding. "But after you detox."

"Look, I think you might like... have good intentions here. But people need to detox in hospitals. They need to..."

"They need to wrap up in blankets and sweat, puke, scream, and cry through it," he cut me off. "And that's what you're going to do. Here."

"You're not a doctor," I insisted, knowing that fact down to my bones.

"No," he agreed, nodding, still way, way too casual about something so serious. "But I know all they are going to do at detox is load you up with Subs which are, in and of themselves, addictive. You can OD on Subs. And what they do is jack you up on that shit for the week or two you are at detox and then release you and you detox from the Subs and, without fucking fail, will go right back onto the harder shit. Most addicts go to detox willingly or by court appointment at least four or five times before they finally straighten out. You want to spend the next couple months or years on this roller coaster?"

No.

That was easy.

I definitely wanted to stop, before I got too out of hand. Before I graduated to street drugs. I knew enough about addiction to know that was inevitable. Pills would become hard to find or I wouldn't have the money for them anymore. Then it was just natural to switch over to heroin which was about half the price. Then, well, things didn't look good for me. Heroin was hard to get off of. It killed people all the time, daily. Hourly. It was all over my Facebook feed about people OD'ing on heroin in the middle of stores, in their parked cars, with their babies starving to death in the other room.

I didn't have a baby. But still.

I didn't want to go down that route.

I wanted to get out while I still could, before it completely consumed my life.

But I knew how awful I felt after just twelve hours of not having a high. I didn't even want to imagine how miserable I would feel after a day or two. I couldn't imagine going through that without assistance.

"Bethany," he said suddenly, breaking through my swirling thoughts. My eyes snapped up to him, again seeing nothing but good intentions there, which somehow made the whole situation worse. "I want to make this a choice. I think most addicts need that choice. But I don't want to have to know you wasted ten years of your life on this shit when I knew I could kick you of it in a month."

The words were harmless. Actually, they were rather sweet. But there was something there, something between the words, something weighted and frightening.

"What are you..." I started, only to be cut off.

"You're staying here and you are detoxing," he said, finality in his tone.

There it was again.

And I knew it for what it was.

"You're not letting me have a choice." My words sounded hollow even to my own ears.

"I'm asking you to make the choice so I don't have to make it for you."

But either way, I was detoxing.

I wasn't upset by that fact.

I didn't want to be an addict. I didn't want to be that person I was raised to never turn into, to be a menace to society, to be a pathetic trope.

I wanted to get clean again, to turn things around before I was in too deep to see the way out anymore.

I wanted to detox.

But to be perfectly, painfully honest, it was absolutely terrifying. Any idiot knew what withdrawal was like- had seen it in movies or on TV. Even for someone who had never felt withdrawal, you could sense the overwhelming helplessness of it all. And however bad it looked, I knew it would be about a thousand times worse to live through it.