“No, there’s a plan.” David squints into the rearview. “Is he listening?”
“Yeah, but don’t worry,” Sara says. “When this is over, it’ll all seem like a dream. I took acid once before, it was wild.”
“I want him to hear it,” David says. “Hey, Erik, listen up.”
“Yes, angel man? I didn’t know you were an angel. And you hung out with angels. God, so many angels, and this window. It tastes like a cloud.”
David sighs and keeps driving. “The league is drug testing the team in a few days,” he says. “That drug test will include Erik. If he tests positive for LSD, that’s going to be a problem. But it’ll be even worse if he tests positive for steroids, which I also slipped into his water bottle.”
“Oh, yes, ‘roids,” Erik says, rubbing his face against the glass, his lips smashing and his skin pulling along the slobbery window. “I love ‘roids. Make me very strong. But small balls are bad.”
“You can get steroids through water?” I ask.
“No, but I doubt he knows that.”
“Huh,” Sara says. “Okay. So you’re going to, what, blackmail him?”
“Like I’m doing to you, angels,” Erik groans.
“Right.”
“How will that work? If he’s getting tested, it seems like he’s going to fail no matter what.”
“If he agrees to my terms, I’ll switch his pee with my own.”
Sara snorts. “Can you do that?”
“Yes. The league only sends one person and she’ll be busy testing all the guys. I’ll make sure Erik’s one of the first people tested, and when she’s distracted, I’ll swap them out. She’s not careful around the coaching staff.”
Sara frowns and nods her head. I look back at her for a second then stare at David. “And you think this’ll work?”
“I think so,” he says.
“Okay, I’m following so far.” I stretch a little and glance back at Erik. “But why are we driving right now?”
“We’re going to drive for a couple hours, until his trip is peaking, and then we’re going to drop him off in some random wooded area.”
I stare at him, my jaw hanging open. I can barely understand what he just said, but his face isn’t changing, and I don’t think he’s joking.
Sara breaks the silence. “That’s insane,” she says.
“Yep.” David shrugs. “But he deserves it. I’ll make sure he has his phone and some money.”
“He could die,” I say. “He could run into the road and die.”
David hesitates. “Maybe. But I doubt it. I think he’ll curl up into a ball and freak out for a while.”
“Freaky deaky,” Erik whispers. He rubs his face against the seat’s upholstery. “Oh, yes, that feels nice. Everything feels nice. I love the way the angels sing.”
“Okay,” Sara says. “I have to admit, this is insane. But I kind of like it though.”
I laugh. I can’t help myself. This is absolutely insane and unethical and messed up on so many levels, and yet I love it too.
Erik deserves this. He deserves so much worse for everything he’s done to me. But this is going to be bad, and he’s going to walk away from it relatively unscathed if he just does what David wants him to do.
David, for his part, doesn’t smile. He keeps driving, not speaking, staring straight ahead.
For the next couple of hours, we head away from LA, up into the suburbs around it. The area gets more rural as we go, and Erik just keeps babbling about angels, about the motion of the truck, about the shapes he keeps feeling in his heart. Sara tries talking to him sometimes, and even helps calm him down once when his trip starts to take a bad turn.
“I’m this kid’s fucking trip Sherpa,” Sara says. “Seriously, I never wanted to be a Sherpa for anyone, but especially not for this asshole.”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “He’ll get his soon.”
“All mine.” Erik swats at the air and laughs.
I almost feel sorry for him. I can’t imagine what it’ll be like to find himself all alone in a strange wooded area, tripping on acid like this. He’s going to have a hard night, and an even harder morning getting home. I think there’s a pretty good chance that he’ll end up injured or dead, but I find it really hard to feel sorry for him.
We keep going. Sara alternates between teasing Erik and riling him up, and talking him down from his spirals. She seems to get some joy out of torturing the poor kid, but I don’t say anything and David keeps his eyes on the road.
The sun starts to set. David slows the truck down and takes an exit off the main road. We twist through some small town, up through a hilly area, then down into a valley. We pass through a main street area with shops and restaurants, then go on through it, along another wide road flanked by wineries on either side.