Chapter Twenty-one
Layla
Breakfast at the house was something I did not miss. There were no shirtless boys to make waffles, or even pancakes. No signature grins or dancing blue eyes. No songs softly hummed as we ate.
No, in this house there was only the smell of greasy breakfast sandwiches and salty hashbrowns bought from the local fast food place around the corner. The small made my stomach turn. Ryder didn’t make overly greasy food. He also genuinely enjoyed cooking. As I munched on my sausage and egg burrito, I could instantly tell the difference. This food, although the cook may have enjoyed making it, wasn’t the same. The meat wasn’t cooked slowly to ensure it was as delicious as it could be. It was cooked fast, for convenience. It was tasteless and dry, as if it had been sitting under a heat lamp.
“Is it not good enough for you, Lay? Speak up.” Devin sat across from me, eyeing me suspiciously.
I pasted on a fake smile. “Nah, it’s good. Last night just took a lot out of me. I’m tired, that’s all.” Shoving the last bit into my mouth, I chewed and swallowed, washing it down with some water. “May I be excused?”
“You have five minutes,” he warned. I refrained from rolling my eyes and walked down the hall to the bathroom. Turning the corner, I saw Kristen sneaking back into the Room.
“What were you doing?” I hissed, following her inside. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights until she realized it was me.
“God, Lays, do not do that!”
Closing the door behind me, I turned to her. “I have five minutes. Explain.”
Kristen looked at me and rubbed her upper arm. She always did that when she was nervous. “Well, um, ya see…”
“Five minutes,” I reminded her. “Spill it.”
“Devin caught a certain blue-eyed knight in shining armor…name starts with an R…”
My brain short-circuited for a minute. “Wha…what?” We froze for a few seconds, praying no one heard. I let out a sigh once we were sure it was okay.
“He’s in the basement. I was gonna tell you, but I had to be sure,” she said quickly.
“Sure? Sure of what?” I practically shouted. Kristen shushed me. I sighed again.
“I wanted to make sure he wasn’t just another maniac dumbass who was just promising you a way out just to get into your pants,” she whispered harshly. “We’ve known each other a long time and I would actually like to see you happy. Well, know you were, at least.”
Forcing back tears, I nodded. “Ryder isn’t like that. When I asked him if there was anything I could give him to pay for the room, he looked at me like he didn’t have a clue about what I was talking about. He probably didn’t. He’s very naïve.” I smiled at that. I loved my naïve, dumb boy.
“Good.” Kristen hugged me tight. “I’m so glad. He told me he wouldn’t hurt you, and I believed him, but hearing you say that confirmed it.”
“Layla, two-minute warning!” Devin yelled from the kitchen.
“Shit. I really do need to use the bathroom.”
Kristen chuckled. “Go, I’m still sleeping, okay?”
“Okay, sweet dreams, girl.” With my hand on the knob, I turned back to her. “You will get to see me happy. We’re going to have weekly happiness parties when we get the hell out of here. And we are going to get out. I promise.”
It hurt to walk after I left Devin’s bedroom that afternoon. The other girls were out running for him. He was getting ready to leave to go smoke weed, still grumbling about how I made him late. If he didn’t want sex all the time now that I owed him, maybe he wouldn’t be late. But he never saw it that way. His mistakes were everyone else’s fault.
He got thrown in juvie at the age of nine? His dad was never around. He was kicked out of school at eleven for having pot in his backpack? Someone gave him drugs and now he was hooked. He dropped out of school at sixteen? The teachers were idiots. Boy, you sure learned a lot about a person when you spent more than one night in their bed.
Apparently, I was easy to talk to. That’s what most of my boyfriends in high school said. Funny, because I thought I was just easy. I put out on the first date, if it was even a date in the first place.
Sex felt good. I wasn’t going to deny my body something because it ‘wasn’t appropriate for a girl my age’. That was like denying yourself chocolate because it made you fat. It didn’t make sense to me. If there was one thing I learned in my years spent hopping from one drug dealer to another, it was that life was too short to deny yourself anything. You liked sex? Do it. As long as you were smart about it, of course. You wanted chocolate? Eat as much as you want. If it made you happy, do it.
Drugs were another story. I wish I’d never danced with that devil. Escaping was damn near impossible. I’d give anything to take back the first time I did drugs. My whole life would be different. I could’ve met Ryder at the gas station, buying a pack of cigarettes. Or in the produce aisle of a grocery store. Or at a bar, hanging out with my friends. Not waking up in his house after he played hero for a broken girl he didn’t know.
But I couldn’t change it, obviously. So, here I was, stuck with a douchebag who I owed money to while the first really good guy that walked into my life was locked up in said douchebag’s basement. Yeah, I was a real winner.
Tiptoeing down the stairs even though no one was home except Kristen, I held my breath. What if he wasn’t there anymore? What if one of Devin’s boys had dragged him out of the house and shot him while I was in Devin’s room? What if this was all one terrible, beautiful drug dream, and I was back in the Room, never having met Ryder in the first place? That thought had crossed my mind more than once.
“Ryder? Are you down here?” I whispered.
Chains rattling. “Layla? Layla! Are you okay?”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine. Are you okay?” I asked, hugging him tight.
He chuckled. “Never known you to be the affectionate type.”
I slapped his arm. “Be quiet, stupid.”
“I’m glad you’re okay, Sweetheart. What the hell happened to your finger?”
“Long story, Blue Eyes, now shut up.” Pulling a chair up to him, I hopped up and tried untying his chains. I couldn’t get them untangled with my derpy taped-up finger in the way. “Shit. Fuck. I can’t untie them.”
He chuckled bitterly. “Great. I’ll just hang here forever.”
“You didn’t happen to bring a chainsaw with you, did ya, Blue Eyes?”
“I don’t think chainsaws can cut through actual chains, Sweetheart.”
I laughed. “You think I’m in this situation because I’m smart? I didn’t even graduate high school, Mr. College Class.”
“Would you go back?”
I hopped off the chair before I fell from trying to yank on the chains. “What? I don’t think it’s possible to ‘go back’ to high school. I’d probably be arrested. And considering I just received heroin less than twenty-four hours ago, which I might add I did not ask for, getting arrested wouldn’t be good.” I was still pissed at Devin for getting me high without my consent. I gauged Ryder’s reaction carefully.
He looked pissed.
“I’m going to castrate him with a chainsaw if I ever get my hands on him.”
Not the reaction I was expecting. I was expecting Ryder to be mad at me, at how I could let him do that to me. I would be mad at me. I was mad at me. How could I have let him do that to me?
“Need some help, Lay-Lay?”
My heart froze. He wasn’t supposed to be back yet. I still had a good two hours before he came home. He did everything like clockwork. Why the hell was he back? Maybe if I didn’t turn around, he wouldn’t appear. Maybe it was just an auditory hallucination brought on by years of drug abuse.
“It’s not polite to keep your back turned to someone who is speaking to you, Layla.”
My heart was pounding in my ears and I felt like passing out. I wanted to scratch his eyes out for hurting Ryder. I wanted to bash him over the head for every girl he’d ever put in the Room. I wanted to make sure he never hurt anyone again.
Turning around, I glared at him. He didn’t even flinch, just looked at me with that irritating smirk. “That’s better. Something on your mind?”
“You’re going to untie Ryder and let him walk away.”
Devin laughed. “Now what makes you think I’m going to even consider doing that?”
“Layla, please don’t do anything stupid,” Ryder said. I could hear the fear in his voice.
“I am done letting you control me! For years, all I’ve ever done is let guys use and abuse me as much as they wanted. But I’m done. Every girl you’ve ever fucked over is going to watch you fry in the chair.”
“I highly doubt that. I have my ways of getting out of those types of situations. Who do you think the police will believe: a girl strung out on drugs or a respected citizen of the law?”
My stomach turned at his words. “Your drug screen won’t come back clean.”
“When’s the last time you’ve seen me put a needle in my arm?”
I didn’t answer. I hadn’t seen him shoot up since I came back. He took my silence as confirmation.
“Exactly. I’ve been clean for weeks, more than enough time to flush it out of my system. Rule number one of the trafficking biz, Layla. Don’t let the drugs control you. I’m what’s known as an on-and-off user. I can get high with the best of them, but I can stop if I need to. Admittedly, only for a short while. Detox was and always will be a bitch, but worth it if I don’t get caught.”
“On and off?” I asked dumbly. My mind couldn’t comprehend that phrase connected to drugs. It was all or nothing with me. I was either on drugs or I was clean. An in-between state didn’t exist for me.
He smirked. “That’s a foreign concept for you, isn’t it?”
“Okay, even if you do pass the test, you still have five other girls willing to testify to all the fucked-up shit you did to us,” I said, refocusing on my point.
“Simple solution too. I was looking for a fresh start. Have been for a while actually.”
My jaw practically hit the floor. He was planning to kill us? How long had that idea been in his moth-eaten brain? There was no way he could cover up that many murders at once.
“You’re bluffing.”
Reaching behind him, he pointed his gun at me. The shiny black metal of the hand gun was all I saw as I looked straight down the barrel. My whole body froze. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t run. Black spots danced in front of my vision. I was going to pass out like I had at the park.
“Don’t touch her!” Ryder yelled. I squeezed my eyes shut as Devin pulled the trigger. The shot was deafening in the open space. A low groan made me open my eyes. Ryder was in front of me. Blood was rapidly staining his favorite white band T-shirt.
“Ryder!” I screamed, kneeling beside him. “How?” It hit me that he was out of his cuffs.
He laughed dryly, his breathing fast. “Dislocate both thumbs and slipping outta cuffs is pretty easy…” With that, he passed out.
Devin laughed. “See, Lay-Lay? You shouldn’t have run. You cost an innocent guy his life. I am surprised he managed to get out of his cuffs fast enough to save you, though. Poor fool. Dying for a girl who isn’t worth anything is pathetic.”
“Dammit, Devin, just shoot me! Get it over with!” I stood up and placed myself in front of Ryder. He wasn’t dead. He was still breathing, but I wasn’t a doctor. I didn’t know how long he’d be breathing. I didn’t know if the bullet had done any damage.
Devin smirked at me. “You aren’t getting off the hook that easy, Lay-Lay.”
I felt something hard strike the back of my head and I blacked out.