His sister killed herself.

When he was thirteen years old, he’d come home from school to find her hanging in the basement. Her long light brown hair shrouded most of her face, but he still glimpsed her skin which was pale and bluish. Shocked and horrified, he’d collapsed to the floor blacking out.

When he’d come to, he was surrounded by paramedics. His sister was covered in a black bag. Loud, shrill screaming ruptured his eardrums. To this day, he still didn’t know if it had been his mother’s screams or his own.

Holden pulled the cruiser up to the QT. He jumped out to get a pack of cigarettes. When he got back into the car, he drove away. Dull grey winter days like this reminded him of his sister’s suicide.

It was burned into his memory. He turned up the radio trying not to think of her, but escaping that dark memory proved to be more difficult than he thought.

As the rundown houses whizzed by him, he remembered how awful things had gotten without her.

After Evie had died, his mother had taken to drinking from the time she woke up in the morning until she passed out sometime around 10 PM. Holden was only thirteen at the time still not much more than a boy, but he found himself acting more and more like the parent.

His father had been gone for years. He’d taken off on a ‘bender’ and never returned. His mother had raised him and Evie by herself. She’d been a good mother working two jobs to take care of them. Evie was only fifteen when she died. She hadn’t left any type of note or anything to indicate to them why she’d done it. Holden figured that was probably what did his mother in. The not knowing part was terrible for her. She blamed herself for Evie’s death.

And him as well.

Since Evie’s death, his mother seemed to turn on him. If she wasn’t too drunk to speak, she was screaming at him. She took out every hurt feeling on him. Holden tried not to listen to her venomous words accusing him of killing Evie, but he could only ignore her for so long.

And that’s when he discovered heroin.

By the time he reached his junior year, Holden began falling into the wrong crowd. He skipped school daily. His mother had sunk into a deep depression and lost both of her jobs. They had just been given a 5 day eviction notice.

“Mom, we have to leave!” A few days after the notice came Holden tried shaking her out of her drunken stupor.

“What?” Her words so slurred it came out like ‘Waaa?’

Holden grabbed the crumpled piece of paper and shoved it into her face.

“Look! We have less than 48 hours to leave! We’re being evicted. Mom, do you know someplace we can go?” Holden was frantic. He looked around their tiny house. They didn’t have much, but he still didn’t want to lose anything. His mother was useless. She was too drunk to focus her eyes.

“Holden, it’ll be alright.” She slurred as she fell back to sleep on the broken down couch.

He wadded up the notice and threw it across the room. Infuriated, he threw his winter jacket on. He sifted through his mother’s purse until he found two ten dollar bills. He stuffed them into his pocket before slamming the door.

It was late January and the icy air was brutal. The cold wind was painful as it blasted in his face as he walked down the street. Having lived in northern Minnesota all his life, Holden was used to the cold, but having to live outside on the streets in it would be intolerable.

They would freeze to death out here, Holden realized. He was too young to deal with this. He cursed Evie and their father for having left them. He cursed his mother for not being able to be the mother she once was. He felt all alone.

“Hey, kid, come here.” A deep male voice boomed from behind him.

He spun around and saw a guy about thirty-five or so standing in the doorway of a building. His coat looked warm and soft. His hair was styled to perfection beneath the hood of his coat. A cigarette hung from his lips.

From the way he was dressed Holden assumed he must be a pimp.

What would he want with him?

“Yeah? What do you want?” Holden kept his distance.

“You look pretty cold out here. If you’re interested, I got a job for ya.” He drew long and hard on his cigarette.

“I’m no whore.” Holden mumbled walking away.

The man laughed as he moved towards him.

He blew his smoke in Holden’s face.

“Wasn’t talking about whores, kid. I got some product to move. I thought a kid like yourself could use some money seeing as though you’re out here in the middle of a school day freezing to death.” He flicked his cigarette to the ground.

“What type of product?”

The man smiled. His teeth were white and even. He motioned for Holden to follow him into the building.

It was warm inside. Holden began to thaw as they took the elevator to the top floor. When the doors opened, Holden’s jaw dropped. Inside the derelict building there was a fancy office with a huge desk and leather couches. The walls were covered in a red silk damask. The tables were made of crystal and shone brightly under the lights. Holden whistled.

But he knew what an office like that meant. The guy was a dealer.

“Have a seat, kid. Shelia, will you get---“

“Holden.”

“Holden, a drink please.”

A gorgeous petite redhead nodded and sashayed out of the room.

“So, Holden, what type of money do you want make?”

Holden looked around the room in awe. He sure hadn’t set out to run drugs for anyone. Still, it could keep him and his mother in their home.

“Good, I guess.”

The man cocked an eyebrow at him.

“You guess? Not too sure of yourself are you? Now most people would say all money is good and in a way they’re right. But my definition of ‘good’ money is how you make that money.”

Holden was confused. The guy was a dealer. His money was what most would call ‘bad’.

He popped a cigarette into his mouth and held the pack out to Holden.

“How do you make your money? Make that money, don’t let it make you. You feel me, Holden?”

He took a drag and nodded.

The redhead came back with two crystal goblets and a bottle of scotch.

The guy took the bottle and held it out to Holden.

“Macallan 25. Best scotch there is.” He poured them each a glass. Holden took a sip and winced at how strong it was.

The guy laughed.

“So, you’re not a drinker?”

Holden shook his head.

“That’s fine. Best runners I got aren’t users. Using clouds their minds lets the money make them. Best to keep sober if you can.”

Holden continued to sip the liquid. It burned as he swallowed it.

“I don’t think I introduced myself. I’m Sonny Barbeau. You can call me Sonny. I grew up down here in this neighborhood. It was a fucking dump then and it still is now. I keep my office here, but I live on the North Side of the city.”

Holden nodded. He knew the North Side was where all the rich people lived.

“Now I didn’t go to school, Holden. Fact is, I dropped out in the ninth grade. What grade are you in?”

“Eleventh.”

“See you’re already smarter than me according to the educational system. But you know how much money I cleared last year?”

Holden shook his head.

“Let’s just say it paid for my $125,000 Mercedes. It paid for my $500,000 house and it paid for my gorgeous wife and 2 kids.”

His eyes widened as he stared at Sonny.

Sonny beamed at him. He reached into the top drawer of his desk. He threw a tiny plastic bag at him

“This is what pays for all that. Go on, dump it out on the desk.”

Holden dumped the bag’s contents on the desk. It was a whitish powder with a brown tint.

“Put your finger in it then dab it on your tongue.”

Tentatively, Holden dabbed the powder on his finger then touched it to his tongue. It was bitter and had a slightly vinegar taste to it. He wrinkled his nose.

Sonny laughed brushing the powder back into the bag.

“That, my friend, is heroin. Good stuff too. In fact, my heroin is the best on these streets. You sell a bag like that for about $20 and you sell about 100 bags or more a day you’re looking a good little amount of change.”

Holden did the math in his head quickly.

That much money would keep them in their house easily.

“So when do I start?”

Sonny slammed his hand on the desk.

“Not so fast. I gotta know I can trust you. I have a buyer coming over in a few minutes. Let’s say I put you out front. If he trusts you enough to buy from you, then we’re okay. But I got two rules.”

“What’s that?”

“You use, you lose. You’re gone. You steal from me, you’re dead. That simple.” Sonny’s hazel eyes turned dark.

Holden nodded. He just wanted to make some money to give to the landlord.

* * *

After seeing that Holden could handle himself with the clients, Sonny began sending him on runs. Holden quickly made more than enough money to pay their rent. His mother laid around the house in a drunken stupor. She barely realized where she was let alone how Holden was paying the rent.

A year passed and Holden did well with minding Sonny’s rules. He never felt the need to use.

Until she came into his life.

Deanna Davidson.

She was a heartbreaker he mused as soon as she walked into the bar. He was only eighteen, but being an associate of Sonny Barbeau’s no one cared about him being in the bar. He was finishing his fifth beer when a petite girl with long dark hair sashayed into the bar. Her enormous green eyes met his as he admired her luscious curves. Her big tits were pressed against the tight green sweater she wore. Her tight jeans hugged her firm ass. She was so tiny barely five foot tall.

“Hey, D.D.! Can I get you something?” The bartender grinned at her. Her tits jiggled freely as she walked. She threw one leg up over the barstool next to him.

“I’ll have whatever he’s having.” She winked at him.

The bartender sat a bottle of Bud Light in front of her.

“So, who are you? How come I haven’t seen you around here before?”

Holden felt his cock stiffen as her pink full lips encircled the bottle while she took a long drink of the cold beer.

“Maybe you haven’t been looking hard enough.” He winked at her.

“I hear you work for Sonny.” She grinned.

“So you do know who I am.” Holden turned to her brushing his knee against hers. She was so close to him he could look down her sweater. Her tits were so big and firm. He wondered if she knew he was only eighteen.

She finished her beer and slammed the bottle down.

“Of course I do. You’re Holden, the high school kid Sonny hired.”

So she was older.

“How old are you? Some old lady of twenty?” He finished his beer and looked around for a cigarette.

“Not yet. I’m still in high school too, that is, if I ever went. I’m 18.”

“You never told me your name.”

“I’m Deanna, but most of the guys around here call me D.D. because of my tits.” She cupped them in her hands bouncing them.

“I noticed.” He whistled.

“So, Holden, how long are we gonna hang out here before you take me to the back and fuck me?”

He winked at her and then darted into the back of the dingy bar. There in the bathroom their beautiful daughter, Maggie was conceived.