2

“Ow,” Tilly murmured through chapped lips as her knee scraped cold asphalt. Then the shivers started. She tried adjusting what she’d wrapped herself with, but that much movement brought the pounding in her head.

“Ugh.” She kept her eyes closed and stuck her tongue out a few times, mouth feeling stuffed with dirty cotton. Now her head throbbed like it always did when sleep faded away and the day began. And she itched. An internal itching that demanded a chemical fix. She had a little weed left, but that wouldn’t scratch the itch. She needed something stronger to face the day.

Her eyebrows scrunched together tight as an internal conversation began about where she would go, who she could count on to help her. The list of people willing to help grew shorter every day.

The voices made her focus, made her realize it must be later than she thought and she should have already been gone. Shifting position as cautiously as she could, she opened her eyes, squinting as bright vehicle lights hit like pinpricks.

Three men. Two were tall; for the third, she could only see a shadow of a short, thick body.

Could they see her? Fear slapped and then dissipated. She was safe; it was still somewhat dark, and the men talking were illuminated only by the taillights of two vehicles. They weren’t just talking; they were arguing.

“. . . you’re all in whether you want to be or not,” said the short man.

“Hang on a second. This was supposed to be voluntary, free to stop at any time.” There was something in this man’s voice she recognized.

“It’s too profitable now. You can’t quit. You want us to keep your secret, you keep ours and help us when we need it.”

The two tall men had their backs to her; the shorter man stayed in the shadows. They were so focused on each other that she relaxed a tad. She was tucked in a corner behind a Dumpster, the smell of putrid decay and rotting garbage so familiar to Tilly that she was nearly oblivious to it. Decay, dirt, and disgusting things cloaked her, kept her hidden. Invisible was good as far as Tilly was concerned. People often passed her on the street without looking her direction, without seeing her. Most of the time she liked it that way, unless she was looking for handouts. Now, something inside warned her that it was imperative these men didn’t see her. The argument, the setting—they wanted to stay as concealed as she did. She would give them no reason to look behind the Dumpster.

The tall man who’d protested about things being voluntary tried to walk away, and the other tall man grabbed his arm, spun him around, and slammed him against the back of a truck. She jumped at the solid thud of the man against the vehicle, then held her breath, but no one paid her any attention. She focused on the truck for a moment. It was a business-type truck; she could see part of a logo.

The men raised their voices.

Was there going to be a fight?

“All right, all right,” the man whose voice she recognized said tersely as he shoved the other man away. “You win. Just give me what I need and I’ll cooperate.”

“Keep your voices down,” the short man hissed. “There’ll be no more talk of leaving. We need each other.”

She struggled to place the tall man’s voice but his name eluded her. The truck was also familiar; it belonged to him. The other two guys were speaking in harsh whispers now; she couldn’t make out what was being said.

She’d been born and raised here, and even though people often thought she was stupid or crazy, there were few locals she didn’t know. And she understood a lot more than she let on. She’d learned an important life lesson a long time ago: Play crazy and people will leave you alone.

“Just so we’re clear.” The third man stepped from the shadows and handed something to the man she’d recognized.

Tilly focused on the item. The writing on the box was familiar. She blinked hard and squinted in the low light. She recognized the design.

Drugs. The good stuff—pharmaceutical-grade drugs, the kind doctors had long since stopped giving Tilly prescriptions for. That was way more than a box of samples. Desire flared and she leaned forward as far as she dared, transfixed now by the conversation.

The man accepting the box was certainly not a doctor. She bit back a snort of derision as he put the boxes in his truck and his name popped into her head. He was a hypocrite! He was the one most likely to spit in her direction and call her a filthy drug addict. She guessed the others were no different. Upstanding citizens.

Thankful that her thoughts were generally clearer in the morning than they were at any other time of day, and that she hadn’t burst out a snort that gave her away, Tilly continued to watch. She saw cash changing hands—lots of it—and lots of boxes of drugs.

The short man spoke, but she caught only a few words—middle school, she thought.

Tilly blinked. It was getting harder to focus as the itch grew more insistent. Part of her yearned to get her hands on the product they were obviously preparing to distribute. She was already starting to shake with the need for a dose. But inside her foggy, drug-dulled mind, she believed the men were talking about a new market for drugs. About high schools and middle schools.

“Hook ’em early, we’ll always have a business.”

Something sparked inside Tilly. She looked around as if seeing the dirt she lived in for the first time. She hadn’t always lived this way.

Kids. Memories folded into her foggy brain. She was clean, smelling of lilacs, and with her nieces. They called her Aunt Tilly, Silly Tilly, and together they laughed until their sides hurt. She lifted one grimy hand and studied it. She could almost feel that small little hand in hers. True, she rarely saw them and wasn’t sure about how many she had now, but did she want her nieces and nephews to end up behind Dumpsters?

Tears fell and Tilly rubbed her face with the grimy hand.

The men continued to discuss their business and the amount of money they made off of stupid people. Tilly knew she fit into that category. She’d stepped off a cliff into drug use and could not see a way to ever climb out of the valley she was in. She wasn’t certain if the men were still talking about kids. Tilly recognized that she was hearing bits and pieces of a complicated strategy, but already the fog was building in her mind and she was having difficulty processing everything the men were saying.

Long after they’d gone, Tilly stayed quiet, trying to remember what she could of all she’d seen and heard. Though most of her ached for a dose of something that would drown out the world and its pain, make her forget the men, part of her rebelled. She had to tell someone; she had to expose them, stop the cycle, prevent someone else from ending up in her self-made Dumpster hellhole. But would anyone believe her?

After a couple of minutes, she realized there was someone who would believe her. Glen—she had to find Glen.