Page 63 of Lamb

His crew-cut hair was immune to the dishevelled, harassed visage he was carrying. His shirt was half hanging out of his jeans, his belt having missed one of the loops, and his helmet hung by just its straps around one thick arm. A big green canvas bag was slung over one shoulder with a first-aid bag in one hand and a small box in the other.

“I don’t think my request was that unreasonable.” Lamb shrugged, reaching one hand out for the box.

Mint snatched it back, his cool green eyes molten with frustration and fury. “‘Hey, Mint. Get a hold of some prescription drugs, an IV drip, and hospital supplies.’I expected to do a beer run, not rob the local Walgreens.”

Lamb’s brows knitted into a tight frown, confused by Mint’s wild, spirited actions, as if he could not fathom why such a request might be difficult.

“Well, anyway”—Lamb shrugged him off, raising his hands in mock defeat—“you’ve done your bit. I’ll scratch your favour off my books. Now give me what I asked for.”

“Absolutely not.” Mint shook his head, slinging the medical bag and the big canvas rucksack onto the floor. “If you’re attempting to detox at home without medical supervision, it’s a bad idea. You can’t just google this shit and think you know what you’re doing. It can be stupid dangerous if you do it wrong.”

Lamb glanced down at the bag then slowly back up to his younger brother. “Doesn’t look like you’re here to stop me.”

Mint looked away from Lamb and, for the first time, shot over to me.

I sat on the back of the couch, legs dangling beneath me, swinging. I was sure I looked a state, in nothing but loose joggers, Lamb’s black shirt, and my hair plaited down my back.

Waking after an hour or two of deep sleep, I found myself butt naked with my hair in a single neat plait. It’d taken me a while to orientate myself, but the moment I had, the rush of memories had me out of bed and dressing myself in whatever I could find.

Unable to slide in next to Lamb’s naked body lying out in all its glory, the reminder of what I had done standing at half mass outside the sheets, I had curled up by the window in the cushioned chair again.

I had battled with myself for a while, wondering where the girl whom had so confidently jerked Lamb off had gone. The haze of lust was a powerful one, and I had found myself doing something I had never thought I would. Something I did not know I could. It brought a wild bag of emotions, and an endless conflict with no resolution.

Not to mention my soul slipping out in the confident illusion of the night. I had spoken volumes more of a past I should have buried, not shared. I had opened up about my history for the first time and now felt a bitter wind ring in the hollows of my chest.

Even as the night twinkled on and the sun began to clear the dark sky into a bright but cold day, all I knew was that I did not regret doing it. Only that I did not know what it meant for me next.

“We’ll be starting with four doses a day, and then we’ll whittle it down,” Mint explained, a clipboard appearing in his hands, Lamb over his shoulder, scanning the document. I had missed something while inside my brain, as the two had moved on from combative to collaborative.

“Okay, and at what intervals?” Lamb asked, pointing to something on the chart.

The two began speaking in languages and sentences I did not understand. I watched them for a while, wondering if I had faded into the white background of the house, a ghost in my personal jail cell.

“Do not mind me,” I huffed, earning not even a bit of their attention. “I was just kidnapped and forced here against my will, and now, somehow, I am about to put my body through a world of pain. No need to ask me my opinion or anything …”

That earnt a glance.

Just one.

Unfazed by my comment, Lamb turned back to Mint, showing him something on his phone.

I laughed, but it sounded bitter, throwing my hands into the air and getting up. Lamb had given me a drink over an hour ago, and I had not even known it would have been my last. Lamb was efficient; I would give him that. The second I had made my choice this morning to go ahead with the detox, Lamb had his phone out of his pocket, and Mint was rocking up the next hour with his bag of supplies that looked like he had robbed the closest morgue. Maybe he had.

I was starting to panic that I had been tricked somewhere along the line into agreeing to this stupid plan.

I was aware Lamb was playing his own little Pavlov experiment on me—associating his touches with whiskey and earning my affection in other attentive little ways. I would never tell him I had long stopped needing the whiskey to want his touch. His irresistible little pets and ravishing glances were doing things to me that I could not control, and all I could do was add to the list of things the man was managing to do to me without realising.

Lamb had changed his tactics, but a leopard did not change its spots so easily. Even knowing that, I had let Lamb manage to worm his way in, despite his tricks and the cold truth of who Lamb was at heart. So, how had I let myself think putting my life in his hands was a good idea?

I did not.

That was the problem; I was screwed.

“Let us not do this,” I blurted out, louder than I had anticipated.

Now I had both of their attention.

Lamb’s brows worried into a tight frown.

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