Page 6 of Under the Ink

“Yeah, we better.” Might as well, considering his cock had already deflated.

“I think he’s hurting her,” Amber said as they walked toward the bedroom.

“Jimmy’s not like that.”

But what if he was?

Sage sucked a deep breath of air through his nostrils as they approached the door. Rapping on it lightly, he asked, “Is everything okay in there?” He expected the couple to tell him to fuck off and mind his own business.

Instead, the woman with stringy blonde hair pulled the door open so fast, Sage almost jumped. “I can’t wake him up!”

“What do you mean?”

“He won’t wake up,” she screamed as if Sage were deaf or stupid. Sage looked over at his friend on the bed, his head propped up by a pillow leaning against the wall, slack-jawed and unresponsive.

Something didn’t seem right.

“What were you guys doing?” Sage asked, getting closer while ignoring how the woman’s boob was hanging out of her green tank top. When he saw the rubber tourniquet lying on his friend’s lap, he knew. But instead of looking at the dumb broad, he tried opening Jimmy’s eyes. “You guys were doing smack?”

“Yeah.”

“Anything else in it?”

“What?”

Was she a complete idiot or just blitzed out of her mind? “Was it cut with anything? Was there fentanyl or anything else in it?”

“No. Just H.”

He looked straight at her, determined to get an answer. “You know for sure?”

The woman’s big brown eyes reminded Sage of a trapped animal. “Ididn’t put anything in there, if that’s what you’re saying.”

God, she was fucking stupid—and asking her was getting them nowhere. Jimmy’s eyes didn’t look right, and Sage couldn’t have explained that if he’d wanted to, so he grabbed his friend’s wrist, feeling for a pulse.

Nothing.

Not a goddamn thing.

“Jimmy. Jimmy!” Even though he knew it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference, he held his friend’s shoulders and shook him gently. Turning, he growled, “Would one of you call 911?”

“Oh, God, yeah.” At least the girl Jimmy had picked for him had half a brain.

Of course, she wasn’t high.

The girl started talking into the phone. “We were partying and, uh, we have somebody, um…”

“It’s a drug overdose,” Sage shouted.

“We think he overdosed.”

Sage might have had a few beers in his body, but he was coherent enough. It had been years, but at one time, he’d been certified in CPR. It might not work now, but it was worth a shot.

Chest compressions to the beat of “Stayin’ Alive.”

Bringing back to lifewas what Sage was hoping, but it wasn’t looking good…

WINCHESTER, COLORADO

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