Page 73 of Monstrous Travels as Wicked as Sin

“Are you joking? He treats you like shit. He treats everyone like shit, and I’ve had enough of him. As soon as we fix Joe, I’m out.” She pressed her arm against his, softening her tone. “And I want you to leave, too. Come with me. We’ll figure something out.”

Touched, but unrelenting, a small laugh sounded in Leo’s throat, “You don’t get it.”

“I think I do.” She grasped his hand, eyes locked with his in their dark reflection. “I don’t care if you used in the past.” Leo wrenched his hand away and moved for the door. She followed, staying close by his side. “That’s it, isn’t it? He knows that and he sent you to buy it anyway.”

The doors opened, and he paused on the threshold to give her one final instruction. “Stay out of it. I’ll meet you at Crocker’s Folly in St. John’s Wood.”

She shoved him through the doorway and tripped out after him. “I’m buying it. Give me some money.”

She attempted to slide her hands into his pocket, but he dodged back out of her reach. “No! Get back on the train.”

“Fuck off, Leo. I’ll do it by myself.” Althea strode towards an underpass, and the thought of her alone in there scared Leo twenty times more than the slim possibility of her being arrested for buying drugs. Thus kicked into gear, he ran after her, which she must have been expecting because she continued ranting, “He doesn’t care about anyone but himself. I mean, even Joe. Have you seen the way he talks to him?”

Leo scoffed so loud it echoed in the dripping black. “Are you joking? All he does is fuss over Joe. It’s embarrassing.” He put on his poshest voice, which turned out to be a very good approximation of Percy. “‘Has he got his champagne? Did you dry clean his shirts? Can you book us another romantic dinner? Have you got his Halloween costume organised? Extra tight across the crotch. You’ll figure it out.’ And what does Joe contribute? Fuck all.”

Althea splashed in a dubious puddle in her haste to turn on Leo. “He has him chained to a chair, about to shoot his veins full of heroin until he’s dying.”

“And whose fault is that?” Leo threw back. “Joe’s incalculably stupid. If I’m in a haunted house, literally the last thing I would ever do is invite a spirit into my body.”

“He’s kind!”

“He’s dumb! And he makes Percy weak, and he makes Percy do stupid things, and he’s going to get Percy killed one of these days. And if anything happens to him, that prick will wish Percy hadn’t given him the Narcan we’re about to steal.”

He stomped off towards the light, and with Althea three grumpy steps behind, they came out into a dirty intersection, all pigeon droppings and filthy tatters of wet newspaper. Leo kept his momentum into the roughest-looking burger chain restaurant in London, then whirled back on Althea, saying, “Sit here. Don’t move.”

He was out the door. She glanced down at the closest table, sticky with cola, cold clumps of lettuce, stray chips, and mayonnaise-laden chunks of tomato scattered about. She chose to stand and watch him through the window.

Leo relaxed his shoulders, shoved his hands in his pockets, and began a slow strut of the pavement. He looked about, making brief eye contact with any unsavoury character in sight, and she had to hand it to him, he did look shifty. It was maybe sixty seconds until someone wandered up to him. A quick discussion was had, each nodded, and the interloper disappeared. Leo paced. And paced. A couple of minutes later, the man was back. He pressed his hand against Leo’s right there in the street, the exchange was made, and Leo wandered back inside.

Althea thrust her hand straight into his pocket and was successful in plucking out the little plastic package.

“Hey!” Leo shouted.

But she was gone, halfway across the street already. “Narcan?” she called over her shoulder, hearing his shoes on the road behind her.

“Give it back!” he yelled.

“Make me!” She ran down the stairs and broke into a sprint the second her feet hit flat ground.

“Al!” Leo was taller, leaner, faster, but she still made it to the other side of the underpass before he caught up with her, grabbed her arm and spun her around, to find her irritation had given way to amusement. She looked as fresh and excited as she had on the beach in Sicily, and she side-stepped him and twisted away, where he caught her with a hand on each hip and walked her back into the red-brick arch of a wall, her hands shifting behind her back, fists clenching tight around the drug. “Give it to me.”

Leo’s voice was low and firm, his mouth an inch from hers, and his eyes just about as gorgeous as she’d ever seen them. She simply raised her chin and kissed him. One quick peck that she’d been dreaming of giving him for weeks.

Leo’s face went blank. He froze as though she were Medusa and it was the first good look he’d ever had of her. His lips parted and a small flash of alarm leapt to his eyes. Althea took his hand from her hip, and slid beneath his arm, setting a more sedate speed towards the train. “Narcan?”

“I’m still thinking about it,” he mumbled, shoving his hands back in his pockets, sinking into the collar of his coat, studying the asphalt beneath his feet as he wandered after her. “A hospital, I guess?”

“You don’t think a paramedic would be a better bet?”

“I guess.”

“You guess.” She rolled her eyes. “We’ll definitely have to go to a nicer suburb for that if we want them there within the hour.”

He flicked his wrist over to check his watch. “We’ve got forty minutes.”

“St. John’s Wood, then?”

Leo said nothing, which she took as agreement, and they stood on the edge of the platform, a blast of hot air from the tunnel making their outsides almost as much of a mess as their insides were.

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