Page 68 of The Order of Disorder
“Come on now,” he says, mock-gentle. “You don’t have to pretend you don’t want them.”
He steps closer. Holds out the pills.
“I said no.”
“Max.” His voice flattens. “You’re gonna take them, or I’m gonna have Cash hold your mouth open.”
I don’t believe him. But I also do.
So I hesitate, and then take them with shaking fingers.
“Good girl,” Billy murmurs.
He hands me a bottle of water from the nightstand. Watches as I raise the pills to my mouth. I press two of them between my tongue and cheek, tuck the others in my fist.
I pretend to swallow.
He nods once, satisfied. “Let’s go.”
As soon as we step into the hallway, I duck my head. One sharp cough into my hand and the pills land sticky against my palm.
I keep them there, clenched tight, as they lead me out of the hangar—a fist full of poison, a small rebellion burning in my hand.
Outside, the sky is overcast, slate grey and close. A black SUV waits in front of the hangar doors. Cash opens the back door and stands aside while I climb in, the silk dress whispering against the vinyl seat. Before circling to the driver’s side, he hands me the leather case.
It looks like a fancy makeup bag, with a flat top and a handle, and a zipper that goes all the way around. On the side, a black-and-white screaming skull emblem sticker has been slapped on it.
Billy leans in, his arm on the doorframe. “Give that to Mr. White, and be sweet, Max. Don’t embarrass me.”
Then he swings the door shut, straightens, and waves toward the gate. The guard nods, raises the barrier, and Cash starts the car and pulls out.
Mr. White.AKA the senator. I assumed as much, but this confirmation makes my blood turn to ice.
The last time I got into a car like this out front of the hangar it was to see the senator, too. He sat in the back seat, already waiting, and Billy handed me a glass of wine and told me to drink it.
“It’ll help you relax,” he said.
It didn’t.
I remember the way the cheap dress rode up my bare thighs, how cold the leather felt against the backs of my legs even through the haze starting in my head. I remember the senator’s hand creeping higher. The panic breaking through the drugs. Billy stepping out of the car, the door closing behind him. My fingers finding the handle, yanking it open.
Back then, I jumped out of the car and hit the gravel running—sneakers slipping on frozen mud, no coat, bare legs in the February wind. I ran until my legs gave out, until the trees swallowed the sound of my breathing, until I collapsed on a porch I didn’t recognize. Ryder’s porch.
And now here I am again. Dressed to please. On my way back to the man who made me claw through snow just to stay alive. But there’s no way Billy will let it go wrong this time, no way Cash will let me run.
My fingers curl tighter around the four oxycontins still clutched in my palm, chalky and sticky from the heat of my skin.
The hotel is about as different from the hangar as it is possible to be. Glass, gold, and polish. Polite bellboys in white gloves. Cash presses a hand to my back as we walk through the lobby. It smells like bleach and roses—expensive and sterile.
A sleek reception desk stretches across one side of the room. White marble top, gold trim, a glowing lamp on either end. Behind it, two clerks in tailored uniforms answer the phones and greet guests, polite smiles fixed in place. Everything is lit soft, designed to soothe.
But nothing soothes the iron band around my ribs.
A call is made upstairs. We’re told to wait.
We sit in a pair of absurdly ornate chairs that look like they belong in a Versailles waiting room, not a Wyoming hotel. On the counter near the elevator bank is a small landline with a printed sign above it that says:Courtesy Phone—Local Calls Only.
“I need to call Billy,” I say, standing. My voice is steady. My insides are not. “He didn’t give me the routing number for the transfer. He’s gonna lose it if I get it wrong.”
