Page 36 of Your Fault

“You’re not taking me to the Midnight, are you?” I asked nervously.

The Midnight was a club where every dealer in the city gathered to do business. Part dive, part dance spot, it was where the worst people in town came to have fun. When we were younger, we usedto hang there and get wild, but then things turned ugly. We’d been in there one night with a guy who moved serious weight for a rich clientele. I decided things were too hot, and I turned to go. But you can’t just turn your back on that life. They gave me an ass whooping I could still remember perfectly: they broke three of my ribs. After that, I definitely wasn’t going back, and I’d never set foot in there again, especially because the thing with my mother and sister happened soon after, and I’d had to go live with Dad again.

“Yeah, but it’s cool. I told you, just a minute. I’ll hand this shit off, get the money, and we’re out.”

I stopped by the corner of the bar. From there, I could see people entering and leaving. I had no interest in running into any dickheads from my past. I squeezed the wheel and watched Lion get out and head for the door.

When I thought sometimes about that part of my life, I couldn’t understand how I’d fucked up so bad. And yet now, when I had everything I needed, when I knew what it was to love another person more than anything in the world, even more than myself, I found myself back in the same shit.

I waited impatiently for Lion to come out, and when he didn’t, I started to feel nervous. Fifteen minutes had passed, and if what he’d said was true, he shouldn’t have needed more than five.

I cursed under my breath, hit the button on the key fob, got out, and slammed the door. As I approached the door, the two bouncers eyed me up.

“Where you think you’re going?” one asked, getting in front of me.

“Hey, easy, bro, I’m just looking for a friend,” I said, counting to ten in my head.

Before he could respond, a guy with facial piercings came out, looked me over, and said, “Let him in.”

The goon scowled at me and stepped aside. I rolled up myshirt sleeves as I passed him, knowing this wasn’t going to end well. My suspicions were right: as I followed the guy with the piercings to the back room, I saw Lion on the ground with a black eye and a split lip.

My fists clenched before I could even think about it, and my entire body was poised to strike.

“Look who we have here.” The voice uttering those words was one I knew very well. Cruz, Ronnie’s friend, the same guy who’d pounded me out that night I’d been stupid enough to walk down the wrong alley in the wrong part of town. When I saw him, memories of everything that had happened with Noah came back to me. I had tried as hard as I could to leave that shit behind, to focus on my future, on Noah, to protect her, to take a different road from the one I had started down as a teenager…but seeing Lion there laid out on the ground, and this asshole surrounded by guys just as bad as him, made all the rage I’d suppressed for months surge back up.

“I knew it would just be a matter of time till you showed your face around here,” Cruz said, leaning back on the table behind him. His black hair had grown out and was now pulled into a little ponytail. His arms were covered in tattoos, and from his eyes, I could tell he was high, even if I didn’t know on what. “Your friend owes us money. He was smart bringing his rich friend here to bail him out.”

I looked away from him and back toward Lion, who was staring at the ground.

“I don’t owe you shit, motherfucker. You better go ahead and make some other plan to get your money back because you ain’t getting shit from me.”

I chose each of my words carefully. I had no idea how I was going to get out of there. Lion was done for. Deep down, despite my anger, I felt bad for him, seeing him still caught up in that world I’d escaped. But at the same time, I was so pissed, I wantedto whoop his ass, too, for being an idiot and for dragging me into his bullshit.

Cruz walked over to me slowly.

“You know…it’s too bad Ronnie ended up in the big house, but for me, it worked out perfectly. Everything he had is now mine…so listen closely.” He stopped a foot from my face. “I’m not as dumb as he was. Your little friend here owes me three thou. I’m gonna get it back. I’ll take it in cash, or I’ll take it in blood, you decide. You make things even, and we’re good, or I’ll fuck him up so bad, his momma won’t recognize him.”

I clenched my jaw, trying to keep the one thing that mattered in my mind: Noah. I didn’t want problems. I wasn’t looking for a fight. Jenna popped into my head. If she saw Lion like that, let alone worse, her heart would break.

“I don’t have three thousand in cash. I’m not a drug dealer like you.”

Cruz cracked up laughing, and his lackeys followed suit.

“Don’t worry, pal, we got an ATM around the corner. We can go together. What do you think?”

I took a deep breath to keep myself from knocking him flat and turned toward the door. I knew they would follow me. We needed to get out of there. Even if we did give them the money, we were risking our lives being there. If we had been on neutral ground, it might have been a different question…

Once we were outside, the fresh air cleared my head, and I took a quick glance around to take stock of the situation. There were guys standing on corners in groups, an unhoused person or two, two girls talking with three guys in a car. I needed to bounce.

Lion edged over to me while Cruz and his three friends followed us to the ATM two blocks away.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” I said, stomping my feet. Even if he was my best friend, he deserved to pay for this.

“They played me,” he excused himself, then spit on the ground. “They told me I could sell the blow, and whatever I couldn’t move, I could just bring back to them, and now they’re saying I’ve got to pay for whatever I didn’t get rid of. They’re scum.”

“You’ve got a bigger problem than those assholes, and you need to figure out how to solve it,” I said, walking toward the machine.

Cruz hurried over. I was losing my patience, so I turned around and hissed, “Stop fucking around… Give me some distance, or I swear I’ll rearrange your face.”

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