“Do you know where I found her, arsehole?” I ask, finally raising my voice. He shakes his head. “Coked out in the middle of the fuckin’ road.”

“She pulled my gun on me. She shot me, man.” He whimpers. “I know I fucked up, but I didn’t think she’d actually shoot me.”

“She’s a fucking junkie!” I roar, and then I bend over and knock his hand away from his shoulder. Finding the bullet hole, I sink my fingers inside until his screams fill the night around us. “What the fuck else did you expect?”

“I’m sorry, man.” He groans. Jesus fuck. The kid sounds like he’s fuckin’ dying.

“I found her arse lying face-down in the middle of the road.” I slide my finger free and wipe it on the hem of his shirt. Fucker’s lost a hell of a lot of blood. He must have been making his way back to the house and just given up halfway there. Stupid, spoiled little fuck.

Killer’s face contorts again with pain or fear, I don’t know which, and I don’t much care either. “Is she dead?”

“No, she’s not fucking dead,” I snap. “No thanks to you.”

I grasp his chin in my blood-stained hand, glaring down into his eyes. “You fucked up, kid.”

“Are you gonna kill me?”

“I fuckin’ oughta.”

“I’m sorry, man. I didn’t think she’d pull on me. I’m fucking bleeding out all over the place anyway, I’ve been out here for hours.”

“You’re fuckin’ lucky Prez likes you, ya little shit. Otherwise I’d be driving a bullet through your skull. Now get your punk arse up.” I tuck my gun away and pull him to his feet. He stumbles, and I know he ain’t going anywhere else tonight after he bled out all over my yard, so I help him walk back to the house. Before I take him in though, I grab his T-shirt in my fists and lift him off the ground. He hisses with pain. The shirt’s cuttin’ into the fresh little bullet hole Ivy put in his shoulder. I gotta teach her how to aim better.

“You listen to me. You ever bring drugs around her again, you try fucking her again and I will cut off your dick and feed it to Butch here, you got me?”

He raises a hand in surrender. “I didn’t fuckin’ touch her. I swear.”

“Oh I know, I’m just reminding you,” I say and slam my head forward into his. He drops to the porch like a sack of shit, doesn’t even make a fuckin’ sound, but he’s unconscious, and that’s all I fuckin’ care about. I throw him over my shoulder. Screwing my nose up at the trail of blood marking my front porch, I carry the worthless son-of-a-bitch into the spare room, Ivy’s room, and throw him on the bed. Then I pull out my phone and dial the Butcher. Three hours, he gives me, so I head into the lounge room and find Ivy throwing up all over my couch and floor. I walk over to the fridge for a beer—’cause I feel like I’ve fuckin’ earned one after the day I’ve had—but then I realise that I don’t have any because of that little junkie bitch who’s decorating my sofa with the contents of her stomach.

Some days are fuckin’ diamonds, and others you just want to put a gun to your head.

I jolt awake. The pain is immediate, penetrating every inch of my body. I ache from head to toe. The trembling starts as soon as I lift my head from the pillow.

“Morning, sunshine.” Tank’s booming voice fills all the space in my head, and what little room that’s left for pain is smothered with blinding light as he throws back the curtains.

I groan and bury my head under the covers. I’m in his bed. The sheets smell like his cologne. They’re warm and familiar, though I’ve only slept in here once. It feels safe.

That safety is quickly stripped away when Tank pulls the sheet off of me, and just as I’m about to hide under the pillow, that last little vestige of peace is taken from me too. Tank rips it out from under my head and tosses it across the room.

“Am I in hell?” I mutter through a husky throat and a mouth that feels as though it’s been filled with wet cotton wool.

He laughs, humourless and throaty, and there’s a definite edge of anger in it¸ too. “Not yet, but if I hadn’t found you coked-up in the middle of the road last night, you might have been.”

“Oh God,” I say, and curl into a foetal position. Not because of what he said, but because my stomach begins cramping and my head pounds. Comedowns have never been particularly fun for me, but after being clean for so many days it’s so much worse now.

“Course, Prez is more than a little pissed off because you shot one of his men while you were running away with his coke like a fuckin’ crazy drug-addicted bitch!” he shouts, and I cover my ears, but my hands are wrenched painfully away from my body and I’m pulled to a standing position. I scream and try to struggle free, but I may as well be fighting a mountain with arms for all the good it does me. “And who the fuck do you think had to pay to call the Butcher in to clean that shit up?”

“I’m sorry,” I say, trying to shield myself from his anger. He’s never been violent towards me, not in any real way that hurt, or that I didn’t beg him for, but his anger is a palpable thing now. It fills the room, and it’s so much worse than having him ignore me for days, so much worse than having him wait and watch in silence.

Tank grabs my shoulder with one hand. His other finds my chin and yanks it up toward him. “I’m getting a little fuckin’ sick and tired of cleanin’ up your God damn mess, bitch.”

“I know.” I close my eyes because I don’t want to see the rage, the disappointment in his gaze. My whole body trembles, fingers longing to scratch and claw, to tear open my skin.

I itch. I throb. I ache.

I wish that Tank had just finished me off when he’d found me in the middle of the road. A part of me even craves that now, to have him wrap this thick fingers around my neck and squeeze the life out of me until there’s nothing left. Until the metaphysical strings that tie me to this form break free and float off someplace else. Some place where there is no drugs, no pain, and no memory. Some place where there is only death and nothing else.

“Do you know how fuckin’ crazy you make me? Do you have any idea what it’s like to try and try with you and still get fuckin’ nowhere? Do you know what it’s like to find you in the middle of the God damned road, where any arsehole can come along and pick you up and take you fuck knows where?”

He walks me backward to the en suite and releases me so that I stumble back and fall on my arse, landing on the hard tile. I cry out, but I don’t bother to get to my feet because my body is trembling so hard I doubt my legs could support me.

Tank runs one of his huge hands over his face, raking it up through his hair. “I’m fuckin’ done, bitch. I am done with this bullshit. I thought I could help, but I doubt anyone can save your junkie arse,” he says, and his voice is not so angry now. It’s calm, which is far, far worse. “Get in the shower and clean yourself up, and then I want you out of my fuckin’ house and out of my life for good.”

No. He can’t do that. Not now. Not while my brain is still reeling from the comedown. Not while my nerves are shot, and my body longs to succumb to the heavy weight of exhaustion. I need him. I need this place. At least until I get together enough money to flee the city. If he throws me out on my arse now I’ll have no hope of escaping. My father will come for me and drag me back to that place of nightmares.

“Tank, please. You can’t kick me out. I have nowhere else to go. I can’t be on my own. Please?” I beg. Everything hurts too much. My stomach revolts and my body gives a jarring twang of pain as I scramble across the bathroom tiles on my knees and clutch at his pants leg. “Tank, don’t make me go. I’ll get clean. I’ll play by the rules. No more sneaking out, no more drugs. Please, please?”

My pleading becomes frantic sobs that wrench from my gut, and before I know it I’m clinging to his legs like a child not wanting to be separated from their mother. Tank doesn’t show me any tenderness, though—he’s done with that. He just grabs my shoulder and lifts me, one-armed, to my feet, so that his eyes bore down into mine, and I feel the weight of all his fury directed at me.