My heart starts thudding inside my chest, blood howling in my ears.

There was someone else there.

There was someone else there.

There was someone else there.

They know.

They know.

They know.

My breath falters as I text back.

Me: Who the fuck are you?

Unknown: You haven’t figured that out yet? I guess I’m not surprised, considering who your parents were. It always took them a while to figure out things too.

I start to shake with rage and chuck the phone without thinking. It ends up going out the window and when it hits the ground, the back pops off and the battery goes flying into a puddle.

“Dammit.” I shove the door open and hop out of the truck. Then I pick up my phone and stare at the battery in the puddle. It’s useless now. And so is my phone for the moment.

“Is everything okay?” Luke asks as he walks up behind me.

I shake my head. “Not really.” Part of me is relieved that they can’t get a hold of me anymore but the other part is frustrated, worried they actually know something and now I’ve ruined my way of finding out. I need to call Detective Stephner and at least tell him, but his phone number is saved in my contacts.

Sighing, I turn around and face Luke to show him my phone, then point at the battery on the ground behind me. “I think it’s broken… I’m going to have to find a way to get a new one as soon as we get to Vegas.” I flip the phone over in my hand, trying to figure out if it’ll still work with a new battery. There’s a scratch or two, but that’s it. “Maybe just a new battery though.”

“That’s fine, but…” He frowns. “What happened? Did you drop it?”

I shake my head. “No, I threw it out the window.”

He struggles not to ask why, crossing his arms, an energy drink clutched in his hand. “Can I ask why?”

So polite. “Because I got a text message that made me angry.”

He wants to drill me with questions—I can see it on his face. But he doesn’t. “Should we hit the road? We still have a couple more hours to go and I’d like to get there before lunch time.”

He’s changed his t-shirt, but still has the same pair of jeans on. There are bags under his eyes, his lips look chapped, his skin pale, and he’s kind of hunching to the left, probably because it hurts where the guy hit him. “Do you want me to drive?” I offer. “You look tired. And sore.”

He shakes his head and raises the energy drink. “No, I’m good. I just need to drink this and… check my blood sugar… I might need a shot… then I’m good to go.” Even his voice sounds weary.

I stick out my hand. “Let me drive, so you can get some rest.”

He hesitates, then stuffs his hand into his pocket and gets out his keys. As he hands them to me, his knuckles graze my palm and I find myself shivering even though I’m not the slightest bit cold. It’s obvious to him by the look he gives me, but he doesn’t say anything about it as I get in the truck and he grabs something out of his bag. When he climbs into the truck, he has this small leather case in his hand. He takes out the pen-shaped object that checks his blood sugar and pricks his skin, reminding me of the night when I found him in the bar and had to do it for him. He checks the screen then shakes his head, clearly annoyed as he retrieves another object out of the bag that has a needle at the end. He takes the cap off, lifts his shirt, but then hesitates, glancing over at me with a mount of wariness in his eyes. I half expect him to tell me to look away. I almost want to too, but I can’t seem to break eye contact, our gazes somehow welded together.

He ends up squeezing his eyes shut like a scared child afraid of needles. His hands quiver as he puts the needle into his abdomen and injects himself. There’s something strangely intimate about the moment; I can’t even explain it. Like no one has ever seen him do this to himself and he’s afraid to let me see it, but also afraid to be alone. I remember how he told me his mother made him inject her with heroin. Doing this has to be hard for him, painful, aching, and not just physically.

This bubble starts to form around us. Reality slips away. I find myself drifting toward him, wanting to hold his hand, wanting to comfort him, but then suddenly he’s done and just like that the bubble pops and reality comes rushing back to me and weighs me down once again.

Luke

“The names of the buildings are amusing,” Violet remarks, gazing down at a map I had in my bag of the Las Vegas strip. We’re parked at a gas station just on the outskirts of the busy city, trying to figure out where to go. It’s mid day, stifling hot, and my truck has no air conditioning so we’re practically melting. “Oh, I want to stay in Caesar’s Palace,” she says bouncing up and down in the driver’s seat like a little kid in a candy store. She glances up at me and the excitement in her eyes makes me smile just a little, despite how tired I am. “That’s the one from the movie The Hangover, right?”

I nod, glancing over at the strip in the distance. “But we can’t stay there.”

She pouts. Actually sticks out her lip and pouts. She’s never done that before and honestly I’m kind of glad because it’s like a secret weapon that makes it really hard to say no to her. “How come?”

I slide over in the seat toward her, making sure I don’t crowd her space too much. “See all these awesome buildings right here?” I ask, tracing a line up the strip area on the map. “Those are Casino’s and you have to be twenty-one to stay in them.”

“You have a fake ID though,” she says. “Why don’t you use that?”

“Too risky,” I tell her, breathing in her sweet scent and hoping I’m doing it discretely. “We have to be careful. And besides, I’d like to save as much money as possible.”

She’s still pouting as she folds up the map and gives it back to me. “Then where are we going to stay?”

I put the map in the glovebox. “With my uncle.” I reach for the door handle, internally cringing. I never mentioned to my uncle that Violet was coming with me, because I honestly thought there was no way in hell it’d ever happen. So now I’m getting nervous about bringing her with me, not just because my uncle might not be too thrilled, but because of the environment. What the fuck was I thinking, bringing her here? I was thinking selfishly, that’s what I was doing.

“Why do you look nervous?” she wonders as she rolls her window down the rest of the way.

I shrug. “Because of what we’re doing… gambling… being here with my dad’s brother….” Almost unaware, I stretch my arm across the seat behind her as my chest clenches up. “And because of the environment we’re going to be in.”

She gives me a look of sympathy, because she knows about my rocky relationship with my dad—she even walked in while I was freaking out during a phone conversation with him. “And I’m guessing by the wary look on your face that you’re going to be playing at places like Geraldson’s?” she asks.

“More or less.” I dither. “And the place I’m staying at is kind of like Geraldson’s too, at least it was a couple of years ago.”

“That seems kind of dangerous.” A strange look crosses her face as if realizing this makes her interested in something, as if the idea of it being dangerous is almost… turning her on or exciting her. Dammit. It’s like we’re back on the ledge again and I’m starting to wonder just how much she does this, puts herself in these kinds of situations on purpose and why I never noticed it before. Or maybe she didn’t do it when we were first together.

“It’s not that dangerous at his house,” I assure her, but it feels like a lie. A gambler, my uncle Cole cheats his way through life. But desperate times call for desperate measures or whatever and he seemed nice enough the last time I visited here.