Page 1 of Marlin's Faith

1

Marlin……

I stared out of the floor to ceiling windows of the safe house’s master bedroom and asked, “That you bobbing out there, Captain?” The running lights were just that, indistinct lights, rising and falling gently with the swell of the sea. No telling if it were the Captain or not, but with Hope as feisty and insistent on remaining with her sister, I had to guess it was.

“Yep,” Cutter grated into my ear. I smiled to myself.

“Oh, cool; night then.” I lowered the phone and ended the call with a heavy sigh.

I looked back over my shoulder; she was asleep… for now. Her pale skin was washed out and made nearly translucent by the moonlight. Her long blonde hair, so brittle, crackled around her face like spider silk. Deep, dark, circles were etched under her eyes, a combination of the drug, fatigue, stress, and the cherry on top? Malnourishment. Her body was so frail, her bones standing out in high relief, her cheek bones standing out so sharply, they could cut.

Still, she was beautiful. One of the prettiest girls I’d ever seen. She made Hope look ugly by comparison and Hope was a fucking knock out.Twice over,when you stopped to think about it.

Faith’s brows were drawn down, her lovely face pinched with pain and sorrow, even in sleep, and I was afraid it was only going to get worse. We’d had quite the candid conversation downstairs after Cutter and her sister had left. I’d taken her into the living room and sat her down and talked to her about what she could expect if she did this the way she wanted to.

“How do I do this?” she’d asked me, licking her lush lips and biting them together.

“A day at a time, Darlin’.”

“What’s going to happen to me?”

That had been hard to tell her, the truth of it, that she was gonna be sick fordayswith how bad her body wanted what she was on. There was no real way to gauge how long she’d be sick; not with no tellin’ how long she’d been on the shit they’d been pumping into her veins. She was looking at a good couple of weeks of the physical stuff. A couple of weeks of pure hell, livin’ with something aping the worst case of the flu she’d ever had, times a hundred or more.

“I can’t remember the last time I had the flu,” she’d said, drawing her knees to her chest, resting her chin on them. She’d pleaded with me, with her eyes, before her voice had caught up to her.

“Please, just tell me what to expect. I can’t stop it and not knowing…”

“I get you,” I’d told her softly. She was gonna be brave. Sometimes it’s almost better not knowing, but she’d wanted to know, so I’d told her the truth. The pain, the aches, and fatigue. That’s how it would start. She’d be irritated, agitated beyond measure for no reason at all. Then, the tears would start. Like she’d sprung a leak. Pouring down her face, til she was sick of ‘em, but it wasn’t crying; not really, near as I could tell. Her eyes would just be watering, tearing up something terrible. Then, the sweating and the not being able to sleep when all she would want would betosleep to get away from the symptoms. Except she wouldn’t and that was just the beginning.

Next would come therealsick. The cramping that would be so bad she would beg to be killed. Then the throwing up and the runs. She’d be sick to her stomach, sweating and shivering as the poison gave up its hold and her body fought to hang onto it. By the time I finished talking the tears had run silently down her face and she’d looked more afraid not less.

“I won’t go anywhere, I promise. You won’t have to do it alone.”

“Did you?” she’d asked then.

“Did I what?”

“Go through it alone?”

“No, Darlin’. I never went through it at all…”

“Then how do you know about this? About what’s going to happen?”

“I’ve helped someone through it before,” I’d told her honestly.

“Who?” she asked.

“My little brother, Danny was his name.”

“Oh… what happened to him?”

“He died.”

I’d failed him. Couldn’t keep him off it. He’d gone back to it after I’d cleaned him up and took too damn big a dose and killed himself. Faith had looked so solemn then. She’d raised those startling aquamarine eyes to meet mine and we’d sat in silence for a long time. That’s when the Captain had shown up with my shit.

I’d watched her carefully as they’d had their little exchange of words and he’d left to go back to his woman, Faith’s sister… which damn but those two didn’t look nothin’ alike.

“Am I going to die? I mean is there a chance..?” she asked softly.

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