Page 62 of Cutter's Hope

“Out here if you need me,” I murmured.

“Yeah,” she said, “Not even gonna lie, I’m gonna need you after this,” and then she took top spot for bravest woman I’d ever met, she marched unflinching into that bathroom with my VP and spent the next hour bathing her sister, dosing her long blonde hair liberally with pesticide shampoo while my VP did his best to help keep the fidgety junky victim still. Christ, what a mess.

At one point she booted Marlin clean out of the room, when Faith started getting a little too loud and a little too panicky. Didn’t need someone in a neighboring room not knowing what was what to call the cops.

Marlin dropped heavily into the seat across from me, where I’d been fucking around with some damned game on my phone. I tossed the phone onto the table and gave my First Mate, my second in command, a hard once over.

“You good, Brother?” I asked.

Marlin scrubbed his face with his hands and pressed his fingertips into his eye sockets, “Hell no, it’s like Danny all over again, except he wasn’t half as pretty. You get a load of those eyes?”

“Naw, not really,” I searched my brother’s face, “I gotta be concerned that this is gonna be too much for you?” I asked.

“Yes… No… Hell, I don’t know, Cap’n. Your girl know what comes next?”

“Don’t think so, we’ll have to worry about that when we get to it.”

“I gave her some, but there was no telling how much they had her on. I don’t want to overdo it, we don’t need her ODing on us, but fuck… This is gonna get a hell of a lot nastier before it gets any better.”

“How long you think?”

“Week, maybe two of the real nasty withdrawal symptoms, a full month or more for the rest of ‘em. This ain’t no quick fix brother.”

“Yeah, I figured that.”

“Had Trike hit the local Wally World and grab her some clean sweats, and some shit, hopefully at least clean she’ll feel a little better.”

“I can’t even begin to know what this shit is like, you want I should call in a favor with the guys up North? Reave and his buddy Trig have some firsthand experience with this shit, that doctor of theirs might be of some help too…” but Marlin was already shaking his head no.

“No man, last thing that girl needs is more strange men around her, it’s gonna be an uphill battle just for me to get up and over them walls,” he let out a gusty sigh and I nodded.

“Round two?” I asked when he heaved himself onto his feet.

“Yeah, after I have a smoke.”

Marlin let himself out of the room and I sighed. He was right, there was no quick fix for this shit. I closed my eyes and listened to the wretched sobbing coming from the cracked bathroom door, and the soothing sounds my girl made as she tried to fix up her busted sister. It wasn’t pretty in any way, shape or form.

29

Hope…

I lay staring across Cutter’s gently rising and falling chest at my sister perched on the edge of the bed next to ours. She was sleeping the sleep of the exhausted, her brow drawn down, creased with some nightmare as she lay curled on her side, facing us. She was in an oversized tee shirt and some black stretchy yoga pants that were still a size too big for her but were better than the filthy stained dress we’d found her in.

Marlin and I had gotten her cleaned up as best we could but he’d had to put more of that poison in her veins to calm her the fuck down. I didn’t blame her, but it broke my heart and killed a piece inside of me to see what kind of a state she was in. Marlin and I talked about it. He seemed to know his shit and he’d finally shared exactly why he did and my heart broke all over again, for him this time.

When Faith had gone all dreamy eyed and out of it and we were sure he hadn’t given her too much, we’d been able to take stock of what was what with my sister. She was a mess. Bruises on her arms where she’d been held were bad, but the bruises on her thighs, that’d made me murderous all over again.

She was malnourished, lice ridden, track marked and some ofthosewere infected. There was no telling if she had any STD’s but probably. I prayed that whatever she did have, when we got her checked out in Florida, that it was all shit that was treatable. I was terrified she had HIV or Hepatitis, both from the rapes and from the needles they’d been shoving into her flesh.

“Hey… shh,” Cutter’s voice was low and soothing as I choked back a sob, stuffing the back of my hand into my mouth to try and quell it. It made Marlin look over from where he sat behind my sister, back against the headboard, arms crossed over his chest, legs straight and crossed at the ankle in front of him. He looked like some kind avenging guardian sitting behind my sister like that and I was grateful for it. That her situation tripped all his protective instincts because just after trying to bathe her and get her fixed up I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I just wasn’t equipped for this. I didn’t have the first clue on how to fix this. I was fucking lost without these guys.

Cutter’s hand smoothed up and down my back, and he made soothing sounds like I was some messed up child and for once, I let myself be just that. I let him hold me, and comfort me and believed the lie, “It’s gonna be okay…”

I needed to believe it, not just for me but for Faith and even Charity. Oh God. Char. I hadn’t called her, hadn’t told her we’d gotten Faith back but looking across at Faith, shit. I couldn’t call Blossom just yet. Not when I was staring at this tweaked out broken junkie girl wearing my sister’s face. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I mean, I knew I had to but I didn’t have toright now,did I?

“Hey,” Cutter nudged me.

“What?” I asked looking up at him.

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