Shrouded

.II.

No one chased me out of the library. Or, at least, I didn't notice if they did. I booked it a few blocks away anyway, and finally stopped, winded, in front of an abandoned apartment building. I bent over, hands on my knees, breathing hard. Raindrops pattered onto my back, making little thumps where they hit my coat.

I didn't have to run often, which was just as well, because just from that short burst of exertion, my head was light and dizzy, and my lungs heaved. I hadn't eaten well in a while, and when my limbs stopped shaking, hunger clawed at my gut like an angry cat.

I couldn't sell the ring. A young, scruffy girl, waltzing into a pawn shop with a ring that she could only have stolen? No, thank you. I'd be caught and thrown back into a foster home faster than anything.

I knew why my feet had carried me to the apartments. 

The neighborhood wasn't bad, despite the couple of run down buildings. It was a lower income area, but still patrolled by police regularly, so I had to be cautious not to be seen when I snuck around the back of the building, slipping through rusty chain links, ignoring the 'No Trespassing' signs. I followed a neon trail of graffiti to the alley behind the apartments, and let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding when I saw him there, leaned against the brick wall of the neighboring building, cloaked in a hoodie and shadows.

Jude.

He looked up at the sound of my sneakers scuffing along the wet pavement, and smiled when he realized it was me. "Hey, 'Dora." His teeth were yellow and black, rotting with neglect, but his smile was kind.

"You know I hate when you call me that." I leaned against the other wall, facing him, and shoved my hands into the pockets of my coat. I stared down at the hardy weeds, doggedly struggling through the cracks in the pavement.

"Suits you, though." I glared at him, and he put his hands up in mock surrender, laughing. "Okay, okay, Theodora," he eyed me up and down. "How old are we today?"

Jude always asked me that. When I had first met him, right after I ran away, he'd told me he had something that would make me feel good, and happy, and safe. That's the feeling I had always been chasing, so I asked him for whatever he had. He got skittish, though, when he saw my young face, not yet thin and worn with hard living.

He asked me how old I was, then, and being a stupid sixteen-year-old, scared that he'd take away the miracle promise of good and happy and safe, I'd said the first thing that came to my head, and told him I was thirty. Obviously, he didn't believe me, but he gave me the heroin anyway, showed me how to prepare it, how and where to inject it. I'd never been scared of needles, and I watched as he inserted the thin metal into my arm for the first time.

I'd felt sick right before it hit, and almost freaked out, thinking Jude had poisoned me, but then my head began to feel fuzzy and light, and, lying on cold concrete, I felt like I was settled into the biggest, softest bed in the world, cuddled up in heated blankets. I was sleepy, and started to drift off, and for once, had no nightmares, no visions of darkness or the cruelty of my menagerie of foster parents.

I learned, then, to worship a new god. Heroin was my demiurge. The goodness ended far too soon, and Jude began asking my age every time I came back for more, turning it into a slightly awkward, bittersweet joke between the addict and the man who had hooked a minor on his product.

-

Jude could have been twenty-something or forty-something. His physique was youthful, but his face was creased and scabbed, constantly splashed with the purple-red of burst blood vessels. Somehow, his appearance never dissuaded me from using. I guess I just never thought that my face would look like that.

We stood awkwardly for a moment, me fidgeting with the hem of my long sleeved shirt, which peeked out from the bottom and arms of my small coat. "I found something today." I was nonchalant about the admission, leaning against the opposite wall, facing the man.

"Oh? Something I might be interested in trading for?" Jude tried to keep the curiosity from his voice, but he was peeking at me through his lashes, and I knew he was wondering about my find. He rubbed his stubbly blonde hair, and scratched his cheek, waiting for me to speak again.

"...Maybe," I hedged. I let him wriggle for a minute, and then pulled the ring from my pocket. I could practically see the dollar signs glowing in his droopy eyes, and he shuffled up to me, examining the large central rock, the shining silver, the gently sparkling melee diamonds decorating the band.

He held out his hand, and I dropped the ring onto his palm. He showed me a bag. It was a regular sandwich bag, filled about halfway with small, whitish crystals. Neither of us needed to say anything.

We slipped into the apartment building, side by side, through the dark opening of a torn-away door, stopping at a back room on the first floor, filled with dirty pillows and the smell of cat pee. Jude lifted up a pile of musty blankets and slipped a small black box out from under it. I felt my blood start to race; my earlier hunger was forgotten as the sweet promise of the H sang through my veins.

Jude prepped the drug, measuring and heating, and I watched the crystals melt into brownish liquid, which he loaded into two syringes.

There suddenly came a massive roar of thunder, and the weak, grey light filtering in from outside dissipated, eking into darkness. Jude and I shot up together, and relaxed onto those disgusting pillows like they were fine feather-down cushions.

The storm raged outside, and it grew colder in the dank, abandoned apartment room, but I didn't notice anything outside of the warmth of the drug. Once more, I was wrapped up in that safe feeling, and Jude was the angel that had given me peace.

-

The euphoria was over far too quickly. A heavy, sleepy feeling began to drag me down into unknowingness, and I let it. I didn't like this part as much, but at least I could sleep without being woken up from hunger, or nightmares.

-

When I woke up for real, my brain felt like cotton. I couldn't think, couldn't move for a moment. It was hours later, I knew, probably the middle of the night. The storm still rolled, and even sounded stronger. I dreaded trying to find a place to sleep.

I looked over at Jude, and he was sitting up, shaking his head, pinching at the skin of his arms. "Hey, 'Dora," he slurred, taking a second to focus on my face. "You good?"

"I'm good." I struggled shakily to my feet, bracing my hands against the wall.

"Come back anytime. The ring'll get you a few weeks."

This was our interaction, every time. Age, pay, leave. He usually didn't shoot up with me, just gave me some baggies and needles, which I took to wherever I was calling home that day, but the ring must have gotten him in a celebratory mood.

He started packing the implements of our destruction away, sliding them back under the blankets. He peered out the window, and grimaced at the lashing rain. "Or," he gestured to the building at large, "you can stay here. Pick a room."

I took him up on his offer without another word, and wandered the dusty, dark hall, peeking into various rooms, and stepped into one that seemed less disgusting than the others. I was so tired, felt so dense and over-encumbered. I collapsed to the floor, used a last bit of energy to shove my backpack under my head for a pillow, and shivered my way to sleep.