The Lonely Hearts Club

Chapter 54: The Van (Hades)

I wake to the hum of a van engine and the smell of marijuana.

My eyesight is blurry as fuck, but I can just make out that I'm being driven through a desert.

A dusty desert stretched out for miles, it's like, never-ending.

I look down to see there's a blanket draped over my legs.

"Yo! You're finally awake!" An irritating voice says.

Nicks.

I'm so disorientated it takes me a while to put the pieces together.

Bree and I ran away, Bree and I in the motel, me about to eat her out, the white vapor and passing out, to now—being driven by Nicks in Coco's van.

At least I've sourced who the kidnapper is.

In the brief seconds before there's a significant gap in my memory, I thought it could have been Joey.

"Why the fuck are you driving Coco's van?" I finally ask, but my words are slurred.

"Because." Nicks shrugs.

"She know you have it?"

Coco is a little protective of her healing van, she doesn't let anyone drive it and it's only for the purpose of special trips to the beach. When Coco finds out about this, she'll be extremely disappointed in him.

"Nah."

Fuck my head hurts.

"Where's Bree?" I demand.

"She's laying on one of the fluffy mats in the back, chill out, she has blankets and pillows as well." He scoffs.

I fight through the tiredness and force myself to look back. She's laying there, wedged between some shit so she doesn't go flying every time the van turns a corner.

There's a bundle of blankets covering her body, she has one arm strewn above her head and Acorn is inspecting it.

"You moved her?" I ask.

The last I remember she was wearing blue lingerie.

"I laid out the blanket first, and rolled her up in it like a dead body," he says. "So don't worry, I wasn't perving on your girl."

"Better not have."

"You sometimes scare me man, and you know, I do actually have basic respect."

"No you fucking don't."

If he had basic respect, I wouldn't be sitting in the front seat of a van right now, I'd be in Iceville or whatever that place is called.

"I took the cat, I could have left it in the bathroom," Nicks grins. "But I didn't because I'm a nice person."

I don't stop looking at Bree.

"Why isn't she awake yet?" If I focus hard I can see the rise and fall of the blankets, but still.

"She's smaller than you? The sedative will take longer to get out of her system."

Sedative?

"You fucking sedated us?" I yell. "Why the fuck would you do that?"

"You tried to run away," He says simply as if it justifies his actions. "Why the fuck would you do that?"

"You're insane."

"Look on the bright side," he says cheerily. "While she recovers we can talk, it hasn't been just us in a while."

"Is this all because I spend more time with Bree?"