A troubled Erin Lindsay leaned close to the mirror in the small bathroom. Her hands pressed firmly into the granite countertop as she studied her reflection. The purple circles under her eyes were telltale signs of her sleepless night, her forehead lined with droplets sweat, her uneven breaths left the mirror fogged. What she couldn't see, however, was the aches and pains that ripped through every muscle in her body, and threatened to tear her apart from the inside.
Erin had experience withdrawal before, more times than she cared to admit in her twenty eight years of living, but this time felt different. Opiates were always the worst for her, she knew that. Yet she left the prescription slip for Methadone unfilled, lying on her nightstand where she had abandoned it the night before.
Erin backed away from the mirror, moving her hands from the countertop to run the sink and splash cold water over her face. Erin shut off the water and picked up her brush, running it through her hair a few times before gathering her hair into a bun to alleviate the heat on the back of her neck. As she finished tying the elastic around her hair, she felt her stomach lurch.
She placed one hand over her mouth and the other over her aching stomach. "No, no." She pleaded with herself. Erin took slow breaths to ease her stomach, but ended up making the pain worse. She rushed over to the toilet, grabbing the seat and slamming it up just in time for her to empty the contents of her stomach.
"Erin?" The gentle knock on the door startled her. "Erin?"
She tried her best, but couldn't raise her head to answer her visitor. She groaned in response and let her head rest on her arm over the toilet in exhaustion.
Erin watched as the door opened and Hank stepped into the small bathroom with a worried look on his face. He raised his eyebrows at the sight before him. Hank wanted to feel sympathetic towards Erin, but he figured she deserved it. He hoped that she would learn this time and finally move on from Bunny and her toxic lifestyle.
"Withdrawal?" He asked simply. Erin groaned as she nodded. "Good. It's getting out of your system."
Erin groaned once more as another wave of nausea hit and took over her now empty stomach, sending her into a dry heaving fit. "I think...I'm...dying..." She spoke between shallow breaths.
"Well I have some good news. Maybe it will lift your spirits." Hank spoke as he helped Erin to her feet. He let her rinse out her mouth and splash cool water on her face as he flushed the toilet and disinfected the whole area.
He loved Erin like the daughter he never had, but she was the messiest person he had ever known. He wasn't going to let the wellbeing of his own home suffer just because Erin was staying under his roof again.
"What's that?" Erin asked, after she had cleaned up and turned around to face her pseudo-father.
"The Commander has accepted your request to be reinstated." Hank explained with a tight-lipped smile.
Erin couldn't help but grin from ear to ear. "How did you convince her?"
"I have my ways. She has one requirement, however. It's actually district policy that you perform a mandatory drug test before being reinstated."
Internally, Erin was panicking. It had only been about thirty six hours since her last fix. Since she had gotten the call that Jay had been kidnapped and she needed to get her shit together. Despit sobering up quickly at the thought of Jay being in danger, the physical effects still ravaged her. She had another three or four days before the drugs fully worked their way out of her system to the point where she'd be able to pass a drug test. "When do they need it by?"
Hank sighed, "Today actually. Since you were involved with rescuing Jay and the use of a firearm, you have to be tested within twenty four hours."
Erin felt her heart skip a beat. There was no way she was going to pass that drug test without some help.
