Addiction (Book One of the Addiction Series)

Chapter 11

That night I can't eat dinner with the family. I can't eat at all. I can't look at anyone, I can't tell them what I have done. I can't let them know that I have stolen a bit of Adam's magic – magic he has never even used himself. I can't do anything but lie in bed, shooting purple sparks between my fingers until the magic is out of my system and I am empty again.

Adam doesn't text me that night. He is not on the bus in the morning. I didn't believe him when he said he would be, but I had been hoping nonetheless. The seat feels cold and empty without him beside me, and it is all I can do not to jump off the bus at the next stop and run away. I don't want to go to school, I don't want to see anyone, I don't want to be anywhere. I don't want to be me. Not only have I ruined everything with Adam, I have ruined things for myself. My sobriety, as fragile as it was, has been shattered. I have to start all over. No one-month chip for me.

How many times will I have to start over like this? How many relapses will I have? How many times will I fall before I officially stop trying to get up again?

I still haven't seen Adam by lunchtime. I have usually seen him in the halls at least twice by now, but he seems to have vanished from the face of the Earth. Even if he doesn't want to be around me, he should still be at school somewhere. He has a Humanities test later this afternoon, he has been studying for it all week.

Maybe he's playing hooky. Maybe he switched schools. I didn't think the incident was bad enough to merit that, but who knows what he's thinking right now.

I eat lunch by myself – gluten-free fish tacos with a side of applesauce, our favorite meal to make fun of – then I wander out into the hall, thinking of skipping the rest of the day myself.

That's when I see him.

Halfway down the hall at Adam's locker stands a tall, slender man. But that man is not Adam. He turns the dial on the combination lock anyway, though, and opens the metal door. I am frozen with dread as he reaches inside and starts pulling things out and dropping them on the floor. Books, papers, notebooks, pens – he tosses them all aside, not caring who is watching.

He is wearing a black, baggy shirt and loose pants that are held up by a thin belt cinched tight around his waist. He seems emaciated, sickly, grey, and I see myself in him – my future self, if I can't get control of my urges. He is an addict, and he is after Adam.

"Hey," I say, quietly at first. I am not usually one to speak out, I am usually one to disappear into a crowd. But not today. Not when it comes to Adam. "Hey!" I shout again, and he jerks his head around to look at me.

I recoil at the pure gauntness of him, at the deep hollows around his eye sockets, of the sallowness of his concave cheeks. Then I begin to walk forward. The closer I get, the more I can see: black, haunted eyes filled with a sick, desperate need. Cracked lips glistening with saliva. The tremors of someone who hasn't had a hit in a long time, and might not get by much longer without one.

"Who're you?" he snarls at me. What he is looking for in Adam's locker, I have no idea. But he isn't finding it, and that is making him angry.

"Who are you?" I shoot back. "What are you doing with Adam's stuff?"

"What do you care?"

"I'm going to tell a teacher," I warn him.

He is unimpressed. "Go ahead." He shrugs. "It's not here anyway. I'm leaving."

"What's not here? What are you looking for?"

"The kid's jacket. He says he won't cooperate unless I bring it to him."

My blood runs cold in my veins. I am wearing that jacket right now. "What... what does he need it for?"

The emaciated mess peers into the depths of the locker one last time and shrugs again. "Says he needs to know it's safe. Says he needs it with him, like it's some sorta protection or somethin'. He said it was here, but I don't see it."

"He said it was in his locker?" My mind is whirring at lightning speed. Adam knows I have the jacket, and he somehow knew I would find this man, or that he would find me. He knew that I would hear what the man was looking for, and he hoped that I would understand the message he is sending out: Adam needs my help.

"He said it was at the school. Ah, screw it. I don't have time for this."

"Wait," I say, as he slams the locker shut, leaving all of Adam's things strewn across the linoleum floor at his feet. There isn't much time left in the lunch hour. Soon, students will be pouring out into the hallway, and I will miss my chance. "Where is Adam? What have you done with him?"

"Nothin' yet." He gives me a toothless grin and I fight off a shudder. "And nothin' good."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that little girls shouldn't ask so many questions." Then, before I can open my mouth to speak, he shoots a weak orb of orange light in my direction. It hardly holds its shape, but it burns anyway as it brushes my cheek. I dodge it but just barely, and I realize that maybe his tap isn't as dry as it seems.

This is going to be a problem.

I think back to the night before, to the purple sparks dancing between my fingers. I had wanted nothing more than to use up Adam's magic, to get it all out of my system before I got used to it, before I got a real taste of it. I wished now that I had held it inside like I used to do, so that I could fling it back at the man who took Adam until I forced him to tell me where he was.

The bell rings, signaling the end of lunch, and the hallway begins to fill. The man casts me one last dark, twisted grin, then he disappears into the crowd.

I follow him, shoving people out of the way as I try to keep him in sight. You think it would be hard to miss a man nearly seven-feet tall in a crowd of teenagers, but he seems to fit right in among them. I catch a glimpse of his yellowed skin here, a blink of his black eye there, but for the most part it is like I am tracking a ghost.

There is only one logical exit for him to take – the same one Adam and I took a few days ago – and I follow him out of it. We emerge in the parking lot with me trailing about ten yards behind him. He has stopped looking back to see if I am there, sure that he has lost me, but I am closer than ever.

He gets into a battered red pickup truck at the edge of the lot, and I hesitate. I should call the authorities. Either that, or I should find someone full of magic, quick, so I can drain them dry and roast this guy's ass for hurting Adam.

There is no time for either of these things, though. There is only time for action and recklessness.

The truck's engine doesn't turn over the first time or the second. I can hear the man cursing at it from behind the wheel. On the third try, it makes a stuttering clunk and I leap into the truck bed. I cover myself with a tarp I find back there that smells like rotting garbage, and on the fourth try he gets it started.

I close my eyes as he drives away, knowing that this is the bravest thing I have ever done. And the stupidest.