DRASTIC (Book 4 of the Soundcrush Series)

Chapter 22: Smart Girls Don't Fall In Love The Easy Way

Marley

I've had so many patients in toxic relationships. Women who would do anything for the man they loved. And I thought I could counsel them from a place of perspective, because of what I went through with Daemon.

I was so wrong. Daemon was toxic all right, but I didn't love him. I needed him, I feared him, and sometimes, because of his undeniable magnetism, I even wanted him.

But I didn't love him.

The things I did for him, they weren't out of love. They were born out of desperation, attraction, inexperience. Fed with denial and bargaining.

But now, I'm kneeling in the center aisle of a private plane that has landed in Nashville and there's a broken boy lying on the floor, shivering and panting.

And all I can think is...

Unhealthy relationship?

This is about to be one.

The worst part is...I don't care.

I think...I love him.

I know...I will do anything to take his pain away right now.

Maybe I always loved him, but in this last hour, he's broken my heart wide open with his stoic shivering, his silent suffering.He's poured himself into the cracks of my broken heart and there's not a damn thing I can do to draw him out.

He's inside me, now.

My heart is filled with him.

Belongs to him.

But his soul belongs to heroin.

I'm on my knees beside him. He's in physical agony and I can feel every one of his labored breaths like a poison spreading into my own lungs.

I reach toward him. He shakes his head with a motion that looks frantic. He's wrapped in a blanket, rolling a little, trying to cope with the excruciating pain of every single nerve firing in agony.

"Don't touch me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry...but just...don't."

I put my hands over my face. Crying won't help him.

I have to figure out some way to help him.

"Right, this was a mistake," Riley says, hands on hips. He turns around, and to my utter shock, he throws his phone against the wall. "FUCK!" he yells.

I stare at his back. I know don't Riley that well, but he doesn't seem like the type to lose control.

I see him snatch off his glasses, calmly wipe them, return them to his face and retrieve his phone.

He comes to stand over Bodie. "The pilot is going to call emergency services out to the plane, alright?"

"No..." Bodie croaks. "The label..."

"They already know you are back in the States, thanks to the fuck-ton of money you've been pulling from your accounts this week—which we haven't even begun to discuss. We're out of time, here, mate. I just got off the phone with Moran. Either you drug test within 48 hours or they pull your contract. The only hope we have of salvaging this situation is to get you into treatment right now, alright?"

"I...wanna see...Mac first," he hisses.

"There's no way you are getting off this plane under your own power..."

"There is...there is..." I say, scrambling to my purse, pulling out a prescription I've never used—painkillers prescribed for some oral surgery I had last year. I didn't need the pills, just a few doses of ibuprofen.