Find Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy - Book Two) by Rachel Dunning Read Free Book Online Page B

keeps me in the moment, instead of sinking into that black pool
where Savva’s golden eyes stare me down: Always smiling. Always
smiling in my memory. Even when we found her dead body she was
smiling.
    “ I can’t tell you why I dropped. I’d love
to tell you why, but I can’t. Mamah loves me. She took care of me.
So, it’s not a question I can answer. I also can’t tell you why I
got Savva into it. Although I can guess why she herself accepted.
That one’s easy. Or is it?” He sits next to me. “I mean, we assume,
don’t we? We assume it’s the
broken family. But is it really?
    “ So, we were one big happy tripping family.
E became A and then
speed—meth. I drew the line at C. I mean, I did it a few times, but
it grabbed me— hard .
Understand? It made my skin crawl when I didn’t get it. So I forced
myself to stop when it was still early.
    “ Savva?” I look back at her building. “She never did stop
it.
    “ By this time, Mamah had already left back
for Poland. Money was tight, and you know A is cheap as sin, so it
didn’t cost nuthin to keep the trips going. Weed also costs jack,
so—right here on this rooftop—we smoked it up a storm. Sometimes on
that one.” I point to her building. “She’d score me some E every
now and then. She had a day-job as a PA in the city, so she made
her cut of money. I was trying to make it as a DJ. It’s always been
my dream, and I couldn’t imagine getting stuck in a
day-job.
    “ Tolek —the dude who came over to Slambam on Wednesday?” Deck nods. “Well, he and I dated
awhile. And, well, he gave me a lot of E. I never thought twice
about it. I just figured guys buy girls things. And, in our world,
well, we don’t go to restaurants, we drop, right?”
    “ Yeah.” He looks into the distance, over
the sprawling city, as if I’ve spoken the truth of life
itself.
    “So I never thought anything about it.
    “Xavier, her brother, he was dealing already
by this time. Got himself a piece. So, Savva wanted to do H. Long
story short, he gave it to her. I mean, you’ve heard of
Krokodil?”
    He shakes his head.
    “ Well, it’s this crazy drug they make in
Russia that looks like H and has similar effects to H, but will
actually eat
you inside out after
taking it! Anyway, Xavier justifies that it was better that she got
her shit from a thoroughbred dealer—which he is—”
    “ Yeah, Randy mentioned it at House Market that Xavier’s the bees knees of
dealers. Only the good shit.”
    “ Right, well, he got the H for her. She was
hooked instantly. I mean instantly . A year later, she killed herself. Speedball concoction.
It wasn’t a mistake. I mean, she actually knowingly took her own
life. She left a note and all, saying sorry.”
    Finally the tears prick my eyes, but they
don’t feel out of control. They feel like the natural progression
of the body after talking about something like this. Savva’s face,
in my mind, is distant. And she is smiling.
    But, this time, I think she’s smiling because
I told someone. Someone I think she would like.
    Declan puts an arm around my shoulder, and what he says only
makes me love him more. Because, again, he doesn’t sympathize or
treat me like a baby or any of that shit. He just states the
truth:
    “Life’s a bitch, ain’t it?”
    And that just makes me laugh. A
lot.
-9 -
    He tells me about his pops, how they got
into a physical argument just before Deck left home. The reason for
it being that Raymond Cox had been screwing Catalina—his eventual
murderess—the very night Declan’s mother was dying in the hospital.
He tells me how Trev happened to come by just in time, and if he
hadn’t, Deck would’ve maybe not stopped hitting his dad.
    Catalina pulled out her famed Beretta that
night, had it aimed at Declan’s head. “But she wasn’t so far gone
yet in those days , I
believe. Pops stopped her. Told her she was fucking crazy for
pulling a gun out on his son, and she actually listened to him back
them. Almost