Carmine pulled the needle from his arm, dropping it onto the floor and it rolled across the laminate flooring. I left the needle in my arm as I stared back at Jimmy, struggling to fight against the shit swimming in my bloodstream.
“All good,” Carmine drawled, already feeling the effects of the drugs.
“I’ll be in touch,” Jimmy said, satisfied as he pushed his chair back and rose to his feet. He snapped his fingers, muttered something under his breath as he pulled Carmine to his feet and strutted out of the clubhouse. I heard the door close behind them, signaling I was alone and then I allowed my eyes to close and saw her face. A moan escaped the back of my throat as I vividly recalled the way I stared into her dead eyes and cradled her body in my arms before pulling the needle from her arm. My cries repeated over in my mind, begging her to wake up, for it all to be a dream and then I remembered lifting my hand to her eyes and closing them gently.
“Blackie?”
For a moment I thought it was her sweet voice calling my name but when I lifted my head, struggling for my eyes to focus, I saw it was Reina.
“Oh my God,” she said, rushing towards me. I tore my eyes away from her and glanced down at the offensive needle sticking out of my arm.
I spent the last few years desecrating my liver to save my veins only for it to come full circle. I kept myself alive but numb, telling myself the only reason this life was worth living was to have a chance to right all the wrongs I had done but staring at that needle solidified that I’d never be able to get the penance I craved.
I bent my head, opening my mouth around the needle and pulled the fucking thing out with my teeth before spitting the empty syringe on the table and untying the band around my arm. I lifted my watering eyes to Reina’s, not giving a fuck if she saw the pain I tried to numb myself from.
Let her know.
Let the whole world know how fucked I truly am, how every goddamn thing I do turns to shit.
Masochist.
“Earned your keep, Reina,” I slurred, swaying slightly in my chair as I lifted my hips and pulled my keys from my back pocket. “My car is out front, Ford Expedition. Go find your man,” I said, throwing the keys in the air.
“What about you?”
“Just go,” I mumbled, as I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes. I surrendered to the heroin, welcoming the numbness, and accepting the fact my life had been over a long time ago.
Chapter Two
There is a little boy who lives in my dreams and forever in my heart, a little boy named Jack Parrish Jr. He was my little brother and I was five years old when I watched him die. Literally, I stood there and did nothing as he ran into the street. I thought I would forget that someday the memory would fade as I became older—yet it seemed to only grow more vivid with every year I aged and he didn’t.
Lala.
That was what he used to call me because he couldn’t say Lacey.
“Lala,” he cheered as his wobbly legs ran out the front door.
I was only a kid myself but I knew that he shouldn’t be outside without an adult and more than that I knew he could get hurt. I tried to get my dad’s attention, telling him to help me get Jack back inside the house but he was too engrossed in the madness that consumed him. I had never seen my dad like that before, so out of control, so far away in his own mind that my cries went unheard.
I ran outside as my father repeatedly beat down the walls of our home. I can recall him shouting about bugs but I thought he was looking for creepy little critters; the ones I would shout for him to stomp on. That wasn’t the case, and I learned later on that my father was looking for the bugs the Feds plant when they are looking to send your ass to jail.
That was the first of many memories I have of my dad losing his battle with his maker. His maker is his mind, and it reigns over everything. My father is Jack Parrish, president of the Satan’s Knights MC and he is a manic-depressive.
He didn’t know at the time of Jack Jr.’s death he was mentally ill, and it wasn’t until after my little brother was buried six feet in the ground he sought help and was diagnosed.
He blames himself for his death but it wasn’t his fault.
It was mine.
I stood there as Jack Jr. smiled and pointed at me.
“Lala, look!”
I should’ve run after him.
I could’ve asked a neighbor to help.
Something.
Anything.
Nothing.
Instead, I stood there listening to my father shout at the demons in his head and watched as the car sped down the street.
I want to believe that I called out to him, that, I shouted at the driver to stop but I remember nothing other than standing there and watching as the tires skidded across the tar and over my baby brother. I try to block out the last sound he made a shrill cry that rings over and over again in my ears until it fades to silence. The silence is worse though because it reminds me that when his cries faded so did his life.
My father snapped out of it too late and when he made his way to Jack, he fell to the ground and cradled the child he lost.
His maker won that day.