The Deal

Chapter Seven

"Lily" my little sister Haley's voice, echos into the kitchen and I turn around seeing her come into the kitchen, a broken box of crayons held together with tape in one hand and a piece of paper in the other. Her long bright red hair that matches mine lays in messy waves, across her shoulders. I don't think I've ever seen another five year old with such long hair. Mine wasn't even that long at her age.
"Can you write birthday list on here?" She asks shoving the two items in my direction and I feel my stomach turn. Only reminding me her birthday is soon and I need to figure out how I'm going to pay for any of it. My mother and I together can scrap something together. Not the pool party she wants but something..
I don't put the burden of things like that on my mom. She exhausts herself to keep a roof over our heads and what food she can afford. I owe it to her to do the extra stuff. "Sure" I tell her taking her patched up box of crayons. "Use pink" she tells me and I grab what's left of the pink before writing it down and handing it back to her. "I can't spell it all yet so I'll draw pictures of what I want" she explains to me before taking her crayons and heading off down the hallway.

Aria made some mac and cheese she found in the cupboard which her and Haley ate. I put the left overs in the fridge since I didn't feel like eating. My mom will come home in the morning and need something anyways. I peak into Arias room, seeing she's asleep and Haley is cuddled up next to her. She doesn't have her own room since there's only three. She sleeps in my moms room with her when she's here but since she works most night she sleeps with Aria. She's too scared to sleep in my room since I occasionally wake everyone up with my nightmare screaming.

I twist my hair into a braid that stops just at my lower back before twisting the cap off the bottle Kade gave me and dumping the tablets out. I've crushed them up and smoked them before but I stopped doing that after I blacked out and couldn't remember anything.

I swear I can feel it as soon as I swallow. The sweet hint of dizzyness, a sort of lightness that lifts the weight of my head off my shoulders and a tingling heavy feeling that weighs down my eyelids.
That high like feeling setting in. Before I know it my head hits the pillow.

I'm awoken to the sound of something in my ears. Leaving them feeling as if they've been ringing. I blink my eyes, feeling disorientated and foggy headed. The room seems to spin as I sit up, my surroundings moving with it. Confused as to why I feel this way, maybe aliens have invaded the earth and I'm floating. I search around for the noise, slowly feeling myself regain some clear thinking and suddenly I'm not so confused as to why I feel like I've just been knocked out.
The oxy..
I always wake up feeling disoriented and on a different planet after I've used it.
I find my phone under my pillow and pull it out, squinting at the bright light that burns my eyes.

An unknown number displays across my screen as a notification and I click on it. Wondering if my mom is trying to get ahold of me on someone else's phone because and hers ran out of battery. That's happened before. It's really the only reason I don't turn my ringer off.

Only I'm not that lucky..
Nausea bubbles in my stomach as my skin crawls and heat rises in my face from a mixture of anger and anxiety.
I swear I can already feel sweat collecting along my hair line and tip of my nose.

Unknown: You have fifteen minutes to get here

About a hundred different ways to get out of this race through my head so fast that I swear it makes me dizzy or maybe it's still the oxy.
I could just not answer, I could ignore him and blame it on being asleep..
But I know better than to do that. If I dare to ignore him he'll come find me. I know he will, He's Rafe.
I could answer and lie about where I'm at, somewhere that would make it impossible to get there tonight. But where would I say I am? And would he even believe me? Why do I feel like he can feel my pulse and tell if I'm lying through the phone?
He probably can.
I've learned there isn't much he can't do..