The Rent Boys

Chapter Twenty-Two: What We Know-

    “I don' owe you anythin',” he spat, shaking his head and tossing the butt of the cigarette into the road in front of us. I didn't waste any more breath on him. I knew that was it, he was closed up again. Conversation over.

    I saved myself the pain and crawled back to Finn exactly as he'd expected. He was still waiting for me on the step outside the building, flipping a lighter around in the air, catching it with the same hand over and over again, until he noticed me approaching on his right.

    He shot to his feet, in front of me in a second, with mere inches separating out bodies. “What happened, are you okay?”

    I nodded sullenly, “Yeah, I guess,” I replied, sitting on the step with a heavy sigh. “Sorry I took so long,” I murmured. “You want to get out of here?”

    Finn nodded, eyes lighting up at the suggestion. “Definitely,” I followed him out the alley and passed by Tyler who was still sitting on the pavement, busy rolling his own cigarettes. I didn't look at him as we walked past but I felt the air around us tense up for a few seconds.

    I read the sign as we grew near to it. It was directions to important places like the town centre and the train station, with estimated distances beside it. That was it. Nothing interesting about it at all.

    As I rounded the corner I sneaked a look at Tyler to find that he was staring in our direction. Then he was gone, replaced with the image of a brick wall as we sauntered up the street, towards the town centre.

    I let Finn lead the way, since I was too busy lost in thoughts about Tyler to care where we were headed.

    Though I should have cared and I should have been paying attention because the next time I looked up, I was standing inside a club surrounded by people I didn't know. The music was deafeningly loud, it felt like the bass was emanating from my own chest. I suddenly felt nauseous.

    Finn was in front of me in a second, shoving a drink in my face that I assumed he'd just bought from the bar. I took it cautiously. It didn't look like a drink I'd ever had before. “What is it?” I tried to ask but the music was too loud for him to hear.

    I went for a sip but just as my lips touched the edge of the glass, Finn was dragging me off through a crowd of people. I only just managed to set it down on a nearby table.

    I was used to the loudness and the chaotic atmosphere of a thousand people having a good time but what I wasn't used to was being dragged into the toilets and faced with a small pile of white powder, slowly closing in on my nostril.

    I leaned out of reach, gently pushed Finn's arm away from me, the white powder along with it. “Are you kidding me? Drugs? What the hell is wrong with you?” I said. He was finally able to hear me, the music quieter in the shabby bathroom stalls we stood locked inside.

    Finn shrugged, “It's nothing bad, just a bit of the cheap stuff,”

    “Cheap stuff?” I scoffed. “You mean the shit they mix with plant fertiliser and god knows what else?”

    Finn rolled his eyes this time. He already looked off his head with how dark his eyes were, as though his pupils had taken over his entire iris. I could barely see the blue in them. “Come on, you'll love it once you have some,”

    “Finn, I'm not doing it. Piss off,” I shoved at his chest, causing an uproar of anger as the powder he held on his finger was knocked to the floor.

    “Are you fucking insane? I paid for this shit and you're spilling it all over the place!” he packed it away safely in his pocket, expression softening once his drugs were out of harms way. “Fine, don't do any, that's fine, whatever, let's go somewhere else,”