Click.
“The Cocktail, the highly deadly drug sweeping the city claimed the life of an innocent pizza man who arrived at the house of two users, only to be beaten to death—”
Click.
“This drug contains only about 2 percent of actual heroin, giving users that similar high but causing them to crash much faster. When they do they often get very violent—”
Click.
“What is the government doing? Where is the police? People are dying out here! The bus driver who drove into a local McDonald’s was the last straw. My kids and I are staying home. You don’t know who’s on that trash—”
Click. Ethan pressed the button on the remote once more, as I lay on top of him, listening to his heartbeat. He wasn’t even watching the screen. His eyes were closed, his hand with the remote dangling off the couch lazily.
“Doctors across the city have reached out to other states for the drug naloxone, commonly used to reverse the effects of an overdose due to heroin or other various types of painkillers, such as morphine, oxycodone, methadone, and fentanyl. However, many states have refused, due to a growing fear this is just the beginning and the deadly cocktails will spread to other parts of the country—”
Click.
“Police say they have a lead on the drug dealers behind the Cocktail, though no other details can be shared at the—”
Click.
“How much longer?” I asked him.
“As long as it takes,” he replied.
I sighed, sitting up. “Ethan, Rory waved at me today. She waved. And I wanted to break her little hand. You told me to wait and I’ve waited. However, she’s not getting punished by this. I need to do it.”
His eyelids lifted slowly and he glanced up at the ceiling. “You’re right.”
“
I am?”
“Yes. Now let’s go grocery shopping,” he said, beginning to sit up, and I moved so he could.
“Is that code for something—”
“It’s code for the fridge is empty and we can’t live on kettle corn, alcohol, and sex,” he said, pulling me off the couch.
I smiled. “Then we can talk over what we’re going to do.”
Before he could reply the doorbell rang. The first time since we’d moved in.
“Stay here,” he said to me as he walked out to the living room. But being the nosey person I was, I stuck my head out to see. At the front door he slid the panel beside it, opening the camera, then relaxed. He opened the door and stepped aside, allowing Wyatt, who was still dressed in his burgundy scrubs, into the house. Wyatt stepped inside, his hair disheveled, circles around his eyes.
“Where is the alcohol?” he asked us.
“Kitchen.” I pointed, and he walked there, helping himself.
Ethan started heading back toward the living room when I got in front of him. “What are you doing?”
“Going to listen to the news—”
“Your brother is in there and he looks like shit.”
“And?” he asked.
I wanted to kick him.