We joined the line and hung back by the wall after we’d slipped in. I had to reel in my jaw from gaping as I took in the scene.
The Storm’s people had gotten the word out pretty widely, and quite a crowd had turned up to take advantage of their offer. A few guys were standing around a couple of crates in the middle of the wide cement slab at the base of the building’s frame. As newcomers came over to them, they handed out little squares of white paper. There were a couple dozen people making their way over now, and nearly a hundred meandering around the slab and across the beat-up dirt of the rest of the site.
A few of those who’d just left the distributors were urgently snorting the drugs off the slips of paper in their hands. One guy staggered and then tipped his head back to gaze up at the sky with a loopy smile. Others were stumbling around in various states of chemical euphoria, their eyes glazed. Here and there I spotted some sitting on the ground rocking while they hummed to themselves.
I’d known that crap was strong when I first caught a whiff of it, and the confirmation was right here in front of me.
A man stumbled into me as if he couldn’t even see I was there. My arms shot out instinctively, pushing him away from me and recoiling. It was like a fucking zombie apocalypse in here.
“Kaige,” Wylder said quietly. “We’re trying not to attract attention yet, remember?”
Right. I dragged in a deep breath and stuck close to his side. We circled around the steel frame, gradually getting closer to the guys handing out the drugs. The three of them started chuckling to themselves as if this was some kind of elaborate joke. My stomach churned.
A guy who’d obviously already had a good snort swayed back over to them, making grasping gestures with his hands. “Come on, man. Another hit—you’ve got lots there.”
“One each,” the closest dealer said with a sneer. “You got your sample. You want more, you pay up. Unless you don’t want it that bad.”
“I do. I do.” The guy patted his pockets and winced. “I’ll be back. That stuff is fucking amazing.”
I gritted my teeth and wrenched my gaze away, only to find myself staring at a couple lying together by a stack of lumber. The woman’s shirt was gaping open far enough to expose one of her breasts, but she didn’t seem to care, even though a kid who couldn’t have been more than eight was standing there next to them, tugging at her shoulder. “Mom, Dad, please, I want to go home.”
Neither parent responded to his pleas. My spine went rigid, images I’d buried welling up behind my eyes. My hands clenched at my sides.
That wasn’t the only kid here. A man was just going up to the dealers now with a little girl not much more than a toddler clinging to his pant leg. When he held out his hand for his sample, the girl started to cry. He shoved at her with his leg as if she was just an annoyance. “Shut up, Jess. Daddy needs this.”
She continued to wail. One of the dealers glared at her and then her father. “Get her the hell out of here. We don’t want to have to listen to tantrums.”
As if it wasn’t their fucking fault she was so upset. They were the ones luring the parents in—they were the ones doping them up so they didn’t give a shit about their own kids.
Rage shuddered through my body. My heart pounded in my ears, and my vision flared with red. Suddenly I was marching up to the dealers with only the faintest awareness of Wylder snapping my name from behind me.
When the closest guy turned toward me, my fist was already swinging. My knuckles connected with his cheek, knocking him right off his feet. As he sprawled on his ass, clutching the side of his face, his associates fumbled for their guns.
I slammed one of those guns right into its owner’s face hard enough to split his lip. At the sight of the streak of blood, savage satisfaction coursed through me. I whirled to face the last guy, who had his pistol pointed right at me, but I was too keyed up to care. I was going to crush him too.
Two more guns cocked behind me as Wylder and Rowan came up to flank me. The first guy I’d punched staggered to his feet and drew his own gun. “Who the hell are you and what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.
“I know what you are: little pieces of shit,” I said. “These people have kids with them, and you’re dealing drugs to them?”
“How’s that any of your business?” the third one growled.
“I’ll show you how exactly.” I flung myself at him, trusting Wylder and Rowan to handle the other two.
I punched the man square on his gut before he could pull the trigger, heaved him over my shoulder, and whipped him toward the ground. He hit the concrete with a cracking sound and a groan. I dove onto his chest and punched him across the jaw. “You. Little. Piece. Of. Shit.”
My haze of anger was broken by the distant wail of a siren. “Kaige,” Wylder called out. “Come on, we need to get the fuck out of here.”
My gaze landed on the little girl still standing just a few feet away. Her father was gaping at me, but she was just staring, her eyes round with terror. Terrified of me, even though the assholes I’d been smacking down were the real bad guys here.
“Kaige, come on!” Wylder yanked at my arm. The police cars were close—too close. We heard the sound of slamming doors.
“Fuck.” At least the dealers would have to make a run for it now too. I might not have done much for the kids, but I couldn’t let Wylder down too.
We sprinted to the opening in the wall. Some of the people who hadn’t gotten their hit yet were pushing out ahead of us. Others were too high to really register what was happening, the babble of their confused voices carrying through the construction site.
We leapt through the opening and raced across the street, ducking into the alley there just as footsteps pounded around the corner. “Stop!” a voice hollered. “Police!”
Not a fucking chance. We dashed through the alley, my breaths rough in my throat, and burst out onto the next street over. The car was just up ahead. Another siren blared in the distance. I hurtled forward with all the strength I had in me and dove into the backseat behind Gideon.
“I tried to warn you as soon as I saw them coming,” he said as Wylder dropped into the driver’s seat, Rowan scrambling in beside me. The engine roared.
“I know,” Wylder said. “Kaige flew off the handle, and we had to rein him in before we could get out of there.”
His voice was flat, but I could hear the anger coursing through it. As he yanked the steering wheel and sped off toward home, my stomach sank.
We’d almost been caught by the fucking cops, and it was my fault.