I shrugged off his logic, turning to look out the window at the Glasgow skyline. “And Beth? Who’s running damage control for her?”
“Like I said, she’s a grown woman, Sean,” Danny said gently. “And from what you’ve read, she’s a veteran of these media wars. She’ll navigate it.”
I leaned my forehead against the cool glass. “I can’t stop thinking about her, Danny. The connection we had… it wasn’t just a hookup. Something real was there.”
Danny sighed heavily, the sound of a friend who knows he’s losing an argument. “Sean, I’m saying this as your agent and your friend. You need to let this go. For your own sake, and for hers. We’re leaving soon. This is a Glasgow problem. Let’s leave it in Glasgow.”
CHAPTER NINE
BETH
The next day,I walked into the secret underground party house feeling numb. It was a mercy. I’d spent the morning ignoring frantic texts from Kinna, the hollow feeling in my gut a constant, gnawing presence. Colter was my only mission today. Oblivion was the destination.
The house was quieter than I expected for a weekday afternoon, but the familiar scent of stale beer, weed, and regret still clung to the air. A few stragglers from the previous night’s party were passed out on the ratty couches. I pushed past a sticky patch on the floor, my eyes scanning the dim room.
“Colter?” I called out, my voice sounding rough. “Anyone seen Colter?”
A guy with a scraggly beard and vacant eyes looked up from his phone. “Haven’t seen him today, man.”
A flicker of irritation went through me. Of course, he was late. I texted him:Where the hell are you?
No reply.
I spotted a girl I vaguely recognized, Dina, maybe, coming down the stairs, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She stopped dead when she saw me, her face going pale.
“Hey,” I said, my patience wearing thin. “Have you seen Colter? He was supposed to meet me here.”
Her eyes widened, filling with a horror that made my blood run cold. “Oh, God. You… you haven’t heard.”
“Heard what?” I snapped, my voice sharp.
She took a shaky step towards me, her hands twisting together. “Beth, it’s… it’s Colter. They found him this morning. In his car, just around the corner.” Her voice broke. “He’s dead. The paramedics, they think… they said it was fentanyl.”
The world dissolved into a silent, roaring static. Fentanyl. The word was a gunshot in the quiet room. Not cocaine. Not the “top-shelf” payment he was so proud of. Fentanyl.
“No, no, no,” I whispered, shaking my head, the denial a useless reflex. “No, we were supposed to… I just talked to him yesterday. We had a plan.”
Dina was crying now. “I know. It’s so fucked up. Someone must have given him a hot shot. Or maybe… maybe he never even knew what he was taking.”
The air rushed out of my lungs. The “business” he was doing last night. The “lookout work.” The “payment.” It all coalesced into a single, horrifying image. He’d been paid with his own death sentence. And he’d been about to share it with me today.
“Are you okay?” Dina asked, reaching for my arm.
I jerked away, stumbling backward until I hit the wall, sliding down to the sticky floor. I wasn’t okay. I wasn’t anything. The numbness I’d been cherishing was gone, replaced by a black, terrifying void. That could have been me.If he hadn’t tried out the product before we met, we could both be dead right now.
I scrambled up and fled, bursting out of the house and into the too-bright afternoon, gasping for air that wouldn’t come. I leaned against a graffitied wall, my body shaking violently as the reality crashed over me. Colter was gone. And I had almost gone with him.
I felt like I was about to be sick. Colter, dead? It didn’t seem real. He was only thirty-one, for fuck’s sake. And so full of life, always ready with a joke or a wild story. How could he just be... gone?
I leaned against the railing, my mind racing. A small voice in the back of my head whispered that this could have been me. That I was on the same path, spiraling out of control. But I pushed it away. I wasn’t Colter. I could handle it. I always had.
I moved on autopilot, heading back inside to the makeshift bar. “Vodka,” I said to the guy playing bartender. “Double.”
As I waited for my drink, I took out my phone. The screen was lit up with notifications. Kinna just didn’t get it. She wasn’t from this crowd where nobody gave a damn about judging you.
Kinna’s latest message flashed on the screen: “Beth, please call me. I’m worried about you. Are you okay?”
A twinge of guilt pricked me, but I didn’t want to deal with Kinna’s concerns right now. Not when everything was falling apart.
