Ecstasy

His eyes rake over my body before coming back to rest on my face. “Me,” he finishes, “you need me.” His mouth lands on mine, his tongue sweeping past my lips.

“No,” I whimper around his mouth, “it hurts...”

He pulls back, staring at me, and then a smile curves on his lips. He reaches into his hoodie pocket, letting go of me.

I exhale, but then he holds up a baggie with something off-white in it, and a lighter in one hand. He reaches into his other pocket, murmuring to himself.

“Ah. Yes.” He pulls out a syringe. “I’ve got something to help you, baby girl. I just need a spoon.”

My mouth goes dry as Eli opens up a drawer, slams it closed. Opens another one. He pulls out a spoon, gri

“Eli...”

He ignores me, dumps some of the powder into the spoon, his movements sure. Steady. He sets the spoon down, grabs the syringe and fills it halfway with water from the sink, drops it into the spoon.

“Eli. No.” I step back, the blood seeming to freeze in my veins. He wouldn’t.

And that can’t be…

He flicks the lighter, heating the contents in the spoon to a liquid.

“Eli.”

He just smiles wider, pulls something else from his pocket. A cotton ball.

He soaks up the heroin in the cotton, then plunges the syringe into the cotton, pulls it out and drops the cotton ball.

He turns to me, syringe in hand.

“No.”

He wouldn’t actually…

I take another step back. I’ll never be able to run to the door before he gets there. I won’t be able to stop him. Not by ru

“Eli.”

“Yeah, baby girl?” He advances toward me.

“No.”

I back up into the wall that Kylie’s room is on. But Kylie isn’t home. And Alex is at the coast.

Eli grabs my arm.

“N-no.” I try to snatch it back. “Why would you want me to—”

“I want to give you the best high, Zara. Better than those little pills you’ve been doing. This will be like ecstasy, and not the fucking club drug, baby.” He yanks my hand forward, places the needle over a blue vein, prominent against my pale, thin skin.

“This is the real thing, Za.”

“No.” I look into his eyes. But I don’t see anything there. Nothing but mania. Insanity. Cruelty. “Eli. Look at me!”

“Careful, these veins are so delicate, baby girl.”

I try to yank my hand again, but I feel it.

A pinch.

His smile widens as he plunges the needle in.

My mouth falls open, fear seizing me.

Fear. And something else.

My feet feel heavy beneath me. I hear the needle drop.

My breathing slows.

There’s a warm blanket covering my body and Eli doesn’t seem so bad. The glass in my feet, my back, none of that is so bad.

This is euphoria. This is...

I fall forward and Eli catches me. “That’s it, baby girl.”

Warmth spreads through my chest. My limbs. My toes. My face.

“That’s it.” He rubs my back, holding me close. “Does it feel good, baby?”

Good? This is more than good. This is...this is ecstasy.

“Does it feel good now?”