I wake up to a crick in my neck, dried blood on my shirt, and the sound of a raccoon chewing on something.

I'm also in pain. Quite a bit of it, actually, just going off the fact my head is fucking pounding. How much did I drink last night? A lot, sure, but why the hell would I do this to myself? I already know I get bad hangovers. It's something I am acutely, painfully aware of, and I usually try to be careful.

That's when it all comes back to me. Scooter, Anastasia, Winter and Vaughn. The looks on their faces. The heartbreak and tears on Winter's face when she asked me why.

I groan, rolling onto my back and squinting at my blurry ceiling for a moment. I reach up to hold my head, clenching my eyes shut again as pain shoots through my skull from every fucking angle. Yeah, I should not have drank last night.

I blame my mother for my reflexive solution to almost any emotional issue. Impairment. Intoxication of any sort.

I sit there in bed for a long moment, just stewing in my own misery, trying to remember how to exist. But my mouth tastes like battery acid and I'm fairly certain there's dried blood on my lip from the night before—god knows from where.

So, I haul myself upright with the enthusiasm of a man going to the electric chair, and drag my ass to the bathroom.

The mirror is not kind to me. My hair's a disaster, there's crusted blood down the side of my face, and there's eyeliner smudged halfway to my cheekbone. All leftover from last night.

I blink blearily at my reflection.

"...Jesus." I mumble, ignoring the roach in the corner of the room and glancing around for my aged toothbrush. It is electric, though. I have some nice things.

I brush my teeth one-handed, the other braced against the sink to keep me upright. I spit and rinse and then just stare for a second, foam still clinging to the corners of my mouth.

I'm exhausted. In every sense of the word. My bones hurt. My head hurts. And I'm doing everything I can not to think about the last twelve hours. Or her.

Or him.

Once my teeth don't feel like they're growing mold anymore, I rummage around under the sink for the little blue bottle I keep stashed there. Advil. Essentially my lifeline, at least at times like this.

I rattle it, but it doesn't rattle. Empty.

Of course. I stare at the bottle for a beat, my eye twitching like a cartoon villain. Then I toss it in the trash hard enough that it ricochets and hits the tile wall with a loud clack.

I should go back to bed. But if I do that, I'll never get up again. I'll definitely die, which I'd rather not do with a headache. So I throw on the same 5XL hoodie I wear every time I have nothing left in the laundry, pull the hood over my face like it might protect me from the judgment of the public, and step outside.

It's a short walk to the gas station. I've done it a hundred times. Same cracked sidewalk, same dead streetlamps, same rusted chain link fences and trash bins overflowing with broken dreams and expired ready meals. Same homeless people scattered about, same stray cats and dogs and a street littered with trash and miscellaneous debris.

I'm never out of my house this early. It's like 6 AM. I'm essentially in a new situation, and new situations never play out well for me.

So, this makes it the perfect time for something to go wrong.

And, naturally, something does.

I'm just about to cross the street to the gas station when I feel it. That prickle. That bad feeling that's kept me alive all these years. Call it intuition, call it some sort of heightened sense for danger I've had to condition myself into having, but it's never wrong.

I pause, one foot on the crosswalk, and glance over my shoulder.

Two guys. Maybe three. Shadows at first. Then faces.

They're bad news, that's undeniable, but they're not strangers. No, I know exactly why they're here. Why they've been waiting on me, probably having seen me enter my building last night.

They want their money.

One of them is wearing a ratty bomber jacket and that fake, polite smile that means bad news. He goes by Sharp, and he's been coming around since I was a kid—seven years old, wondering why there's a scary man on our doorstep, demanding my mother give him his payment. I had no idea what he was talking about at the time, and I wish it would've stayed that way.

"Look who it is," he says, loud enough to echo off the wall beside me. "Little Crenshaw."

I don't move.

"Didn't think we'd find you here," another one says, stepping out of the alley. "You been dodging us? Staying out late?"

"I've been busy," I answer, but my voice sounds flat. Tired. Not scared. I've been jumped before. I don't have my gun on me, but I do have my wallet since I was gonna buy Advil and I can't dip into Jane Doe's supply of every drug on the market that I keep in my home—even if it's just painkillers. Well, not if I want to live past the next day.

I can hold my own in a fight, but not against these guys. Not when I'm so outnumbered. It's fine, though. I've gotten the shit kicked out of me a hundred times before, for various reasons. It's nothing new.

I've been through worse.

The grinning man, basically their leader from what I've observed over the years, stops dead in front of me. Sharp looks down at me with the same knowing gleam. It's not even that impressive, though. Congrats, you figured out I don't have a hundred thousand dollars on me in cash at the moment, so now you get to punch me. What a genius.

"You're due," he tells me. "And you're a week over."

"It's not my money," I use the same excuse I always do, which they never accept. It doesn't matter that it's my mother's debt, it still needs to be paid.

"Yeah it is," one of the other guys pipes in. I resist the urge to tell him to shut the hell up, mostly because I don't have the energy. I just woke up. At least I got around to brushing my teeth, even if they're probably about to get knocked out.

"He doesn't have it," Sharp sighs, feigning fake disappointment, like he didn't expect this. They're definitely about to rob me, and I don't have a bank account. I pay for everything in cash, which means I usually have a good amount on me. They get what they want one way or another.

I feel the first blow before I consciously process it happening. On the side of my head, which barely hurts since my skull is basically made of concrete at this point. I'm immediately returning the blow twice as hard, and it just devolves from there.

One of the other guys jumps on me, while the last one continues talking shit while it all unfolds, only stepping in when the other two can't handle my struggling. They're eventually able to subdue me though, more because I run out of energy than anything else, including pain. I'm still pretty fucked up by the time it's all said and done, though.

Half of my face is bruised and my knuckles are bloody. There is honestly bruising all over the place, mostly my legs to keep me from kicking them so much. They go through my wallet and take everything, and I have no idea how much that is but it is definitely a good amount. Enough to sate them for now. Then, they toss it at me, looking even more pissed off than before for some reason.

I just zone out most of the time. I go on autopilot, and autopilot for me isn't the same as most people. I black out, and it's survival mode, and sometimes I make it out of the situation unscathed. Sometimes I don't.

"Next time I see you," Sharp says, now grabbing me by the jaw and growling into my ear. When the hell did he get so close? I feel blood drip down the side of my head. "You better have two payments. 20K, or you can say bye to that precious car."

Uh huh. He's always threatening that, but I dare them to go after my car. I keep part of my supply in there half the time, they'd be making enemies with Belladonna and Jane Doe.

I don't have much mobility right now, so I bite what I can reach as hard as I can. Which ends up being his upper cheek area. I bite into it as hard as possible, shaking my head like a rabid animal in an attempt to break skin, which I do.

Sharp screams, jumping away from me, blood pouring down his face, which is visible even through my blurry vision. The next couple minutes are a blur, but I'm pretty sure they go for round 2. Eventually I hear retreating and some sort of grumbled "junkie bastard" before it's quiet again. I'm alone.

I never appreciated that nickname, if one can even call it that. Junkie bastard. It bothers me because he's stereotyping, he calls me that all the time. He means it literally, he's made that clear, but he doesn't know. He has no idea. I had a father, once. I had an amazing one.

I don't know how long I lay there on the pavement, the occasional pedestrian walking past. Or running, since it's so early it's mainly joggers out right now. Or drunks. They all ignore me, because that's how you get by in this part of town. I don't mind it, as long as nobody calls the cops.

I bleed out in the junction where the sidewalk meets the alleyway for a while, in and out of consciousness. I think. It's not even fully because of the beating, I could get up if I really wanted to.

It's partially because of the headache, but mostly just my lack of energy. I'm so sleepy. I need a break. How much rest did I even get last night? Not a lot, that's for sure.

Eventually, my phone rings.

The screen is cracked. Well, more than usual, and it's definitely because of what just took place. I grab it and hold it up to my ear, though that's a lot easier said than done. It's a struggle, but I make it through, and doing so helps me get my mobility back. I begin to wake up, and that's when I realize I actually did lose consciousness.

Normally I wouldn't have answered, but that ringtone would have snapped me out of any state.

She has her own.