Black Clouds of Cotton (In Vein Series Book 2)

  Black Clouds of Cotton

  In Vein Series, #2

  C.M. Radcliff

  Contents

  1. Hadley

  2. Ander

  3. Hadley

  4. Ander

  5. Hadley

  6. Ander

  7. Hadley

  8. Ander

  9. Hadley

  10. Ander

  11. Hadley

  12. Ander

  13. Hadley

  14. Ander

  15. Hadley

  16. Ander

  17. Hadley

  18. Ander

  19. Hadley

  20. Ander

  21. Hadley

  22. Ander

  23. Hadley

  24. Ander

  25. Hadley

  26. Ander

  27. Hadley

  28. Ander

  29. Hadley

  30. Ander

  31. Hadley

  32. Ander

  33. Hadley

  34. Ander

  35. Hadley

  Note from the author:

  COMING APRIL 2021

  About the Author

  Also by C.M. Radcliff

  Copyright © 2021 by C.M. Radcliff

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, or any events or occurrences is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created purely by the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously.

  Cover Designer: Cassie Chapman, Opulent Swag and Designs

  Editor: Ellie McLove, My Brother’s Editor

  “Flowin' like a feather in the wind.

  It start off rough. Do it get better at the end?

  Do I go to a place where I don't never have to sin?”

  —Styles P, Keep the Faith

  1

  Hadley

  As I sit out on our balcony, I pinch the filter of my cigarette between my lips and take a drag. I breathe the toxins into my lungs as my eyes scan the hazy horizon. I’ve always been terribly afraid of heights, but when Sloane and I decided to get our own place, our options were limited. We managed to snag a two-bedroom apartment in the city for a decent price. The only catch was it was on the fourteenth floor and said floor is the hardest to rent out.

  If you ever look at an elevator, you’ll see that the thirteenth floor doesn’t exist. With the bad rap that the number thirteen gets for being bad luck, they completely eradicated the number. In reality though, the thirteenth floor does exist still, the number just isn’t there. So, by doing that, the fourteenth floor is technically the thirteenth.

  Do you see where I’m going with this?

  Those who really think about it understand that the fourteenth floor is the thirteenth floor, just with a different name. So, even though there’s no number thirteen that you’re pressing to get to the floor, you’re still on that floor.

  Thirteen is bad luck, so no one wants to live on that floor, except people like us. People who don’t give a shit or only attract bad luck. Should I really run away from something like that, or embrace it?

  Tilting my head back, I exhale slowly, watching the wisps of smoke curl into the evening sky. Grabbing the arms of the chair, I scoot it back, making sure that I’m as close to the building as possible. Even though I agreed to live here doesn’t mean that I’ve gotten over my fear of heights. I’ve just learned how to live with it. And to not get too close to the edge.

  The past six months have been about staying as far away from the edge as possible. After Ander, I could barely get through the day without breaking down. He dragged me through the depths of hell with him and somehow I got out. Somehow I survived. I wish I could say that the same happened for him.

  After the day that he overdosed and cut me out of his life, I never heard from him again. I called him over and over again for days. He never turned his phone back on. Eventually, the number was disconnected and I finally stopped trying. I showed up at his apartment every day for weeks. When his landlord showed up with the eviction notice, I was sitting on the floor outside his door, sobbing into the crook of my arm.

  Before I moved out of my dorm, Troy showed up the one evening looking for Abby. He sat in silence, watching me with a perplexed look on his face as I mourned alone over the loss of Ander. Hope was never restored, but that night, Troy gave me something that no one else could.

  Troy had kept in contact with Ander after he ghosted me. He wouldn’t tell me where he was, but he could at least tell me that he was alive. His addiction had swallowed him whole, but he was still breathing.

  That was a few months ago now. All I can do is hope that he’s still breathing now...

  I sit alone in silence, watching the city nightlife happening on the ground below and smoke my cigarette down to the filter. A tapping sound behind me catches my attention and I turn around in my seat, finding Sloane with her finger on the glass door. Smiling, she motions for me to come inside. I look past her, seeing a few of our friends setting up Cards Against Humanity on the coffee table with an assortment of drinks.

  As much as I love living with her and don’t hate my life, I enjoy my time alone. I love the quiet and the solitude and the intrusive fucking thoughts of Ander that cloud my mind.

  Stubbing my cigarette out in the ashtray, I slowly rise to my feet with a sigh, looking out over the balcony into the distance once more. The sun is slowly setting on the horizon, the sky a mixture of orange and pink-tinted wispy clouds.

  Another day that the sun sets and I’m left with a hollowness inside that I try so desperately to hide. I wonder if wherever Ander is that he’s watching another day come to an end.

  Another day that we’re not together.

  Standing in the kitchen, I watch everyone sitting in the living room laughing at the game they’re playing. It’s like I’m disconnected from it all, as if I’m just an outsider, watching life continue while I’m still stuck in the past.

  “What’s wrong, girl?” Sloane questions me, nudging me with her arm. “You look lost.”

  Because I am.

  Glancing at her, I offer her a completely fake, small smile. “I’m good,” I lie. “I’m just pretty beat from work today.” I’ve gotten pretty good at convincing everyone that I’m okay. All of it is a façade, but as long as I keep my mask in place, no one can see how broken I truly am inside.

  I watch Sloane walk to the fridge, and she pulls a beer from the shelf. She turns around, twisting off the top with a smirk. “You know, Ryland has been asking about you a lot.”

  Ryland is one of the guys who’s become a part of our group of friends that we hang out with. We met him last semester in one of our science classes. Although we’re both here for the nursing program, he’s at Red Rock for premed. He has high aspirations and a drive to be envious of.

  I wasn’t in the mood for new friends when we first met, but he was persistent as hell. Between his messy brown hair and soft gray eyes, it was hard to tell him no after he tried for weeks just to talk to me. Behind the good looks, I quickly became friends with a decent guy. What you see with him is what you get. There aren’t any secret agendas or ulterior motives with Ryland.

  And drugs. He wouldn’t dare to even smoke a joint.

  “Come on.” I let out an exasperated sigh, rolling my eyes at her. “We’re just friends.”

  That stupid fucking smirk is still on Sloane’s face as she raises he
r eyebrows. “And he just so happens to be interested in you.”

  Crossing my arms over my chest, I cut my eyes at her. “That doesn’t mean that I’m interested in being anything more than friends with him.”

  “Maybe you should be,” she says with a shrug. Her face softens slightly as she walks to me and lightly grabs my arm. “Maybe it’s time to try to move on. He’s not coming back, girl.”

  Swallowing over the lump that forms in my throat, I follow Sloane’s eyes as she looks back out into the living room. I catch Ryland staring at us and a smile forms on his lips as my gaze meets his. He holds his glass up to salute me and I nod in response as my hand is empty. Tilting his head back, he takes a slow sip of the bourbon in his glass.

  He’s everything that Ander isn’t and maybe that’s exactly what I need.

  2

  Ander

  Lying on my back, I stare at the stained ceiling above me. My eyes trace the brown patterns of the cracks etched in the paint. A small droplet of water forms from one of the darkened spots and drips onto my forehead. I wipe it away, feeling the weight of the drugs in my system weighing my arm down. It takes all the strength that I can muster to scoot to the side until I move out from under the water leaking from the room above.

  The springs from the cheap mattress dig into my spine as I move across the firm surface. It’s hotter than Satan’s asshole in the small, stuffy room. The summer months here are always brutal, but an air conditioner was never in my budget and is the least of my worries. I’d rather die from heatstroke than go through withdrawal.

  Even if I did buy an air conditioner, it would just end up at a pawnshop anyway.

  Inhaling deeply, I slowly drag the tattered fleece blanket away from my body and sit up on the bare mattress that lies on the floor. The room spins as a whooshing sound rings in my ears, violently bouncing off my eardrums. My head drops into my hands as I squeeze my eyes shut, blocking out any external stimuli.

  The dizziness has been happening more frequently and I’m sure it has everything to do with the mass quantities of heroin I’ve been injecting into my bloodstream multiple times a day. That, combined with the other drugs I’ve been throwing into the mix, is a recipe for death. I’ve built up a tolerance to the shit, and it takes a lot more for me to reach anything close to the high I’m on a wild goose chase for.

  Given that the dope isn’t as effective as it once was, I’ve resorted to using anything I can get my hands on. The mixture of the uppers and downers that reside in my system isn’t something I’m exactly proud of. But then again, no one becomes an addict for something to write home about.

  Pride went out the window many bags ago, along with my fucking dignity.

  The dizziness goes as quickly as it came and I blink rapidly, my eyes adjusting to the dim light shining through the single window in the room. I scoot to the edge of the bed and my feet fall onto the stained carpeted floor. Leaning forward, I unplug my phone from the charger and check the time. It’s already eight o’clock at night, which means I’ve slept off a majority of my high and that Anya already bounced.

  She usually doesn’t leave without making sure I’m awake in case she needs something. That’s the arrangement that we have, one that was never sexual and hadn’t been since we both ended up in this shithole. Anya sells every hole in her body for a decent enough price to get us both high, and I make sure that the pieces of shit she’s fucking don’t kill her.

  After the day that I overdosed and dipped out on Hadley, I’ve been a lost fucking soul. I was lost before that day, but ever since then, it’s like I beat my personal record every single day. When I left the hospital, I ended up at the casino, not knowing where else to go. There was no way I was going back to my apartment—Hadley knew everywhere that I could possibly hide. I needed to get away from her. I needed to get her away from me.

  Out of sight, out of fucking mind.

  The only way that I could get her out of sight was to skip town. The only way that I could get her out of my mind was with more drugs. Luckily for me, Javi had just kicked Anya out and fired her after he found out that she was fucking another dude that was getting smack from her too. Javi finally realized how bad her addiction had become and just kicked her to the curb, cutting her off.

  Anya had taken a wad of cash from his safe and walked out with a few bundles of dope. I met up with her in the parking lot outside of the casino to get high when she presented the idea. We had a plan to get the fuck out of here, all she needed was my protection and she’d take care of the rest.

  We never got out of the city. Anya and I ended up renting two rooms together in a crack house in the fucking gutter, only a few blocks away from where I used to live. Only a few blocks away from campus, which meant that even though Hadley was out of sight, she was never far.

  I don’t need her, I never needed her, but knowing that she’s still close is enough to give me some sense of security. It also brought on a whole new world of pain. She had moved on with her life, living it the way that she should without the disappointment that is me.

  There isn’t enough heroin in the world to erase the hollowness that nestled deep inside me, knowing that I can never have her, but fuck me if I’m not going to keep trying to achieve that.

  My phone vibrates in my hand, drawing my attention. Glancing down, I see Anya’s name and let out a sigh of defeat. Disappointment washes over me as my fucked-up mind was hoping to see someone else’s name. Instead, I’m left with her hazel eyes haunting my daydreams and nightmares.

  Swallowing down the unwanted feelings, I drag my sticky finger across the screen and open Anya’s message.

  Anya: Under the bypass, 10 mins.

  Since we don’t live a very extravagant lifestyle, Anya works the corner like your average hooker and ends up in a lot of dudes’ cars, going to a lot of shady places to do a lot of shady things. Whenever she gets picked up, she tells me where she’s going and how far out she is from there. Most of her “clients” don’t particularly care for a random guy coming along for the ride, so I keep tabs on her and step in if and when she needs me.

  Rolling out of bed, I land on the floor on my hands and knees. A wave of nausea rolls in my stomach as the room swirls. The air leaves my lungs in a whoosh and a bead of sweat rolls down the side of my face. My body screams in a language I don’t understand as my mind struggles to process whatever the hell is happening to me.

  Something isn’t right—but then again, when is anything ever right?

  My eyes trail along the dusty carpet until they land on a half-filled syringe lying against the yellow-tinged, smoke-stained wall. I must have nodded off earlier without even injecting all of the toxic liquid. My brow furrows as I pluck it from the floor and hold it up to the light. Anya and I had to give up the pure shit months ago. Now we’re stuck with the bottom of the barrel, cheap-ass black tar.

  Staring into the syringe, it’s just black tinged water. It’s hard to tell whether or not anyone has fucked with it. If anyone in this house was going to do anything with it, they would have stuck it in their own vein without even considering the risks. None of us truly think about the consequences that are going to come from this. We act without thinking anything through.

  All that matters is chasing that ultimate high or to die trying.

  I shouldn’t get high before heading out to have Anya’s back, but there’re a lot of things I shouldn’t do or shouldn’t have done. Going out there completely wasted is putting both of us at risk, but it’s the only thing that keeps me going anymore. I haven’t been carrying my weight with our arrangement, but I can’t get out of bed without it anymore.

  Shrugging to myself, I grab the shoelace that I had around my arm earlier and wrap it around my bicep again. This whole addiction thing is pretty repetitive. Feel the pain, chase it away; rinse and repeat, all fucking day.

  Shoving Hadley’s hazel eyes from my mind, I lock them away in the darkness inside and drive the beveled tip of the needle into my arm. It’s a st
ruggle to find a vein that isn’t collapsed or blown. Gritting my teeth, I dig around under my skin until it finally pierces a vessel. Wasting no time, I slam down the plunger, draining the syringe into my body.

  My vision blurs slightly as I’m hit by a whirlwind of euphoria as the drugs rush through my bloodstream. The rush is overwhelming and my eyes roll back into my head as my lids fall shut. I search for the gold and green hues of her eyes in the darkness of my mind, feeling a weight crushing my chest when I can’t find them. Even though she causes me the most pain, I still hang on to every piece, every memory and every thought. And even when I try to erase them, I feel a sense of loss all over again when I try to chase it all away.

  As I ride the warm waves from the rush of euphoria, I can’t see her, but I can hear her. Like a song, her voice calls to me, floating off in the distance. The sound is all I need to know that I’m okay, everything’s going to be okay.

  “You will never have to do any of this alone. I promise that I’m not going anywhere, Ander. Not now, not ever.”

  I may feel like I’m alone, but I never truly am. I’m constantly running from a ghost, but it’s one that I can’t seem to outrun.

  Maybe it’s time to finally stop running...

  3