Page 14 of The Coldest: Stay Dangerous Part 2

Then, at the ninety-seventh hour, she should be whole again. Her mind should stop fighting itself, her body should stop craving all the poison she pumps into it.

The other effects are minute compared to this. The other shit she can work through, as long as she’s clean and wants to stay clean.

I push the syringe into her vein and depress the ibogaine into her system. Her breath hitches as she tries to pull away from me, but even if I weren’t holding her by the arm, she wouldn’t have been able to get far.

“Look at what you’ve done to yourself, Snow.”

Her fists ball as she tries and fails to scoot away from me. Her pupils are blown wide, but I know the drug will take about an hour to truly start working its magic.

I stand and round the bed, pulling the antique armchair up to the other side of her to sit. Her eyes can’t even track me, her head thrashing on the pillows.

“I always go back on my word for you, Snow. It’s infuriating. I told myself I wouldn’t have mercy on you, and yet here I am, helping you kick this habit you’ve formed. One I’m sure you blame me for.”

Her head turns toward the sound of my voice. She grinds her teeth, but her eyes are still unfocused, barely open.

“You listened to that bitch about how dog food is a better high than white, but I’m the reason you on it. You hooked up with them west side niggas who needed to stay up all night, but I’m the reason you on that. You were smoking and drinking since before we even linked up, and yet I’m to blame again. I’m just the only villain in your story, huh Snow? The reason for your downfall. You never could stand to see that you’re the cause of your own destruction.”

She can’t even hear me, so it’s no use. I’ll save the rest of my spiel for when she’s lucid. When my words can cut the deepest. When I can really drive her to end it all.

And then, maybe I’ll supply her a hotshot. An ode to Set. He’ll feel it, even though he never loved her. Even if he’s happily married now, a family man who goes to church and physical therapy and is the real life Black Bruce Wayne of Kenton.

He’ll feel her death when no one is looking, since it couldn’t be a coincidence that two women in his life died the same way. He’ll finally see how Snow’s downfall is as much on him as it is on her. How he didn’t give a fuck until it was too late, because he didn’t learn how to see people, really see beyond himself, until he met Sabrina.

I’m not surprised, since Tiny raised him from eight. But it’s no justification. Snow had been digging deep into addiction the entire time they fucked, and he never saw it.

I should give him a hotshot, too.

But you won’t.

My eyes shift from Snow to the sliding doors. Fredo smirks at me, before dropping it when his eyes dart to Snow.

“I won’t,” I agree aloud, forever mad I made that stupid promise to him. “But I should.”

“You weren’t there,” he says, shoving his hands into his jeans. “You were in the Marines, and a lot of stuff you forgot about.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

He shrugs. “Set used to get sloppy, pissy drunk. Always been a lightweight. Coke helps with that.”

I chuckle. The tally between him being a ghost and my mind’s invention always tips. “You’re saying that nigga’s a powderhead?”

“I’m saying, Rick, that we were all young and dumb. Molly and X were big back then in the city, and we all dabbled–well, besides Nut and Reem. But the rest of us? Hell yeah. Remember when Haze wrote you that letter about how I passed out in the champagne room at Paradise?”

This chuckle is genuine, remembering the polaroid of Fredo with his pants down, drink in hand, used condom on the floor.

He grins harder. “We all lived a life, grinding hard and playing harder. Snow would never say what, but something happened a little after Set turned twenty-one. That’s when he cut out drinking, molly, and pork.”

“Pork?”

“I think he tripped out making bacon, brodie. That’s why he moved into that highrise. He couldn’t get the smell out his other spot he had with Ty-Ty.”

“You niggas,” I mutter, shaking my head. Everyone kept me in the loop as much as possible, but I missed so much being away. Niggas grew up, adding another quirk each time I came back home.

Turk grew locs.

Shad combed his out.

Nutty finally got with Tati.