((A/N)): Wow, I am so very very sorry that this took so long. College is a real bitch turns out. And this chapter is short, I know, and I'm sorry about that too. But it's here and I'm already working on the other one. So if I still have any fans out there: it's coming.
[Warnings]: Swearing, drug use, prostitution?, and horrible writing.
The day was dark and brisk, the wind whipping around her and the chill cutting straight through her thin clothes. But that was not the reason she clutched to her threadbare jacket and shivered, her lips turning blue.
Natalya stumbled through an alley, coughing and shaking uncontrollably. They had neither changed their needles nor gotten money. In fact, she'd not seen Aldred for days, maybe a week, and his disappearance was mildly disturbing. Anything could have happened to him. But what was worse was that she had burned through the last of their supply and was now in the beginnings of detox.
To say the least, it was unwelcome.
Her foot slipped in a puddle of what smelled like a mixture of sewage water and week old piss and Natalya had to catch herself on the rough side of a building. The air in her lungs bubbled out uncomfortably, causing her to double over with pain and spastic coughs. She leaned against the wall, her head slamming against it when she lifted it.
Stars danced in her vision as she felt the gut craving and need washing through her again. She couldn't do this. She needed a hit. Now. There was no other option.
The decision and physical need were the only two things that drove her to push away from wall. Eyes fixed firmly on the end of the alley, she sniffed and wiped her nose and the stretched out hem of her shirt, ignoring the blood smeared across her face and now the cloth.
Another hit. The craving. The need. The uncontrollable desire. Just make it to the next hit.
The shakes raked through her thin frame, but the Belorussian trudged on through the alleys with her arms wrapped around her middle to protect her from everything and nothing. Past homeless people dying for a taste of water or whiskey. Past crack addicts and lost potheads who looked a long way from home.
As she was rounding a corner, a man grabbed at her ankle wildly, causing her heart to pound and a terrified half shriek to escape her lips.
"Come on, baby," the man leered, his green teeth shown off in the dull light. "How much for a spin on you?"
Natalya kicked out at him, her balance lost as she fell back toward the opposite wall. "Nyet! Get off of me!"
The homeless man's expression changed from dirty lust to twisted fury. "Soviet! Reds! The Reds are coming! Commies! Bury them, bury them!"
Adrenaline was coursing through her veins as she spat and cursed in frightened Russian, hoping that it might deter the schizophrenic. Finding just enough energy, even as her heart palpitated in protest, Natalya managed to shake him off and tear down the alley with slowly clouding vision. Get away. Run away. Escape. Don't look ba—
Her face and hands connected harshly with the wall, knocking her to the ground as she let out a pained shriek. Natalya's breath was labored and she stared up, unseeing and unwilling to move. As sharp pains stitched into her sides from the constant coughing and the fall, she groaned and turned her gaze toward the sky. It was an entirely different view than when your shoulders were hunched and you avoided eye contact with anything but the vermin of the streets. Blue… Sky blue.
It filled her with a different kind of joy than the synthetic high of heroin. But the moment was fleeting and disappeared as soon as the drug popped into her head, filling it and bounced around the inside of her skull as she groaned in pain. A fix. A hit. Just one… Or two. Anything.
Her back arched up from the frigid ground as she gasped for breath again and forced her palms down flat, pushing herself off the ground. Natalya stood with a struggle, feeling that if she tried to speak, it would be with an infuriating st-stutter. There was even a stutter in her thoughts. Fantastic.
Through the sarcasm that had been explained and taught to her by Aldred, Natalya winced and leaned heavily against the rough wall, but still her feet trudged on. One in front of the other. She was almost there. She could smell it. It was so close.
"You went there without me? Do you know what could have happened?!"
Aldred's voice rang through her head as her side scraped along the wall, but she still walked on.
"You coulda' been jumped. You coulda' been ripped off. You coulda' gotten some fuckin' weird shit cut with God knows what and OD'ed!"
Then there was that question… The question she'd asked, when she'd been thinking completely different ones all together. 'And you think I care?' What she'd really meant, and what they asked themselves silently in their head, was, 'Why do you care? How do you care? Do you really care?'
"You fuckin' should care! 'Cuz I do!"
He cared… Someone cared about her… Someone would care if she got her ass killed or worse. That simple realization, even in her addled state, was enough to make her step falter. Oh. And it wasn't just someone, it was Aldred. Aldred, the man she'd slept next to, in his arms. The man she trusted enough to shoot up with. The man…
The man who'd been gone for days. The man who'd abandoned her. The man who'd claimed to care for her and then had disappeared without so much as a word.
Natalya's teeth gritted and she bit her tongue as her eyes narrowed with determination. Her fiery hate for him ignited the bit of reserve energy she had left and she pushed away from the wall, staggering from the alley and spilling out into the sunshine.
Light blinded the user and a silent scream ripped from her throat. She'd finally reached the light at the end of the alley and now there was to be the promised paradise. The garden of Paradise in which scantily clad women danced among fountains overflowing with opioid.
Now it was time for her to get down on her knees and beg. Get down on her knees and… do much more than beg. And that's exactly what she did. For days. Shooting up in alleys and stumbling back to the condemned building so called home. Who was there to stop her? No one. Not Aldred. She was alone again.
((A/N)): Thank you guys, really.. And sorry, but I'm trying to write more. I swear.