Marlin's Faith: The Virtues Book II Read Free

world. I gasped at a particularly sharp spasm in my leg.
    “It’s only just starting,” he said quietly.
    “It gets worse?” I swallowed, and with how dry my throat was is very nearly gave an audible click.
    “Yeah, Faith. It gets much worse, but it’ll be okay, I promise. I’ll be right here. I’m not going anywhere.” He drew the comb steadily through my hair, as if he were determined to see the long process through before the even longer one got started. I was afraid. I wanted to believe him, I really did… I gripped the leather cuff around my wrist with the opposite hand and sighed as another shiver wracked through me.
    The boy who’d given it to me had been sweet. The boy who had given it to me had shone a light in my eyes that not everyone was out to get me. The boy who’d given it to me had reaffirmed my faith that there were still a few good people left out there. The man behind me, who carefully tended to me, reaffirmed what the boy had shown me with his simple gift, and I wanted so badly to believe…
    But it wasn’t long until the pure fire of an ultimate living hell overtook me and burned every sweet and kind sentiment away. Regardless, I clung to that simple gift, and the solemn vow of the gentle man of the here and now…
    It’ll be okay, I promise. I’ll be right here. I’m not going anywhere.

Chapter 3
    Marlin
     
    I could almost feel her slip away, the lucid moments just before the withdrawals really set in were always so fleeting, but she’d hung on. As if the gentle tug of the comb through her hair were an anchor or a lifeline. She shivered hard and harder and I knew it hurt. I knew it was bad, and I also knew it was just beginning. I’d promised her I would be here for the whole thing and I’d make good on that promise. Faith had every reason to never trust another man again, to never trust anyone again. I wanted to prove there were still a few of us left that could be relied upon.
    I finished her hair just as she doubled over and the sobbing began. Soon it would be screaming and that screaming would morph into crying uncontrollably as her body rebelled. Bucking wildly with muscle spasms. She would throw up and worse. Possibly wet herself. It would be the absolute worst thing she would ever go through in her life and then some… and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do for her.
    Faith doubled over and let out with this high pitched keening wail and that was it. It’d started. She was past the point of no return and it was going to be days of this. The worst part of it was, that for whatever reason, with withdrawals came insomnia. She wouldn’t even be able to sleep through any of this. Let alone the worst of it. I folded the towel around the ruin of stray hair, bug parts, and eggs and threw the whole damn thing away in the trash bag I had at the ready in the bathroom.
    I came back out to Faith curled on her side, crying. Her eyes squeezed shut, her teeth gritted tight against the pain. I got back up onto the bed and, fuck, I gave in to my own moment of weakness. I couldn’t not touch her. I knew after what she’d been through that touching her too much might not be the best thing, but I was fucking human. Being fucking human meant that when someone as fragile looking as her was in pain, you gathered up the broken pieces and tried to make them whole again. Which is what I did. I gathered her up against me and made soothing noises as the despair and agony took hold.
    So what if she puked on me? So what if she pissed herself or worse? I wasn’t going to stain. I could suck it up and wash it off. I held her while she bawled and struggled to get away from what was hurting her, but it was her own body wreaking havoc and throwing a tantrum like a two year old denied a piece of candy. Her body wanted the drug so fucking bad and she didn’t. She’d never wanted it.
    “Shh, I got you, Faith. You scream, you cry, you do whatever you need to do, Baby Girl.”
    It was that fact that made