Come December it's so freezing we have to find another squat. Ever since we got robbed, living under the bridge has become impossible. It's simply too cold. We could have maybe done it, albeit uncomfortably, with all the winter gear we used to have, but now we're in real danger of freezing to death while we sleep.

The new place is in way worse condition than the mansion and smells like rat shit and body odor from others who came before us and left their nasty stink behind. Adam stalked the house for a few days, watching for other squatters, but no one ever came. That makes the place ours. Rule of the streets.

It's a one story box in one of the toughest neighborhoods. We had to get permission to squat here from the drug dealer who runs the block. Luckily he knew a friend of Adam's who could vouch for us. We all still buy from Doc though. I've gone to lots of other dealers to get Jesse dope because it's just more convenient when I'm doing my "panhandling" or "hanging out with Hex." Doc has never done us wrong, so I know I'm running a risk every time I bring Jesse an unknown bindle, but some days I just don't have the time as I race to keep up with all my lies.

Adam is spiraling. It started the day we got robbed. I think it just broke something inside of him. He hasn't been the same since then, not by a long shot, and just now he's finally starting to crash after a five day meth binge.

I catch him in a rare moment of lucidity this morning, sitting on a metal chair we dragged out of a junk yard and looking out the front window.

"You want breakfast?" I ask.

Hex is gone and Gus and Jesse are still asleep in the two bedrooms down the hall.

Adam shakes his head absently. Lately he's been acting really crazy; seeing stuff, yelling at everyone and being so paranoid. No one has been able to have a real conversation with him.

"You gonna let yourself come down today?" I ask him.

He turns to look at me. My eyes immediately go to the stitches that Hex hasn't had a chance to take out yet. The gash is healing, but it still looks incredibly painful.

"Hell no," he says.

"Adam, you haven't slept in, like, three days."

He shrugs. "I'm fine."

"No you're not! Don't you want to be in your right mind when Hex has this baby? We're worried about you. All of us," I say.

At that moment Jesse comes in. He must have heard the conversation because he says,

"She's right, you know. I know I've said this before, but you really have a problem. It's getting scary. Not even Gus uses like you do."

"I don't have a problem," Adam mumbles.

"We don't blame you for the robbery," I say. I nudge Jesse in the ribs when he says nothing.

"Yeah, no one does," he pipes in when he feels my elbow.

Adam only shrugs in response. I can tell our words don't touch him. I'm not sure where he is these days, but he seems so lost and sad.

"Adam? Did you hear us? We're worried," I repeat. "When the baby comes-"

Adam turns around so fast, and his face is so angry as he charges towards me that I actually flinch, thinking that he might hit me.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT THAT!" he screams. His fist goes through the wall next to my head and I am frozen with fear. If that had been my face, he would've broken my jaw. I've never seen him this mad, not ever. His chill personality is gone. His rage matches Jesse's on his worst days.

"You better get the fuck back. You don't talk to her that way!" Jesse shouts angrily, stepping between us.

"I don't need a fuckin' lecture from EITHER of you!" Adam yells, getting right in Jesse's face. I'm shocked that Jesse doesn't hit him. He looks pissed enough to do it but somehow holds back.

Adam storms down the hall and pounds on Gus's door. "I gotta get outta here, Gus. Let's go!"

Gus stumbles out of the bedroom trying to put his coat on. He looks at me and mouths, what happened?

"I don't know," I whisper quietly.

"Come on, Gus! HURRY!" Adam barks, using a tone with Gus that he's never used before.

"Okay I'm coming," Gus says, toeing his shoes on.

And then they're gone. I sink down into the chair where Adam was sitting and simply stare out the window.

Eventually Hex comes back with McDonald's breakfast for everyone.

"Where did everybody go?" she asks.

I tell her about what happened. She plops
down onto the filthy mattress beside the chair and shakes her head.

"Adam has been completely spun lately. He hasn't acted like himself all week. He's using so much fucking crank, you have no idea." Hex says worriedly. "Where did he say they were going?"

"He didn't say. Just said he had to get out of the house."

Hex sighs. "Fine. Whatever. Maybe it'll cool him off. I'm gonna let him have it when he gets home!"

Jesse once again gets really pissed on my behalf.

"And I'll kick his ass when he shows up!" he says, pacing the floor like a caged animal.

"Oh so it's fine for you to do it but when some other guy goes for her face you get all knight-in-shining-armor about it?" Hex says with a scoff.

"You don't know anything about our relationship. You have no idea how much we love each other! In fact, we've got something planned that'll make sure we stay together forever! Okay so I've got a temper, but who doesn't?"

"You call that a TEMPER?" Hex shouts, standing up.

"Both of you shut up!" I yell, and I step between them.

I can't let Jesse say out loud what that "plan" is. If Hex knew he wanted me to die with him, she would make sure we're never alone together again.

Hex and Jesse glare at each other, but the fight is over. For now.

We all spend the next few hours eating breakfast, laying around, and speculating about what should be done to help Adam before the baby is born in a couple months. It's early evening when Jesse runs out of dope and leaves to panhandle, and Hex and I are alone again. The night that falls is extra dark with a new moon.

"I didn't think they'd be gone this long," she says, pacing nervously with her hand on her huge belly. She would never admit she's worried, but I can tell she is.

"Where do they usually go?" I ask.

Hex shrugs. "Who knows."

At that moment Gus runs into the house. He's crying hysterically, and we both huddle around him as he collapses on the floor.

"Where's Adam?" Hex asks.

"What's wrong?" I say.

Gus just screams into his coat sleeves, which he's using to hide his face. He shakes his head and just keeps sobbing.

"WHERE IS ADAM!" Hex shouts.

For a moment Gus doesn't respond. Then he peeks between his arms and screams, "HE'S DEAD!"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I say, shaking Gus as he sobs hysterically.

"Th- the bridge!" he manages to say.

Hex and I look at each other for a brief second before we all run out the door. In that second I see the dread in her eyes, and I know this is real.

We race to the bridge, slipping and falling on the frozen snow. But Hex has a singular focus. She forgets that we're even behind her and picks up the pace and soon outruns both of us. Gus and I don't speak as he helps me up after my third fall on the sidewalk. We just run, run, run.

Run.

Adam can't be dead.

Run.

This isn't real.

Run.

Wake up!

Run.

Please wake up, Ember!

The bridge is lit by a couple of flickering yellow street lights. There we find Hex pacing circles around something on the ground. My heart drops when I see that it's Adam's small crumpled body in the wet leaves. In the hour it took for Gus to run home and then for all of us to run here, no one has called an ambulance. Sure, there aren't that many people around this abandoned bridge, but if anyone saw him could they tell the difference between him and an animal, between him and the garbage? Did someone see him and do nothing?

"WHAT DID YOU DO!" Hex screams, running at Gus and shoving him so hard he falls onto a pile of discarded concrete pieces. He cries out in pain before shouting,

"NOTHING! We was just smokin' some Crystal!" Gus rolls off of the pile and stands up. His hands are bleeding and his chest is heaving. "Then Adam said his heart hurt and he fell. He was shakin' and spittin' and turnin' blue! I tried to get him out of it but he couldn't hear me! Then he went still! And now-"

Gus can't say it. He starts sobbing again.

"FUCK YOU!" Hex screams. It's clear that she's not talking to Gus anymore though.

I've never seen Hex cry like this before. The cry sounds like the guttural screams of a wounded animal. It's a ragged, primal sound. She's half sobbing and half gasping for breath as she picks up a huge chunk of concrete with a skinny stick of metal embedded in it and charges towards Adam's body.

I can't make sense of what she's about to do. I'm locked in my own stunned grief, just staring at Adam on the ground. He seems so small all the sudden, like just a kid, a little boy.

Hex stands over Adam's body with one leg on either side of his torso and is about to slam the chunk of concrete down onto his head, but Gus dives in front of her and and shields the body with his own.

"NO! DON'T!" he cries.

He wraps his arms and legs around Adam and rocks back and forth, alternating between sobbing and kissing his lifeless face.

"I'm sorry!" he cries softly. "I'm sorry, Adam! Please come back! I love you!"

I don't think Gus is aware of us anymore, lost in his grief as he holds Adam tightly and whispers to him over and over. Meanwhile Hex kicks Adam's legs.

"I HATE YOU!" she screams, "YOU FUCKING IDIOT! I'LL NEVER FORGIVE YOU FOR THIS! FUCK YOU, ADAM!"

The words are followed by more of those horrible primal screams, those animal cries. I'll never get them out of my head for the rest of my life.

I'm still too in shock to interrupt either of them. For me, nothing about this is real. I haven't shed one single tear. In the morning, I'll wake up and Adam will be there and I won't remember this terrible nightmare.

Adam will be there, ready with some joke or some story. Or he'll be throwing Hex over his shoulder while she laughs and pummels his back with her fists. Or he'll be sitting with Gus after a bad day, watching him sketch and telling him how amazing it is and making Gus light up like a firefly. He'll be there to put Jesse in his place and to make fun of my stupid shoes, separating the sole from the fabric and making a puppet mouth.

But no.

Adam will never be there, ever again.

He's gone forever, and all that stuff is gone too. The things he thought, said, did, wrote, hoped for and dreamed. All of it's gone. There are two deaths; the death of the person and the death of everything that made them who they were.

Adam will never know just how much Hex and Gus loved him. Even Hex, as she kicks his lifeless body, is pouring out the gallons and gallons of love for him that she'd stashed away, sure that it would be needed for a lifetime.

I eventually sit down in the leaves and wrap my arms around my legs. Hex has stopped kicking Adam, stopped screaming, and now she just sits there stroking his dark hair, taking each finger one at a time and running it down his face and neck. Gus is silent, still holding him. Every now and then he kisses him so gently on the lips. So, so softly. It makes me hurt.

"What do we do?" I finally whisper.

Hex shrugs. Gus is in his own world, saying goodbye to Adam in his own way, and doesn't answer me.

"Get the cops," Hex says hoarsely.

And since I have nothing else to do that can help either of them, I leave to find a phone.