THE PILLS

Only do it for yourself, love.

***

CHAPTER II

*****

BEING PREPARED ON time wasn't the main issue I faced when it came time to go. I could barely sleep the night prior and that led me to getting up and getting ready by four in the morning. It took about three hours to completely wash, dry and straighten my hair, but that still left me awake at seven in the morning with silky hair down to my butt and a towel around my body.

The issue was the airport.

I had a mad fear of flying. As a three year old, I saw no issues with my parents flying me from Brazil to Colombia. I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Sixteen years later, though, as a skeptical nineteen-year-old, I really didn't know how I could put my trust in a big chunk of metal to literally fly me from point A to point B.

As the plane was taking off, I was on the midst of a full-fledged panic attack. That's when Daniel decided to put me out of my misery and give me sleeping pills. Turns out it wasn't actually sleeping pills and I had to find that out the hard way when Pablo finally woke me up to get off when he finally landed.

“I feel like shit,” I stated groggily as he wrapped his arm around my waist and walked me to the car. My stomach lurched everytime I moved suddenly and the world kept spinning around me.

“Yeah. I don't think those were just sleeping pills,” he muttered lowly under his breath.

I snapped my gaze to him, but sudden movements made me want to vomit so instead of beating him to shit, the only thing I was trying to beat was the vomit climbing up my throat.

“Why does she look like that?” a familiar voice rang out around the parking lot as we approached the rest of the men I was forced to travel with. I raised my head and glared at Guillermo, one of Daniel's men, as he grinned at us in amusement.

“Daniel decided to give her drugs. It's going to take hours until she gets back to normal,” Pablo said casually as he helped me into one of the cars.

I looked at him with wide eyes. “Hours? I'm going to feel like this for hours?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled as he helped me sit down and buckled me in. “But you don't have to worry about your boyfriend seeing you. Vincent lives miles away from here so you'll be fine before we get there.”

I glared at him, feeling completely offended that he thought I wanted to impress Vincent in anyway. “I don't think that's necessarily the point I'm trying to ma—”

A warm batch of vomit had been the thing to cut me off. It climbed up my throat and past my mouth before I could even think to close my mouth, it ended all over Pablo's shoes. He jumped away and cursed out as I continued to vomit my insides out.

Finally finishing, I leaned back into the car and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “I'm not even going to apologise for that.”

“Don't,” Pablo seethed before pinning a hard glare on Guillermo. “You go get me something to help clean this up. And you,” he turned to me and his gaze softened. “You just get some sleep, okay?”

There was no need to tell me twice. Before he even had the door closed, my eyelids were drooping over my eyes and my body went slack in my seat.

***

“S-Stop the car,” I exclaimed, waking up from my drug-induced slumber and sitting up. After a full minute of the car still moving without any signs of stopping, I spoke up again. “I said stop the fucking car!”

A sigh came out from the driver's side before the car rolled to a stop at the side of the road. I threw the side door open and, without fully getting out, proceeded to let out all the vomit my stomach had to offer.

I groaned as the puke spilled out of my mouth so violently, that I lurched eveytime a new batch came out. Finally, when I was only dry heaving over the side of the car I leaned back against the door and caught my breath, letting the fresh spring air soothe my burning throat.

A bottle of water came flying at me from the front, making me raise my eyebrow at it before looking at Daniel who looked back at me with an expectant look.

“Drink it. It'll help.”

It didn't.

Never did I ever think I would see the day where I, Araceli Constantine Cruz, would throw up water. Yet there I was, pretty much vomiting straight gastric acid after taking a small sip out of the bottle.

Whatever it was that Daniel gave me almost trumped my fear of planes completely.

After a few minutes of me trying to compose myself, I let myself back into the car and slammed the door shut behind me before resting my back against the seat as the car started up again.

Daniel handed me a pack of mints and popped two in my mouth before the realisation finally hit me.

“Um, boss,” I began scratching the back of my head awkwardly as he glanced at me from the rear view mirror. “about the way I yelled at you—”

“Shut up.”

He didn't sound as pissed as I thought he would be. He sounded more amused than anything else.

I did exactly what he said, and kept my mouth shut as he continued driving the car down the empty country road.

I had half the mind to ask him why he decided to bring me of all people on this business trip, but after thinking back to Pablo's earlier comment, I realised why.

He said something along the lines of meeting Vincent... and Vincent and Daniel had a business deal... and Vincent liked me. So boss probably brought me along to butter him up and make him softer so the business works better in his favour.

If the fact that I would be playing Vincent wasn't a difficult enough pill to swallow, the fact that Daniel would be there watching me do just that made me want vomit it out all over again.

Two more hours rolled by before we finally drove into a town that seemed like it had even the slightest bit of civilisation. There were small townhouses littered around and a couple corner shops. I was pretty sure we passed their town hall and it looked like it had been bouldered down and then glued back together by five-year-olds.

Soon enough, though, we passed the eiry looking town. What surrounded us completely was acres and acres of lush green trees. The road underneath the tires was gravel that crunched as we drove over it and caused us to bump up and down as we drove.

“Do you want to eat anything?”

I snapped my attention away from the trees to Daniel before dropping my gaze down to my stomach. Even though it was so flat, it was reverting into my body, it still grumbled.

Grumbled with absolute disgust.

The taste of water - water - was still bitter on my tongue and I couldn't help but make a retching noise at just the thought of being anywhere near something edible other than the mints in my mouth.

He looked at me with amused eyes and shook his head. “So no.”

Unless you want me puking all over your nice car.

“You know why you're here.” he said, changing the subject as he came to a halt in front of two large, metal gates.

It wasn't a question, but I still nodded my head and answered.

“I know,” I said quietly, hating how my voice came out weak and pathetic. It wasn't because I felt like that - even though I did - it had just been a long time since I had spoken properly.

“Do whatever he wants,” I snapped my eyes to him as he said this. “Make him happy, don't back talk,” he put extra emphasis on this one and for good reason as well because I could say the stupidest shit sometimes. “He won't hurt you. I'm not asking you to give your body to him or anything... Although if that's what you want to do—”

“It's not.”

“Alright. He won't be able to do anything to you because I'll be there. Pablo will there. A whole bunch of us will be there, alright?”

“Alright.”

And then with one firm nod, he began driving the car in through the slowly opening gates and parked it in front of a large, lavish mansion as three other cars came in with us.

Well, here we go I guess.