I was at work the next night when I answered the call from the strange number. Jules didn't mind if we answered the phone while we were at work, as long as we didn't do it in front of customers. He was a pretty cool boss. Sometimes.

"Is this Riley?" A scratchy voice asked through the phone speaker.

"Yeah, who is this?" The voice on the other end of the line did not sound familiar. I never picked up unknown numbers, but I felt like I should take this call for some reason.

"You need to come pick this asshole up before he gets his ass beat." The gruff voice spat at me.

"Excuse me?" I was confused. I had no idea what this guy was talking about.

"Riley, please. Riley...I love you. Riley...I need you." My heart dropped when I heard him. Ezra's voice was slurring in the background calling for me.

"He's messed up pretty bad. He keeps saying your name like a fucking lunatic. I found your number in his phone when I got tired of listening to him whine." The scratchy voice hissed at me.

"I'm sorry. Please don't leave me. Riley, it hurts." Ezra kept calling for me.

"Where are you?" The tears flowed freely down my cheeks and I didn't even attempt to hide them. He needed help. I had to go to him.

The scratchy voiced guy gave me directions to the place. I knew the neighborhood, not from experience, but it was on the news daily when they covered the recent heroin overdoses in the county. This was not a place anyone in their right mind would go in the daytime, let alone after dark. Luckily for the dark-haired boy who was calling my name, I was not in my right mind anytime he was involved.

"I'll be there in 20 mins. Can you keep him out of trouble until I get there?"

"No promises." The phone went dead.

"Shit," I cursed loudly and dabbed the tears from my eyes with my hands. Jules looked up at me from the bar.

"What's up?" He asked as he wiped down the area in front of him with a rag.

"I have to leave." No part of me wanted to explain my situation to Jules. I couldn't tell my boss that I was leaving to go pick up the guy that I said I never wanted to see again from a shady part of town because he was high and was calling my name.

"We're pretty slow. Rach can handle it." He stopped wiping at the bar to look up at me. "I know you've got some stuff going on right now. Promise me you'll be careful and call me if you need help." Jules had good intuition.

"I will." I agreed before rushing out the door.

Twenty minutes later, I was lost and driving through the dark neighborhood. All the houses were rundown and most of them were boarded up. The acid in my stomach was churning. This place was even scarier than driving in Brynn's old neighborhood at night. I had never been in this part of town before. It was amazing how close this area was to where we currently lived and yet it felt so different and dangerous.

After a few more minutes, I found the address the guy had given me over the phone. There were quite a few cars in the driveway and on the street around it. I was petrified. I had never done anything like this in my life.

I parked my car on the street as close as I could get to the house. I didn't want to walk through this neighborhood. My breath was shaky as I got out of the car and began to jog up to the house.

When I got up to the porch, I raised my hand to knock on the door and nearly jumped out of my skin when the door opened. A tall, too skinny guy with no shirt on opened the door. This guy looked like he hadn't eaten in months.

"You looking for something?" He licked his dry, cracked lips and looked me up and down. He scratched at his arms and I could see the needle marks dotting his skin. He clawed at himself like bugs were crawling just under the surface. My stomach cringed at the sight of him and I almost vomited when his dirty mouth smiled at me.

"Um, someone called me about Ezra." I choked out to him.

"You don't need him. I'll hook you up." He reached out to grab my hand and I jumped back. My heart was racing and my urge to flee rose up. Coming here to get Ezra was a terrible decision. Just as I was about to turn around and run for it, I heard the scratchy voice who called me.

"He's upstairs." A short guy with a bald head and long beard came to the door. The skinny guy shrugged and went back into the house. He was mumbling something under his breath as he walked away.

The bald guy waved me in and I stepped into the dark house hesitantly. The house was littered with broken furniture and half-naked people. I tried hard not to stare at a guy in the corner pushing a needle in his arm. His head rolled back as he injected something dark under his skin. I expected this to be bad, but I did not think it would be anything like this. I had never seen anyone shoot themselves up before. He dug at the place where the needle was like it burned before his body went limp.

"You want some, sweetheart?" The scratchy voiced man asked when he caught me watching the guy in the corner.

"I'm just here to get Ezra." I said, trembling.

"I got some X upstairs if that's more your speed." He winked at me.

I shook my head no and he laughed at me. His long beard was shaking up and down on his chest. This guy was making fun of me. He smelled my innocence on me and was drinking it in.

"Follow me." He said as he started walking up the creaky stairs.

I hesitated, trying to get up my nerve to follow him. What if Ezra wasn't up here at all? Could I protect myself if something bad was about to happen? I had my keys in my hand. They were pretty heavy. I could hit someone with them if they tried to touch me.

I made the decision to follow him up the stairs to find out if Ezra was really up here. I had to save the dark-haired boy from himself.

When I got to the top of the stairs, I didn't think this place could get any worse. I was so wrong. The main floor looked like the lobby of a five-star hotel in comparison. I walked slowly past an open door falling off its hinges. There was a naked girl on all fours on the floor and a guy was pushing into her from behind. There were two other guys in the room stroking themselves as they watched. The guy behind the girl looked at me and smiled as I walked by. I cringed and hurried past as fast as I could. Ezra should not be in a place like this.

"He's in there." The scratchy voiced guy said, pushing the door open.

"He moved out of the doorway so I could step in. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the darkness of the room and I could see Ezra's shape in the dark. He was slumped down in a worn wing-backed chair. His eyes were rolling back into his head. He had a cut above his eyebrow that was gushing blood down the side of his face. I ran to the chair and began to shake him as hard as I could.

"Ezra, Ezra!" I screamed at him. "What did he take?" I turned around, asking the scratchy voiced man standing in the doorway.

"Anything he could find." The man said as he pulled the corners of his mouth into a smile. "He owes me money. You going to take care of me?"

This guy was disgusting.

Ezra looked like he was going to die and the guy was asking for his money. I wondered if that was why he called me here in the first place so that I could pay Ezra's debt.

"How much?" I asked, biting the inside of my cheek to hold back my anger.

"Three hundred dollars." He said, grinning at me. "I'll let it slide if you want to work it off for him, sweetheart."

There was no way I had three hundred dollars on me. I couldn't really afford to give him what I did have, but there was going to be no way to get out of this without giving the guy what he wanted. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my tip money and threw it at him. He reached down and picked up the small stack of cash.

"That's all I have." I said, watching the man count the cash in his hands.

"Not enough." He grinned. "He still owes me. You still owe me."

I had nothing else left to offer him and this guy wasn't going to give up.

My hands searched Ezra's pockets looking for anything to offer the man. I was hoping he had money or something of value so we could get out of here. There was a small plastic baggie in his pocket and I pulled it out, hoping it would be something I could use. The baggie was filled with various pills, all different sizes and colors. I didn't know what any of them were or what they did.

"Will this work?" I held the bag up and shook it at him.

The man scratched his goatee and his mouth was salivating as he studied the bag. "You got a deal, sweetheart." I threw the bag at him and turned my attention back to the damaged boy slumped over in the dirty chair. Ezra wasn't moving and hadn't opened his eyes once since I came into the room.

I pulled at him and smacked him, trying to get him to respond to me. I grabbed at his arms and cringed when I saw the swollen needle marks lining the crevices of his elbows. This was so much worse than I could have ever imagined. When he told me he was using, I didn't think he meant this. How could he do this to himself?

He turned in his chair and opened his eyes to look at me. The icy blue was clouded over and he had a vacant stare like he couldn't see me in front of him. His hair was matted and tangled. The beautiful boy was completely lost to his demons.

"Riley." He whispered and lifted his hand to my cheek.

"Yeah, it's me. We need to get you out of here. Can you walk?"

His head rolled back again and I slapped him across the face. I grabbed his shirt and shook him as hard as I could when he didn't respond. "Ezra, look at me. We need to leave right now."

I wrapped his arms around my neck and tried to lift him out of the chair. He was not going to move to help me at all. His body was dead weight against me. The guy who called me was still standing in the doorway, holding the bag of pills.

"Do you think you can help me get him to my car?" I was desperate and out of options.

He shrugged and walked away from the door, leaving me alone in the room with an incoherent Ezra. The man obviously had decided he had done his good deed for the night. I turned back to Ezra, praying he would come back to his senses enough to get out of this terrible place. Tears were rolling down my face and I let out a quiet sob. Ezra opened his eyes again when he heard me whimpering.

"Don't cry." His slurred words tumbled out of his mouth. His cloudy eyes searched mine. "What are you doing here? You shouldn't be here. It's not safe."

"I'm here to take you home." I sniffled. "Please, Ezra, I want to leave." I was begging him now. We needed to get out of here before anything else happened.

"So beautiful." He whispered, closing his eyes again.

"Ezra, I need you. Please come home with me." I begged him.

He opened his eyes and stared at my pleading face.

"I need you too, baby." He said with a sloppy smile.

"Damnit, then help me so we can get out of here." I said forcefully.

He placed his arms around my neck and I used all my strength to pull him up off the chair. He helped a little, but I had to use everything I had to move him still. He was unsteady on his feet and wrapped his arm around my shoulder to hold himself up. My arm wrapped around his waist and the other one held onto his stomach to help keep him from falling forward. Ezra was so tall and it was difficult for him to lean on me for support. I struggled to keep him standing upright as he swayed back and forth.

"That's good. Just a few steps." He started to listen to me as I encouraged him to put one foot in front of the other.

We walked slowly down the hall towards the stairs. Ezra's warm body was wrapped around me. He was stumbling and falling into the narrow hall walls, but at least we were finally moving in the right direction.

"That's it. Just keep walking." I pleaded trying to coax him down the stairs.

We made it down the stairs back to the main floor and Ezra started to pull away from me. He began walking towards a guy pushing a needle into his arm. The drugs were calling to him. I had to get his attention back to me and get him out of here before he tried to use anything else. I needed a game-changer. I knew what I had to do.

I crossed the room faster than he could stumble and stood in front of him. Lacing my fingers through his hair, I grabbed a handful of his messy, matted hair and pulled his head down to mine to push my lips against his. He pushed his tongue into my mouth and found my tongue ring. He moaned into me as I moved it against him. Ezra's hand went around my waist and pulled my body against his. This was such a bad idea, but it was the only thing I knew that might work.

Knowing I had to do whatever I could to get us out of this situation, I leaned back, batting my eyelashes and looked back up at his clouded eyes. Ezra was staring at me like he was afraid I would disappear.

"Are you ready?" I asked him. He smiled as his eyes started to roll back into his head. Great, I was losing him again. He leaned back into me and wrapped himself around me. My body was exhausted from supporting all his weight.

We exited the dark house tangled in each other and the fresh air soothed my burning lungs. My body could breathe again, knowing he was safe with me instead of in the house trying to find ways to hurt himself more. Ezra was consumed by his impulses and compulsions. I do not know what would have happened if I hadn't gotten to him tonight.

"Mine." He whispered against my skin possessively. I wasn't his. I only came here tonight to keep him from getting in trouble. There was no relationship between us. He didn't own me anymore, even if my body still told me he did.

I gathered my last bit of strength and led him to the car. I used the car to prop him up and opened the passenger door. He sunk down into the seat, unable to stand any longer. I lifted his feet in the car and reached over him to fasten his seat belt. He pulled me into the car on top of him and placed his hand on my hip, tracing little circles on my bare skin. Goosebumps spread over the skin where his fingers touched me.

"I love you." His words hit me deeply, stinging the edges of the emptiness inside of me. "I knew you would come back to me."

I pulled away from him as fast as I could and closed the door. I ran to the driver's side and jumped in. We needed to get out of here. Ezra closed his eyes and fell asleep before I could even put the car in drive.