Beautiful Disaster (The Bet) (30 page)

Tricks littered the pavement, walking up and down their corners in the hopes of luring a John for the night, some to get out of the bitter cold, others to support their drug habits.

Junkies, completely strung out and detached from the harshness of reality slumped against dilapidated apartment buildings, laid practically dead to the world in alleyways, their temporary nirvanas in the needles at their arms.

This had been Tony's old stomping grounds. This was where he'd done his ‘work' and this was where he'd frequently brought Maddie.

She wasn't stupid. She knew she was slowly condemning herself and her child to an early grave. The child, which tests had proven to Charles Grayson and his high priced attorneys belonged to his son, had shut the bastard up. That was probably the only good thing to come out of this, that and maybe the money Charles was bribing her with to disappear from their lives. Her and the baby. And Maddie swore after tonight, she would use that money to get herself clean. After tonight.

"Hey hot stuff, looking for a good time?" a woman who could've easily passed for forty, was it not for the theater-like makeup masking her imperfections from the world, stepped in Maddie's path. Maddie tried to sidestep her but she anticipated the move and followed her. "Come one baby, don't be shy. I'm good with my tongue. I can dyke it up, just for a pretty girl like you. Twenty five bucks and I'll eat your pussy so good. You don't even need to get a room."

"No thank you." She tried again to walk past her, succeeding in doing so only because she'd shoved the woman aside and sprinted away. 

"Fucking bitch!" Maddie didn't turn back, didn't stop until she reached her destination, a full twelve blocks from where she'd been.

Winded, she took a moment to catch her breath before walking in the alleyway. The cold wind blew the fetid stench of urine and trash her way, Maddie persevered. The brick walls bleed icy water that dripped from the snow covered rooftops and onto the hard, wet concrete beneath her feet. The buzzing streetlamp above her painted everything a sickly yellow-orange, but Maddie was used to this by now. She stopped at a brown door behind the alleyway that one wouldn't notice if not aware of its location. She held a fist up and hesitantly knocked.

"Th'fuck you want?" Eyes as black as night stared at her through a rectangular slit in the door.

"I…I-was here with, Tony. I need some stuff." Big enough to crawl her ass through an imitation of hell and yet it seemed that Maddie wasn't big enough to utter the drug of choice. Was it any wonder why Tony called her a bitch?

"You got money?"

"Y--yeah." Stupidly she held up the fifty she'd stolen from her Gran. She attempted a smile, it came out more of a grimace, but Maddie wasn't bothered. This wasn't about etiquette. She needed crank and he had it.

He stepped out of the door, no smile, pistol in hand; he looked up and down the alleyway before grabbing her money. In the handful of seconds it took before he produced the small plastic bag, Maddie thought he'd take her money and rape her. But at the sight of the white powder...white gold, she forgot everything and reached for it. He snatched it out of her reach. Maddie stared at him and he grinned, suggestive, Cheshire big, teeth practically glowing in the darkness.

"You Tony's bitch, yeah I remember you.” He made a grab for her and leered, "Tell you what, baby girl, you want this, you gonna have to work for it." He grabbed her before she could think to flee. Sausage-like fingers wrapped around her arm and brusquely dragged her in the metal door closing with an ominous boom behind them.

Escaping was impossible as he pulled her through a bar-like room, the few occupants in there didn't bat an eyelash as he dragged her to backroom. There was a mattress on the floor, dirty, stained, he shoved her on it. Two more came in behind him, mean and ugly and just as big.

"Boys, we're gonna have ourselves some old-fashioned fun." When they started Maddie went to another place. They brutalized her body for God only knew how long, but her mind remained far, far, far away. When they were done, Maddie grabbed the white powdered filled bag he tossed her way and cradled it to her chest. Getting back to her car took almost all she had, but she managed. All she wanted now was to get home. The urgency to get home had her hands shaking.

Maddie grabbed one side of the pale yellow band with her teeth and yanked taut with her right hand. It took a while for the veins to surface and it finally did they bloomed blue beneath her translucent skin. She grabbed the syringe from the floor and positioned the needle at the crook of her elbow; her hands shook terribly as she tried to locate a good vein. She found it and with great concentration, she inserted the tip just far enough for her to release its contents.

She expected the rush, the sweet high, calming, soothing...nothing came but pain.

Maddie's heart rate abruptly spiked. The blood in her veins was like fire, it rushed at such a velocity that the thrumming sound was deafening to her ears. Breathing was impossible. Her body jerked and she began to convulse on the floor as foamy spittle formed at the corner of her mouth and quickly spread across her lips.

Was this what death felt like? Maddie silently wondered seconds before she lost conciseness.

Chapter
Eleven

Maddie felt as though she'd ingested a steel pipe as her throat constricted painfully in her attempt to swallow. Her mouth tasted of cotton, her tongue, heavy and dry only hindered her efforts in lubricating her parched throat. Suddenly, she was a coughing mess, the prickly dry feeling bringing tears to her eyes. Nurses instantly flooded the room, there were two and they worked in quick uncongenial synchronization to get her to calm her down. One of them stepped out to grab a cup of tepid water, while the other checked her vitals. Once assured that she was going to live, one left while the other remained.

She was a portly woman, ranging maybe in her late thirties, hinted by the sprinkle of salt and pepper hair dusting her temple. She wore what was customary of most nurses, a pair of aqua green scrubs, pristinely white clogs and a stethoscope strategically placed around her neck. She didn't look overly mean, but she certainly did not crack a smile Maddie's way as she continued to scribble notes on the brown clipboard she held in her hands.

"How are you feeling?"

"Fi---" Maddie cleared the rasp from her throat before opening her mouth to respond. "M' fine." The nurse walked from her position at the foot of the bed and came around to where the ivy pole stood to the left of the railed bed. She raised her eyes, assessed the bag containing the clear fluid and peered back down at the clipboard, the ballpoint pen in her hand furiously scratching away. She took a moment from her notes and favored Maddie with a small smile, not exactly friendly, but it did hold a hint of warmth that managed to put Maddie slightly at ease despite her discomfort.

"You gave us quite a scare, amazing that you managed to pull through. Do you remember what happened?" Everything wasn't exactly clear, just vague snippets of memories buzzing around in her head like deranged flies on the hunt for shit. What little she could remember wasn't exactly helpful or encouraging.

Her hands shook, the lighter burnt her thumb but persistency would not permit her the option of quitting, so Maddie impatiently settled to watch the white powder bubble and foam in the large pewter spoon.

The suction of the heroin being swallowed up by the needle and making a temporary home in the graduated marked plastic barrel base had Maddie already salivating for her high.

She didn't remember shooting, but Maddie did remember the effects it had on her.

Her heart accelerating...her senses heightening to the point where it even hurt to breathe...her very pores had ached...her brain, liver, lungs, and veins felt as though flooded by gallons of heated water...

And then she'd blacked out, with only the wish that God take away the pain and her soul as well.

"No...no I don't remember what happened." She preferred to keep the truth to herself for now.

"Well, there was a great amount of narcotics and harmful chemicals found in your bloodstream, cut into the batch of heroin you took. When you were brought in we all believed you dead, they had to pump your stomach to get everything out." It was then that her facial features tightened and the subtle folds of wrinkles creasing her forehead made their appearances. "The doctor were forced to perform a Cesarean."

"My baby..."

The nurse's sudden pause and frown had Maddie's hand at the base of her abdomen, where once the small bump had been was now a flat surface of pricking pain. "My baby?" She asked again as the all too familiar feeling of bile rising and clawing her throat had Maddie hunching over the rail around her bed. Futilely heaving acidic spit in the pink bowl deftly positioned beneath her face, she took the offered cup of water and sloshed it around her mouth. The nurse held the pink bowl as Maddie rinsed her mouth out and took it away when she was through.

The influence of the drugs had clouded her judgment. It took from her the need to care for anything or anyone but herself and her high. The consequences had been inconsequential, the casualties, replaceable by the alluring call of heroin. No one had mattered, nothing had mattered, only her and the drug. Nicholas didn't love her? Heroin eased the pain. She'd been stupid enough to allow herself to be a pawn to an unstable asshole? Heroin took her to a place where she was smart and strong. Ellie didn't want to be her friend and forgive her? Heroin became her best friend. Heroin, good and trusting heroin forgave Maddie the world.

Now reliable and forgiving heroin had possibly taken away something that could've loved her in return.

"My baby..." Suddenly she was a concerned parent. Breathing became too difficult...too much, too hard to do anything. 

The nurse jumped into action settling a strong yet soothing hand at Maddie's back, she instructed the red-head. "You have to calm down, Maddie. Breathe deep, that's it, through the nose and out the mouth. Good girl, slowly now, in and out... in and out." Maddie's torso rose and fell to the nurse's directive voice. She closed her eyes and tried to reign in her panic. "Very good, you're doing great. Just relax and keep breathing." Her hand ran soothing circles across Maddie's back until she could breathe properly.

"I'm not going to lie to you, Maddie, your child was born extremely premature and unhealthy, it's a wonder she even survived as long as she did. She was taken to NICU, the intensive care unit here designed for the sole purpose of seeing to the care of premature babies. Yours is probably one of the worse cases they've seen."

"But, she'll be okay right? She
has
to be okay! Her grandfather is a very rich man; he won't care if you get the most expansive of doctors to take care of her, just as long as she's taken care of and comes through okay. So she'll be fine...sh…she has to be..."

The nurse shook her head as if to dispute her claim. "As much as I would like to say that she will be okay, I don't believe in patronizing patients. The chances of your child making it through the night are very slim. She's been put in an incubator to keep her warm; it'll also decrease the chances of her getting an infection. The primary nurse is doing her best to get your daughter healthy again. But the chances of that happening aren't very likely I'm afraid. "

"I want to see her---" she peered at the nurse, finally noticing her nametag. Gwen, it read. "Gwen, I need to see my daughter."

"I'm sorry, but you can't."

Maddie glared at her through her tears. "What do you mean I can't? I want to see my daughter."

She shook her head, "I'm sorry but you are not allowed." She said firmly, reaching out to check the I-V on her arm.

"Don't touch me!" Maddie violently pulled her hand away managing to only aggravate the situation further as the clear adhesive dressing holding her ivy stub in place popped out of her skin. "I'm sorry, Maddie, but I've been put under strict restriction not to allow you near your child until said otherwise." Gwen worked to staunch the blood that now flowed from Maddie's skin by removing the existing bandage and reapplying another one beneath the small gauze she'd used to stop the blood.

"By who? Who the hell has the fucking right?"

"Mr. Grayson for one and its Hospital policy. Your situation is very delicate right now and allowing you near your child would only complicate matters."

Hysteria was quickly rearing its ugly head and Maddie was facing it head on. "How the hell would I complicate matters! Please I want to see my baby, I---I want to see if she's okay. Please, Gwen, she needs me..."

Gwen wasn't the least bit moved. Yes, the teenage girl was crying but her agony paled in comparison to the torture the small baby girl weighing no more than a few pound was going through. The poor unfortunate child was fighting for her chance to live, suffering and holding on to whatever dear life God was wishing for her to have. Despite that she was born to another irresponsible, self-absorbed and self-gratifying addict that couldn't be bothered to wean herself off of drugs until she was born.

Gwen had seen enough cases like these in the last fifteen years of working in her field to know people like Maddie Tate only cried because they were caught and felt sorry that they had gotten caught, not because they felt true and honest remorse for their mistakes. Gwen couldn't bring herself to feel sorrow for the red headed girl. This was another case of a child bringing another child into the world, to suffer unnecessarily for the mother's irresponsibility.