hollow. My voice is stark as I ask again,“Are you high?”
“Look, just… lay off me, okay? I’m under an insane amount of pressure right now.” His eyes dart around the yard, avoiding mine. “You don’t understand what I’m going through.”
I do understand, though. All too well.
He’s using again.
Oxy. Vicodin. Whatever he could get his hands on.
“God fucking damnit, Jax!”
I’m overcome with the urge to hit something. Hard. I clench my fingernails into my palms instead, scoring rows of half-moons across my flesh. Past experience tells me there’s no use in reasoning with him — not while he’s high. Using logic on a junkie is like speaking Latin to a toddler.
An experiment in frustration.
Jaxon shakes his head rapidly. “You don’t understand. You’ve never understood.”
“Then explain it to me.”
“Prison!” he shouts. “You have no idea what it was like, being locked up in a place like that. Surrounded by the worst sort of people. Falling asleep at night behind bars, wondering whether the next day will be your last. Knowing you’ve got to do something, anything, to protect yourself — even make an alliance with monsters.” He stares at me, his face a mask of scorn. “How could you possibly understand that, Archer? Look at your life!”
“My life?”
He gestures around at the beautifully manicured lawn, sloping down toward the sea. “Look at this place! Every day, you wake up in paradise. You grew up in a fucking fairy tale, Archer. Don’t pretend otherwise.”
“Last I checked, you spent your childhood here too, Jax.”
“Yeah, but it was different for you.”
“You’re rewriting history. I might’ve grown up in a castle, but we both know I sleep in the servants quarters. I’m the fucking help, not heir to any throne.” I glare at him. “Don’t act like I’ve lived some life of privilege. Don’t act like I had any more opportunities than you.”
“But you did. You still do!” He turns his face away, but I can hear the resentment in his voice. “You have private school. You have baseball. You have scholarships. You have a way out.”
“A way out I fucking earned, Jaxon! You may not want to hear it, but our lives are a reflection of our choices. You made yours; I made mine. Don’t resent me for taking a different path, just because yours led somewhere you don’t like anymore.”
“Here we go again. Perfect Archer, the golden boy, the good son. Pointing out all my fuck-ups.”
“Me, the golden boy?” I scoff. “That’s rich. You’re all Ma and Pa ever talk about. You’re the subject of every conversation, even when you aren’t there. The more poison you put in your veins, the more determined they become to save you from yourself. And as for your fuck-ups? I don’t need to point them out, Jaxon. You do that all on your own, every time you break their hearts by lying, cheating, or stealing from them.”
He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it all before. I’m the big bad wolf, ruining the Reyes family name. Spare me the lecture, will you?”
“This isn’t about our family name. This is about you putting everyone in your life in the crosshairs of violent criminals.”
“I’m figuring it out! You just have to give me more time!”
“More time isn’t going to help, Jax. You knew about this when you got out of Cedar-Junction. As far as I can tell, the only thing you’ve done in the two months since then is get high and go into hiding. Not necessarily in that order.”
“I’ll talk to Rico. Okay? I’ll get them to back off.”
“How? Enlighten me. Because they didn’t give the impression they’d back off for anything less than your full cooperation.” I pause, my mind spinning a million different directions. “Maybe if you talked to your parole officer, the police could get you some kind of deal as an informant. Witness protection or—”
“No. I’d be dead before I opened my mouth.”
“The police could protect you.”
“There’s no protection from this! Don’t you understand?” He runs his hands through his hair until it’s sticking up in several directions. “These guys will kill everyone. Me. You. Ma. Pa. Everyone.”
Rico promised me as much; clearly, he wasn’t bluffing.
“Fine. No police.” I take a deep breath. “What’s your backup plan?”
Jaxon is no longer meeting my eyes. He stares toward the tennis courts, his face pallid. “The Kings mostly circulate heroin and fentanyl. They make a killing in more rural parts of the state, but they don’t have a strong foothold this far north of Boston yet. Most