Free Following Trouble by Emme Rollins

to speak were unintelligible.
    “Okay, let’s go.” Rob appeared in the doorway behind me. “There’s a guy passed out in a room down the hall. I think it’s empty otherwise, but we need to get her out of here.”
    “She’s out.”
    Rob came over and did just what I had—he called her name, shook her a little, checked her pulse. Nothing but murmurs, moans, meaningless attempts at words.
    “I’ll carry her,” he said.
    I stood, watching Rob lift Katie in his arms. Her head lolled back, eyes opening slightly, showing just the whites.
    “Get her stuff.” Rob negotiated the door sideways.
    I grabbed Katie’s purse from next to the mattress and followed, warning Rob about the hole in the stairs, but he remembered.
    “I’ll drive.” He slid Katie in my back seat. “You stay with her.”
    It was easy to get back to the freeway and I sat with Katie’s head in my lap, trying not to cry, wanting to both hug and slap her simultaneously. Rob was on the phone, talking to Sarah, but I wasn’t listening.
    I stroked Katie’s hair and thought about the sleepovers we’d had as kids, staying up and painting our nails and faces, practicing kissing our pillows. I thought about Katie the day we gradua ted from high school, a huge yellow smiley face pasted to the top of her mortarboard. I thought about all the Trouble concerts we’d been to. We’d both been super-fans, forever, but neither of us could have imagined those little rock and roll fantasies we’d dreamed of could possibly come true.
    How had it come to this? Our dreams had turned to very real nightmares, with real world consequences.
    “Shouldn’t we take her to a hospital?” I asked as Rob pulled up at my little yello w house.
    I saw someone peering out my window and there was a Taurus—clearly a rental—parked in front of my house. Sarah, of course. This was the same Sarah who roomed with Tyler and Rob, the one who was attending UCLA. They were apparently on spring break too.
    “No. She’ll be in rehab by tonight.” Rob opened the door and helped me out. I stepped back, watching while he carefully lifted Katie, shutting the car door with his hip before heading for the house.
    Sarah opened the door for us. I barely registered her presence as Rob put Katie on my sofa and started telling Sarah to do things. Everything he asked for, she already had for him. Somehow she knew the drill. I knelt beside the sofa and just watched, my heart caught in my throat, fighting angry tears.
    “She’s going to be okay?” I finally asked.
    Sarah rang out a cloth and put it on Katie’s forehead. Sarah, I noticed for the first time, was both young and beautiful. She had long, thick dark hair, dark eyes, a heart-shaped face, a little dimple in her chin. She was quite petite and maybe that’s why she looked so young, but I was betting she was years younger than us. She looked like she was barely out of high school. Why in the world had Rob asked her to do this?
    “She will,” Sarah assured me, her voice soft. “This time.”
    “She’s so out of it.” I frowned, not quite believing Sarah’s words. I was a cop’s daughter, which meant I knew a hell of a lot, but I’d been strangely sheltered and protected.
    “She’s high.” Sarah gave me a sad little smile. “This is what a heroin high looks like.”
    It didn’t make sense to me. If you were going to get “high,” shouldn’t it be fun? This didn’t look like any fun to me at all. Was that initial rush so amazing, so compelling, that it was worth passing out for hours afterward?
    “Hope she’s enjoying it.” Rob glared. “Because if I have anything to say about it, it’s going to be her last.”
    Katie moaned and thrashed, rolling to her back. Sarah moved to shift her back to her side, glancing at my puzzled look as she shoved a pillow behind her to keep it from happening again.
    “She could vomit,” Sarah explained, covering Katie up to her shoulders with a blanket from the back of my couch. “And