Chapter 1

"Mom!" I shouted as I shook her aggressively. She didn't respond, though. Shit! My eyes stung with tears as I realized my worst nightmare was coming true. I frantically searched for my phone, knocking it off the end table as I tried to grab it. 

"What's your emergency?" a woman's voice floated through the speaker. 

"I need an ambulance!" I shouted as I tried to wake my mother once again. 

I slumped to the floor as the sirens blared in the distance, setting off every stray dog in the vicinity. Of course, the paramedics didn't arrive as fast as I hoped they would, but who was I kidding? Why would they rush to our neighborhood? The slums of the town. Where only drug addicts, alcoholics, dealers, and gangs lived, we were seen as the no goods of the town.

It didn't matter if you were a child or not. It didn't matter that you couldn't control your parents or their decisions, but even we kids were looked down on. Unfortunately, or maybe thankfully, depending on how you looked at it, there weren't a lot of kids on my side of town. 

I watched through blurry eyes as the paramedics calmly made their way into our rundown house. Their expressions said it all as I watched them look around our home with disgust on their faces. 

"So, what happened?" one man asked as his partner began checking vitals.

"I don't know," I told him, feeling like the weight of the world was resting solely on my chest, "I found her like this when I was getting ready to leave for school." 

He scoffed and shook his head, "What's her drug of choice?" 

I hesitated, not really wanting to answer. "Look, kid," he told me, pinning me with a stern glare, "We know she's an addict." 

I still didn't answer. I hated the way he was talking, his tone and look. As if she weren't even a human. "She's alive right now, and unless we know what she took, we can't help her," his partner chimed in. At least he was a little nicer.

"I don't know," I told them truthfully, "I guess anything she can get her hands on." 

My mother wasn't always an addict. In fact, she was amazing when I was younger. We had a decent-sized brick home in town with a two-car garage. We had food, new clothes and shoes, a vehicle...everything. But then my dad died in a motorcycle wreck, and everything changed. My mother changed slowly. She started drinking. At first, it wasn't that bad. She would drink a little at night. But slowly she started drinking more and more, and before I knew what was happening, if she was awake, she was drunk. 

When that wasn't enough anymore, she turned to drugs, and the same thing happened with that. Now it was to the point where she would drink or take anything she could get her hands on. I was sheltered as a kid. I didn't know anything about alcohol or drugs or even anything about this side of town. But I learned fast. 

Mom had fallen hard down the path she was on, and now I don't even want to think about what she does to make money. I never would have thought this would be my life. 

"On three," my attention was drawn back to my mother as they lifted her to place her on a gurney. I watched, unsure if she would survive this. Once they had her strapped down and began to take her out, I finally stood. 

"Sorry, kid," the nicer paramedic told me, "You can't ride with us."

I stopped in my tracks. "What? Why not? It will take me at least an hour to walk to the hospital!" I tried to control my anger, but I was failing. My whole life had been falling apart, and it had been slowly deteriorating since I was thirteen. 

Jackass raised his eyebrows at me disapprovingly, "Not our problem. Call someone." And with that, I watched them load my mother into the back of the ambulance before taking off with the sirens blaring once more. 

I looked around, and the neighbors were all standing outside in their yards watching. It didn't matter, though; most of them were addicts of some sort, too. "You going to be okay?" Layla yelled across the street. She was friendly, probably the friendliest on our street. She, like my mom, was an addict too, but a little more put together. 

"I don't know," I told her as I turned to walk back into the house. 

"I'm here if you need me," she yelled. I didn't turn around or respond. What was there to say? I had to get to the hospital. I grabbed my backpack, double-checking to ensure my wallet was inside before tossing my phone in. I slung it on my back as I walked out the door. I hated running, but walking would take too long. Funny how sometimes the thing you hate doing the most is the one thing you're the best at. 

I took off jogging, watching the clouds roll in. I rolled my eyes, my frustration growing. Of course it's going to rain. Why wouldn't it? I made it to the train tracks and literally thought I was going to explode when I saw the lights flashing and the rails slowly coming down. 

I stopped, debating if I could make it across fast enough. 

"It ain't worth it," I heard a man holler.

I spun around to see who had the nerve to talk to me. No one talks to me, I'm from the slums. It didn't take me long to realize it was the second car in line—a shiny silver Mercedes, complete with rims and dark-tinted windows. The boy didn't look that much older than me, but I couldn't figure out why he cared. 

"Need a ride? Looks like it's about to rain," he continued before I could say anything. 

I looked around, the sky growing darker by the minute, and the idea of my mother being in the hospital by herself weighed heavily on my mind. I shouldn't accept his offer. I don't know him. I'd never seen him at school, so that means he's at least eighteen or nineteen...maybe older. I have seen the car around town a few times, though. 

I looked back up at the sky as the first drops of rain began to fall. Screw it, I thought to myself, it can't end up that bad. I quickly ran around to the passenger side as the man leaned over and opened the door for me. Who knew this was only the beginning of a disaster?