It was getting dark.
Sadie shivered, pulling herself further under the worn blanket as she tried to get some sleep. It was sleeting out, and she could hear the soft padding of the wet flakes against the thin glass of the window.
Despite herself, she could not help but be afraid.
Giving up for the time being on sleep, she wrapped the blanket around her shoulders, moving slowly over to the window. Hours earlier the whole place had been in chaos, as men in uniform had swarmed into every building. Sadie, terrified out of her mind had hidden in the old attics, dreading that she would be discovered, until the awful noise had stopped and she knew she was safe. Now all was quiet but she knew that they would probably be back. From the shouts and exclamations she knew that they had found something of what they were looking for, and Sadie was afraid.
She was in far too deep to be overlooked, should they do any major digging.
She shivered again, feeling a pang of guilt as she remembered that morning. It was a haze, she acknowledged, but through the mist of her drug-clouded memory she knew that she had had another fight with Amber over the amount of chemicals she was taking. It wasn't Amber's business, she had told herself, and had lashed out at her friend, telling her to keep out of something she didn't understand. Amber had stormed off in the direction of Sadie's bedsit, and then, an hour later the police had arrived and Amber had been among those arrested. She had been found in possession of marijuana, and Sadie knew that it had come from her room.
"Neal asked me to look after it." She whispered, turning to glance at the sleeping figure with some trepidation in her heart. "He'd kill me if he knew that I...that they...oh, but if Amber hadn't...what if she tells them? Tells on us? On me? On Neal, dammit? What if she does? It's not her fault...what if she sells us out? She can't go to jail for us - can she?"
She put a pale finger on the window pane, idly wiping away some of the condensation that had begun to form. She did not know where her friend was being held, but she knew from her own experience what police interrogation was like.
"They'll ask her questions till she's tired and...and she'll not have any choice but to say something." She whispered. "Oh God...but if Neal knew that Amber got done because she was trying to protect me, that she took the draw from my room and it wasn't the cops - hell, he'd kill me! He'd damn kill me! And...and if he didn't do that, well...he might...might cut me off."
She slipped down off the windowsill, making her way slowly across the moonlit room to where her jacket lay casually across the end of the bed. It had been Neal's idea that she conceal the forbidden drugs inside the lining of her favourite jacket, and it had proven a safe hiding place more than once before. With shaking hands, she pulled open the jacket, grabbing at the syringe and fumbling for the small vial of amber liquid that he had given her not long before they had gone to bed.
"You need to calm down." he'd said. "This will help. You know it will."
And she knew that it would. It had before. In this crazy, terrifying world of ups and downs, police raids and abuse, Sadie had long since turned to heroin for comfort. That it made her sick, dizzy and a stranger to everyone around her she neither realised nor cared. It provided her with the oblivion that shut out the cold and the problems, and she had become addicted almost immediately.
On nights like tonight, it was the only way she could sleep.
"Maybe I could get to the station, break Amber and the rest out before they could spill on us." She reflected, feverishly trying to fill the syringe with clumsy fingers. "God, Sadie, what are you talking about? It's crazy talking. Neal was right, you do need to calm down. They wouldn't tell...they couldn't. Neal knows too many people, inside and out. They wouldn't dare. They just..."
She cast another glance at her sleeping lover, putting her hand to her throat absently. There were faint bruises there, signs of a lover's tiff only a couple of nights ago, and she knew that Neal was capable of striking fear into the hearts of anyone he met. There were even a few bent coppers on the beat who turned a blind eye to Neal for fear of repercussions. No, no wonder he wasn't afraid.
"So why should I be?" She wondered. "Is it just fear? Or...or is it that she got arrested because of me? Protecting me? Is it because if they hadn't caught her when they did they'd have kept hunting and hunting till they dug me out, with my coat full of smack? Amber's no fool. Hell, did she do it on purpose to protect me? But why? What on earth can she gain by it?"
She shook her head, pushing grimy fair hair back from her face.
"It's not important now, anyway. It's over." She whispered, grabbing her belt from the floor and pulling it tight around her arm as she injected the substance. "The cops won't come back unless someone squeals and Neal knows they won't, so I won't worry about it either. He'll protect me, anyway. He...he might be rough but...but I know he will."
She tossed the syringe aside as the drug flooded her senses, stumbling back towards the bed and dropping down onto the matress, closing her eyes. Within a moment she was caught in a deep stupor, as the chemical did it's work, penetrating her senses and blocking out even the biting cold wind.