Haunter 1: The Shadow of the Haunter

19. First Round

"Your meds, Mr. Price?" asked Amy from the fireplace. She couldn't have faked a smile at him even if her life depended on it.

He turned to her, frowning. "Come again?"

"I need your meds."

"I need them back by noon to take them."

Amy held his eyes for a heartbeat and turned to me. "The bag, Fran, please?"

I hurried across the room to give it to her. And stayed as close to the heater as I could without falling into the fireplace. Man, I loved to feel the flames after being outside on such a cold morning.

Price breathed deep, annoyed. His voice thundered across the whole house. "Isaac! Our prescriptions!"

The wingman trotted down the stairs like an obedient poodle a moment later, carrying a belt pouch overflowing with pill bottles. He handed it out to Price, who nodded to Amy.

"Let's go one by one," she said, taking out a bunch of small glass dropper bottles from her bag and lining them up on the mantelpiece.

The wing— Enough of calling him that. Isaac grabbed a random orange bottle and read the name of the drug aloud. Amy picked one of her bottles and traded plastic for glass with him.

"You're gonna take these drops instead of your pills," she explained before they could ask anything. "Each bottle is labeled with the drug it's replacing. Have as many drops as pills you usually take, as often as you usually do."

"What are they?" asked Price with a suspicious frown.

"You can call them homeopathic remedies. They work exactly the same as your pills."

"I don't need some random remedy."

"No, you two need to start working on your dependency."

Isaac raised his eyebrows and met my eyes. Yeah, we both would've rather left and let the other two just kill each other.

"Dependency?" Price's voice was razor sharp. "Are you suggesting we're some kinda addicts?"

Amy shrugged. "I was just trying to be polite, but that's the right word for it. You have a particular kind of attachment that feeds addictions to feed on addicts' cravings. This is a way to weaken it, so we don't need to spend a whole month cleansing you guys to sever the attachment."

Price forgot all about his diminished demeanor to stiffen and stand tall, taking mortal offense.

"I'm not doing it."

Amy nodded to me. "Tell her. I'm doing all this to help her. Thought that was why you were here too: to help her so you can get your stupid shoot done in time."

If words were backhands, Price's nose would've been bleeding. His eyes descended on me as he raised his eyebrows slightly, the king commanding me to speak up or die. Amy wouldn't let me even open my mouth.

"So? Are you gonna bail cause you can't go without your fucking pills? Or are you enough of a man to let go of them for five days?"

I spotted a cat ball I'd forgotten on the coffee table. It started flashing the moment Amy cussed and I had to cover my mouth to fight back a silly giggle. That certainly fueled the fire of Price's hurting pride.

"What's so funny, young lady?"

Amy rolled her eyes. "Jesus! Is he really talking to you like he was your damned grade teacher?"

"Language, Amy!" I whispered.

I tried to control myself, but Isaac swallowed a giggle too. Avoiding eye contact wasn't enough, and we burst into laughter a heartbeat later. Price looked at us like we had spit in his face. At least Amy smiled.