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on E.” Tony pointed down at the fuel gauge. Adam looked over at the fuel gauge and then out the passenger window of the van.
    Tony looked disappointed. He blew smoke from his chapped lips. He stopped at a red traffic light and looked over at Adam. He felt sorry for him but he wasn’t quite sure why.
    Tony knew he didn’t come from shit. But Adam wasn’t like him. Adam was lost. Adam had come from a decent upbringing. He wasn’t abused as a child. He never had any grown-ups fondle him when he was a kid. This wasn’t the life he was destined to have but somehow he was right here in the life with him. Tony didn’t really understand it.
    Tony drove off from a red traffic light while Adam sat comfortably in the passenger seat.
    Tony turned the radio on but it was barely audible. He rolled down his window. He smoked his cigarette and dangled his hand out the driver’s window. He tapped his hand to the beat of the faint rock music.
    Tony made a hard right turn at the corner unto a dimly lit street. The street housed a strip mall. The stores were closed in the strip mall, all but one mini mart convenience store.
    Tony cut the wheel and pulled into the strip mall entrance. He was sure not to pull right in front. They probably had video cameras. He couldn’t let his van’s plates get caught on film. He was trying to get some cash not make the evening news.
    This had become a thing, a rush. It wasn’t like the rush that came when the heroin-filled needle pierced the vein and seeped into the bloodstream. This was a different rush.
    They had both become criminals. Although they had money there was something addictive about the adrenaline rush of committing an armed robbery. Adam felt the rush and so did Tony. It was a high like no other.
    Life was this monumental joke. The duo added robbing people as their newborn addiction. Being smacked out just was not enough. They craved more.
     
     
     

CHAPTER 4
     
    Erika stood next to Roxanne’s twin bed in the dorm room they shared. Roxanne’s bed was stripped clean of the sheets and pillows. Erika flopped down on the bed. She gazed out into space.
    Roxanne came into the dorm room from the hall. She walked over to the bed and knelt down in front of a jam-packed suitcase. Roxanne tried to zip the suitcase but it was stuffed full.
    Roxanne looked up at her friend. “Erika stop looking so sad.”
    “You’re leaving me.” She whined like a jilted lover.
    “I have to go home.”
    “In the middle of the semester.”
    “I feel safer at home with my mom.”
    “I understand but don’t drop out of school. If you do that, he wins.”
    Roxanne took air into her lungs. He? The rapist, she tried not to acknowledge his existence. He was invisible. She truly wanted him to be, X-ed out of her universe. He was until Erika mentioned him.
    “I’m not dropping out of school. This is no big deal. You can come over to my house whenever you want. You’ll get another roommate.”
    Erika fell back on the bed. “Oh god. I’m going to be so lonely.”
    Roxanne thought that was a selfish insensitive thing for Erika to say. She felt her safety was in fact more important than Erika’s loneliness. Maybe she was just unreasonable because of what happened to her.
    “I haven’t quit my job at the library. I just took a week off. I’ll be back to visit.”
    Erika sat back up to look her best friend in the eye. “You promise.”
    “I promise.” Roxanne stood and gave Erika a hug. She fell on top of her and pushed her back down on the bed. They shared a brief giggle before Roxanne hopped off of her.
    It warmed Roxanne’s heart to know that she could still have a laugh. She had forgotten what laughter felt like. Roxanne put her hands on her hips.
    “Now could you help me shove all this junk in my suitcase?” Roxanne asked.
    “If you can’t close it, then how can I?”
    “You can use your huge butt to sit on it.”
    Erika jumped from the bed and they both got down on their knees to push the