Ben waved for me to follow him. “Come here. I’ll show you what we’re doing.”

He strode quickly to the other end of the warehouse, his boots echoing loudly, and disappeared into a darkened doorway.

I peeked my head inside. The room was gloomy and dull, enclosed in crumbling brick and lit only by a lantern Ben was holding. It looked like an old boiler room. A smokestack had been bricked off years ago. A series of metal tables, rusted pipes, and broken hoses rimmed the wall, along with giant cylinders and ancient, rusting generators blackened from years of disuse and covered with dust. The thick mustiness clawed at my throat, claustrophobia folding around me like wrapping paper.

“Check this out.” Ben motioned me to a metal table at the back.

Scattered across it were a handful of small baggies filled with powder, along with a number of bottles of prescription pills. I picked one up. Oxy.

“What’s this?” I pointed at an odd-looking contraption.

“A pill press,” Ben said.

“Why do you need that?”

“This is what Vi and I were working on. People love oxy, right? We figured, if we cut the oxy with this”—he held up one of the baggies—“it’ll go further and cost less. Plus, by cutting it we vary the drug’s molecular fingerprint. It’ll look like there’s more than one gang supplying the drugs.”

“What’s that powder you’re cutting it with?” I asked.

“Fentanyl. It’s cheap and powerful. Plus I add in a little pinch of MDMA to keep people happy.”

“Have you lost your mind?” I exclaimed. I looked between Gabe and Ben. They looked pleased with themselves. I wanted to smack their stupid faces. “Do you have any idea how dangerous fentanyl is?”

Gabe looked contrite; he’d seen Violeta die, after all. But Ben just shrugged.

“Where did you get it?”

“It’s all over the dark web. Easy.”

“You know the DEA can track that shit, right? They can track you!”

Ben jeered at me. “They can’t track me. I’m not the one who ordered it.”

I glanced at Gabe, but he shook his head.

“Who did?”

“None of your damn business.”

“People could die!”

“So?”

I stared at him, stunned. What had happened to my brother to make him like this?

Research has shown that opioid use literally reshapes every part of the brain, even after drugs aren’t being used anymore. As addiction progresses, the structures in the brain lose the ability to communicate with one another, leading to trouble reasoning and thinking, and sometimes hijacking emotions, obliterating any sense of loyalty, morality, or duty.

But still, I was shocked by his level of apathy. My brother had truly lost the plot.