After Madison Walker quit heroin, he urged Connor Brennan to get clean, too.

Brennan, 20, thought about Walker, who had grown up in the same Fairfax County subdivision and was sober, healthy, close with his parents again. Look how happy he is, Brennan thought. I want to be like that.

A few nights later, Brennan was in a detox program in Chantilly. And Walker, 27, was dead. He'd taken one last hit, in a bathroom of his family's home in Springfield, and collapsed with the needle still in his arm.

[continues 2309 words]