Chapter Forty-Seven Blake
Chapter Forty-Seven
Blake
“Satya, it’s late. Is your ride here? Are you taking the train?
I know you’re not a fan of riding the train so late.
We can send someone with you.” The other staff member was frustrated.
It wasn’t apparent in his voice, but any foster kid was trained to hear the slightest intonation.
This staff member was tired and stressed.
I got it. We all had our problems, and I couldn’t even really blame him for missing whatever was going on with Satya.
She was fifteen and had started coming because she was friends with Cap from school.
She was also quiet, so she got overlooked sometimes.
At first she only came when Cap and Malik were here.
Then, she began coming a few times when it was just Malik.
This last week she’d been coming alone. She showed up at different hours, but she stayed every day until we were closing.
Tonight was the first night she wasn’t moving fast enough for my coworker.
I got why he was slightly annoyed. We couldn’t do our last round of checks until everyone was gone. It was against policy.
The environment was theirs, and they were free not to feel rushed to leave for a reason. A lot of that was maintaining a safe place for them; that meant free of everything, even the miniscule action that might be interpreted as “they don’t want me here.”
I got it. Shepherd, my coworker, I don’t think he did.
He was a good guy, and his intentions were solid. He wanted to make a difference in social work, but I could tell that even though his family had been one of the good ones for fostering, he’d never been in the system himself. Some got it. Some didn’t. I envied the ones who didn’t.
And he wasn’t getting it tonight.
Satya wasn’t saying anything, but Satya never said anything. She was a good kid. Did everything asked of her. Followed all the rules, but her not leaving when we first said we were closing, that was enough to send off a red alarm.
I eyed her, not sure how to proceed at this moment.
If I went by the book, I should be opening a dialogue between us.
I was supposed to be asking if she felt safe to go home, etc.
That would trip Shepherd’s own alarms, but Satya knew how to lie and cover if she wanted.
She was too smart. If I opened that conversation with her, she’d lie, and she’d lie convincingly.
She would probably even stop coming to the shelter because she knew Shepherd would be watching her closer than normal. And, well, I didn’t have it in me to give a fuck about what the policies said to do.
I wanted to help her now, not in four months or four years, or when it would be too late.
With that decision made, I waited until she left and went over to Shepherd.
“Hey,” I said under my breath. “Could you cover me? I just checked my phone, and my roommate had to go back to the hospital.”
His eyes widened, and he stood up from where he’d been bending to pick up some of the puzzle pieces that’d fallen to the floor. “Oh, no. Yes. Of course. I got this. Go. Make sure he’s okay. He’s the one who was shot, right?”
I nodded.
He knew about Marshall.
He just didn’t know that Marshall was currently with his family.
It was a good lie. Satya wasn’t the only one who knew how to lie.
“Thanks so much, Shep. I’ll owe you.” I was already grabbing my coat and phone. My keys and everything else I needed were inside my coat.
The first week Creighton kept sending his men to trail me, and I’d meant what I told him.
I wanted space. I needed space. That meant his little spies, too, so I’d taken to not bringing a bag with me.
It was easier to ghost them if they decided to try and wait me out.
That was last week. This week, someone was trailing me, but they stayed so far back that when I tried catching them, they eluded me.
I never saw their face. There was no indication I was even being followed, but I knew my body. It was Creighton.
To his credit, when I started trying to catch him following me, he would leave me alone. It was always a mindfuck because sometimes I wondered if it actually was him following me or if I was just hoping it was him.
Either way, I didn’t have a bag with me to grab, and as soon as I got outside, I was able to see Satya taking a right turn when she should’ve been going left. I hotfooted it after her.
I knew after the first block, she had no intention of going to her foster home.
After five blocks, I started to get an inkling where she might be going, and I didn’t like it.
There were a couple vacant buildings in this area.
Of course, they weren’t really vacant. Just no one officially lived there.
She ducked into one, and I cursed under my breath.
I paused, mentally preparing myself for what I was going to find in there.
Drug dealers, I’m sure. Other homeless people.
People high. Any and all? Other people? A few gangs operated in this territory, but as far as I was aware, they all had an understanding with one of the three.
West, Walden, or Creighton. I knew they were supposed to be having a meeting sometime, where I assumed they’d just finalize the standoff that had happened at the warehouse.
Still, I knew that wasn’t a carte blanche for protection because it only worked if someone who was about to hurt me knew who owned the territory, and a lot of people didn’t know. They were just getting by.
I was still going in. I needed to move before I lost Satya.
I was about to step off the block, cross the street to enter her building, when a hand grabbed my arm. My body instantly warmed, relaxing, as I was pulled against his chest. His scent washed over me, further fucking with my head because heat burst inside of me. My heart spiked.
He was here. Finally.
My mind caught up, and I rounded to shove him away from me. “Don’t—” I didn’t have time for this. “Don’t you dare follow me—”
“Where?” Creighton didn’t grab me, but he quickly shouldered me back against the nearest brick wall behind me. He loomed over me, his eyes almost glittering from the moon over us. He was all angry and sinister right now.
A sensation slid down my spine, wrapping around it.
He felt my body’s reaction and paused, giving me a once-over, which only sent heat to spread through the rest of my body. It wasn’t that I was aroused. It was the wrong time and place. It was relief because he still cared. And happiness because I’d missed him.
I instantly loathed my own body. Traitor.
“Into that warehouse? Because if you have the idea that you’re going in there alone and unprotected, baby, you are sorely mistaken.”
My heart picked up. I ignored it. “It’s none of your busines—”
“You are always my business,” he cut me off.
My eyes slid toward the warehouse, but I didn’t think Satya had left. My gut was saying she was in there, and my gut further squeezed at the thought of who else was in there as well.
“Creighton, I—” The old exhaustion slammed over me. When he was like this, it took all of my strength to fight him. He was a wall, and he was immovable sometimes. But I had to get in there, and I didn’t have the energy to fight him on it. Not on this.
Creighton gave me one of his usual stares, before he stepped away from me.
“This is my area. There should be someone, at least one person, in there who’s connected to me.
If you get into trouble, you use my name.
Got it? I know you can handle yourself, but if you get in a situation, just use my name.
Your girl will need you. It’ll save you time too. ”
What? He never gave in, not like this, not so easily, so quickly.
Or so reasonably.
I tried getting a read on him, but it was his usual flat affect on his face. There was nothing there to read.
He gave me more space. “I can see this is important to you, and I know you think I didn’t listen to you the last time we talked.
You asked for space. I’m giving you space.
” A third step away, and I had to bite down on my lip because part of me didn’t want him to keep going.
I wanted to reach out, grab hold of his shirt, and pull him back to me.
His hand lifted, cupping the side of my face before he touched his finger to my bottom lip. His finger smoothed over the dip in my chin. “Go, Blake.” His hand fell away.
I watched it go, and ached inside.
Why?
I didn’t have any more time to waste, and he knew it. He moved until he was in the shadows again, and I blinked, almost unable to see him at all now.
My heart hurt, but I crossed the street and went inside the warehouse.
Alarm and fear hit me hard, but I held them at bay, knowing I’d need to keep my head calm and clear in order to maneuver being inside. A guy immediately wafted over to me, his breath reeking, “Hey, ba-bee. Whatcha you doing here? Huh, honey? You here for a good time? You want a good time?”
The building was a vacant office of some sort. The front lounge area was where a few other homeless people were living. A girl was unconscious in the corner, a needle still in her arm.
I watched her chest and was relieved to see it rising at a steady pace. She was just passed out.
A hand waved in front of me. “Hey, you. Little girl. I’m talking to you.” The same guy began to get closer, his voice rising. A little sharper.
I cut my eyes back to him. “Don’t fucking touch me.” I reached for my hip and held it there.
He tracked where my hand went. I didn’t have a weapon on me.
I used to and I should’ve, but I didn’t want to take anything to the foster center in case it fell into the wrong hands.
It’d been a decision I had debated long and hard about.
When I made that decision, Creighton’s men had still been tailing me. I never changed my habit.