Chapter Forty-Seven Blake #2
But my fingers automatically curled what would’ve normally been there. This man would see that habit, and I was leaning on that, hoping he’d know I had some way to defend myself against him.
I let the guy get a read on me, knowing he wasn’t going to take my tone personal. He was probably set in place to be the first wave of security in this warehouse, by whoever was his immediate boss.
It was a gamble if I used Creighton’s name now.
He might not know it, and if he did, he’d sound the alarm to go to his boss.
That boss would take time to get here. There’d be a whole process they’d have to go through to verify I wasn’t lying when I was using the highest boss’s name because if I was, that was a crime meant for death.
Of course, if I went that route, it’d take the time to deal with everything, but more than likely, I’d get the answers I needed about Satya easily.
They’d lead me to wherever she was staying and give me any information I wanted to know.
But Satya could bolt before I got to her.
“You’re not just anyone, are you, girlie?” He leaned forward, his crazed and drunken look falling away.
I was correct. He was security. It’d been his mask. He was very sober right now, giving me another assessment. “Who are you?”
“Look.” I debated on what exactly to tell him. “I work at the center down the way. You know it?”
“The new one? The big fancy one?”
I hesitated before shrugging. “Yeah. A girl I’m worried about ducked in here.
I’m not here to blow her situation. I just want to make sure she’s safe.
” Now I was the one to assess him because if he lied to me and gave me some bullshit about how of course she was safe, she was with family, I was going to find a weapon here, and I was going to use it to beat him.
And when I was done, then I’d use Creighton’s name.
Maybe he read my intention or not, I didn’t know, but a new emotion flickered over his eyes. He sidled away from me, waving behind him. “She’s set up in one of the back rooms. As long as you don’t mess with anyone, no one will mess with you. You got me?”
I clipped my chin up and down. “I just want to make sure she’s okay.”
He was already done with me and had turned. His hand rose again, giving another shooing motion.
I shooed.
She was in the fourth room, in what looked like had been an office.
She was kneeling on a sleeping bag on the floor, and sat up when I knocked lightly on the door.
Her jaw dropped, and she had to blink a few times before she scrambled to her feet.
“H-hi-whatareyoudoinghere?” Her face twisted up, and she blinked again, before her mouth curved downward. “Did you follow me?”
I didn’t answer her right away, taking in the room.
She had a pile of books near her sleeping bag.
One of those solar-powered flashlights. Her backpack was in the corner by her head.
She’d been looking at her phone, and it was gripped tightly in her hand now.
She held it up as if it were a weapon to keep me back.
Sheets were strewn up to cover the windows, along with a blanket that had been clipped in place to hide the floor-to-ceiling glass so no one could look in from the hallway.
A lawn chair was in the other corner, along with an empty place where another sleeping bag might’ve been.
Some water bottles and food items were in a pile. Cereal bowls. Spoons. Napkins.
Crap. She was living here.
“Let me guess.” I eyed her bag again, spotting something white tucked inside. “If I were to check your bag, you’d have a thing of toilet paper. Also guessing that’s probably why we’ve needed to refill the bathrooms more lately even though we’re not having more kids at the center.”
She flushed, and she was going to spew.
I waved that off before starting to sit, then catching myself. “Do you—” I gestured to the bottom half of her sleeping bag. “Would you mind?” I didn’t want to risk the floor.
“Uh. Yes.”
I sat anyway.
“Hey!” Now she was standing over me, still clasping onto her phone.
A sadness came over me, blanketing me, and everything else, all my confused emotions at seeing Creighton, faded away. None of that mattered because right now, only this girl mattered.
Maybe she saw the change on my face, or who knows, maybe she was just sensitive and could feel the change come over me, but whatever she’d been about to say, she didn’t.
I tried for a smile, but knew it was probably small. “Can you sit?”
She did, slowly. She kept watching me. “If you’re going to call the cops—” she said, warily.
I waved that off. “Please. Gross. I hate them too.”
A snort escaped her before she caught herself. When she did, her mouth went flat, and her eyes turned hostile. “Where I live is none of your business.”
“Isn’t it, though?”
She jerked upright, hissing. She was readying for a fight.
I ignored it. Her. The fight she wanted to spew, and I looked around her room again.
I let out a sigh.
“I did this, you know.” My gaze caught and held on a row of stars, cut out and taped on a string.
She hung them on the far wall. Those stars came from the center.
I remembered seeing her at the craft table.
She spent hours there, and I saw some snowflakes she’d cut out too.
They were taped to the wall above the empty spot.
A heart that she’d turned into a card, like it was a Valentine’s Day card.
That was propped so it was standing upright, also by that spot.
She loved whoever slept there.
“You did what? Narc on another runaway, thinking you were doing the right thing.” She sneered. “Bitch, please.”
“Bitch, yes please.”
Her face went blank. “What?”
My gaze found hers again. “Bitch, yes please. If you’re going to be rude, at least add the yes.
Makes it snarkier. More sass. Nothing wrong with having more sass.
I’ve had my own moments too.” I motioned around the place.
“And no, I meant that I’ve done this. This.
” There were smaller items. A little wolf carving on the floor.
“I had a good foster home when I was eight, but I had to leave when I was sixteen. Before that, I ran away a couple times. Before I was eight. And a few other times when I was sixteen.” That was before Creighton found me, when he began threatening my new foster parents.
Every time I was moved, he showed up and let the parents know how it was going to go for me.
It was his form of Creighton’s Foster Care Orientation.
I never had to run again.
He never asked why I didn’t run to him. I wondered about that.
“You were a runaway before you were eight?”
I nodded. “Yeah. So I get it. I do.” I pinned a look at her. “But I know your foster parents. I’ve met them. They seem like decent ones. Why . . .” I changed course. “You and whoever sleeps there, you two got separated?”
I lifted my head, making sure she could see my face. Read me.
She saw no judgment. Her shoulders suddenly slumped, and her head hung down. A weight fell from her. “Yeah. My little sister. They—” She let out a harsh breath. “I can’t tell you why, but she couldn’t stay where she was. I don’t have much longer anyways.”
“You’re fifteen.”
“I can do the thing where I file to get released early at sixteen from the state. That’s a thing. Isn’t it?”
Yeah. It was a thing. And she was going to try and get legal custody of her sister. I saw it all on her face. The hope. The desperation. I didn’t know if it would work. I doubted it would, but she just gave me something to work with.
“You’ll need a job.”
Her head jerked up. “What?”
“You’ll need a place to stay.” I cast a glance around the room, shaking my head. “This won’t work. You’ll need legal housing. An apartment probably. You’ll have to have a working bathroom. A kitchen. You can sleep in the living room, but she’ll need her own room.”
Hurt flared in her eyes. Her bottom lip started quivering. “Why are you saying this? You trying to mess me up or something?”
“I’m laying out what you’ll need to do for the state to even consider giving custody to you. That’s what you’re planning, right?”
She didn’t reply, but a sheen of tears told me I was right.
“Where’s your sister now?”
“Her foster parents haven’t reported her gone yet. She’s still going to school. One of her classmates invited a few of the girls over for a birthday sleepover.”
That was good. Real good.
“Your foster parents won’t try and take her in?”
She snorted. “You were in the system. You know that’s not how it works.”
She was right. I knew it should work to keep the siblings together.
That was probably the intent in the beginning, but a bed under a roof was more pivotal than keeping siblings together sometimes.
A million different thoughts were going through my head, but I was going to school for psychology.
I didn’t know what graduate school I’d be doing afterward, and I hadn’t intended to enter back into the foster world, but here I was.
And here was a teenager who needed some help, some real help.
I could do that. Or I’d do what I could.
“You know who I am?” I asked.
She frowned, her thin eyebrows burrowing together. She was playing with her phone on the sleeping bag between us, turning it over and then over and then over. It was a nervous habit. She did the same thing at the center sometimes with whatever was in her hand. Pen. Pencil. Scissors.
“You’re Miss Blake.” She said it slowly. “From the center.”
“No.” I grinned. “That’s not what I meant. I’ve caught the looks from some of you when the other staff aren’t looking. I’ve heard the whispers.” I leaned forward. “Do you know who I am?”
Comprehension dawned, and she nodded again, slowly.
“You know who protects me?” Whether I want him to or not.
Though a small voice reminded me that he backed away. He let me come into this warehouse by myself. He would’ve known the risks, and he still gave me space.