Calvin (Almstead Island: Newcomer’s Club #2)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

MICAH

“How’s the learnin’?” the ferryman asked when I boarded from Almstead Island. Noah, assuming his nametag was correct, was a friendly older guy—well, older than me—who never failed to ask about my classes. Half the time, he forgot to scan the college pass that gave me free pedestrian passage on public transportation, ferries included. I tried to ensure my “class schedule” aligned with his work shifts. At some point, it would stop working since I hadn’t been a student in over six months. That was a problem for Future Micah.

“They’re going great. I’m enjoying them,” I answered softly and ducked my head.

He made a few appreciative noises, but no more questions came today, as usual. He always waited for my answer but never asked for too much information. Maybe he was being polite, but imagining one person cared about how my life was going was often the only bright in my day.

It was too cold and drizzly to sit on the ferry’s upper deck. Over the summer, the earliest ferry coincided with sunrise, and I’d watch the early morning streaks of pink and purple. Now that fall was underway, my unlined jacket and holey shoes weren’t enough protection from the steady moisture or the biting wind.

This was the ferry’s second run of the morning, so I headed for the passenger lounge to see if anyone had forgotten a sandwich the staff hadn’t cleared. The mice had found my saved granola bar yesterday. The thought of them being near me while I was sleeping made my skin crawl. Creepy crawly things were not my friends.

It didn’t take long to scout the few Formica tables and wooden benches, but nothing had been left behind. Unfortunately for me, the crew was too efficient. There was a half-eaten sandwich in the trash with dustpan dirt over it. I was hungry enough to consider it, but I wasn’t alone in the passenger lounge, and I couldn’t afford to answer questions about why I was digging in the trash. Ugh. My stomach didn’t rumble, but a wave of nausea came over me. I’d had a few days of getting in less than five hundred calories , and it was starting to catch up with me.

I almost let out a whoop of victory when I spied a copy of the Times tossed on the table. The crew wouldn’t have left it overnight, so it had to be from today. My mad dash across the lounge probably looked foolish, but the other passenger never glanced up from his phone. The business section hadn’t been tossed or taken, so I could swipe it and update my notebook. With the paper section carefully tucked into my backpack, I stared out the windows, hoping to see water spouts from passing whales or dolphins. No such luck today.

As the ferry approached the mainland, I returned to the lower deck to fetch and unload my bike. Noah was looking at my bike, which I’d secured with a lock and chain. It wasn’t likely to be stolen on the ferry, but I couldn’t afford to take chances. It was irreplaceable.

“Did I lock it up at the wrong spot?” This was where I’d been directed to do it when I started my ferry trips, but maybe things had changed.

“Nah, you’re fine. I was looking at your tire. It’s not going to hold out much longer before it splits. If you’re riding in traffic, that could be dangerous.”

“Oh yeah, I’ll handle it. Thanks!” Noah gave a friendly wave before he tied off the ferry and directed waiting cars off the deck. Money was scarce for food, so replacing a tire wasn’t happening.

The clock on the deck wall taunted me. If I went to a day labor pickup spot, I would miss any chance at the food bank, which had been highly hit-or-miss. If I went to the food bank, I’d miss any chance of being hired. Either way, my shoes were about to fall apart, my tire needed to be replaced, and I was so damn tired I could barely think straight.

If I got picked up today for work, there was a chance I could do at least one of the three necessities. Decision made, I headed toward the home improvement store a few blocks away. My five-six height and lack of muscles were always a problem, but in drizzly weather, the worker choices were usually slim, so someone was inevitably desperate enough to take a chance on hiring me for the day. I rarely got chosen on clear days when plenty of workers showed up. Of course, I never got paid as much as the guys with construction skills, but I could clean a job site and do grunt labor as well as anyone else.

After hours of waiting at the edge of the parking lot, I had absolutely nothing to show for it. The soles of my shoes had mostly worn through, so my feet and socks were soaked. My jacket, as I’d predicted on the ferry, was no match for the chill in the autumn air, and my clothes were soaked through too.

I finally gave up hope of a job and headed to the food bank before it closed—also nothing. According to the sign on the door, they hadn’t opened at all today and didn’t know when they’d open again because of a lack of donations. The vague nausea from this morning had become a constant companion, with a not-so-fun headache added to the mix. The one option I’d been avoiding for months loomed large.

I was out of choices. I couldn’t get a proper job. Day work wasn’t happening, and the farther we got into winter, the worse it would be. I didn’t have a family worth speaking about to ask for help. Heck, I wasn’t a virgin, so it wasn’t like I was selling something I hadn’t already given away. I might not have had particularly good sex, but I’d had it. It was mostly okay, but nothing exciting. And if it meant not starving, I’d figure out how to fake it.

The next block over had a thrift store and a scratch-n-dent store, so I went there next. If I was going to make some cash on the street, I had to look the part. Thankfully, the weather had kept everyone at home and the streets and store were empty. In the racks, I found a mesh shirt and the shortest shorts I’d ever worn. They took two-thirds of my budget. With my remaining funds, I bought a stick of eyeliner and a two-for-one granola bar deal. They weren’t much, but they might quell some of the hunger pains.

Dejected, I headed back to the ferry for the trip home. I quickly scanned my pass, offered a prayer of thanks to the universe when it worked, secured my bike, and headed upstairs. The passenger lounge was more crowded than this morning, and there was no chance of a wayward snack being found. I found a quiet spot near the rear and thought about the only option I had left.

After the ferry docked and we all disembarked, I started the trek back to where I was staying. The drizzle from earlier had turned into rain, which made riding a bike a little dicey due to the lack of streetlights on Almstead Island. Since I didn’t have permission to be staying where I was, I had to take the ground’s service road. It added twenty minutes to the ride in good weather but closer to thirty-five on days like today.

When I finally neared the little garden shed I’d called home for a few weeks, I picked up my bike to avoid leaving any unusual tracks that might cause undue questions. In all the time I’d crashed here, no one had come around. It seemed like the kind of place a kid would sneak off to rather than a spot regularly used.

There was a sink and toilet, plus a cot with some raggedy blankets. The place wasn’t much, but it was a significant step up from sleeping on the streets. I kept my supplies, like bar soap and toothpaste, in a plastic milk crate that was easy to tuck away unnoticed in the corner. The cot folded up as well. I hoped if someone did come around, they wouldn’t realize I’d been living here.

My stomachache and headache were battling for supremacy. I ate both granola bars rather than chance the mice stealing them. It helped the hunger pangs, but they’d be back again by morning. The only silver lining was the possibility of sleeping late tomorrow. And if I was asleep, it was easier to pretend this wasn’t my whole miserable life. When it was safe to sleep deeply, I let myself dream I’d finished college and had a little apartment with a real kitchen and a balcony covered with plants in colorful pots. I’d have a cup of tea and read out there every day. I hadn’t had free access to a kitchen with food in well over a decade. My stomach hurt less when I wasn’t awake to feel it.

Tomorrow could be a sleep-all-day day until it was time to sell the last thing of any value I had left.

Unfortunately, the noise from my dream was not from a pot of boiling soup. It was gurgling pipes in the bathroom. My headache and nausea hadn’t improved, but I had managed to sleep more than sixteen hours. According to the analog watch I found near a dumpster, I’d slept through the night and half the day. Unfortunately, aliens hadn’t abducted me during the night, so my fate loomed large.

One of my foster homes had been near a park where everything was sold, including people. Activities started before dark, so I might as well change and head across to the mainland. If I could make some money early, maybe I could catch the last ferry and not have to sleep on the street. Chances were high there wouldn’t be anywhere to change on the mainland, so I’d need to wear my new clothes under my regular clothes. The last thing I needed was for anyone on the ferry to wonder why I was dressed in cheap club clothes in the middle of the afternoon.

With a sigh I felt in my soul, I hefted myself off the cot and went to the sink to brush my teeth and change clothes. The clothes barely fit. The shorts left nothing to the imagination, and the mesh top covered me only to my exposed belly button. When I’d first arrived, I’d scrounged a small mirror and used it now to put on the eyeliner. It was a little heavy, but it was a good look for what was coming next. I plopped back down on the cot to run through my options one more time.

My reconsideration only took a few seconds because there were no other possible options. Ugh . The only choice left was on the other side of the ferry ride. Decision made, I squared my shoulders and stood to put on my regular clothes over this ridiculously skimpy outfit I wore.

“ Who the fuck are you? ”

The shock of the shouted question didn’t penetrate my brain until the agitated man dressed in a landscaping uniform repeated himself. Words got stuck in my throat. No matter how many times I tried to force them out, they stubbornly refused to form. After he shouted the question at me a third time, the man threw up his hand in frustration. Dimly, I caught him on the phone and vaguely recognized it was the police when he kept saying something about burglaries. Trespassing was a crime, but I hadn’t realized using electricity and water could be charged like that.

“You gonna answer me?”

I was paralyzed in fear and only shook my head. He turned over my crate of personal items and ordered me to sit on it.

“Fine. Wait for the goddamn cops. Your ass is going to jail.”

He slammed the door shut behind him, but I heard him talking to someone. The moment he was gone, I grabbed my backpack from the pile and clutched it to my chest.

I flinched at his parting shot, but he was likely telling the truth. This was so much worse than selling myself. If I had a criminal record, I’d never figure out how to climb out of the hole that was my life. Since no one was there to witness my humiliation, the razor-thin control I had over my tears vanished. It wasn’t fair.

For a split second, I considered an escape from the shed. The window was too small to climb out, leaving the door as the only option. There was zero chance of me overpowering the gardener. He might have a layer of not-in-his-twenties-anymore over his midsection, but I could tell he was mostly muscle. The odds of being able to slip around him weren’t high, considering how lightheaded I was sitting on the crate. The inescapable truth washed over me.

I was headed to jail.

The landscaper stood just outside the doorway, but it was difficult to tell if he was on the phone or if the police had arrived. The man flung the door open again and walked in. His face was set in grim lines, but he seemed slightly less angry than before. When a second man filled the doorway, I instinctively understood the groundskeeper was the least of my problems. My tears were pointless regardless, but I didn’t want to embarrass myself. I reflexively swallowed the lump in my throat. My eyes burned as I kept my tears at bay. The foolish outfit I wore felt more so now. I wrapped my arms across my stomach to retain heat, but every moment, a sharper chill seeped into my bones.

Behind him, a dark-haired man with a hard-set mouth filled the doorway. His suit was not from the thrift store, nor were his shiny shoes. He obviously worked out, but he didn’t have a gym-rat body. What he did have was an aura that radiated anger. He was highly pissed off, and it was directed at me. His anger shrank me further inside my shell. While I’d never spent time around rich people, I knew my way around angry ones. The first few smacks were usually the worst because of the shock, but then numbness took over. The pain came back later in spades though.

My focus had been so fixated on the angry, dark-haired man it hadn’t registered that a police officer had entered the now overcrowded shed. He said something to me and then stuck his hand in my face—well, not my face, but my general vicinity. My body muscles had become as useless as my voice.

“Do you have any ID?” the officer asked when he crouched near me.

Ha! That was the entire dang reason getting a job wasn’t an option, but I managed to shake my head. When I tried to speak, it came out more like a strangled whimper. The tenuous hold on my tears was slipping fast. The officer tried again for my name and explained something about more charges, but I couldn’t force myself to speak.

“Boy, tell him your name,” barked the dark-eyed, close-trimmed bearded man in the suit. Authority rang through his tone and my brain became functional again.

“My name is Micah Morgan. I promise I didn’t steal anything, and I don’t know anything about any burglaries.” The lump in my throat was painful. I tried to manage the wobble in my chin and bit the inside of my lip in a rapidly failing attempt to maintain control.

“Thank you for telling me. Did someone give you permission to be here?” All I could manage was a shake of my head.

“If no one gave you permission, then you’re trespassing, and you’ll have to leave. Mr. Rutledge can press charges, but we don’t typically put people in jail for trespassing. If charges are pressed, you’ll need to appear in court to answer for them,” explained the officer. When I glanced over at the stone-faced Mr. Rutledge, the dam of tears broke, and the watershed I’d been trying to control burst through.

It wasn’t fair. Never in my life had I tried to cheat, steal, or take more than I deserved. My dreams weren’t big, but going to jail, with fines and costs and a record, would put so much out of reach. I didn’t want to die, but danged if I didn’t want to sleep forever. Life wasn’t supposed to be this hard.

“Officer Hagen, Jonas, may I speak with you outside?” Mr. Rutledge asked with a nod to the landscaper and officer. When they began to move outside, he turned to me and barked, “Do not move from that spot. Am I clear?”

I nodded emphatically. The last thing I wanted was to anger him more than I already had. The entire balance of my life was held by this man, and I would do exactly what I was told if it meant not going to jail.

It felt like an eternity, but it was likely only a few minutes before Mr. Rutledge and Officer Hagen returned. When Mr. Rutledge came back, his expression was more pensive than furious. I couldn’t let myself begin to hope for a reprieve.

I watched him warily as he strode the few steps to where I sat on the milk crate. When the officer said he wanted to speak to me, I was shocked but agreed. At this point, there wasn’t much to lose.

True to my word, I hadn’t moved a muscle from where he’d told me to stay. The other boys at the group home used to make fun of how literally I took directions, but I wasn’t taking chances today. I would do exactly as I was told and not question a word of it.

His stare warned me he was peering into the layers of skin and bone that made me and found them lacking. It was the deepest cut of all.