Noah: Smoke and Mirrors (Rock & Roll Nights #4)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

NOAH

Twenty-Five Years Ago

H is mother was angry again.

Although once he thought about that, he changed the way he’d said it. She wasn’t angry again. She was angry still . Because the truth was, she’d been angry ever since the boy could remember.

Longer than he wanted to be able to remember, because those memories all hurt him.

She had never had a soft, kind voice, the way the woman next door did. She’d never smelled sweet like honey, or gentle like baby powder, the way the girl who sometimes came to sit with him did. And she’d never whispered to him that he’d be okay, or that things were going to get easier.

Those were the things he whispered to himself at night, when he was in his bed and she could no longer touch him.

A vase came flying at his head and he ducked, then scooted under the table and into the corner. There was a cubby here where she couldn’t reach him–a place where the bench that made the seat didn’t quite reach the wall. He’d found the gap last year, when she was trying to punish him for stealing candy off the counter, and ever since then, he’d run for it whenever he needed a place to hide.

He didn’t know if she knew it was here, or if she just thought he somehow disappeared when he went under the table. But he knew she couldn’t reach him.

Not that she’d get out of her chair to even try.

This time, though, she was screaming. Horrible words and threats and names that she hardly ever called him. The boy tried desperately to figure out what was wrong–to remember whether he’d done anything he shouldn’t have–but he couldn’t think of anything. The day had been normal. He’d gotten up and looked through the house for her, eventually finding her still in bed. Her room had stunk of alcohol and cigarette smoke, and something else. Something that smelled both sharp and sweet at the same time, and made him feel sick, like breathing it in had sent it right into his stomach. That smell... It was familiar. He’d smelled it before.

He’d never learned what it was, but he realized the first time he smelled it that it made his mother violent. She was harsher when that smell was in the house. Louder and quicker with her fists.

It had only taken him once to figure out that when that scent was in the air, he needed to be more careful.

When things got quiet, he crept out of the cubby and ran to the kitchen on quiet, soft feet, barely breathing. There, he went through the pantry as quickly as he could, searching for food he could take with him to his room. Normally he’d get a frying pan out and cook himself eggs–he’d learned to do that this year, the day he turned five and decided he wanted more to eat than his mother was giving him–but he didn’t have time for that right now. Not when his mother might get up and open the door at any moment.

He didn’t want to be in the kitchen if she did. Better to be in his room with his own door locked. Under the bed. Maybe she wouldn’t look for him.

Maybe he could escape to Mrs. Potter’s house while his mother was in the shower.

He ran his fingers quickly along the shelves of the pantry, looking for something that wasn’t spoiled. Boxes of crackers that had been left open, half-empty bags of chips that were at least three months old.

“Not good, not good,” he whispered to himself, cataloging the food as he passed it and starting to panic.

Then he found a box of toaster pastries that wasn’t even open yet.

A rare smile bloomed across his face. How long had these been in here? How had they managed to stay closed with all the people constantly coming through this house?

It didn’t matter. They were food, and they were the best thing he was going to find. He grabbed the box and ran for his bedroom, then lay under his bed eating until he heard the shower start in his mother’s bathroom.

Once the water started running, he saw his chance and came out of hiding. But he’d been wrong to think it was safe.

His mother hadn’t been in the shower. She’d been waiting for him in the kitchen, the pantry open and her face furious.

He scurried for the cubby again as she screamed and threw things, praying for her to stop. Praying that Mrs. Potter or someone else–anyone–would come to the house and distract her so he could get away.

At that moment, someone banged on the front door of the trailer and shouted something he didn’t understand. Something about children. “Mrs. Michael, open up! We have a search warrant!”

The boy didn’t know what a search warrant was or what that could possibly mean to his mother, but it was all the distraction he needed. He heard her grumble under her breath and turn to head for the door, and he shot out of the cubby toward his own room, praying he’d get there in time.

He didn’t.

His mother must have seen him because within ten steps she grabbed him and yanked him off his feet, pulling him against her body with fingers so strong he knew she was going to leave bruises.

She hated when she left bruises. But she never stopped doing things that caused them.

He ducked and squirmed, trying to get away before she could hit him, but didn’t have a chance. The door flew open and men in boots came pounding in, making even more noise than the boy himself was making. Different hands grabbed him and jerked him away from his mother while a man pulled his mother back and spun her around to face him.

Noah fought and kicked, terrified at these new people in the house and the way they were handling him. But moments later he was handed over to a woman, and she knelt down in front of him. He looked up into her eyes... and all the fight went out of him.

Her eyes were large and blue, just like Noah’s. She had brown hair that curled around her face, and she smelled like... pears, he thought. She smelled like pears and something else. Like the smell of fresh laundry. Blankets that had just come out of the dryer and were still warm. When she put her hand up to his face and brushed his cheek gently, her fingers didn’t hurt him.

They were soft and quiet.

Her eyes darted from his face to his arms, and then down to his legs, and he knew what she’d see. Bruises and burns. Skinned knees. His mother had pushed him out the door a few days ago and he’d fallen. She’d blamed him for being clumsy and then told him she didn’t have any Band Aids. He’d gone to Mrs. Potter, who had, and she’d spent so much time doctoring him that his mother had come and shouted at her.

The woman in front of him took something out of her pocket and held it to her mouth. “Signs of malnutrition. Signs of obvious abuse. The house is a mess. I can smell alcohol, cigarettes, and...” She stopped and inhaled sharply, her eyes narrowing. “Speed. The reports were correct. We’re taking the boy.”

She put the black box back in her pocket, then cupped his cheek gently. “Poor, poor boy,” she whispered softly. “I bet that hurts, doesn’t it?” She touched his eye, where his mother had punched him.

He nodded.

Instead of answering, she took him into her arms and held him gently against her, and though he didn’t know this woman and wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers, it felt so good, so right, to have someone hold him that he didn’t struggle.

“Would you like me to make it better?” she whispered. “Noah?”

He turned his face into her neck, trying to understand how this woman could feel so much like home when he’d never even met her before, and let the tears come. He wanted someone to make it all better. He wanted to stop being hungry and scared, and he wanted his body to stop hurting. He wanted his mother to stop hating him so much.

He wanted to feel safe.

“Yes,” he whispered.

The woman nodded, then scooped him against her chest and stood up, taking his weight easily. He wrapped his legs around her waist and clung to her like his life depended on it, and when she turned and walked toward the door, he saw his mother standing with the men, her hands behind her back and her expression furious.

But before the woman walked through the door, Noah’s mother’s eyes turned toward her son, and she became even angrier.

“Take him, then,” she hissed. “That boy’s never been anything but trouble, and I’m better off without him. I hope I never have to see his face again.”

The words shot straight into his heart and he turned his face into the pretty lady’s neck again. Breathed her in.

And wondered if maybe he could live with her from now on, instead of coming back to this place.