Chapter 1 #2
Before the cop could send a barrage of bullets at Caleb, I aimed my own gun at the cop’s foot, which was visible beneath the door he was using to shield himself.
I ignored the screams of the man and his kid, as well as the cops, and fired.
The police officer cried out and fell to the ground.
It took every ounce of skill I had to shoot the gun from his hand without hitting him again.
In that same instant, I reached Caleb and yanked him behind me as I turned and shot at the second cop, who was using the hood of the vehicle for cover.
I hit him in the fleshiest part of his upper arm.
It was a wound I knew would cause him to lose the gun, but not potentially make him bleed out right there on the street.
I took out the front tires of the car next, then I practically dragged Caleb behind me as we made our way back to my car.
The kid and his father had disappeared, probably back into the house for safety.
I shoved Caleb into the passenger seat of the car and ripped the gun from his hand.
He hadn’t said a word and I could tell he was going into shock.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to deal with any of that because I could hear sirens in the distance.
I hurried to the driver’s side, scanning the surrounding houses as I did so.
I shook my head at the clusterfuck I’d just been thrust into.
I was on the phone before I even got the car started.
“Go,” Daisy said. I could hear the distinctive clicking of her keyboard in the background. My team’s IT girl was nothing if not efficient.
A fact I was grateful for.
“It’s Jace. I’m at a house on the corner of Crescent and Maple in Bethesda. I’ve just wounded two cops. I need you to scrub any video footage of me and Caleb from any security cameras from the surrounding houses.”
To her credit, the girl didn’t react other than to say, “On it.”
“Thanks,” I said, and hung up on her. I knew it probably wouldn’t do much good to try and hide Caleb’s identity, since the guy he’d been holding the gun on had recognized him, but I’d rather get rid of as much evidence as I could before the cops could get their hands on it.
“Who is he?” I snapped at Caleb.
But he didn’t answer me. He was leaning against the car door, shaking like a leaf. He had his arms around his body. He hadn’t even removed his backpack.
“Caleb!” I practically shouted.
He didn’t even react. It was like he didn’t hear me. I focused on getting us out of the neighborhood. Several police cars raced past us from the opposite direction, but fortunately, none turned to come after us.
It meant the cops I’d shot probably hadn’t gotten a look at my car.
Fuck, I’d shot cops. Yeah, I’d made sure to only wound them, but still…
“Fuck!” I bit out in frustration. I was normally someone who managed to stay calm, even in the tensest of situations, but the thought of how close Caleb had come to getting shot was making me crazy. If I’d been just a few seconds later…
“He promised,” Caleb whispered. “He promised.”
I looked at Caleb and saw that he’d started rocking back and forth. He just kept repeating the words over and over again.
As pissed as I was, my worry for Caleb’s mental state was greater. I reached over to settle my hand on his knee. “Hey, look at me,” I said.
He didn’t.
“Caleb, it’s going to be okay,” I murmured.
It really wasn’t, because we were both fucked. There was no way Caleb would ever be able to go back to his old life now, since the cops would be looking for him. Despair went through me as I considered the life he’d have – always running, always looking over his shoulder.
I considered my options as I got us onto the beltway. I couldn’t risk staying in the D.C. area.
And I couldn’t do this alone.
I muttered another curse and then reached for my phone. Not surprisingly, Memphis answered on the first ring.
“Where is he?” Memphis asked.
“I have him,” I said. “But we need to get out of town. Far out of it,” I added.
Memphis was silent for a beat and then said, “Head west and tell me where you stop. I’ll meet you there.”
I glanced at Caleb. He was still rocking back and forth. “We can’t go for long. Caleb’s not doing well. ”
I heard Memphis sigh just before he said, “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
I hung up on him and put the phone in the cup holder. I reached for Caleb and forced him to release the hold he had on himself so that I could link my fingers with his. “Hang on, Caleb. I’ve got you now.”
But as expected, he didn’t answer.
He didn’t do anything but rock back and forth, softly whispering the same two words over and over again.
He promised.
I drove only long enough to get us back to the mountains, but I didn’t dare head to the motel we’d stayed in the night before. There was just too great of a chance of the motel owner recognizing Caleb. I got us to the western side of the mountains and began the search for what I wanted.
I found it in the form of a remote cabin that appeared abandoned.
Caleb had finally fallen asleep and while he’d looked incredibly uncomfortable pressed up against the door with his bulky backpack still strapped to his back, I hadn’t even considered waking him up to urge him to take the thing off.
I left him in the car as I did a quick check of the cabin and confirmed there was no one around.
It took just seconds to pick the lock and get inside.
I was surprised to find that the cabin wasn’t as abandoned as I’d thought.
It was decently furnished and had power.
But there was a layer of dust on everything, so I figured the owner hadn’t been back in a while.
It would have to do for the night because I needed to get Caleb settled.
I hurried back to the car and went to the passenger side. I eased open the door and used my hand to keep Caleb from falling out of the car. He jolted as his body shifted, then jerked awake.
“Don’t!” he shouted as he lashed out at me.
I grabbed his wrists and said, “Caleb, it’s me, Jace. You’re safe. ”
It took him several seconds to register what I’d said before he relaxed and whispered, “Jace?”
“Yeah, baby, it’s me.”
I cursed myself for letting the endearment slip out, but fortunately Caleb didn’t seem to notice because he began whipping his head around as the fog of sleep cleared.
“Where are we?” he asked.
I was glad he seemed a little more lucid than he had earlier.
“Someplace safe,” I said. “Come on, let’s get inside.”
But he didn’t move, and I felt a fine tremor ripple through his body as I continued to hold onto his wrists.
“He has a kid,” Caleb whispered. “I didn’t know he had a kid.”
I figured he was talking about the guy he’d held the gun on, but as badly as I wanted to know who the man was to him, I wanted to get him inside first. The air around us was cooling quickly as the sun fell completely behind the horizon.
The higher elevation meant the temperature would drop more quickly than down in the lowlands.
We’d likely see freezing temperatures tonight.
“Let’s get inside,” I urged and then I was carefully pulling him out of the car.
Caleb swayed and leaned heavily against me as he closed his eyes.
The dome light from the car showed his pained expression.
“Caleb, are you hurt?” I asked, terrified that I’d somehow missed him getting shot or something. I began scanning his body for blood.
He shook his head. “Just a little dizzy,” he said.
“When was the last time you ate?” I asked as I closed the door and leaned him back against the side of the car.
He didn’t answer me. I left him standing there and went to the trunk to get my duffel bag, which I kept stashed in the car for emergencies.
I used the opportunity to remove the fake plates from the car and tossed them into the trunk.
By the time I returned to Caleb’s side, he’d closed his eyes again.
I put my arm around his waist and said, “Lean on me if you need to.”
“I’m okay,” he murmured, but when I pulled him forward, he leaned against me anyway.
Once I got him into the cabin, I sat him down at the small kitchen table and began rummaging around the cabinets.
I had some MREs in my bag, but I preferred to serve him something hot.
Not to mention that the military style ready-to-eat meals tasted like shit.
I let out a silent thank-you to whoever was listening when I spied several cans of soup.
I grabbed one of the cans of chicken noodle soup and got it going on the stove, then went to the refrigerator.
There was nothing in it, so I settled for some tap water in a plastic cup.
Caleb was staring off into space as he sat in the chair.
I worked the backpack off his back and dropped it by his feet.
I didn’t like that he’d gone quiet again, but my priority was getting some food into him, so I didn’t try to engage him in conversation.
The soup took just minutes to heat up. When I slid it in front of him, he shook his head.
As badly as I wanted to order him to eat, I could tell he was mentally on the edge and it wouldn’t take much to send him over and back into the state of shock he’d been in. Between his obvious lack of sleep and food, not to mention the events of the day, I had no doubt he was at his breaking point.
“Caleb,” I said softly as I covered his hand with mine where it was resting on the table. “Please eat… for me.”
It was a low blow, but I was a desperate man.
His dull blue eyes lifted to meet mine. He didn’t respond as he pulled his hand free of mine, but when he reached for the spoon, I stifled my sigh of relief.
The cabin was eerily silent as he ate. I used the opportunity to send a text to Memphis telling him our coordinates from my satellite phone, since my regular phone didn’t have reception.
I’d been hoping there’d be a TV or radio in the cabin so I could see what the news was saying about the shooting, but unfortunately there wasn’t either.
Caleb managed to eat about a quarter of the soup before he carefully settled the spoon on the table.
He stared numbly at the bowl, as if it somehow held the answers to how his life had gone so very wrong.
My heart hurt for him as I watched him, and I couldn’t resist reaching out to push his hair off his face.
As badly as I needed answers from him, I needed something else more.
I stood and covered his hand with mine. He let me link our fingers and when I urged him to stand, he did.
I led him to the single bedroom in the cabin.
When I flipped the light switch on, it turned on the small lamp on the nightstand.
I left Caleb to stand next to the bed as I stripped off the dusty quilt covering the top of it.
I urged him to sit and stripped off his shoes and hoodie, then murmured, “Lie down.”
He did as I asked and immediately closed his eyes the second his head hit the pillow.
I worked off my own jacket and shoes and went around to the other side of the bed.
I put my gun on the nightstand and then got into bed with him.
He didn’t resist when I looped my arm over his waist. We lay there for several minutes, but I knew he wasn’t asleep.
I could feel it in the way he held his frame rigid against mine.
“Did you kill them?” he finally asked, his voice low and barely audible.
“No,” I said, because I knew who he was talking about. “Only flesh wounds. They’ll be okay.”
I felt, rather than heard, his sigh of relief.
“Who is he, Caleb?” I asked.
When Caleb didn’t respond, I fought back the bite of frustration that went through me.
Two years earlier when I’d met him, Caleb had trusted me with anything and everything.
As much as I’d known it wasn’t healthy for him to put so much faith in me so soon after meeting, a part of me had wanted to nurture that emotion, to see it grow and flourish.
And I hadn’t just wanted that for him.
I’d wanted it for me, too.
“I shot two cops today, Caleb. For you. We may never be able to go back to the way things were… do you understand that? As soon as that guy tells the cops who you are—”
“He won’t,” Caleb whispered.
“Won’t what?”
“Tell them who I am.”
His comment caught me off guard. “Caleb—”
“You lied to me, Jace,” Caleb murmured. “You said everything would be okay. ”
Caleb shifted away from me, then made a move to get up.
I used the hand I had at his waist to reach down and grab his right arm, which he was gripping the edge of the bed with so he could lever himself off it.
As I closed my fingers around his forearm, his sleeve rode up and I automatically slid my hand farther up his arm.
“Caleb,” I began, but stopped abruptly when my fingers registered what I was feeling.
Raised skin.
Lots of it.
I held my breath as I moved my fingers enough so I could see what I knew had to be some kind of mistake.
It had to be a mistake.
It wasn’t.
I was left completely dumbstruck as I stared at the dozens of scars on the inside of Caleb’s forearm.
Perfectly uniform scars that couldn’t have found their way onto his skin in any kind of accidental fashion.
No .
I wasn’t sure if I said the word out loud or not, but it didn’t matter. Caleb pulled his arm free of my hold and rubbed it against the bed so the sleeve slipped back down. He didn’t look at me as he whispered a handful of words that left me feeling completely shattered.
“Everything’s not okay, Jace.”