Milán
I wake up with a start. It takes me a second to figure out that I’ve dozed off on the couch.
It takes me another second to realize Jordan is curled up next to me, his head on my shoulder, breathing softly.
It’s still dark outside, and a quick look at my watch tells me we’ve been asleep for half an hour at most.
I rub my face, but freeze when I hear something—a shuffling noise coming from the hallway. I’m alert at once, and while I try to listen, Jordan stirs.
“Wha—” he starts to say, but I quickly cover his mouth with my palm.
He blinks at me as he fully wakes up. I remove my hand and lift my finger to my lips. The shuffling has stopped, but it starts again after about thirty seconds or so.
I slowly push myself off the couch and make my way toward the doorway, careful not to make any noise. Jordan trails after me.
I peek out from behind the corner before I roll my eyes and slam my hand on the light switch.
Rory freezes by the front door, one foot still up where he’s trying to pull on his sneaker, squinting against the sudden light.
“Going somewhere?” I ask.
“What—you were asleep!” Rory blurts.
“Yes, the fact that I’m up too late is absolutely the part we should all be outraged about,” I say dryly.
Rory swallows audibly, refusing to meet my gaze.
“You know, if you were wondering when the best time to come clean about what’s going on was, this is it.”
I cross my arms over my chest and stare him down.
“I would like to go back to my room,” he says.
I point my finger at him. “I will be a fuc—fudging prison guard.”
He rolls his eyes. “You do get that I’ve heard people say ‘fuck’ before, right?”
“Not on my watch!” I sound about as scandalized as a puritan seeing a woman’s ankle.
Jordan snorts and quickly covers it with a cough behind me. I glance at him over my shoulder. He makes an apologetic face before he looks pointedly at Rory, then back at me.
Okay.
Yeah.
I’ve got this.
I’ve absolutely got this.
“What’s going on?” I ask Rory.
He fidgets, plucking the cuffs of his sleeves, eyes everywhere but on me.
“Sleepwalking?” he finally says.
I refuse to back down.
“You know, whatever it is you’re dealing with here, I bet Milán can help,” Jordan says.
Rory’s eyes fly to him. It’s almost as if the two of them are having a silent conversation. Eventually, Rory’s shoulders drop. For a moment, he looks every bit the thirteen-year-old kid he is.
I wait with bated breath. Finally, Rory nods.
“Let’s go, then,” he says.
We grab our jackets, put on our shoes, and follow him out the door.
We stand in front of the chain-link fence that surrounds a group of three buildings, all with boarded-up windows, all in different states of abandon.
I bite back a sigh and glance at Jordan.
“I don’t know about you, but just the other day I was thinking it’s been a while since I last dabbled in breaking and entering.”
“I just celebrated my fifteenth anniversary of not breaking into a building,” he says.
“Good thing we brought an expert with us, then.” I turn to Rory. “Lead the way.”
He looks surprised for a second, but then he grips the fence, and in less than five seconds, he’s hurled himself over it and is standing on the other side.
I stare at him, brows raised, reluctantly impressed.
Jordan lets out a low whistle.
I throw him a look, and he gives an unapologetic shrug. “Credit where credit is due. That looked impressive.”
Rory is clearly pleased with himself, even if he immediately catches himself and fixes his features into a neutral mask.
“When did I become the responsible one here? Because I’m not enjoying it.” I grumble.
In reply, Jordan smirks, jumps up to grab the top rail, and easily makes it to the other side.
“Let’s see what you got,” he says.
I climb over the fence with considerably less finesse, because apparently being the responsible one comes with the burden of checking for cops every few seconds.
It should annoy me that I’m being like this, but then, it’s not Rory’s job to be responsible.
He’s a kid. He’s supposed to come up with terrible ideas and not think about the consequences.
As for Jordan… he’s been the mature adult since he was a kid himself, and right now he’s looking at me, eyes bright and wide, biting his lip, trying and failing to hide his smile.
He’s bouncing on his toes like he suddenly has too much energy to contain. I want him to have this moment.
I want him to get to be reckless, even if it’s just for an hour, and I want to be the one who gives him the chance to do that.
I want to be the one who keeps them both safe. Rory and Jordan.
I’m so startled by the sudden, fervent wish that I almost stumble as my feet hit the ground.
“Careful.” Jordan wraps his fingers around my forearm, and I almost stumble again. I really don’t know what’s going on with me lately.
“Where are we headed?” I ask Rory.
He walks a few steps in silence before he nods toward the farthest building from us. “There.”
I won’t bother asking what we’re going to find “there.” I’ll find out soon enough.
We reach a rusty metal door and stop. Rory sends me a lightning-fast glance before he shrugs off his backpack and crouches. He rummages around in it a bit and comes out with… a set of lock picks.
I open my mouth, then snap it shut.
It’s three a.m. in the morning.
I don’t want to know.
I also don’t want to know why it only takes him about a minute to pick the lock.
No.
Nope.
I don’t want to know.
Rory pushes the door open and gets back up.
I glance at Jordan, but he just shrugs, so we both follow Rory inside.
It’s an old office building of some kind that seems to have been abandoned mid-workday.
There are desks with monitors from the nineties perched on them, office chairs covered in thick layers of dust and flecks of paint that have rained down from the ceiling, filing cabinets, and paper strewn all over the place, and I’m hearing some kind of strange squeaking noises I hope to God aren’t a sign that the roof is failing.
Rory stops in front of a door a little way down the hallway and throws a glance over his shoulder. He hesitates, and by now I’ve stopped guessing what he’s hiding because my mind was starting to run away with me, feeding me worse and worse scenarios.
“He’s…” Rory says slowly, eyes flicking between me and Jordan. “He’s not dangerous.”
That’s not the reassuring statement he seems to think it is. What the hell has he gotten himself into?
Rory pushes the door open, and with one last wary look at Jordan, I follow Rory inside.
It’s a dog.
There’s a scruffy dog in the corner of the room. His body is rigid, every muscle coiled tight, but his eyes are on Rory, and his tail is already starting to wag.
It’s impossible to tell the breed, but it’s probably a mix of so many it’d be difficult to narrow it down to less than five.
In addition to that, he’s impossibly skinny, missing large swaths of fur, and dirty enough that I suspect that even if it were light outside, identifying a color would be impossible.
I glance at Rory. He’s taken a few steps closer and dropped his backpack, and he’s rummaging around.
I open my mouth to… I don’t know what. Warn him off, I suppose, but Jordan’s hand on my shoulder stops me. I clamp my mouth shut, and then we watch as Rory pulls out a pouch of dog food and a bowl. He pushes the food toward the dog, sits down, and waits.
The dog hesitates, stops, throws me and Jordan a suspicious look. Hesitates again. Takes a step closer. Hesitates.
“Hey,” Rory says. “Hey, buddy.”
Out of this whole situation, I don’t know why, but the gentleness in Rory’s voice is the thing that just completely floors me.
It’s the fact that it’s in him, and he doesn’t feel safe enough to let it out, and I don’t know how to make him feel okay with being here, living here. With me and Aiden. And how the hell am I ever going to live up to what this kid needs?
The weird thing is I’m scared shitless, but at least in this very moment, I’m not hatching an escape plan.
“Hey,” Rory says again. The dog tilts his head to the side, then struts over to where Rory is sitting. He lowers his head and starts to eat. Every now and then, he throws suspicious looks toward me and Jordan, but otherwise he seems to think if he hides himself behind Rory, he’ll be fine.
“Who’s your friend?” I ask quietly.
Rory looks up, hand on top of the dog’s back while the dog eats.
“He started following me a couple of days ago.”
Call me crazy, but I have a feeling this is a highly redacted version of events.
“Okay. Okay.” I drag my hand through my hair and look around the room. I don’t think Aiden is going to love what I’m about to do. “Will he also follow you if we get him out of here?”
Rory’s brow furrows. “Where?”
I give the dog another look. “I’d say home, but I actually think it’d be better if we started with a vet.”
Rory eyes me silently. Seconds tick by. I feel like I’m on trial. Like this moment matters more than others.
If he trusts you with this, things will take a turn for the better. If he trusts you, it’s a step in the right direction.
He nods.
The sun is up by the time we finally make it back home, and we’re all running on fumes.
I send Rory upstairs and tell him to put Dog, as he’s been christened for now, into the spare bathroom.
I suspect he won’t. No, Dog will most likely end up in Rory’s room, and we’ll all get fleas or lice or whatever else lives in the fur he has left now that the vet is done with him.
I sigh and rub my hand over my face while I lean back against the wall.
Jordan gives me a small smile. “You should probably go to bed.”
“Probably.” I narrow my eyes at him. “How are you so… up?”
I keep yawning, but he doesn’t even look that tired. He has the energy to smile, for crying out loud.
“Years of practice,” he says. “I became immune to lack of sleep that one time they handed me an infant in the hospital.”
Even so, I should let him go home now.
“Do you want to go get breakfast?” I ask.
His grin widens as he takes me in. “You sure you’re up for that?”
I can feel the look.
“No,” I say. “But let’s do it anyway.”
He laughs. “Lead the way.”