Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
KARTER
Thirteen Years Old
H arlan falls into step beside me as we walk down the side of the building. I’m not entirely sure yet, but I think it may have been him who was in my room last year.
I initially thought it may have been Kellan, but he’s been gone for a few months, so I was never able to ask. It’s entirely my fault, though. I’ve never been good at confrontation—that was always Enya’s thing.
I blow out my breath and reach back to smooth out my ponytail, suddenly feeling Harlan’s gaze on me.
“What?” I ask without looking at him.
“You do that a lot. One of these days you’re gonna end up launching yourself up into the atmosphere,” he teases with a laugh.
I shrug, “Then I won’t have to be here anymore. Doesn’t sound like a bad thing to me.”
Harlan hmphs as we keep walking the length of the home before he stops and pulls me back with him. He crouches down and peeks around the corner, then turns to me and places a finger to his lips.
I strain to hear whatever the hell it is that got him to hush me up, when I finally hear it. Jessop. Fuck.
“We’re gonna get in so much trouble if she catches us,” I hiss as I tug on his arm. Harlan looks down at my hand, his mouth twitching slightly and his jaw squaring. Taking a deep breath, he nods as he turns his attention back around the corner.
“No shit.”
I swallow down a sigh as I glance around the property. I don’t know how else to get out of the trouble we’ll be in other than to go back inside, but that’s not where I want to be right now. Every time one of the kids gets adopted, it feels more and more like those of us left are being strangled just a little tighter by loneliness.
Unless.
“Hey, are you fast?” I ask him quietly.
“Huh?”
“Are you fast? Can you run?”
Harlan glances down at me again inquisitively, and I nod toward the tree line. I know that there’s a road not too far off, and I haven’t been in town in ages.
A grin slowly starts to spread across his lips. He peeks around the corner again, reaches blindly for one of my hands, then stands up slowly when I place it in his. He’s trembling all of a sudden, and if he’s too much of a chicken to go, he can just say so, and I’ll make a run for it myself.
“She’s got her back to us,” he whispers, his fingers suddenly linking through mine. I look down at our interlocked hands and then back up at him. It makes me feel a little funny to have anyone hold my hand, much less like this.
“You sure you can make it? Your legs are really short, after all,” he teases as he backs away from the corner and glances down at me.
“I’m faster than you ,” I retort, giving him a poke in the middle of his chest with a finger.
“Guess we’re about to find out. One sec.”
Harlan looks up at the sky before he peeks around the corner again and then takes a deep breath. He begins a countdown on his other hand, and as I silently count along, I get myself ready to leave him in the dust.
Five, four, three, two, one.
Harlan takes off like a shot toward the tree line.
I’m easily able to keep up and may have even been able to pass him if he hadn’t been holding my hand.
And that’s when I let go.
No way in hell am I gonna let the boy who hates me most of all show me up or think he’s gonna win this race.
Pumping my arms and legs as hard as I can, I disappear into the trees with Harlan trailing close behind.
“I think we’re lost,” Harlan says after half an hour of fussing around through the woods.
“I could have sworn there was a road close by,” I state dejectedly.
“I could almost swear that you’re wrong,” he replies dryly.
I glare up at him, and he smirks.
“Relax, little wolf. We’ll find our way through this.”
Little wolf?
“I looked up what your last name meant,” he continues with a shrug. “I was bored one day and didn’t feel like rubbing another one out.”
“Rubbing what out?” I ask him curiously.
Harlan chuckles. “So young. So innocent.”
What does that mean, though?
I want to shout it at him, but I’ve never seen him really break under the pressure of someone raising their voice at him before.
“You’ll get it someday, Karter,” he assures me with a pat on the head. I swat angrily at his arm, and he laughs as he holds up his hands in surrender. “I’m getting hungry, though. I wonder if we can eat any of those.”
I follow his gaze toward a low-hanging branch of bright red berries.
“I don’t know which ones are poison,” I say thoughtfully. “Maybe we should just turn around and go back the way we came. Jessop’s got to have figured out that we’re gone by now.”
“Live a little, Karter,” Harlan scoffs as he walks over toward the branch and picks off three berries. He turns around as he pokes at them with the tip of his finger, then pops them into his mouth. I watch as he chews them, his eyes narrowing as he tries to more than likely figure out what kind of berries they are.
Then, suddenly, he starts to cough. His hands fly to his throat as he bends forward, gagging and coughing until he drops to his knees.
“Harlan!” I shriek as I rush toward him.
I move behind his semi-crumpled form, lean down, and wrap my arms around his waist. I grip a wrist, take a deep breath, and thrust five times against his stomach. But it doesn’t do anything. Harlan keeps coughing and gagging, so I do another set of five.
Panic sets in, tears roll down my face.
I’m not helping him at all.
Then the sound coming from him changes.
His hands drop from around his throat to the grass below as his body shakes … with laughter.
“Oh, I hate you!” I shout at him as I shove him away.
He holds up a hand, trying desperately to control his laughter.
I never did like being laughed at, and he knows that better than anyone else.
“I hope you choke for real,” I snarl at him as I turn and start stomping back toward the home.
I can hear him calling my name, expecting me to stop and probably listen to whatever stupid explanation he wants to give, but I don’t care.
Harlan hasn’t changed in three years, and I doubt that he ever will.
“Wait up, Karter! You’re bleeding!” he finally manages to shout.