Chapter 55
NOAH
“Noah, don’t you want to come and play today?” Rue’s voice is just outside of my window, her voice sweet and small.
“No,” I call back from where I’m lying in my childhood bed. “I don’t want to come outside, Rue.” My eyes drop to my fingers on my left hand, bruised and swollen.
She can’t find out about this. She can’t know my dad did this.
I roll over, putting my back to the window.
“Noah!” Rue calls again. “I wanna go catch minnows! Please! My dad won’t let me go down to the water without someone going with me.”
I grit my teeth and then force myself from the bed, annoyance filling my chest. Why does she not get it? I already told her no. I don’t want to hang out with her right now. Can’t she take her sister or something?
“Noah,” her voice comes out in a whine on the other side. “Please.”
I rip the dingy, green curtains back, revealing little Rue, standing just outside with her blonde hair in a messy ponytail.
Her eyes meet mine, instantly lighting up. “Were you sleeping? You took forever. I got worried about you.”
I blink a few times. I’m pretty sure Rue is the only person who ever worries about me. “I’m fine,” I mutter, and then jimmy the window upward, using my good hand.
“Come on!” She jumps in to help, pushing it open. She’s pretty much vibrating in her shoes right now.
I climb through the opening, wincing as I accidentally use my bad hand. “You’re something else,” I try to laugh through it, but as soon as my feet hit the ground, Rue is on me, tugging at my forearm.
“Noah, what happened to your hand?” Rue peers up at me, catching my eye. “Why are you hiding it?”
“Nothing, Rue.” I try to angle my body away from her. “It’s nothing.”
“Let me see,” her voice tightens. “Now.”
With a heavy sigh, I let my arm drop, and then I hold it out for her to see. “It’ll heal.”
Her eyes go wide. “Noah…”
“It’s nothing.”
“What happened?” Her hand is over her mouth, her gaze bouncing from my fingers to my eyes.
“I didn’t do the dishes on time,” I force out the truth, while leaving out the part where I think my dad might have been drunk—or high—or something. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Yes, it is!” Rue chokes up, her eyes moistening as she carefully reaches out, her fingers delicately taking my hand. I brace for more pain, but she’s so gentle. She looks closer and then leans forward, placing a light kiss on the top of my hand.
It sets my thirteen-year-old head spinning.
“What was that for?”
“To help it get better,” Rue looks up at me. “And if that doesn’t make it better, then I’ll keep trying until something does make you feel better.”
My heart skips a beat in my chest. “I love you, Rue.”
“I love you, too.” She grins up at me. “You want me to kill ‘em?”
My eyes flutter open in the motel room, my heart squeezing in my chest. My mouth doesn’t feel like I ate a whole bucket of sand anymore, but my head does have a dull ache. I run a hand over my face, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and helping myself wake up.
I stare at the ceiling for a long time before I move, my mind filling with the painfully sweet memories of my childhood. Before the move. Before, Rue loved Matthew. Before she killed him and framed me.
I scoot out of the bed.
My gaze tracks through the room again until it lands on her, still sleeping quietly behind me.
She’s curled on her side like she finally ran out of fight, one arm tucked under the pillow and the other stretched out into the space I used to occupy, like at some point she reached for me, and her hand came back empty without her even waking up to notice.
Her face is soft in a way I haven’t seen since all of this started, but even in sleep, there’s something tight between her brows, like her body doesn’t fully believe she’s safe enough to let go.
Like she knows better than her mind does.
My jaw tightens before I can stop it. “You always knew,” I murmur under my breath. I want to reach for her, but I hold back.
I have things to do. We’re close enough; it’s time to make plans. It’s time to rip the fucking Band-Aid off and do something.
I stand, throw on my boots and my hat, grab the note from the bag, and then make for the door. I grab one of the little cards and then slip out into the evening.
The parking lot is half-dead and half-forgotten, the kind of place that exists just long enough for people like me to pass through it and pretend we weren’t ever here. A rusted, blue sedan sits near the office. A truck with a broken taillight is parked a few rooms over, looking pitiful.
The motel sign flickers overhead, buzzing and failing in uneven intervals, bathing everything in a dull red wash that makes the world feel like it’s already bleeding out.
I pull my hood up around my hat and keep my head down as I cross the lot. My heart rate is steady, my head feels clear, and my arm aches—but not nearly as bad as it did.
As I round the corner to head toward the tiny gas station, I stop.
My eyes land on a man, sitting beside the stop sign, with a black backpack and a cardboard sign beside him. There’s a dog on a leash next to him. A car pulls up to the intersection and hands him a few dollars.
I creep back into the shadows of the building, watching him closely as the intersection clears. The panhandler shoves the bills into his pocket, then stands, turning and saying something to the dog.
It thumps its tail, and the two of them head toward a small parking lot just to the south of me. I stay where I am, watching the man tote the bag and lead the gray Pitbull toward…
A brand-new truck.
Well, that would figure. I purse my lips as I watch the guy smash a key fob, the flashing lights illuminating his dirty pants. He opens the back door, pats the seat, and then drops the backpack on the floor. He reaches in and starts the engine, rolling down the windows.
I expect him to leave, hop in the truck, and go.
But he doesn’t. The gray-headed man climbs right back out, smooths out his T-shirt, and then heads for the gas station.
What’s in that backpack?
I chew the inside of my cheek, knowing that it’s a risk. That’s a big ass dog in there. But my feet are moving before I can stop myself, and as Panhandler Man makes it into the gas station…
I make it to his truck.
I pull out one of my granola bars before I ever make it to the window and start talking sweetly. “Hey buddy,” I say to the dog, who perks up when he sees me. “What’re you doing?”
He sits up, panting and entirely too happy to see me.
“Look what I got,” I hold out the granola bar, letting the dog sniff it.
He’s clearly used to being around a lot of strangers.
I guess that’s what happens when you make it your life’s work to pretend to be poor for a living.
I toss the bar through the window, letting it land on the far side.
When the dog turns around to grab the granola bar, I hop on the running boards, reach in through the open window, and pluck the heavy bag up with my good hand.
Fuck yeah.
I don’t know what I’m going to find, but I don’t worry about it right then. I take off to the shadows behind the motel and then drop to my knees, unzipping it.
Holy shit. My eyes are adjusted to the late evening, but I blink a few times, just to make sure I’m seeing it right.
Cash. A lot of it.
I don’t count it. I just grab the wads and stick them into my pockets, not stopping until the whole thing is empty. I don’t feel a fucking inkling of guilt for robbing a dude pretending to be broke on the corner.
Not right now, anyway.
I fumble with the front pockets of the bag, just to see if I’ll be that lucky.
And I am. My fingers connect with the outline of a cell phone, and I pull it out, the screen illuminating. The background is the man, all cleaned up, his arms wrapped around three very scantily clad women.
Douche bag.
I finish going through the bag, and then toss it off into the bushes. I swipe to unlock the screen of the phone and breathe a sigh of relief when there’s no passcode. I lean against the back of the motel office and pull out the piece of paper.
Elias. I read Netty’s scribbled information and punched the number into the phone. It connects on the third ring.
“Victory Plumbing, this is Eli.”
I stare at the note. “Yeah,” I say, pausing as I understand the weird instructions he wrote down. “I got a leaky tub. It needs to be fixed as soon as possible.”
“Hmm. I see.” He pauses. “I don’t have openings until the morning. Morales refer you?”
I hesitate, but then decide to try it out. “Yeah. He did.”
“Took you a long time.”
“Yeah.” I swallow hard.
“It’s twelve hundred. One person only. I don’t take fucking groups. 2 a.m., and don’t be fucking late.” He rattles off coordinates, and I type them into the panhandler’s notes on his phone.
“Thanks,” I breathe out, trying to ignore the way my throat constricts.
“See you soon.” He hangs up, and I’m left sitting there in the dark, processing what I already know, though Elias made it all the more clear.
This is it. This is where I leave Rue so she can have a normal fucking life.