Chapter Two #2
He snatches it from me like a feral animal, sinking his teeth into the fruit, devouring it in voracious bites. Blood still trickles down the side of his face.
‘I think the police have moved on,’ I whisper. ‘You can probably go now.’
‘You got any more food?’ Noah asks me with his mouth full, the juice from the apple dripping down his chin.
His eyes are pleading, verging on tears. ‘Not here. Only at my apartment. I’m sorry. Really, you need to go.’
‘Can you take me with you? Please? Please. I ain’t had nothing to eat all day.’
I blink down at him. He looks young, perhaps eleven or twelve. He looks a little grubby too, like he could do with a shower.
‘Who looks after you?’
‘I take care of myself.’
My heart is racing. I don’t know what to think.
I can’t leave him here, all vulnerable, not when it’s dark out.
A thought occurs to me, one that I don’t immediately dismiss.
I wouldn’t have to call the police, but I could contact Child Protective Services.
He’s clearly a minor. And if he wasn’t a child, I would walk away.
Just call the police, my head says.
‘I’m sorry, I have to go,’ I say.
I turn and walk back toward my car, and hear quiet sobs behind me as I go.
My car is a compact, royal blue with a sizeable dent in the rear fender. I sit in the driver’s seat and stare through the windshield. I grip the wheel, because of the voices objecting in my head. You left him there. He needed help, and you left.
I’ve never been good with guilt, and so I make a spilt-second decision, and I reverse my car.
I don’t know what I’m thinking of. Helping a young runaway wanted for car theft. My father would kill me. I don’t even want to think about how Evelyn would react.
But, in a way, they’re part of the reason I want to do this. I’ve never forgiven them for what they did. I tell myself I should just drive away, but instead, I switch off the engine again, open the driver side door and get out.
‘Are you there?’ I whisper as I walk back into the alleyway, checking over my shoulder. My heart hammers.
‘I’m here,’ Noah’s voice whispers back, as he scrambles to his feet. He’s a little taller than I imagined he would be, yet still scrawny. It’s the helpless look on his face that ultimately tugs on my heartstrings. ‘If you come with me, I’ll get you something to eat and get you cleaned up.’
‘Seriously?’
His voice switches from low to high when he speaks, like it’s in the process of breaking.
‘Look, don’t try anything funny, okay?’ I tell him. ‘I could lose my job for helping you. I guess I… don’t ask me why, okay? My car is just there. Get in. Maybe crouch down… or get in the footwell or something.’
‘You’re not gonna turn me in?’
I swallow. I know that I should. ‘No.’
‘Why the hell not?’
‘I just told you not to ask me that. Now, come on, get in, hurry up.’
He peers out toward the parking lot. ‘The police cars have gone,’ I remind him.
He narrows his eyes at me, like I could be lying.
‘You can trust me,’ I add.
Without another word, he darts out from between the dumpsters and races to my car. His movements are lightning fast; it’s no wonder he gave Canyon P.D. the slip. He yanks open the rear passenger door and dives into the back, and I swallow the lump in my throat.
Alarm bells are going off in my head.
When I close the car door, I take one more look around and start the engine.
It’s only a ten-minute drive from Sunset Pines to my apartment in Eastvale, northeast of Boulder Creek, and on the northern side of Electric Hills, the place I’ve lived on and off since I first arrived here as a grumpy adolescent from southwest London.
‘Where do you live, Noah?’ I ask as we drive, keeping my eyes peeled for any police patrols.
‘Not here,’ his muffled voice comes back. ‘How about you?’
‘I have a small apartment in Eastvale. Electric Hills. Do you know the area?’
‘Sure, I know it. You don’t sound like you’re from around here.’
I glance in the rearview mirror, but he’s shoved his body too far down inside the car for me to see him. ‘I’m from England.’
‘England? Woah. Like… how’d you end up in Canyon?’
I don’t want to say who my stepmother is, in case it puts him on edge. ‘My father, he’s British. He met my stepmother when she came to London. She’s from Texas. Then eventually, when my parents divorced, he moved out here. I went to Eastvale High for two years.’
‘Thought they bulldozed that place.’
‘They did,’ I say with a mixture of emotions in my chest. American high school as a newly arrived Brit wasn’t the most fun experience. ‘Developers moved in. It’s all swanky apartments now.’
‘Is that where you live?’
‘No,’ I chuckle, because despite being completed a year ago, the Eastvale apartments remain largely vacant. ‘But I do live across the street.’
Nestled between Electric Hills and the eastern city limits, Eastvale spans about a six-block radius, a postage stamp of a neighborhood.
On the south side, the affluence of Electric Hills has seeped over the boundary, bringing with it swanky coffee shops, nail salons and organic delis selling kumquat and whole pomegranates.
On the north side – and the location of my apartment where I once lived with my father – the streets still exhibit signs of the Eastvale of old, with weeds growing between the paving slabs, of oily gas stations and rundown 7-Elevens where the outside lights flicker, which stock shelves of Cup Noodles and pre-packaged snacks.
My apartment is inside a low-rise, three-storey building, surrounded by oak trees, which comes with its own parking space and overlooks the gas station.
People argue that it’s an up-and-coming area. Honestly, I’m not so sure.
I park up and switch off the engine. In the back seat, Noah remains crouched down.
‘Are you all right?’ I ask in the silence, looking back through the seats.
‘You got any food inside?’ he asks.
I sigh, because once more, he’s evading the question.
Out of the car, he follows me, hot on my heels as I push open the black security gate, which stopped working a few months ago and which nobody has bothered to fix.
In the humidity, the sounds of cicadas are all around us.
When we take the stairs in the stairwell, I see Noah’s frightened face in the light for the first time.
He has a scrawny build, his jeans two sizes too big.
His hair is longer at the front and parted in the middle.
Once inside, I swiftly pick up a few piles of stray clothing and dump it all in the laundry basket, trying to make the place look presentable.
Noah sits at the kitchen table and waits while I make him a sandwich.
I can practically see him salivating when I slide the plate under his nose, and I watch in silence as he devours almost the entire thing in under a minute.
‘Chips?’ I ask him, holding up the jumbo-sized bag of tortilla chips that I bought at the superstore, the kind I polish off in one sitting when I’m watching a romantic movie on my own, snuggled under a blanket.
Noah nods his head, his cheeks still full. I pour the whole lot into a bowl, and he shovels them into his mouth. I grab some milk from the refrigerator and fill a glass. He downs it in one, then wipes his lips with the back of his hand.
‘Let me fix your face,’ I say.
He shakes his head. ‘I’m good. Thanks for the food. You think I could stay here, just for tonight?’
Despite appearances, he’s a confident kid. I know I shouldn’t say yes, but I find myself nodding in agreement. ‘There’s a spare room. You can take that.’
‘I’m happy on the couch. That’s where I normally sleep.’
‘You normally sleep on a sofa?’
‘Got a lotta siblings. We ran outta bed space a while back.’
I crouch down and open the cupboard under the sink, where the first aid kit is kept. ‘Fine. You let me fix your face and I’ll let you sleep on the couch.’
His eyes dart nervously to mine.
‘How old are you, Noah?’ I ask.
He sniffs. ‘Fourteen.’
I blink at him in disbelief. He looks younger. How can a fourteen-year-old know how to drive a car, let alone try and steal one?
‘Come this way,’ I say, indicating toward the living area.
He gets out of his chair, hugging the bowl of chips, and shuffles over to the couch.
I run some warm water and fill a container, then sit myself down on the table opposite him.
I don’t know much about being a nurse, but I’ve seen my coworkers at Sunset Pines use butterfly closures on open wounds before.
I clean up the main cut to his forehead.
The split on his lip looks worse than it is.
‘Noah, you’re going to have to tell me who I can call,’ I tell him once he’s yawning. ‘Not to be rude, but you can’t stay here forever.’
He goes very still, his eyes wary, like suddenly he can’t trust me. ‘You can’t just let me go on my way tomorrow?’
I look inside the kit for a surgical strip. ‘You’re fourteen. The police are after you. Where are your parents?’
He shakes his head. ‘I can’t tell my mom. She’ll kill me. I got a record already.’
‘So, you do have a mum. Won’t she be wanting to know where you are?’
This time, he shrugs. ‘Cops prolly called her already, searching for me.’
‘Is there anyone else I can call?’
‘Uhm. Maybe my brother, AJ.’
I tense. It’s yet another name that does odd things to my stomach. ‘AJ,’ I repeat. I search Noah’s face, hoping I haven’t picked up on any resemblance. Then I relax my shoulders, because there’s no possibility it can be the same person I’m thinking of.
‘Noah, what’s your last name again?’ I ask casually.
‘Brady,’ he confirms, and I breathe an inward sigh of relief.
‘And where can I find AJ Brady?’
‘His name’s Callahan. He’s my half-brother. He lives over in Rapture.’
I freeze at the words, my fingers in the middle of attaching a couple of the surgical strips over Noah’s left eye.
‘AJ Callahan is your brother?’
‘Yeah. Why? You know him?’
My lips thin. Of all people, I pick up AJ Callahan’s runaway brother. ‘We were at high school together,’ I murmur, because the memories I have of that time are not exactly pleasant.
Except for one memory. The one that hasn’t left me, even after five years.
‘Small world, huh?’ Noah is saying. I can see his eyelids are drooping, but my mind is elsewhere.
For the two years I attended American high school, AJ Callahan and his friends teased me relentlessly.
Oh, oh, oh. I’m a certified idiot.
I just rescued the younger brother of one of my high school bullies, and the same boy I’ve had a crush on since the first day I set eyes on him.