56. A Boy and a Girl
A Boy and a Girl
The stuffy smell hit her first, the chipped beige walls second. They closed in around her like shadows just as they had so many years ago.
It wasn’t even the same place, yet it starkly resembled the one she’d wandered into back then. Lucien appeared beside her, following her eyes to the quote splashed over the wall. Foster care is a chance to show a child they are worthy of love and joy.
“You good?”
She slid her focus to him. “Hmmhmm, yes. All good.” The knowing glint in his eye told her he knew she was lying. But instead of pressing for more, he simply stepped back, gesturing for her to follow a lady in scrubs.
“This way, Mr Evans.” Their shoes squeaked over the floor. Kate hoped it would muffle the creaking of her joints as flashes of the past appeared unannounced in her mind.
Left foot first.
The splintering of glass… It had been the first warning to the life she was to live.
Right foot followed.
The second was the push that made the car tumble over and over.
Left.
Flickering orange lights had flashed over the deserted road, just like those in the fair, where she had ridden the white horse with its pink saddle and halter on the carousel.
Right. Her foot made the linoleum sing beneath her.
Her mother’s face stuck to the airbag. Her sister, dark brown eyelashes pressed shut tightly with blood dripping down her beautiful face.
A soft touch on her shoulder brought her back to the surface of reality. “Kate, are you okay, for real?” Lucien regarded her intensely, eyes scouring over her face with concern.
She forced the hair plastered to her forehead out of her face. Nodding once. Some things she had to go through on her own, this visit, whatever its uses, was a part of that.
His arm shot out, blocking her path forward. “I mean it, we can go back if it’s… too much.”
“You’ve brought me here for a reason. I want to see what it is. It better be worth it though.” Her attempt at a joke fell flat when her voice shook.
A loud beep rescued her from Lucien’s intensity. Kate nudged her chin towards the double doors in front of them. “They’re waiting on you, Mr Evans.” She shot him a careful wink, shrugging past his grip towards the lady waiting for them.
The small light the key card had been swiped over turned from red to green, allowing them passage to whatever lay behind.
Grey-painted doors lined each side, one of them left ajar.
Kate peered in to see color pencils strewn across a deserted notebook.
Squinting heavily, she could see the blurred outlines of a drawing.
Three stick figures, one colored in blue, one in pink and the other in bright orange.
Mommy and daddy was written in big, drawn out letters above the figures, and a sun lingered in the right upper corner of the paper, its colored rays shedding light on the family.
Not unlike something she’d drawn back then, with an added stick figure representing her younger sister, Lynne.
Lynne. The one who had raced around the garden to escape her fingers as they played tag. Long hair bouncing across her back, she’d thrown a look over her shoulder, sparkling blue eyes dancing with laughter.
A scream rattled through the hallway. Goosebumps raced over her arms as the sound of it clashed against the walls. The lady they’d been following rushed forward to help her colleague. A young girl stood between them shouting at the top of her lungs. “Mommy is coming back! I know she is!”
“Did you? Ever wait for them?” Lucien reappeared by her side, glancing at the poor child in front of them.
“No.” Her eyes narrowed at him. Why was he being this…
curious about her past? “I knew they wouldn’t come back, I don’t know what’s worse.
” She jerked her chin to the girl being herded back into her room.
“Hope where there is none, or knowing this is it.” Her eyes followed the girl, silently wishing that the young one would find a family deserving of her.
“She’s about the same age as I was, back then.” Her throat bobbed, once, twice, as the girl disappeared from view.
“You’re not that girl anymore.” His deep voice rumbled between them, gently brushing up against her ears. Even now, when she refused to be touched by him, somehow he was still able to comfort her racing thoughts.
Even though she knew better. In a way, she was still the same young girl. Waiting for resolution from someone else. But she smiled at him, the lie pulling at her lips. “I know.”
“Just in time.” A young man strode toward them, with his brown hair tousled over his features and chocolate brown eyes widening in admiration toward Lucien.
He introduced himself as Eric, shaking her hand enthusiastically before gushing.
“So nice to meet you, Kate! And to see you again, Lucien. Ethan is beyond excited for today. And all that due to your generosity.”
Ethan? Wait, what is going on here?
Lucien waved the compliments away with a loose hand. “I did what any decent person would do, not unlike yourself, I’m sure.”
Eric brought them to a waiting room, motioning for them to sit. “They’ll be here soon.”
The second he left, her head turned to Lucien, the question ready on her tongue. But he was already shaking his head. Just wait. Was all his eyes told her.
Crossing her arms, she leaned back in the creaking chair with a huff.
Tick-tack. Her eyes lifted to the brown framed clock mounted to the wall, solemnly ticking the seconds away with its spindly black arms.
Wait, is that?
A young voice rang out through the hallway, bright and clear… Ethan’s.
She shot up from her chair the moment he rounded the corner. There he was, the young boy whose father Lucien had finished off.
His footsteps hopped against the linoleum floor as he skipped over to her. Kate slid down to her haunches, blinking furiously to make sure that he was real.
She wasn’t dreaming. The smile on his face widened ever more, showing the toothy grin before Ethan squished her into a hug.
Kate nearly tumbled over from the force of the bubbly boy. She laughed while bracing a hand on the floor, keeping herself from toppling over. “What are you doing here?!”
Ethan leaned in to whisper in her ear. “They told me I am seeing my nana and grandpa today. And, and…” The boy was falling over his words now. “You! I don’t know what’s happening!”
Was this the good deed Eric had mentioned? Was Lucien the reason he was being reunited with his grandparents?
Kate glanced at Lucien, whose eyes remained glued to the boy still holding onto her. Coughing, he cleared his voice before admitting. “We need to be able to pull up on the silver linings. And when they’re not around… we need to create them ourselves.”
Before she could respond, Ethan pulled out of the embrace. He asked with a tiny frown wrinkling up his young face. “Do you think this is the… light at the end of the tunnel, the one you told me about?”
“Yes.” A smile broke through on her face. “I think this is the one… I’m so happy for you, Ethan.”
“Ethan!” Eric’s shout cut through the waiting room. “They are nearly here.”
“This is for you.” The boy pressed a small blue truck into her hand. She stared at it, the white lettering blurring before she hastily blinked her eyes.
The young boy skipped off to the opening doors at the other end, dashing straight into the arms of his grandparents.
Lucien appeared beside her, staring at the truck she held in her grip. “Now you’ve got a good memory. They won’t erase the bad ones, but,” he shrugged.
“How?” It was the only thing she could utter, with the emotions still holding her throat hostage.
“Connections.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “The risk is—”
“Worth it.” He shoved a hand in his pockets. But she’d seen it, the slight tremble.
Maybe, just maybe, today didn’t need to be the day for her to face it alone. Kate stepped closer to slip her fingers in between his. He answered it with a squeeze, eyes lifting to hers. “Just… enjoy the view.”
She forced her eyes forward to see the room had changed from tense silence to relief. Ethan’s grandmother had wrapped her arms around him as if she hadn’t seen him in years. And grandpa, she could see him wipe away a stray tear before the widest smile she’d ever seen lit up his face.
It’s what she told Lucien hadn’t been ‘right’, yet it was the most beautiful thing she’d witnessed in years.
***
Lucien’s footsteps slowed when they reached the playground. Kate strode ahead, grabbing a hold over the still squeaking red swing. She brushed the snow off before sliding her weight down into the small faded seat, pushing off with her legs to get herself airborne.
Ethan was ready to leave the institution, face lit up like a Christmas tree’s lights. He stepped through the snow right into his grandparents car without any lingering hesitation. So different to when she’d first seen him, scared of making the wrong move but now…
He had found his home.
Lucien’s voice pulled her attention away from the car with Ethan in it, who was still waving excitedly at them as the reunited family turned down the road, quickly disappearing from view.
“I know you’ve been dealing with a lot since we first met.” He settled down in the swing next to hers, feet resting on the sandy floor.
Kate opened her mouth to respond but he beat her to it.
“Just… hear me out for a bit, okay?” Following her surprised nod, he continued.
“My work wouldn’t exactly be easy on anyone, much less the girl who miraculously survived.
It’s the reason I wanted to show you this.
” Lucien waved a hand at the lone building, encompassing all that had transpired inside. “What did you see?”
“A life changed. Ethan’s life changed.” She corrected herself. “But how did you do it? I mean the risk of it all is… well.” It could literally lead to him being discovered, and he might have the Montana Big Sky police in his pocket, but that couldn’t be true for all cops.
The swing creaked under his weight when he said.
“Turns out his grandparents had filed a complaint against the father. They knew something was off about the man, but they were never heard by the justice system.” A sly grin slipped past his resolve, showing the side of him that enjoyed the hunt, the kill, and the escape, what it took to remain below the radar.
“And let’s just say… hiding in plain sight is an actual method. ”
It unnerved her: both the fact that the justice system failed victims over and over, and that even though Lucien tried to hide it at times, he loved what he did. It wasn’t just about serving justice, he enjoyed every second of it.
She watched him push off the swing, legs outstretched like a child’s while he continued.
“Hearing that, I decided to pull on a couple of strings.” His playful grin faltered when he turned to look at the building.
“Witnessing that in there? I know what I did was the right thing.” Lucien tore his eyes away from the foster home to catch hers.
“Money, capabilities, it can make a difference.”
Capabilities. Those capabilities of his had given a boy his shot at life. And… had nearly taken hers.
“I know that it can, but, Lucien… you nearly took my life too. What you do, it’s not only the people who deserve it. You know that, deep inside.”
He tilted his head at her, looking for a second as if he thought she was being naive.
“It’s not about what I know, sweetheart.
And no, not everything I’ve done has been for the right reasons.
” His hand clenched around the chains of the swing.
“I know that scares you, Kate. But I won’t ever change, that alter ego as you call it?
It is a part of me. And I’m not asking you to like it, in fact I don’t need you to.
” His tone grew deeper, firmer. “But perhaps you should know it’s what gets things done.
” He stopped, glancing around to make sure they were still alone before continuing.
“What made me snap the arms of that trafficker, what made me start the sanctuary in the first place. The good… it goes hand in hand with the bad.”
“Black and white, duality.” She didn’t know she’d whispered the words out loud until his eyes snapped up in surprise, but he bobbed his head in confirmation.
A gust of wind tore through the playground, sending the snow swirling around them. Kate pulled her jacket tighter around herself, watching the tiny crystals float up to the sky.
Lucien jerked a thumb at the house. “No one, not even you, can tell me what I did here was wrong. I realize how that makes me look, like someone with a God complex. Thing is, I don’t particularly care.”
With that he pushed off of the floor, mirroring his swing’s rhythm to hers. So childlike, even though he’d just spoken about life and death as easily as one ordered breakfast in a restaurant.
Kate’s shoulders dropped, hands clenched around the metal chains of the swings, the ice on it burning her fingers.
“I can’t tell you if it’s right or wrong, because no one can.
We’re all out here winging it, hoping that what we do matters.
” She trailed off, the next words heavy on her tongue. “What we saw here today… It mattered.”
Silence fell between them, crackling in its stillness. But the wind roared louder and louder, caught in the pine trees and gushing straight through a traffic sign, spreading its haunting song over the deserted landscape.
Out of nowhere her swing bolted sideways, sending her off course.
Kate bounced right back into Lucien with a spooked laugh.
The devilish little asshole was already grinning from ear to ear, swinging his hips over to hers again.
“Stop it, you insufferable bastard!” she shouted.
But the move made her smirk nonetheless.
He frowned at her. “Even though the last few days have been… challenging.”
Understatement of the century.
“You look different, lighter. Even after this conversation of ours, and whatever happened inside. Because I saw you… struggling with those flashes of the past.”
Her smirk widened, throwing a glance at the building so like the one from her past.
“I have changed, and what you’ve shown me here today. I am not a killer Lucien, no matter what you say. But I also remember how I used to wish for help, so I get it, a part of it. And today I feel like celebrating the good.”
And Ethan, maybe if he visited her in her dreams now, it would be with a wide smile on his face.
She held out her hand in invitation, wiggling her fingers.
Getting the hint, he dropped the keys into her hands.
“We just…” She stopped, saving the mental picture of him jumping off the swing with a flourish.
“Need to see where life takes us next, huh?” With that she pushed up to walk to the Volvo, shoulders the tiniest bit lighter than they had been before.