Chapter 22
Ronan walked up to the door of Giada’s tiny home. He tried the door and the moment he touched it, it swung open. Ronan looked back at Maverik when he realized the doorknob was broken.
Maverik cocked his head a bit, his suspicions going on high alert.
Ronan took a few steps into the tiny home, with Maverik right behind him.
He stopped and looked around. The place was a mess.
It had obviously been broken into and ransacked.
The sofa cushions were thrown across the small room.
The pillows and blankets from when the sofa was folded out into a bed were strewn across the floor, and the few pots and pans Giada had were thrown on the floor.
The shower curtain had been ripped down.
The blinds on the windows were broken and hanging from only one side.
Even the storage bench was not spared, its top was left ajar and the extra clothes and blankets that were stored there were strewn about the small kitchen. But there was no trace of the boys.
Ronan walked though the small home, stopping every few steps to listen. There was nothing to indicate anyone was in the home at all. “I don’t think they’re here.”
“Gotta be. Tempest said she felt them here,” Maverik said. He started going through the house, opening each cabinet and looking inside. He even stood on the table and and used the multi-tool he carried on his belt to unscrew the vent to see just how wide the air and heating ducts were.
Ronan got down on his hands and knees to look under things, and between things.
He laid on his belly and scooted across the floor inches at a time, his eyes roving over every inch of the small home.
Having not noticed anything out of place, he sat up and just looked around himself, looking for any little clue he was missing.
“This is a nicer little place than I thought it was. But I just can’t figure out how three people slept in this little place. What’d she do sleep on the floor? There’s not room for everybody to sleep on that sofa,” Maverik said.
Ronan shook his head. He was used to his father blurting out his observations at the most inopportune times.
It was how his brain worked — he thought it, he said it.
“Can we concentrate on locating the…” Ronan stopped talking before he finished his sentence.
He turned to look at the sofa and realized that if it was nighttime, they’d have been sleeping.
It should be opened, not still set up like a sofa.
He got up off the floor and moved toward it.
“You’re a genius, Dad,” he said as he examined it.
“Damn straight,” Maverik said. Then he kinda looked at Ronan. “Why? What’d I say?”
“It was nighttime. They’d have been asleep.
They fold out this sofa and sleep on it,” Ronan said, as he found the handle he searched for and released the latch on the sofa.
The seated portion of the sofa popped up and Ronan took hold of the support bars just behind the back rest and pulled it up and out, unfolding the bed and setting the supports on the floor beside him.
He put a knee on the thin mattress and leaned toward the head of the small sofa bed, grabbing the mattress and pulling it away from the supports it rested on.
Two sets of wide, terrified eyes stared back at him from a small space between the wall and the supports for the bed.
“Ronan!” they both yelled, as they started trying to climb out of the small, cramped space they were in.
Ronan let out a sound that triggered the boys to start crying and trying even harder to get out of their hiding spot to get to him. “It’s alright, I got you. I got you,” Ronan said, his own voice breaking as he tried to get them out as quickly as they tried to get out.
“Momma unhooked this,” Leo said impatiently, his small hand prying at a stiff support spring while he tried to see through his tears.
Ronan quickly unhooked the spring and the two next to it, and it was just enough for the boys to slip through. He pulled Leo out, and then Matteo, who both climbed into his lap and sealed their arms around his neck as they cried.
Leo was the first to venture a glance around at their home, and panicked when he saw Maverik standing there quietly. Which sent Matteo into a panic. The both started trying to climb up and over Ronan as he held them.
“It’s alright. That’s my dad. He’s not going to hurt you. He’s my dad. He came to help me help Momma and search for you guys! He’s not going to hurt you,” Ronan assured them.
“He looks scary,” Leo confided, holding on tight.
“That’s because some bad men hurt him a long time ago, so he’s got a big scar.”
“And weird hair,” Matteo added.
Maverik chuckled. “I promise, I’m only here to make sure you’re safe. And I’ll tell you a secret, I only look scary because of my scar and my funny hair, but the bad guys don’t know that and they’re really scared. They’ll still be afraid, but you know better.”
Matteo smiled a little through his tears.
“He’s your dad?” Leo asked, looking back and forth between Ronan and Maverik.
“He is. The other kids in the family call him Poppy.”
“Except for Cristie. She’s my granddaughter and she’s grown up now, but when she was little she tried to say Poppy and somebody thought she was saying Puppy.
She even had a stuffed wolf she called Poppy and they thought she was saying Puppy,” Maverik said, trying to distract the boys with funny stories. “She knew she meant me, though.”
“I got a wolf,” Matteo said. He slipped off Ronan’s lap and crawled across the fold out bed, and reached into the space between the sofa bed and the wall they’d been hiding in.
He dug around for a second, then pulled out two squishy pillows that were clearly meant to be wolves.
He handed one to Leo who immediately hugged it tightly to himself, and then crawled back into Ronan’s lap and hugged his own for a second before he showed it to Maverik. “See?” he asked.
“That’s a mighty fine wolf pillow,” Maverik said.
“Thanks, Puppy,” Matteo said with a grin.
Maverik chuckled. “I said she sounded like she called me Puppy, not that she really did.”
Matteo’s eyes sparkled as he teased Maverik. “But Puppy, I like Puppy.”
Maverik laughed, recognizing a like sense of humor in the boy. “Alright, I’ll let you get away with it.”
“Where’s Momma?” Leo asked.
“Yeah, I want Momma,” Matteo said, looking questioningly at Ronan.
“Momma’s resting at my house.”
“She leaved us?” Matteo asked on the verge of outrage.
“No! No, she didn’t leave you. When the bad guys were coming, she hid you and then she let them see her run away so they’d follow her. And then me and my friends got here and we took care of the bad guys. And some of my friends took Momma to my house to rest while we searched for you.”
“She knew where we were,” Leo said.
“Yes, but she was asleep because she hit her head when she fell. So she couldn’t tell me where you were. I just knew you were in here somewhere, so I had to find you.”
“It’s a good thing you’re a good finder,” Matteo said.
“Yeah,” Leo said.
“I wasn’t going anywhere until I found you. And now everything’s going to be alright. Momma’s going to be okay, and I’m here now. Okay?”
“Okay,” Matteo said. “And Puppy,” Matteo said, with a little smirk.
Leo was resting his head against Ronan. He didn’t answer, but he did nod his agreement.
“You were both such brave boys,” Ronan said. “So brave. And I’m so very, very proud of you.”
“Momma said don’t make a sound no matter what we hear. And no matter if we are scared we are supposed to be so quiet even a Wolf couldn’t find us. We didn’t even make a sound when we were crying.”
“ And we were crying,” Matteo said.
“I want to see Momma,” Leo said.
“Me, too,” Matteo said.
“Y’all ready?” Ronan asked.
“Yes!” They both yelled and held on tight so he’d carry them.
“Do you need anything else before we go to my house?” Ronan asked.
“Got my wolf. That’s all I need.”
“Me, too,” Leo said.
“Let’s go then,” Ronan said, standing up with one boy in each arm.
“Wait! I need my heroes,” Leo said.
“Mine, too,” Matteo said.
Ronan looked back at their home. “Tell you what? I’ll come back and look after I get you settled, okay?”
“Y’all go on and get to the truck. I’ll be right behind you,” Maverik said.
Ronan set out to walk all the way back to the street separating the shelter and the park.
As they made their way past the tiny homes, Ronan realized there were several people peeking out of their windows as he went by. He smiled at a few of them, but they went right back in without acknowledging him.
“They’re not saying hi,” Matteo observed.
“No, they’re not. But that’s okay. They’re probably just not ready to be awake yet.”
“Or they heard all the wild animals,” Leo said.
“What wild animals?” Ronan asked.
“I don’t know. I think I heard a Wolf. And I heard something growling and roaring real loud, but we didn’t look so I don’t know what it was.”
“Maybe it was a Bear,” Ronan suggested.
Leo’s eyes got big. “Yeah! I bet it was! I wonder if that helped scare away the bad guys!”
“I’m sure that between me and my friends and all those animals you heard, that’s exactly what scared the bad guys.”
Bam saw them coming and pulled the truck around to their side of the street. He unlocked the doors and watched as they got nearer, waving and grinning at them through the windows.
“Who is that?” Leo asked.
“That is my uncle. His name is Bam.”
“Did he help you, too?” Leo asked.
“He sure did. And he’s the nicest man you could ever know.”
“He’s looks really big,” Matteo said.
“He is. But he’s nice,” Ronan said. Then he remembered something that would win them over. “And you know what else? He is Mrs. Analise’s dad.”
“He is?!” Leo asked.
“He is.”
Ronan got to the truck and opened the door. “Hi, Uncle Bam!” he said more jovially than he actually felt.
“Hi, Ronan! Who do we have here?”