Fight or flight time.
I turn and race toward the bathroom, but Noah meets me at the door. I stumble against his damp body covered by nothing more than a worn towel. “He’s here.” My lips tremble. “Paul’s here.”
“Who?”
Realizing Paul wasn’t exactly open information between the two of us, I shake my head in frustration. “Where’s your gun?”
Noah grabs my arm and turns to face the commotion at the door. “What’s going on, Faith?” he asks without breaking focus on the assault against the entrance of his loft.
“Please,” I plead. “Get your gun.”
His tongue smacks against his lips and he frees me from his worried grip. His eyes search the open space of the loft, trying to remember where he put it once we returned from the church.
He darts across the room as the deadbolt finally gives way and the door is thrown open. Paul steps into the left and raises his gun at Noah.
Noah locates and reaches for his gun, situated behind a near-empty bottle of whiskey on the bar. He scoops it into his hand.
Paul pulls the trigger.
Pulsing. Vibrating. My ears deafen and every sound becomes hidden behind an invisible barrier. I break into a state of confusion as gunshots are exchanged and a window shatters behind Noah.
Then Noah grabs my arm and rips me backward, twisting me on my feet and leading me in a new direction. He pushes the bedroom door open and shuts it behind us.
My hearing returns with a painful snap. Sounds are intensified—Paul’s feet are padding along the wooden floors on the other side of the door.
“You’re going to pay for this scar on my face,” Paul screams.
Noah spins in slow circles, and I realize we’re trapped by brick walls on three sides and glass on the fourth.
Paul’s gun goes off, sending a bullet barreling through the wooden door and into a framed picture of Noah, Luke, and me. I flinch and throw myself back a few feet. When I turn to Noah, he’s already planning our next move. He spins his gun between his palms and blasts the window with the butt of it. Glass rains onto the floor and the street below.
He spins to me and scoops me into his muscular arms, holding me against his chest as he steps up and onto the window ledge.
“What—?” I begin to question but am thrown off when Paul busts through the door. I’ve found myself in the center of a crime-thriller, graphic-novel crossover and my heart is about to beat out of my terrified but electrified chest.
Paul raises his gun, squarely aimed at the two of us.
Noah pulls me tight into his arms, takes a quick breath, and leaps from the window. The bitter cold November air freezes my body before we land safely on the sidewalk below.
Before I can catch my breath, Noah spins me to my feet. But I hold onto him a moment longer, taking a soul-searching sweep across his innocent green eyes. They betray him. There is no innocence in this world anymore.
From above me, I hear a gun click but it doesn’t fire. Paul’s forehead draws tight as he shakes his hand in anger, pulling the trigger again and again. But it’s empty.
I take notice of his eyes—rage filled and bleeding red.
Noah tugs on my arm, begging me to come with him, but I can’t take my eyes off Paul. I’m lost in a vortex of misunderstanding, not able to comprehend how we arrived here.
“We have to go,” Noah says between clenched teeth and pulls me away from the scene.
Paul’s eyes don’t leave mine as I’m pulled to the passenger side of Luke’s truck. He hunts me with his gaze, crucifying me for what I’ve done to him. It’s just a fucking scar and it’s not like it wasn’t well-deserved.
But this isn’t about a fucking scar. It’s about something deeper, and I’m just a stupid girl with no clue. Maybe it’s better that way.
* * *
Noah cruises down the icy-streets of downtown Old Town, fighting with the wheel as we pass street after street. In the short time since we returned home from the church, the town has seen at least two inches of snow. It’s not safe for anyone to be out on the roads right now.
But for the hundredth—and for what could be the last—time, we’ve found ourselves running from our home. His home.
I don’t have a home anymore.
3
TEN YEARS AGO
Blades of grass sing to the harmony of a cool breeze. They waver to the flow of the wind, damned if they should push back against the current. That’s life though, isn’t it? Fighting back is often the only course of escape, but somehow, it seems to always become your prison.
Five miles out and I can breathe again. Five miles out and there’s a sinking feeling from within the deepest reaches of my gut. We’ll never escape. Five miles out and we know they’re coming. They’ll find us like they always do.
My feet swing from the edge of the train car. My heels knock against the rusted metal with every sway. There’s a beat, a lapse in the continuum of it all, where the only sounds that break through the thickness are exasperated breaths.
Noah sits beside me, armed with nothing but jeans, boots and a simple tee. It’s a gorgeous day. The sun filters through thin clouds, the temperature brought to a comfortable cool from the gentle breeze.
We’re both young, but old enough to know the world is screwed up.
“Where do we go from here?” I ask him, staring blankly ahead and past a field of grass where a line of trees cut against the meadow.
“We can just stay here.” He sighs and kicks his foot out. His legs are just long enough that his shoe scrapes across the rocks beneath us. “Figure it out in the morning.”
I take an extended look around our environment and run my hand along the rusted sliding door of the train car. “Do you think this thing shuts?”
He shrugs and nods his head. “I’m too tired to try.”
“Nothing feels like home.” I sigh and lock my heels together. “They weren’t bad people, right?”
“No.” He shakes his head and bites into his lip. “They just weren’t them.”
“I know what you mean. I should hate my parents. But I can’t bring myself to do it.”
“Me either. Not yet.”
“Someday…” I say quietly with no need to finish my sentence. He knows what comes next—the words I can’t bring myself to say out loud. It’s like chasing a fleeing balloon—you’ll never catch it before it disappears into the clouds. The day will come when my sadness over my parent’s faults will turn to rage. It’s a day I’m not looking forward to.
“Someday.” A smirk ripples across Noah’s lips, signaling a complete change of mood. He turns to me. “You’ll look back at this day and realize this is the moment you knew you loved me.”
I’ve always been told that love is a grown up thing, that because of my age, whatever I felt wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. But I know, like a long list of other things, this is a lie. Noah’s right—without a doubt, he is the boy I love and I’ll always love him.
He hops to the ground, exiting the train, and spins to face me. “This isn’t what you think it is.”
I tilt my head toward him. “What do I think this is?”
“It’s not a proposal,” he says as he reaches deep into the pocket of his jeans. “It’s a promise.”
Promises are broken—one more thing I’m certain of—but his promises aren’t anyone else’s promises. He’s different from the rest of the world, so when he says something, I believe it.
He pulls his hand from his jeans and produces a dull but expensive looking ring topped with a diamond. “A promise that I’ll never leave you.”
“That’s beautiful,” I say softly, lost in a daze torn between complete happiness and a deeper, sinking feeling of where the hell did he get that?
His palm is soft as he pulls my hand close to him before slipping the ring on my finger. “For as long as we both shall live, wherever you go, I go.”
I give him a raised eyebrow. “And that’s a promise?”
“It�
�s a thousand promises because one promise is fragile. A thousand of them? They’re bulletproof.”
“I kind of want to kiss you,” I say through an unbreakable smile.
“I don’t think Mr. and Mrs. Robinson would appreciate that,” he says and draws in closer. “But they’re already going to be pissed about their missing ring.” He shrugs. “Hopefully, they’ll never find us.”
I laugh uncomfortably. “They’ll find us. They always do.”
“I can’t wait to be grown up. Then we can finally decide how we live our lives.”
“Five more years and we’ll run as far away from here as possible.” I place a palm on his left cheek and give him a quick peck on the lips. Innocent enough. “The two of us against the world.”
4
PRESENT
After the last right turn, I know where the next two left turns will take us. Back to the church. Back to the last place I want to be right now. Noah checks for traffic in both directions before barreling through a stop sign. It’s not as if we’d be able to stop anyway.
The truck has finally heated up and I place my shaking, nervous palms against the blowers. “Why didn’t you shoot him?” I ask, but then I remember the compromise I forced him to make earlier with Paul at the church.
He shrugs, but his attention is unmoved from the road. “I only load three bullets into each clip. And I fired three times, each one missed.”
Up ahead on the corner of East River Street there are two cars wrecked into each other. It appears as though one car was sideswiped by the other car running a stop sign. Noah slows for this stop, but the tires fail to grab traction and so we coast by the wreckage.
Both drivers are on foot, standing on the sidewalk, and huddling within the comfort of their own arms.
“Who the hell only loads three bullets?” I shake my head in disbelief.
“It’s part of my training,” he says deadpan.
“Training?” I ask, dumbfounded to the third degree. “What training?”
“Nothing,” he says sternly and reaffirms his tight grip on the wheel.
We turn left onto a narrow, one-way street. We pass an old, bright-blue house that reminds me of the house I grew up in before everything fell apart.
Another left turn and smoke can be seen rolling into the sky, reaching heights not felt by the presence of human feet in the entire city. Smoke spirals to the heavens above, parting a way through the gloomy, gray skies. Ashes and snow become indifferent brushstrokes upon the canvas of the world above the Earth.
The truck comes to a slow halt as Noah slowly presses his foot against the brakes. I can see—no, feel it. His world is on fire and he’s nothing more than a voyeur as the blaze burns.
He pops the truck door open and stumbles to the front.
I should do something.
There’s nothing I can do.
His naked body, barely covered by the towel he’s been wearing since we fled his apartment, gives out from beneath him. He drops to his knees and stares helplessly as his church burns to the ground.
I pop my door open and rush to him. When I reach him, I throw myself to the ground and wrap my arms around him, holding him tight. He’s like a stone—unresponsive and sinking into the snow-covered street. Sinking further into the darkness.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper calmly in his ear, but I’m anything but calm. I haven’t always made the right decisions, but I’ve been able to make them. Now I’m faced with nothing but obstruction. A steel wall stands between my ability to think and me. “I’m so sorry.”
But what am I apologizing for? He said it himself—he’s too far gone. His faith has been shaken, rattled, and destroyed. So then why does the sight of his church on fire devastate him? When the world quits making sense and everything’s a blur this is what we’re often left with—those two simple words—I’m sorry.
They’ve become meaningless, but I say it again. “I’m sorry.”
Still, he remains unresponsive. I release him from my grip and position myself in front of him. His green eyes have darkened. Flames dance like a stripper in a cage across his widened pupils. There’s a haunted look crept across his face, ignited by a thousand shades of rage, and bringing them from the dark out into the harsh light of day.
I place both hands on his shoulders and swallow the cold air. “We need to go to the police.”
His eyes float upward and his throat pulses. “No.” He rises to his feet, folds his palm into his fist and marches to the idling truck. His body is tense, but it moves. The scars on his back stay in rigid place. “No police.” He pulls the door open and jumps into the driver’s seat.
I follow him and slide into my own seat. As soon as I pull my door closed, we’re driving down the street and away from the scene of the crime. In the distance, I hear the sirens of a fleet of fire trucks. Like most things in life, they’re far too late. The damage has been done and now we must all await the final tally.
Collateral damage is a fact of war and Noah is going into battle. He has nothing to lose and he wouldn’t care if he did. He’s a man torn between the heights of heaven and the dizzying lows of hell.
And I’m his anchor for the world in between, facing my own slew of demons. Paul—whatever his intentions—is my problem to deal with. He’s crossed a line, and I’m not just talking about the line between sanity and insanity. I’m talking about taking a torch to the second home of the man I love.
Noah down shifts the truck as we come to a rolling stop at a stop sign. Before he has the opportunity to look both ways, he slams the clutch into position and shifts upward. We turn left, but slip on the ice and drift until the back of the truck almost swipes a street sign—HWY 72.
I now know where we’re going. Back to the only place that ever felt like home—the Eastwood farm.
5
EIGHT YEARS AGO
“It’s just another stupid house. Full of stupid people with stupid ideas and an uncanny knack for relaying the warmth of a snow pigeon,” I say to Mrs. Carver, the driver and my case worker.
She looks into the rearview mirror and smiles gently. “I think you’re really going to like this place.”
I cross my arms and sigh. “I doubt it.”
“There’s someone there you’re going to want to see.” She wags a finger. “I think this might finally be that place you’ll call home.”
I turn and stare out the window. The paved roads have eased into a dusty, winding path. “Doubt it,” I repeat.
Home is a four-letter word. Once you’re dragged out of your first, and then subsequently running away from others, it becomes an illusion—a bedtime story as silly and unrealistic as the legend of OZ. There’s no place like home? I simply wouldn’t understand.
The houses become spread out with a half-mile, at least, passing between each driveway. I’ve always pictured myself as more of a city girl. The country is too quiet, allowing the deepest thoughts out of the figurative dungeon. In the silence of the world, your mind still carries forward.
I don’t want to hear what it has to say.
Mrs. Carver turns the wheel and we pull into a long driveway. I rest my head against the back of the seat and close my eyes, preparing myself emotionally to step out of this car and into my next temporary home.
The car comes to a stop behind a white SUV and an old, dark green truck.
I push the door open and slide out of the car. I place a hand firm against the top of the door, hiding behind the safety it affords while scanning the grounds. It’s a well-kept farmhouse that’s situated on a beautiful lot.
A porch wraps around the front of the house. A cow moos in the distance. Kill me now. The front door of the house is pushed open and my two new foster parents, Rick and Lori, emerge onto the porch.
I had met the two of them for a brief moment before, and they hardly seemed like the terrible people I’ve become accustomed to—but they seldom do. Lori smiles from the porch while Rick throws his arm over her shoulder.
I force
a smile back and give them a wave of my hand.
“Is she here?” I hear a man call from behind the house and twist to see who it is. He comes running around the house and a gentle smile crosses my lips. There’s no faking it anymore.
“Noah!” I scream and slam the door shut. “Noah?”
He runs toward me as I sprint to him. We meet beside the SUV and he grins wildly. “How long has it been?” His eyes scan my body from my feet to my head. “You’ve really grown. How long has it been?”
“Two years, but it feels like an eternity,” I say softly, lost in the moment. “I never thought I’d see you again.” It’s true. The last time I saw him was that day on the tracks. When the authorities found us, we were taken away in two separate cars. Lucky for us, I’m still not sure they ever realized the stolen ring ever came up missing. I’m not good with law stuff, but I know the theft of that ring constitutes a felony.
He throws his arms around me and embraces me in a tight hug. “You know what they say about fate.”
I shake my head. “No. What do they say?”
He pulls back from the embrace and shrugs. “I’m sure they say something.”
This boy right here. I’m fifteen now, but I’ve known I loved him since I was thirteen. Yeah, this boy right here. I think I’ve finally found my home.
* * *
PRESENT
All those years ago, and in this moment, nothing seems to have changed. I still have that same torn-up feeling in my gut, as we turn left into the long, winding driveway. The memory of then and the reality of now seem to blend together. The difference between the grass blowing in the wind then and the snow-covered ground now is the only thing that reminds me that I’m not a fifteen year old girl anymore.
I’m always running, always searching for a home. But the one place I’ve ever been able to call home, if we discount the years spent in Florida, doesn’t feel like home anymore.
Faithless #3: A Tainted Love Serial Page 2