by West, Dahlia
In his gut, Jonah knew something was wrong. He’d plotted to run away enough times that he knew what it looked like. He shoved the sodas onto the nearest shelf and took off after her. “Sienna!” he called, but she still wouldn’t stop.
He was older, though, and so much bigger, and he grabbed her before she made it to the store’s front doors. He turned her and gripped the strap of her bag to keep her in place. “Where are you going?” he demanded. “What are you doing?”
“Let go, Jonah!” she hissed.
“Not until you tell me what’s going on.”
She looked around fearfully and Jonah’s heart squeezed a little. No kid should ever be afraid, least of all Sienna Rhodes. “I have to go,” she whispered. “I have to leave.”
“Sienna, you can’t run away,” he argued. “You’re just a kid.”
“I can,” she insisted. “I’m going!”
Jonah licked his lips and looked around as well, trying to buy himself some time. He was leaving town and he knew without a doubt that Sienna wouldn’t be here when he got back. Not if he let her go now. “Mr. Stark is outside,” he warned her. “He’ll see you. He’ll take you back home.”
Her eyes widened and tears brimmed on the lower lids. “I can’t go home.”
Oh, man. Jonah knew that look. He’d heard those words, from lots of other kids in the foster system. “Okay,” he said quietly. “Okay, let me think.”
Just then the back door opened. A delivery man pushed in a large cart full of cases of soda. Jonah tugged on Sienna’s bag and pulled her away from the front doors and toward the back.
When the delivery man stepped all the way inside, Jonah snuck behind him, towing Sienna, and placed a hand on the closing back door. He pushed it back open and bolted through it. Sienna followed him and they ended up in the back of the building, unseen by the people in the parking lot out front.
No one had noticed them, it seemed, and he ran with her toward the dry cleaners across from them and skirted around behind that building as well. Unsure where to go next, Jonah had to stop to think. There was a small park a block away. It was back toward their houses, though, back toward the place she was trying so desperately to get away from.
Jonah guided her there anyway, because it was close and familiar. Double rows of bushes had been planted on all four sides. Jonah ushered her in between the ones farthest away from the street. They were blocked from view on all sides.
He hunkered down next to her and gave her a stern look. “What the hell are you doing?”
Sienna’s lower lip quivered and Jonah felt the urge to hug her. He refrained, though. She refused to answer.
“Why are you running away?” he demanded.
She shrugged and looked away.
Jonah sighed and planted his ass in the dirt. He had the feeling they’d be there for a while. “Well,” he said in a softer tone, “where were you going? At least tell me that.”
Sienna bit her tiny lip and chewed on it. “Chicago.”
Jonah gaped at her. “Chicago!” he nearly shouted. “Chicago?! How the hell were you going to get there?!”
“Don’t say that word,” she admonished. “You said it twice. You’ll go there if you keep saying that.”
Jonah took a deep breath and blew it out. The urge to grab her and shake the shit out of her was intense. “How are you going to get to Chicago?” he asked again evenly.
Sienna reached into her backpack and pulled out a plastic bank filled with change.
He cursed again and shook his head.
Sienna glared at him.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “But, Sienna, that’s not enough for a bus ticket. And it’s sure as sh— crap not enough for a plane. This won’t even buy you lunch.”
Sienna ducked her head and peered at him cautiously through her lashes. Then she fished into her pack and pulled out a credit card.
“Oh, God,” he groaned, taking it from her.
“Am I going to go to…Hell?” she whispered. “For stealing?”
Jonah reached out and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. “No. No you’re not going to Hell. But… you can’t do this, Sienna.”
She jutted out her chin in defiance. “Yes, I can! I have the card. I can go to Chicago and live with Daddy!”
“Sienna, for one thing, they’ll never let you use that card. The second someone sees it, they’ll call the cops.”
Her lip quivered again. “I’ll go to jail?”
Jonah decided not to tell her that, no, she’d go somewhere worse. Instead he said, “They’ll call your mom.” Which was partially true. “And why would you go to your dad, anyway? All the way in Chicago? Does he even call you?”
“Sometimes!” she cried. “Sometimes he does! He says he loves me!”
She started to cry and Jonah bit down on another curse word. He really, really hated seeing her cry. “Okay,” he said gently. “But that doesn’t mean anything. Did he say you can live with him?”
She rubbed her eyes, silent once again.
So that was a no.
“What’s going on, Sienna? You need to tell me. Tell me what’s wrong.”
She looked up at him, tears still spilling. “You won’t believe me.”
Jonah’s stomach knotted and he forced himself to nod. “I will,” he promised her. “I will. Just tell me.”
“Mom doesn’t.”
Jonah blew out another breath and looked up at the sky. It was still clear, still blue, so why did it feel like a storm was about to hit? “Tell me,” he ordered.
“Paul,” she whispered.
That word alone, even in hushed tones, made Jonah snap. He grabbed her shoulders and turned to her to face him fully. “What did he do?” he half-shouted. “What did he do, Sienna?!”
She stared at him, open-mouthed and in shock.
“Sienna, what did he do?!”
“Nothing,” she replied.
“Bullshit!”
She didn’t reprimand him this time. She was probably too scared. Jonah didn’t care. This was serious. This was real. Hell wasn’t real. Neither was God, probably. All that was real was right here, right now.
“Nothing!” she insisted. “That’s why she doesn’t believe me!”
Jonah stopped shaking her. Both of them were breathing hard. He forced himself to let go of her. He rubbed his face and closed his eyes to get himself under control. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I’m sorry I scared you. But this is serious, Sienna. I need to know. If it’s nothing, why would you run away?”
Her lips twisted into a grimace and her brow furrowed. “He touches me,” she told him.
Jonah felt so much rage boiling inside him that spots appeared before his eyes. “That’s. Not. Nothing,” he said through clenched teeth. “If someone touches your…your private parts…then—”
“He doesn’t! They told us about that in school. About private parts. He doesn’t do that. But…”
“But what?”
“I don’t know,” she whined.
“Okay. Okay,” he said, swallowing hard. “Just tell me what you do know. Just tell me what… what you feel, I guess.”
“He sits next to me on the couch. When I’m watching cartoons.” Her nose crinkled as she spoke. “But adults don’t watch cartoon. Mommy doesn’t. He puts…he puts his hand on my leg. Sometimes on my shoulder. And he rubs.”
She looked up at him, eyes narrowing to slits. “But he doesn’t touch my privates. He never, ever does!”
She wore it like a badge of honor, and Jonah wouldn’t dare take it away from her.
“He says he can be my daddy. That he can give me special presents, birthday presents, Christmas presents. He gave me a Barbie, but…”
“Sienna,” Jonah whispered, not really wanting to hear more but needing to just the same.
“I don’t know.”
“Just tell it like it was. Don’t worry about what it means.”
She took a deep breath. “She didn’t have any clothes. He said it b
elonged to his daughter. Who’s old now. Too old for Barbies. But she didn’t have any clothes! When I told Mommy, she said it was a present and I should say thank you. And then she told him and he said he couldn’t find the clothes and he thought we’d buy new ones. They were both mad at me.”
She pressed her lips together and wiped her hands on her dirty jeans. “And…”
“What?”
“And last night, he was in my room.”
Jonah froze, fighting all the feelings that threatened to overwhelm him. Closing his eyes no longer helped. Even behind his lids, he saw light under the bedroom door, heard footsteps on the wooden floor, smelled aftershave and soap. “Did he get in bed with you?” His own voice was so low she might not have heard.
“No,” she said. “I saw him in the doorway. I got really, really scared, because I could only see a shadow. I said, ‘Who’s there? and Mommy came out of her room.”
Jonah opened his eyes and Sienna was scowling. “He told her that he went to the bathroom and heard noises in my room, like I was out of bed. But there were no noises, Jonah. I wasn’t out of bed. I swear! And I tried to tell her about the cartoons and the Barbie and that I was in bed but… but…”
Tears spilled again down her cheeks. “I don’t know!” she sobbed. “I just don’t know!”
Jonah did. Grooming, they’d called it. A fancy word for dipping your toe in the water to see if the water’s too cold.
Paul was grooming Sienna and she couldn’t possibly understand that but she felt somehow that something was very, very wrong.
Jonah wanted to hug her, but he was too afraid to touch her. She probably wouldn’t want him to, anyway.
“I can’t go home,” she whispered.
“You can’t run away, either,” he pointed out. “You’re too little.”
Sienna looked at him, eyes wide. “You could come with me. You’re a big kid. We could go together! We could make it to Chicago! You could live with me and my daddy and—”
Jonah shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that, Sienna.”
“Why not?!”
“Because we don’t have any money and we can’t use the card.” Jonah only had Mr. Stark’s ten dollars, and Sienna had maybe ten out of that jar of hers. They couldn’t get far. They couldn’t get anywhere, not on so little. He sighed. “Let me think. Just let me think.”
Minutes passed, then an hour. Sienna’s stomach rumbled.
“Do you have anything to eat?” he asked her. He supposed he could try to make it to the gas station and back, but odds were that they were looking for him now. Maybe Sienna, too.
She nodded and pulled out a Ziploc bag. It was stuffed with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She offered him half, but he said no, even though he was hungry. He was more concerned with what to do now. The Starks might take her—they were foster parents, after all. But they already had Ava and only two bedrooms.
Jonah would’ve happily given up his spot in the family for her, if he could be said to occupy one, but it was too close to Sienna’s real house for comfort. Too close to Paul and her drunk-ass mother.
Plus, Jonah knew enough about foster care to know that you didn’t just get to choose where you ended up. He might never see her again. And if he couldn’t see her, anything could happen to her. She might get molested for real in foster—or worse.
“We could join the circus,” she said. She laughed half-heartedly and Jonah knew she was kidding.
“Maybe,” he said, tired now that the adrenaline had worn off. He lay down in the grass and covered his eyes with his forearm. “What would you be?”
Sienna lay down next to him, backpack as a pillow, and said, “Mmmm. Lion tamer.”
“That’s dangerous,” he pointed out.
“But I could do it!”
“Yeah, you probably could.”
“What would you do?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Tightrope walker, maybe. Or that wheel they set on fire, the one you drive the car around in a loop-de-loop.”
“Ring of Death,” she confirmed.
“Yeah. Ring of Death.”
“Which is more dangerous, do you think, Jonah? Lion tamer or Ring of Death?”
“Hard to say.”
Hours passed like that. Jonah told her the stories he’d read, given to him by Mr. Stark. The sky darkened to purple, then to black. Above them, the stars shone brightly.
“What’re we gonna do, Jonah?”
He sighed. The whole damn day and he still didn’t have an answer. “I’ll think of something,” he assured her. “I promise I’ll never let anyone hurt you.”
Cars had passed by them all day long. There’d been a break, though, after the sun went down. When Jonah heard tires approaching this time, his ears perked up. A car door slammed, too close, way too close. He sat up and crouched low behind the bushes, peering out.
Under the streetlight on the corner was a cop car.
“Damn it,” he whispered to himself.
He watched the officer get out of his car and walk across the street toward the park, toward Jonah and Sienna and their hiding place. He might find them. He might turn around and walk away. As he got closer and closer, Jonah suddenly realized he couldn’t risk it. He turned to Sienna, snatched up her bag, and passed it to her. “Go!” he whispered fiercely. “Go back home! Right now. Go that way,” he pointed, away from himself. “Stay low through the bushes, don’t let him see you.”
Sienna looked fearfully over his shoulder and then back to him. “But…Paul is—”
He grabbed her shoulders and squeezed them tightly, maybe too much, because tears sprang to her eyes. He didn’t care, couldn’t afford to. Sienna was too young, too trusting, too weak to be out on the streets alone. Not without Jonah to protect her.
They were just seconds from being discovered and they’d be dragged off to the cop car. A social worker would go to Sienna’s home. They’d see the bottles, they’d see Linda, and they’d take Sienna away.
The streets were dangerous, to be sure, but so was foster care. Sienna could never, ever go there. Jonah wouldn’t let her.
He shook her again, more gently this time. “Go home,” he repeated. “I’ll take care of him.”
She looked dubious, like that a kid couldn’t possibly do anything about an adult.
Jonah cupped her face and met her gaze. “I’ll protect you, Sienna. I will always protect you.”
She hesitated, then nodded. He watched her gather up her bag and turn to run. Jonah waited until she was far enough away before bursting through the bushes toward the cop.
“Hey!” the uniformed policeman called and Jonah forced himself to move toward the man. He kept the cop’s attention focused on him, only on him, giving Sienna enough time to disappear around the corner.
As he approached, the cop looked him over. “Are you…Jonah Knowles?”
Jonah nodded slowly.
“Come on,” he snapped. “They’re looking for you.”
Jonah fought every instinct in his body to run away. He let the cop take him by the arm and jerk him toward the car. They were less than two blocks from the Stark house. As they pulled up to the curb, the front door flung open and Mr. and Mrs. Stark bolted out.
Jonah ducked his head as he stepped onto the grass. He wasn’t wearing handcuffs, but damn if he didn’t feel like he was.
Mrs. Stark was crying and Mr. Stark looked like he didn’t know how to look.
Jonah could relate.
The cop preened for the Starks, having saved the day. Jonah was irritated but said nothing. “CPS will be by in a day or two,” he warned.
Jonah’s face heated. He felt like shit for getting the Starks in trouble. He doubted Mrs. Plank would take him away, though. Not unless the Starks asked her to. There weren’t a lot of foster homes left in Rapid City that would take a kid like him.
When they entered the house, Jonah saw Ava asleep on the couch. Apparently, he screwed up everyone’s night. “I’m sorry,” he said quiet
ly. And he really was. The Starks were nice people and they’d clearly been upset that he’d taken off.
“Why, Jonah?” Mr. Stark demanded. He looked worried, and pissed off, and relieved all at the same time. “For God’s sake, why? If you didn’t want to go fishing, why didn’t you just say that?! Why did you run? We’ve been up all night. We’ve looked everywhere. Why?!”
Jonah knew he wasn’t getting out of this without a good explanation. The truth wasn’t an option, though. He bit his lip and stayed silent until a thought came to him. Even as he said it, he wished he could take it back, though. “I didn’t know what you would do while we were there. All alone.”
It was hard to say that out loud, because it wasn’t true. It might have been, a year ago, but Jonah had lived with them long enough to know Mr. Stark was a nice guy, a good father, a decent man. Seeing the look on the old man’s face, Jonah understood how much he was hurting Mr. Stark right now. But he couldn’t tell the truth.
He couldn’t lose Sienna.
“I…I just got scared. I’m sorry.” He licked his lips nervously and tried out his very best apologetic look. “Don’t send me away,” he pleaded. “I won’t run again. I promise. I just got scared, is all.”
There were a thousand things wrong with every word that came out of his mouth. Jonah knew it and he felt incredibly guilty, but it would all be worth it if the Starks let him stay.
They had to. They just had to.
Mrs. Stark made a sympathetic noise and swept him up into her arms.
Jonah stiffened a bit (old habits died hard) and she seemed to realize she’d overstepped their unspoken boundaries.
She stepped back and wiped a tear. “You can stay. Of course you can stay. Jonah, this is your home. We’re—” She stopped herself, though, because they’d had this discussion once before and Jonah had soundly shot down any idea they had of making their relationship official.
At the time, he didn’t know why he’d rejected them. He’d simply panicked, he supposed. The only family he’d known had forever tainted the word. But looking at them now, seeing how much he was hurting them with his lies, Jonah fought down the familiar panic and raised his chin. “Family?” he asked, cautiously.