“You okay?” she asks me, stepping over the two unconscious bodies between us, touching my arm which is bleeding.
“What are you doing here?” I catch my breath, torn between feeling relieved that she’s here and angry that I have to leave.
“We need to keep moving, there’s more out in front.” Rose ignores my question and takes my arm, crouching low into the shadows of the small alleyway.
We make it out to the front and hide quickly behind a car while more men rush down the alleyway.
“Go!” Rose hisses and then we sprint down the street. I have no idea where we’re going so I follow Rose. She leads us two blocks away to a car and I jump into the passenger side as she quickly speeds away. I look behind and can’t see anyone following. One sharp corner later and I grab the arm rest and take deep breaths.
“Sorry, forgot you don’t like being in a car,” Rose mutters, but she doesn’t slow down.
“What happened?” I gasp, needing answers, yet also afraid talking might make it easier for me to throw up.
“We’re all in trouble. Where is Charlie?”
I quickly think past my rising nausea and remember the words he said to me. “Charlie Evans, Wisconsin.”
“Good, it’s not too far away.”
“Charlie and Zoe are in trouble, too?”
“Not Charlie, but Zoe is. I overheard a couple guys talking, said they were only hours away on zeroing in on my location. They said that they had a tip of your location and that Joel has a tracking device implanted inside him so they know where Zoe is. We have to get to her soon.”
“They had a tip about my location?” Cold dread sits uncomfortably in my stomach.
“Yeah, the old lady you were staying with made a few enquiries to child services.”
“She did?” I feel a whole new sickness that has nothing to do with Rose’s driving.
“Don’t sweat it, kid. She made a mistake. She gave me some of your stuff, said she understood you couldn’t come home and apologized. She looked upset.”
Rose’s words don’t ease the betrayal I’m feeling inside. Why did she do that? Why couldn’t she have just left it alone?
***
It takes all night travelling in Rose’s car to get to Wisconsin, which has led to a long lecture from Rose about how I hadn’t done the right thing in Ohio. I should have stuck to what we had said and gotten myself a phone line. Charlie has done the right thing and we find his apartment in the early hours of the morning.
Rose appears exhausted, but has refused to let me drive. I’ve never wanted to learn. If I have ever needed to be driven somewhere, Freddie had been my lift. Now I feel bad that I haven’t learned. Right now, Rose is the only one who has a license. At least Charlie can take over and give her a rest. Maybe one of them will teach me how to drive so I can contribute somehow. There are a lot of open roads and I think if I’m the one in control of the wheel, then I won’t feel so sick.
As upset as I am to have left Freddie and my new life, I do feel some relief being with Rose. Apart from Freddie, they’re the closest I have to friends and I didn’t think I would be seeing any of them again. Maybe this time we don’t have to split up, maybe this time we can stay together.
When we find Charlie’s apartment building I’m surprised by how dirty and old it is. The place appears like it’s going to fall apart any minute. Charlie’s door looks like it has been knocked down and then put back in a rush.
“Do you think something is wrong?” I ask Rose, going on high alert, looking around us for any sign of trouble.
“I don’t know. Something isn’t right, though,” she says quietly, eyeing the door suspiciously.
“Should we knock or just barge in?”
“The element of surprise will help us if there’s a problem,” Rose agrees with my own thoughts.
I nod at her and then charge at the door. It falls off its hinges easily, and I doubt my strength has anything to do with that. Zoe could have charged at the door and had that same thing happen.
“Charlie?” Rose calls out as she barges through all the doors looking for him.
I look around, seeing empty beer bottles and spirit bottles lying around. The place reeks of alcohol and it has me remembering my aunt and uncles house. I shudder and quickly bring myself back to the here and now. Charlie could be in trouble and we have to be ready to face anything.
I follow after Rose and what we see has us taking a large step backwards. I look away in embarrassment. We’ve found Charlie’s bedroom and next to a passed out Charlie is a passed out, very naked woman with her exposed back out there for the world to see.
“Oh shit,” Rose groans.
CHARLIE NICHOLS
Chapter 13 – The Happy Family
Houston, Texas
December 4th (Charlie aged 5)
“Mommy, when are we going to Chucky Ease?” I shake Mom’s arm, trying to wake her. She always naps during the day when I do, sometimes even more than me. “Mommy?” I shake her again. Finally her eyes open and she groans while rolling onto her other side, away from me. She’s usually hard to wake up.
“Champ, are you ready?” Dad walks into the room, frowning as he looks at Mom.
“Yes, can we go now?”
“In a minute. First I better check to see if you have in fact turned a year older.”
Dad picks me up and within a blink of an eye I’m suddenly upside down, making my head feel heavy.
“Daddy!” I scream, twitching as he starts tickling my now exposed stomach. I laugh and try to pull myself up, but I can’t.
“I don’t know. I think there might still be some four in you. I’ll have to double check.” Dad swings me in the air to his other side and then continues his attack on my stomach.
“I’m five. I promise I’m five,” I try to yell out between giggles, but I can’t stop laughing. Dad walks us through the house and I’m feeling dizzy.
“Are you sure you’re five?”
“Yes! Yes!” I scream and he flips me upright and finally puts me down.
“Happy birthday, champ. I couldn’t find any traces of you being four. You’re officially a big boy now.”
I smile as happiness fills me. “Can we measure me?” I like marking how much taller I am on my wall, almost as much as I love eating birthday cake every year.
“Of course. Go grab the marker.” Dad ruffles my hair and I run off towards the TV which is still showing cartoons on it. I had been using the marker this morning to draw Dad, Mom and me at the park.
As I’m running back towards my room I misjudge the corner and knock my shoulder straight into the edge of it. Intense pain shoots through me and it feels like agony. I scream, wanting the pain to go away. I’m sure my arm will never feel right again. The lights in the hall go out, the TV goes dead and I feel the heating shut off.
“What have you done, champ?” Dad leans down and picks me up, knocking my shoulder on the way, making it hurt more.
“Give him to me.” Mom’s voice soothes me and I wrap my arms around her neck while she moves small circles around my back. I always feel better when I’m in Mom’s arms. The pain fades as she dances us both around the hallway. “Better now?”
The last of my tears fall down my face and I nod into her shoulder.
“Good, now let’s see how big you are this year. I bet you’ve grown so much. You’re turning into such a big boy.” Mom walks us into my room and I reluctantly leave her arms to stand by the wall. I have been getting my height marked on here since I was three and already I’ve grown heaps. The lights are still off, but there is enough light shining through my window making it easy to see in here.
Dad leans down and whistles as he marks the wall above my head. I can barely stand still as I wait for him to finish so I can see. When his hand moves, I quickly look back at the wall and I see I’ve grown lots from last year. My height then only came up to where my mouth is.
“Wow, look at you, honey; you’re growing so quickly.” Mom’s eye
s start to water and I worry I’ve upset her.
“I won’t grow anymore if you don’t want me to.” I hold her hand and she squeezes it tightly.
“Come on, Cate, this is good. Champ is going to grow up big and strong so he can play professional basketball. He’s going to need his height.”
“He’s going to grow up to be whatever he wants to be, aren’t you?” Mom crouches down beside me and hugs me again. Now I can’t even tell that my shoulder hurt before. It’s completely better.
“I want to be a giraffe.” I remember how cool they look when they show them on Sesame Street.
“A giraffe?” Mom laughs at me.
“Well, giraffes are tall so you better keep growing then, champ.” Dad takes me out of Mom’s arms and throws me over his shoulder, carrying me out of my room. “Come on, you have a birthday party waiting for you.”
Chapter 14 – The Mistake
Madison, Wisconsin
December 19th
I look down at the bus schedule I hold tightly in my hand. It’ll be so easy to get on a bus and go back home to Houston, or go to Jacksonville and track down Zoe. Both are possible. Going home to Houston will guarantee my recapture and going to Florida will put myself and Zoe at risk. I can’t do either. No matter how much I want to see my dad or Zoe, it isn’t ever going to happen.
Zoe and I made plans to wait a year before I come to see her. I don’t want to wait that long and at the same time I know I’ll wait forever. If a year passes and none of us get caught, then we shouldn’t mess with that. Zoe’s safety is worth more than me going down there to see her. We can’t be so selfish. It’s something that hadn’t seemed practical back in Nebraska when we decided to leave each other, but now I see things clearly. Well, almost clearly. Even though I know this and believe in it, it doesn’t mean I can stick to it.
I look away from the bus schedule and glance up at the cold, menacing bar residing in front of me. I’m out in front of a bar called The Store. I think Owen, the barman and owner, called it that so married men could tell their wives they were just popping into the store after work, technically not lying.
I step out of the cold night air and into the dark and gloomy bar. I like how it is. It’s unfriendly looking on the outside and from a quick glance you’ll think the same of the inside, but if you take a closer look, it has real character. A lot of fights happen here sure, yet everything in the place has a story. Like the stool I always sit at, it has a phonebook under one of the legs because someone had used it to knock a guy over the head in a fight over a fish. Apparently, they were best friends, but one of them went on holidays and asked the other to feed his fish. He never did. The fish died and the stool lost a leg.
I sit down and order a beer. Owen passes me one without word and I take a large sip while shoving the schedule in my jacket pocket. No one sells bus tickets to someone drunk.
I’m on my fourth beer when Heather shows up. She is definitely someone who doesn’t look like they fit in with the people at this bar, however when you get to know her, you know she does. Owen had been a biker in an old life and I get the feeling that he was part of a gang. He’s huge, covered in tattoos and menacing as Hell. Heather is his niece and there isn’t an ounce of resemblance between them. She’s blonde, curvy and could easily be a model. If Owen wasn’t so dead scary, all of the guys in the bar would have hit on her. As it is, they leave her alone and simply stare longingly from afar. The first time I had seen her, she had come in to see her uncle one day after a bad breakup and she hasn’t really left since. She’s the only person in this bar who hasn’t lost interest in me. Everyone else has given up asking questions, but Heather has taken it as a mission to find out who I am.
“Hey, fancy seeing you here.” Heather rolls her eyes at me and orders herself a beer and chugs the whole thing in front of me.
“Easy there, what happened?” Owen takes away the now empty beer glass and fills it only half full this time before giving it back to her.
“I saw Shawn again today. I wish he would just leave me alone.”
“I can make him leave you alone,” Owen speaks menacingly, causing a shiver to run down my spine. No way would anyone want to get on his bad side.
“No, Uncle, I just hate seeing him. I miss him so much.”
“Then get back together, no way the guy will say no.” I roll my eyes at Heather. Sometimes she can be such a drama queen.
“He says I’ve changed, that I’ve got problems I need to sort out. Like what?”
“Maybe he’s talking about your drinking problem?” I comment just as she chugs the half glass of beer in front of her.
“I do not have a drinking problem, or at least, if I do, then you do, too,” she snaps at me.
“Well, I don’t.” No way.
“Then I don’t.” She pouts before giving up on Owen and going behind the bar to pour herself another beer.
“Give me another one.” I pass her my empty glass and she fills it back up.
“So what problems do you think he means?” she asks me.
“I don’t know, maybe he’s just making up an excuse so he doesn’t have to get back together with you.” I shrug.
“Don’t sugar-coat it or anything.” She glares at me.
“Because that’s me all right, all sugar and nice.” I glare back.
“Shut up. I listen to you when you bitch and whine about Zoe.”
“How do you know about Zoe?” My blood drains from my face and I think I’ve misplaced my stomach somewhere on the floor.
“Once you’ve hit seven or eight beers, you start to open up about her. I miss Zoe, I wish I could see Zoe, I wonder what Zoe is doing right now. Blah, blah, blah.”
I push my beer away from me and look down at my hands. Have I really mentioned Zoe that much? What else have I been talking about? What if I’ve compromised her location?
“Oh, don’t have a cry, you’re still a man of mystery. I’m convinced she’s a married woman and you had an affair with her, but she won’t leave her husband for you.”
I snort at her wild idea. “You got me,” I joke.
“Damn, I’d been banking on that one. Well, who is she then?” Heather gets that determined look about her and I know I have to head her off now.
“Just leave it, Heather.”
“You’re so frustrating. Fine, back to me then, what else could Shawn be talking about?”
“Maybe the fact that you won’t let anything go?” I snap.
“I do let things go. Just the other day I didn’t mention how I paid for your cab home and let it slide that you never paid me back.”
I vaguely remember that, whoops. “My bad.”
“See, I let it go, though. I haven’t brought it up.”
“But you just did bring it up,” I point out.
“Well, yeah, to prove a point, not to not let it go.”
“So you don’t want me to pay you back?”
“I never said that.” Heather frowns at me.
“Look, the guy’s an ass. If he doesn’t want you back, then don’t want him back.”
“That’s easy for you to say. Why don’t you take your own advice and give up this Zoe chick?”
“My situation is different.”
“Really? How so?” She eagerly leans forward towards me.
“We can’t be together, ever. Can’t, being the key word there. It’s not that we don’t want to.”
“Shawn and I are meant to be, he just hasn’t realized it yet.”
I sigh and take another large sip of my beer. What if Zoe has moved on? The more time we’re apart, the more the memories of us fade. I wanted her so badly back at The Windmill. Leaving her has been one of the hardest things I have faced, but in the end, we’re simply two people who have only known each other for a few weeks. Is she still thinking about me?
“Earth to loser? Hello?”
“What?” I pull myself out of my thoughts and glare at Heather.
“Where do you go when you just
tune out like that?”
“Neverland.”
“Funny, wouldn’t recommend quitting your day job.” She crosses her arms over her chest angrily.
“So, you’re a woman, can I ask you a question?” I ignore the voice in my head telling me to shut up.
“You mean you finally noticed?” She rolls her eyes, yet I can tell I’ve caught her attention.
“If you met someone and had this strong connection to them, like really intense, and then had to stay away from them, would you just move on?”
“And we’re back to Zoe, I’m thinking. Well, color me interested.”
“Forget it.” I turn and lean my side on the bar, facing away from Heather while I think about just leaving and going home.
“No, wait. Look, I’m assuming this question relates to something you guys had together and look at yourself, it’s been however long and you’re at this bar thinking about her. If you still feel it, then I’m sure she does, too.”
“But what if its faded for her? What if she’s moved on?” I finish off the rest of my beer and rub my eyes as tiredness starts to hit me.
“There is only one way to find out. Where does she live?”
“No.”
“Come on; what’s her number then?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re hopeless. Look, I’m not that drunk, I’ll drive us.” Heather pours herself another beer and tops mine off. I see Owen eyeing us, no doubt trying to keep tabs on how much we owe him.
“Okay.”
“Really?” Heather straightens up and excitement takes over her features.
“Just a look, though, no contact,” I concede, already forming a plan in my mind to make sure we never leave this bar.
“Is this a mob thing or something?” Heather looks suddenly concerned.
“No.”
“Fine, come on.” Heather walks back around the bar and grabs her coat.
I stand, but my feet won’t move. I can’t do this. I can’t drive down to Florida to see Zoe; I’ll be putting us both at risk and probably Heather, too.
Taken By Force (Taken Trilogy Book 2) Page 9