The river that connected our lives ran deep, but the boat we were traveling down it in was unsinkable. Unlike Rose in the Titanic, if it did sink somehow, I’d definitely share part of the door I was floating on, so he didn’t drown or freeze to death. And I knew for a fact, Carter would make sure me and Shanti were safely on it before he even thought about himself.
That level of importance didn’t come lightly to people when they were faced with a life or death situation. He’d proven it to me months back when Judd Bailey’s dad had been shooting up the station, and he’d pushed me toward the panic room and told me to run.
What he didn’t know was, I would have done the same thing to him, except I knew his job was to provide backup to the others and prevent anyone from being killed or injured.
But I’d totally give him some room on the floating door—that scenario was different.
SIX
Carter
After Naomi mentioned giving Shanti responsibility for something, I’d had an epiphany.
A fish tank.
I’d had three at my grandma’s house. The first one she’d bought me a month after my parents had died, and it’d grown from there. They seemed easy enough to look after, but more went into them than people thought, and Shanti would love it.
So, because the fish tank epiphany had hit me in the middle of the night, I’d ordered a medium-sized one with all of the water treatments, rocks, filter, and the other shit needed to set it up. You didn’t just buy a tank and put fish in it. You needed to condition the water and make sure it was suitable for the type of fish you were putting in it. This one wouldn’t be tropical, it would be a standard tank because I didn’t want to overwhelm Shanti with it all, but if she wanted to add a heater and change it out in the future, I was happy to help out.
It wasn’t until I walked through the doors of P.V.P.D. later that it occurred to me to pass it by Naomi, and when I’d told her what I’d done, she was more excited than I’d thought she’d be. Then again, she’d never even had a hamster as a kid, so any pet would be something new for her.
After the tank arrived, I’d hidden it in their garage, and this weekend we were introducing Shanti to her new responsibility.
I’d treated the water and had set it up in their garage, knowing the little menace would never go in there because she swore there were monster spiders in it, and Mark was coming over to help me move it into their house once she’d left.
“Carter,” Naomi whisper hissed from the doorway, peeking her head around it like she was expecting someone to jump out. “Shanti knows you’re here.”
Shit. I’d parked up four doors down, but I should have known she’d have eyes in the back of her head. I’d made sure she wasn’t looking out the window as I’d crept up, hoping like hell no one called the police on me, and had snuck into the garage through the side door.
Shanti’s back had definitely been facing me the whole time, so how’d she see me?
Raising my eyebrows at her, I looked around for a place to hide. The problem was, they didn’t have a garage filled with junk and shit like most people did because they didn’t own enough for that to be possible. All I had to hide behind was a small pink bicycle with a white basket on it that’d cover my leg if I was lucky, four plastic tubs with Christmas and Halloween decorations in them, and the table with the tank on it. The tank itself was covered with a blanket, but the underside of it was just open space, so she’d see my legs if I hid behind it.
Looking around us, I asked, “Where do you propose I hide?”
“Come in and say you were dropping off something.”
I was about to reply with something witty when I caught sight of her hair. I’d been so focused on not cocking this surprise up that I hadn’t taken Naomi in properly before now.
And now that I was, I didn’t know how that phenomenon had happened. There was no hiding her hair. Not even with a Hazmat suit.
“Don’t you do it,” she hissed, leaning forward, and pointing a finger at me. “I warned you this happened, so just ignore it.”
Fucking how was I meant to do that? You couldn’t ignore it even if you went miles into the sky and left the earth’s atmosphere.
“You warned me, but you didn’t add that it was like an electrocuted Simba.” The words just came out before I had a chance to realize they’d even existed in my brain. I mean, it wasn’t far from the truth, but typically, I’d been a wee bit more diplomatic about it.