Fuck.
So much for remaining inconspicuous.
I continued moving in the direction of the disturbance, sweat gathering at my nape and dripping down my back.
The feeling hot in the summer air.
Instinct kicking in.
I got to the alley just as the prick was disappearing around the corner along another row of houses.
I started running that way, increasing my pace, caution in every step.
At the corner, I slowed, and I peeked my head around to find the asshole strutting down the alley with his back to me.
Zachary Keeton.
I edged out, keeping close to the back fence, gun clasped in both hands. I tried to keep my breathing controlled and my footsteps quieted as I rushed that way.
Didn’t matter.
Kid’s spine went rigid. Awareness spinning through the dense, dense air. Like he felt me the same way that I felt him.
A clash of convictions.
A collision of creed.
His attention flew over his shoulder, and I was lifting my gun, shouting, “Freeze.”
For one long moment, a blink of an eye, he stayed there, our eyes locked.
Something moved through that link.
A deep-seated hatred that I couldn’t process, even though I felt it to my bones.
Then the asshole took off like he’d been poised at the starting line of a 400-meter dash.
Feet pounding the dirt.
I took off after him, shouting the whole way, “On the ground. Get your ass on the ground.”
Dust kicked up behind him, and he broke right, scaling a fence and hopping over the top of it in a second flat.
I went after him, hiking myself over and dropping to my feet in someone’s yard on the other side. Swings on a swing set swayed, and what couldn’t be more than a two-year-old boy had his face pressed to the sliding glass window watching the action go down.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Not how I ever wanted things to play out.
Innocents in danger. Minding their own business when some disgusting prick decided to get unruly.
Rage burned hot in my blood, and I shot back into action, racing for the fence where the asshole had gone. I followed the chaos, going for the next yard where I heard a dog start yelping in agitation, and I was pushing over the top just as the punk was skating over the opposite side.
I sprinted, pulse racing hard, pants raking out of my throat as I gave everything I had to chase this fucker down.
But by the time I made it over that fence, I’d lost sight of him.
Vanished.
“Goddamn it,” I shouted, chest heaving.
Within minutes, two patrols showed. We scoured the neighborhood for a full hour before I had to call it, refusing to be late to pick the boys up for the first time, wondering all over again if I wasn’t making a huge mistake.
I made it to my house, wary and on edge. After I searched high and low and found no sign of anything awry, I jumped into the shower, quick to dry off and pull on new clothes.
The bruises from the other night were still evident on my body, but it was the dread of who I was, of my life, that was aching in an unbearable way.
Feeling the weight of it, I edged over to my bed and sank down onto the side, and I dug into my nightstand drawer and pulled out the book that always brought me comfort.
The drawing on the spine to match the tattoo I’d had done on my arm and shoulder.
Both scared and fierce.
I opened to one of the passages that I had marked.
The Dragon puffed, smoke coming from its massive snout.
“You set out on a journey you believed your purpose. Your only option. To prove your loyalty to the king. Yet your heart stumbled on that path, knowing it was unsound. Now you tremble in fear?”
Teno rocked, legs curled to his chest where he sat next to the fire, struggling to find warmth in the wrath of the winter. “How can I stand against an army when I am but one man? No more than a stable boy?”
“You stand because you are brave. Because you’ve known all along who you were meant to be.”
For a moment, I let my eyes drop closed, inhaled the words like a buoy, and then I stood to go and pick up my son.
Twenty-One
Mack
Fourteen Years Old
Beneath the silvered light of the moon, Mack quietly climbed the tree. The tree that was an escape. A stairway to his own personal heaven.
Little Bird’s nest.
With his shoulder, he swiped angrily at the tears clouding his eyes, hating that they were there. He wasn’t a wimp or a coward.
But he wondered if maybe he really was as he rushed to make the ascent as fast as he could.
Every inch of his body hurt.
Inside and out.
Inside and out.
There was only one thing that could make it feel better.
He scaled the limbs, palms of his hands burning as he carelessly grabbed and pulled and hoisted himself higher, desperate to get up that tree as fast as he could. He was almost weeping when he got to the darkened window on the second story of the house, and he crawled on the branch that reached it so he could lightly knock at the glass.