Broken Compass

“Don’t be an idiot,” West mutters. “Syd is right. Kash is solid. And it makes no sense. He saved your ass. He stayed and fought. Why would he run now?”

“You overheard it all, didn’t you? What dad’s buddies said. I bet he’s disgusted he ever even knew me.” Nate groans and sits down on Kash’s unmade bed, a hand over his eyes. “Fuck.”

“Head still hurts?” I sit down beside him, pleased when he doesn’t recoil.

“I’m okay.”

I doubt that, but I let it go. As for the other thing he said… “Kash knew about your dad and what he did to you.” Maybe not the details, but that’s another matter. “He was only worried about you.”

This time Nate does flinch away from me. “The hell you say.”

“He knew, man. You really don’t remember much about the night he took you away from that place, do you?”

“And he told you.” There’s accusation in Nate’s raspy voice.

“He was always looking out for you.” West sighs, rubs both hands over his face. “For all of us.”

I turn to him. “You don’t think he’d just leave. West?”

“I dunno. I mean, he said several times he should have left. You heard him. Just the other night. Maybe he just made up his mind.”

“He wouldn’t.” He wouldn’t leave us. Not Kash.

Oh God.

“Maybe he’ll come back,” West whispers, sitting down on the other side of Nate. “Maybe there were things he had to take care of.”

“What about that stalker that was after him?”

“He told me he wasn’t sure about it,” West says.

“I don’t believe that.” I swallow down fear. “I don’t believe he was telling the truth. You saw him. He was terrified.”

“You think he said it to calm me down.” West glances at me. “Or to convince himself.”

“I wish he’d told us what he’s running from,” Nate mutters.

“So either he ran away, went away to take care of something, or was taken… In any case, that means he could be in danger.”

Taken. God. I nod, my chest seizing with fear all over again.

“Okay. Then we tell the police.”

“And we look,” I whisper. “We look for him.”

They don’t argue with me, ask where to look, and for what. Or how. These boys care for Kash, too, I know it. And wherever Kash has gone, he’ll come back.

Because he cares for us, too.

The policeman, a nice gray-haired man with dark eyes, makes me fill out a form, but doesn’t seem optimistic.

“You say he was supposed to come home last night? And never showed up? Did he always come home at night?”

“Yes. Late, but he did.?

??

“Is it possible he left of his own free will? In such a case there isn’t anything we can do.”