The Runaways

Chapter 20

Hailey

I dreamt about the rain. A rain so dark it seemed the world was bleeding. Bleeding rivers.

Caleb was with me, standing quiet in the middle of a crossroads. The tar under our feet sparkled like a reflection of a starry night, but there were no stars, just a dead sky. We held on to each other hard enough to feel the warmth fading through our clothes.

Caleb’s eyes lit up in reds and blues from the police lights around us—an army of sirens with no sound. The cops boxed us in, and pointed every gun they could at our backs. Two shots into the silence and I was suddenly without him, suddenly alone.

I woke up screaming. Terrified of a premonition masquerading as a dream. Caleb’s dad came running into the room where he’d left us and found me in tears, sprawled out next to his son at his bedside.

I must’ve looked crazy—crying until I was red in the face. I’d only known Caleb for twenty-four hours. His father came close to losing a son after seventeen years.

He should’ve left me in the rain, but he’d been kind enough to take me into his home without so much as a question. He’d hardly said a word on the car ride over, just introduced himself as Jack and didn’t think to ask my name. It was safer to keep it secret.

On the ride over, Jack kept his eyes fixed on the road and the rear view. I held my breath waiting for him to recognize my face or turn on the radio and find out the truth, but he didn’t.

Even if he’d asked me to explain what we’d been through, I didn’t have it in me to tell him—for Caleb’s sake and his. How do you tell a father that he’s lost all of his sons but one?

Jack leaned down and helped me get to my feet so I wouldn’t disturb Caleb. I looked back at him as I left the room, newly terrified of the idea that he’d disappear if we left him alone.

Jack squeezed the soft part of my shoulder and reassured me for the eleventh or twelfth time that Caleb was fine, just sleeping, and that he’d pull through with some rest.  

Caleb needed to go back to being responsible for himself and only himself. I could get to Charlottesville without him. He could live with his dad again. He’d be safe here, safer than he would be following me.

Making it to Charlottesville with him was a dying dream. In the morning, I’d ask Jack how to find my way south through the woods and take off before Caleb could say anything. I didn’t want him to have a chance to.

Jack led me through the hallways and into the kitchen where a plate of bacon and eggs was waiting for me. I hadn’t eaten in over twelve hours, and spent the day so terrified I’d hardly noticed the hunger.

Breakfast at 3:00 a.m. was better than worrying on an empty stomach.  He pulled out a chair for me at one end of the table and helped me sit down.

I half-believed he was as good of a person as he seemed, but sitting across from him as weak and dependent as I was, made me uneasy. There was a point when I wholeheartedly believed that everyday people weren’t capable of evil, but surviving the slaughterhouse only proved the opposite.

Jack looked too much like Liam in the low light, and I knew better than to trust a familiar face.

        “Please, eat as much as you like. There’s more for if you’re still hungry,” he said 

He stared up at me through the steam rising over the edge of his mug. His hands were so big I hadn’t noticed he was holding anything. He didn’t look anymore like the tea drinking type than Liam looked sweet and gentle.