The Runaways

Chapter 25

 Caleb

Dad showed up a little after midnight. I figured he would. Couldn't sleep much knowing he was out looking for trouble. He always did, especially on days like these when the warmth of his whiskey wore off and he had nothing left but anger slow burning in his blood.

Some kind of fight was coming. I felt it right behind the dull kick of dad's morphine, just ahead of the pain. There wasn't any sense in running, or trying shake off the truth as a bad feeling, so I stayed awake ‘til my eyes turned red.

The old tree house kept me calm for a little while, as calm as a place full of good old country boy memories could. Me and my brothers loved the hell outta this place. So much that we bled for it. Took a whole summer, but we cut, sanded, and dyed the whole thing ourselves.

Guess you never stop loving something you built with your own hands. Strange knowing that I was only one of us who'd ever come back here again. At least it wasn't lonely anymore.

I kept real quiet for a while, just sat there listening to the wind tear through the trees while Hailey tried to sleep off a bad day.

Maybe Jack wouldn't find us out here, maybe I stillhad a place in this world he couldn't get to. But every time something snapped in the shadows, the inside of my mouth went drier than dead leaves.

Jack stepped outta the dark when the wind died down. I figured he followed us after the cops left the house. Guess he was waiting for the woods to settle so he could kick up the dust. He didn't say much of anything at first, just stood there under the June moon, staring out at nothing.

For a minute, I thought that maybe he couldn't see me sitting ten feet up, that maybe he was scared he'd come all this way with nobody left to find. But he called up to me, all choked up and sloppy like he'd been drinking and crying.

I knew how well he could drink whenever he got sad, but he never cried—never in front of me.

        "You lost old man?" I said.

He stared up at me from the bottom of that trunk, like he expected me to say something different, like I owed him more respect than I was willing to give. I didn't owe him anything, not an explanation, not a hello, not a thank you, nothing.

Ten feet had me feeling more like a man than I ever would've if we'd been standing toe to toe, but he didn't need to know that. He could click his combat boots together and make his way back home as far as I saw it.

He didn't belong here. He didn't belong anywhere further than two steps away from hell.

        "I wanna talk, Cal,” he said.

        "I don't have anything to say, so go on home."

        "Can't hide up there all night, Caleb. Come down, or do you want me to drag you down."

        "Go home, Dad."

He shouldn't have left the house. The way he was tripping over his tongue, he'd probably been sober enough to find his way out here, but too drunk to head back now. I didn't need this tonight. I didn't have any fight left in me to take it.

        "Answer me something, son. What happened to my boys? Huh? The pigs told me one hell of a story, but I wanna hear yours. Speak up, c'mon. Or will the truth slip your mind again like it did this morning?"

The old dog started in on me again. He'd push and keep on pushing ‘til I snapped. He didn't care what had happened to me, he only gave a damn about his boys. The first three were the only three as far as he was concerned. He didn't want another son after Cillian. He didn't know I knew that, but I did.