The Runaways

Chapter 26

Hailey

Caleb was gone at first light. At least, I thought he was.

I woke up face down on a beat-up mattress and breathed in the mildew. Strangely enough, I'd slept better here than most nights at my dad's. The worn out, broken-legged bunks felt realer to me than my old bedroom. I guess comfort was a matter of place and people, but with Caleb missing I couldn’t find any calm in that empty house.

I tried not to freak out first thing. Losing it five miles into the trek down to Charlottesville wouldn't do either of us any good. If Caleb had been around, he would've told me to keep it together.

But he wasn't, so I couldn't. Even with my cut up fingers crossed, nothing good could come from a missing a boy with cracked ribs, a bullet wound, and a ten-foot drop between him and the ground.

I wondered if my mom felt like this, the panicked emptiness of starting a search and rescue for someone inevitably missing. But at least I had her left to worry about. Caleb didn’t have anyone. I’d watched him flicker in and out of being conscious of his losses over the last day.

One minute he'd look brittle enough to break, and the next he'd smile and laugh like nothing was wrong. Like he hadn't lost anyone. Like it wasn't because of me. But the shadow of my dad’s murders was always there, lingering behind Caleb’s silence, behind his sadness.

The wind came rattling through the tree house and I followed the gusts outside, my body less than happy about me pushing it this hard, this fast, this early. 

Rolling down a hill in a trash can left me a little more than sore and a little less than broken, but lucky none the less. I tip toed to the outside porch, wary of each creak and groan in the floorboards.

Not too keen on gambling my life on two feet, I hit the floor on all fours and slugged myself over the splinters until I reached the edge of the ladder. Sure enough, Caleb’s scuffed up Chucks were sprawled out at the base of the trunk peaking under the cuffs of his blue jeans.

From the ankles down, nothing was visibly broken. I called out to him, but when silence answered, hurricane freak-out kicked the butterflies in my stomach into chaos.

Common sense said to climb down to Caleb, to climb towards the truth, but a new fear had its teeth lockjaw tight around my throat. Maybe he was fine. Maybe he wasn’t. The terror of too many what if’s paralyzed me, pinning my arms and legs in place for too long.

I stayed still, my face flat against the wood while I lost the fight to angry conscience. I looked down at the big beautiful oak tree standing between me and Caleb, and willed my body to conquer the space. There was an odd peace in ignorance for a sliver of time, but it didn't last long. It never does.

My feet hit the ground before my head was ready to, but I walked over to a very pale Caleb despite myself. Someone had bundled him up in a brown leather bomber jacket during the night.

It only could've been Jack, and knowing that made me a little more than uneasy. But the air was too calm for Jack to be hiding somewhere in the shadows. Caleb was sleeping peacefully—all signs of a better day ahead than our last.

He looked different this morning—a good kind of different, like something had settled in him that hadn't had the chance to in a long while. The light coming in from the east lit up his always-rosy cheeks bright enough to sweep away the shadows.

Maybe this was the kind of peace he'd had before everything went south. Before dealing with my dad, losing his mom, or knowing me.

Somewhere in the middle of all the sticks, stones, and rivers in these woods were a thousand roads for me to run away to. A thousand ways out of a situation I should've wanted to run from.