Feyland: The Dark Realm

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Isn’t Mom coming, too?” the Bug asked. He gripped Tam’s hand as they walked down the wide grey steps of the police station.

“She has to stay a little while longer.” Tam swallowed, dark worry sticking in his throat. “They need to talk to her and stuff.”

It was bad news, the system noticing their family this way. They had made him talk to a family counselor before they had let him see Mom. Basically, if she didn’t get herself together in the next couple days and promise to take her meds regularly, he and the Bug would be put in one of the state-run Homes. The counselor lady had made noises about eventually being placed with a nice family, if the system decided Mom was too unpredictable to take care of them. Yeah, right. Who wanted a sick little kid and his screwed-up big brother?

Not that it mattered, since there was no way he was letting the state suck them in. Which meant he and the Bug would have go to ground for a few days, until things shook out with Mom. The only place they could do that was deeper in the Exe. At least the cops wouldn’t bother looking too hard for them.

The only problem was, how would Mom find them? Assuming they let her out. Assuming she even wanted to find them. That thought cut his chest like he’d swallowed broken glass.

Figure the rest of the day, maybe tomorrow, to find them a place to hide out, get it stocked with everything they’d need, and then disappear. Leave a note for Mom, reminding her of their old signal system. Red flag in the window - danger. Yellow - things were ok. Then he and Peter would erase themselves from the system like missing pixels, blank spaces where two boys used to be.

You can’t live like that, part of his mind insisted. What about food? What about school? What about Jennet?

One thing was clear. He sure as hell couldn’t help defeat the Dark Queen if he were stuck in a Home. But they still had time. Hiding out with the Bug - that was only temporary. Until…

Well, until whatever. Right now, he couldn’t see more than a day or two ahead. His chest ached when he thought about Mom, so he stopped.

He squeezed the Bug’s hand. “How about an adventure?”

“What kind? I wanna go home.” Peter was looking up at him with big, worried eyes. The kid was too smart for his own good.

“Yeah, home first. But then we’re going to go exploring and, uh, build a fort.”

“In the forest?” A tentative smile crossed his brother’s face. “Like, in camping stories? Can we make a big fire?”

“No.” There wasn’t a forest around Crestview. The stand of woods in the park maybe, but it wasn’t big enough for them to hide out in. Anyway, they had to stay close, in case Mom… He shook his head. “We’ll find a place in the Exe.”

“But Mom said we should never go there by ourselves.”

Tam stopped and bent down, so he was eye level with his brother. “Peter. We live in the Exe. Not in the middle of it, sure, but I go to school by myself every day after putting you on the bus. I go through the Exe all the time, and it’s fine.”

Liar. He went along the edges, like where their place was, and even there it wasn’t safe. But staying safe wasn’t an option any more. Only surviving. He’d heard stories about the Homes, and there was no way he was letting them get hold of the Bug. Or him, for that matter.

“It’s just for a little while,” he said. “We can pretend we’re camping in the woods. I’ll even get us some marshmallows.”

Sugar bribery. Good thing he had hidden some of Mom’s cash stash. He and the Bug would get through this. They had to.