Take Me Tomorrow

Chapter 26: The Broken Pieces

His hand rose to the nearest light switch, but he didn't pull it up. He didn't have to explain. The electricity would bring too much attention. His neighbors might not turn him in, but someone driving by might. Noah wasn't going to risk that.

I opened my mouth to speak, to say anything, but I bit my lip. For a minute, we stood there in silence, mourning something that I recognized as Noah's reality. His family—his dead mother and brother—his missing sister—his directing father. I couldn't imagine it, yet I was standing in the remnants of it.

Noah moved into the next room, disappearing around the corner to what I assumed to be a kitchen. I listened to his footsteps echo around the house, and I tried to imagine the living room full of people chatting, laughing, anything. Just alive. But they weren't. The same people who once drank from the glasses on the table were dead.

"Are you coming or not?" Noah asked as he spun around the corner. He beamed beneath the floppy white hat on his head.

A giggle escaped me. "I'm coming."

...

Minutes passed like hours, and every room we searched proved to be like the Traveler's Bureau—full of paperwork, but nothing linked to Rinley.

The upstairs was as large and clean as the downstairs, and rich colors plastered the walls. Like a museum, paintings of foreign lands hung from golden frames. I wanted to study the hills of green and waves of blue, but I didn't have the time. We had already been in Noah's house too long, yet we weren't done.

Noah tossed papers to the floor of the master bedroom. "It's going to get dark soon." He didn't have to say what we were both thinking. The police could be waiting for nighttime to get us. They didn't like to do their dirty work in the middle of day.

"That's too much of a risk, even for Phelps." I sucked in breath, trying to hide my concern. "We could've found the file by now and left."

"It's not here."

"It's here." I picked up his scattered papers and placed them on the desk.

Noah stretched to open a corner of the blinds. The purple mist of night melted in. It would be hard to see without electricity soon.

He stood. "I'll be right back."

When he left the room, I tried to follow him, but he was too quick. The boy didn't know the definition of walking. He ran everywhere he went.

I continued without him. I walked down the long hallway and opened the next door, only to linger in the doorway. Thin marks scaled the entrance, showing how tall the resident had been while living in the bedroom over the years, but I recognized where the line peaked. Only slightly shorter than Noah was now. Hadn't he only been gone for a few years?

Before hesitation could take over, I pushed the door open to a cobalt room. School achievements hung on the walls, lined up from oldest to newest, and a twin bed was pushed against a window. Next to it, a small desk sat, and a painting of the ocean was thumb-tacked to the wall behind it. The sun rose over the waves that crashed into the rocks below, but it wasn't a professional photograph. It looked like it had been printed at home. A light tower was the centerpiece.

I tiptoed across the bedroom and surveyed every inch. I couldn't breathe. Certifications from science fairs, piano recitals, and other miscellaneous skills stacked upon each other. A picture of Noah in a graduation cap hung at the top. Topeka South Middle School explained the occasion, but his face told me his age. His cheeks were softer, and shadows didn't cling to his eyes yet. He knew how to grin; he had braces.