I glanced over at Bent and saw him rubbing his jaw, staring out the window. I knew what ate at his insides. It ate at mine every day. This life sucked. It took something from you and didn’t give anything back. I lived in the slums. I had gone hungry and did without. I was okay with that. Bent wasn’t. He wanted to make something of his life. Me – I just wanted to get by from day to day. Next week or next month didn’t matter. Only today, right now, this second mattered.
He wanted out. I just didn’t care.
I told myself that every day. I didn’t care that my own damn father hated me or that the only friend I had was as fucked up as I was. I only cared about me, myself, and I. If I looked deeper I knew it was a load of crap, but I buried any feelings I had under so much hate and loathing that even I wasn’t sure I had any smidgen of humanity left. People looked at me with disdain and local shop owners watched me like a hawk. But I gave them every reason to.
I was a criminal.
I became a thief the day I learned that Sam hadn’t eaten in two days. I stole some candy bars from a local corner store to feed her. I was thirteen and she was eleven. I’ll never forget the look on her face when I handed the food to her. She looked at me like I was a hero. Her knight in shining armor. It was that day that I knew I would watch over her forever.
Even if it meant I had to break the law.
Then there was the day Bentley came running to my house. Sam was sick, throwing up everything in her stomach. They hadn’t seen their mom in a week and had no idea how to find her. Bentley was scared and thought Sam was dying, she was so sick. I remember running to their house, my heart beating so hard I had felt weak.
I followed Bent into their filthy trailer, used to the mess that they lived in. But this time, I was surprised to learn that their mom had forgotten to pay the electricity bill. For two weeks, Bent and Sam lived without lights or a fridge that worked. The little food their mom had bought was rotten. I remember seeing red when I heard that.
I was still fuming mad when Bent led me into Sam’s bedroom. What I saw made my stomach turn. She was lying in bed, her tiny body curled into a ball. Her face was pale and her beautiful blonde hair was sticking to her sweaty forehead. She was thin as a rail and too small for her age. I blamed years of malnutrition on that.
I remembered standing there, staring down at her. Unsure what to do. We couldn’t call my dad because he would be drunk and naturally pissed. We couldn’t go to the neighbors because they were worthless. Just as unreliable as our own parents. There was no one to help us.
Not one person.
That’s the moment reality slammed down on me. Sam looked like she was dying and there was not a damn thing I could do to help her.
“Maybe we should call 911,” I had said, afraid to touch her. She had looked so fragile that suddenly I was angry. Angry that a mother would leave her kids alone. Angry that a dad could walk away from his family and leave them in those conditions.
Angry that I was powerless.
“We can’t call 911,” Bent had said. “They’ll take us away and put us in the system.” He had a point. We both knew how it worked. If the authorities found out that their mom left them for days without food or electricity, Bent and Sam would be put in foster care. Probably separated. That would destroy both of them.
And maybe even me.
“You give her any medicine?” I had asked, kneeling beside the bed to look at Sam.
Her breathing was ragged, wheezy. She didn’t even open her eyes to look at me. After a few seconds of staring at her, I got enough nerve to touch her forehead. She was burning up. I could feel the heat radiating off her thin body, soaking the sheet under her.
“We got nothing. No Tylenol or anything,” Bent said, sounding scared.
I stood up. My mind was already made up before he even stopped talking.
I wasn’t useless. I knew what I had to do.
“I’ll go get her something,” I said, backing out of the room. I had become an expert at stealing. I never had money because my dad took every dime I made doing odd jobs. I had learned what to do in order to eat and survive. Normally I stole food. Now I would try my hand at stealing medicine.
I left Bent and Sam’s and headed home. At fourteen, I already knew how to drive. I took my dad’s truck and drove to a local pharmacy. I couldn’t think straight the entire time. I could only remember Sam’s pale face and the sound of her wheezing. In the store I finally got my act together and stuffed a bottle of aspirin and a box of flu medicine in my jacket. A second later a big, meaty hand was wrapped around my upper arm, stopping me. I looked up into the irate, blotchy face of the storeowner and knew I had been caught red-handed.
Seconds later, I was dragged to the manager’s office. Minutes after that the cops showed up. I was tempted to tell them about Sam and Bent to save my own sorry ass but I didn’t. The cops would’ve taken them away and put them in the system. Then their future would be on my head.
It wasn’t my first run-in with the cops but they wanted to make it my last. Soon I was hauled off to a detention center to await a trial. While I sat in the juvenile prison with the other teenage criminals, all I could think about was Sam, wondering if she was okay.
Cursing myself for caring.
I didn’t find out that she was okay until a week later when I called Bentley from juvie. Sam’s illness had run its course, no thanks to me or any medication. I was glad but I was still in jail, my own dad refusing to make my bail.
I served time for that crime but it was nothing compared to what Sam put me through almost a year later. The day we broke into an abandoned motel was a turning point for us. One we would never escape from.
Chapter Five
-Sam-
I stuck my hand out the open window and let it float on the wind as we sped down the highway. Lukas had the radio cranked, one of his band’s albums playing. The A/C was blowing full blast but I still had the window rolled down, needing the fresh air. It helped clear my mind. I stared off into the darkness as we traveled along the road. The area on either side of the highway became more and more desolate the farther we went. Rows and rows of rundown houses set next to empty liquor stores and all-night diners.
I was home.
A sigh escaped me. After the run in with Bentley and Walker moments ago I decided I didn’t want any more company for the night. I just wanted to be alone. I told Lukas to just drop me off at home. I wanted to crawl into bed and try not to think about a black-haired man with eyes that pierced my soul.
I pulled my hand inside Lukas’s car and crossed my arms over my chest, no longer paying attention to the shabby houses and ransacked buildings passing by. I was still thinking about Walker. I hated him, I reminded myself. And I had every right to.
My mind went back to the past. Back to when Walker and Bentley first became friends. They had been inseparable. There was no rule they didn’t break. No lock that could keep them out. No adults who could control them. They were two kids on the loose, terrorizing our little piece of hell.
By the time he was sixteen, Walker had been suspended from school and kicked out of his house at least four times. One time he moved in with us, sleeping in Bentley’s bedroom. Another time he lived on the streets. We didn’t see him for a week or two that time.
Each day he became meaner. Each night he became braver. He stole, he drank, and he did other things that were illegal. Bentley worshiped the ground Walker walked on.
But I didn’t.
I waited for the moment he would destroy me but I didn’t have to wait long. The day we broke into the abandoned motel was the beginning of the end for us. We weren’t the same after that. None of us were.
~~~~
Six Years Ago
“You sure it’s safe?” Bentley asked Walker.
At first his question didn’t register with me. I was too busy holding out my arms, balancing myself on the crumbling curb. But then Bentley’s question began to nag at my mind. Worry had me wrinkling up my freckled
nose, wondering what exactly we were about to do.
I glanced at Walker, waiting for him to answer. His beat-up brown boots looked muddy and worn. His clothes weren’t much better. His jeans had holes where the knees should have been and his shirt was missing a couple of buttons. His hair was combed but it was too long, dangling into his eyes. It didn’t hide the fading bruise above his cheekbone or the anger in his expression. Bentley asked how he got the shiner but Walker refused to answer. I knew then it was from his dad’s fist.
“The place is as empty as my old man’s wallet,” Walker said, his voice much deeper than Bentley’s at fifteen years old. “I haven’t seen a soul around there for at least a week. Ain’t nothin’ to be afraid of, Bent.”
“I ain’t afraid of shit,” Bent said, pulling his arm back and throwing a stick into an empty lot full of weeds.
I stared at my brother’s back, noticing he had a hole in his shirt. Mama was gonna kill him for ruining yet another shirt. Third one this month. Everything we owned was either given to us by a local church’s outreach program for the poor or found at the Salvation Army for next to nothing.
It was all we knew.
I smoothed down my faded shirt, imagining it was something pretty and fancy. It was too small for me but Mama had gotten it for free so I made do. I loved its color – a soft pink that made my hair appear golden. My daddy always said I looked beautiful in pink. It was ‘bout the only thing I could remember of him.
“You coming, Sam?”
I glanced up at Bentley. He was walking backward, waiting for me.
“Sorry!” I said, hurrying to catch up with him.
Walker looked over his shoulder at me, his gaze touching on my shirt before meeting my eyes. “You really have to bring her, Bentley? Couldn’t she stay at home or something?”
“With our mama?” Bentley asked, letting out a snort of contempt. “Not.”
Walker frowned, eyeing me. “Whatever. Just keep her out of trouble.”
I scrunched my eyes against the sun and peered up at Walker. “So where we going?” I asked, quickening my pace to keep up with him.
“There,” Walker said, his gaze on something ahead.
It was an old motel, like something out of a black-and-white movie. The roof was flat. The doors were brown and the parking lot was empty. Standing puddles of water were scattered here and there, filling in potholes that had probably been there for years. A lone shrub sat near the front door, losing a dying battle. The place looked abandoned, empty of any overnight guests. And it looked scary, somewhere I didn’t want to go.
“Why we here?” I asked.
Walker frowned. “Why not?”
I grimaced. At thirteen years old, I didn’t do things just because I could. I did things because I had a reason. What Walker said didn’t sit well with me. But he did a lot of things that I didn’t understand.
Getting into trouble was just one of them.
I opened my mouth to tell him I didn’t think breaking into a motel was a good idea but he walked ahead, leaving Bentley and me to hurry up.
A minute later, we crossed the street into the abandoned parking lot. No one stopped on the road or pulled over to see what we were doing. We were just a bunch of kids out roaming the neighborhood. No one cared.
Broken cement crunched under my flip-flops as I hurried after Walker and Bentley. A tiny stone wedged itself against my big toe and cut into me. I stopped to dig it out, not realizing I was kneeling in the middle of the wide-open parking lot.
“Get your ass moving, Ross,” Walker barked sharply.
I glanced up, finding him glaring at me. Bentley stood next to him, watching a car fast approaching from the east.
I dug the stone out quickly and shot to my feet. If there was one thing that could make me mad as a hornet, it was Walker calling me by my last name – Ross. It sounded like a boy’s name. Everyone already called me Sam instead of Samantha. I didn’t need him calling me Ross too.
With quick strides, I caught up to him. “Don’t call me Ross,” I warned, pushing past him. “My name’s Samantha.”
Walker let out a snort of laughter but I didn’t care. I headed straight for the motel, not blinking when bright sunlight glinted off of a piece of metal in the road and blinded me.
Walker and Bentley caught up to me fast.
“Brat,” Walker mumbled as he passed, quiet enough that only I could hear him.
I glared at his back, ready to unload my bad attitude on him. I was hot and hungry. God, was I hungry. I hadn’t eaten much lately. Between the lack of food and the summer heat, I was cranky and tired.
I followed Walker and Bentley the rest of the way across the parking lot, trying to ignore the hunger pangs in my stomach and the blazing heat. Walker got to the motel doors first.
“Keep an eye out, Bent,” he said, talking low so his voice wouldn’t carry. “You see trouble, grab Sam and make a run for it. Got it?”
Bent nodded, watching the road and shifting from foot to foot nervously. I picked at a hangnail as Walker rattled the door handle. It didn’t turn. The thing was locked.
“Shit!” Walker hissed, looking over my head at the window behind me. Walking over to it, he rubbed at the dirty glass with his sleeve and peered inside. “Someone’s here.”
My eyes rounded and my heart started hammering. “Who?” I asked in a loud whisper, frightened.
“Guess we’re ‘bout to figure out,” Walker said, glancing down the long line of motel room doors. It was one of those motels where the doors all faced the parking lot, giving guests easy access to their rooms. Without another word, Walker headed down the walkway, his boots making shuffling sounds on the dusty pavement.
Bentley and I followed him, staying close together. We were halfway down the middle, between rooms 5 and 9, when my stomach rumbled loudly.
Walker stopped and glanced down at me, frowning. “When’s the last time you ate, Ross?”
I looked away, avoiding his eyes. Bentley and I were lucky to get two meals a day. My mama just didn’t think to buy us food. Her meager salary went to other things. Like those little pills she liked.
“Shit,” Walker muttered when my stomach rumbled again.
My face grew red. He stared at me a second longer then turned and stalked off. I followed, dragging my feet, watching every step I took with embarrassment.
“She ate dinner last night, Walker. I made bologna and mustard sandwiches,” Bentley said, catching up to his best friend.
“And how many of those did she get?” Walker asked, sounding cross.
I glanced up at him, surprised he even cared.
“Two,” Bentley said. “We had enough bread for three sandwiches.”
Walker muttered something but I didn’t hear. I was too busy watching a car that had slowed down on the road. The driver was looking right at us, making me uneasy. Walker must have seen it too. He hurried, picking up the pace.
Ignoring the ever-present hunger, I followed Bentley and Walker around the building at a jog. In seconds we were hidden behind the motel, safe from the road and the nosey driver. My heart could slow down. No one would see us back there.
The back parking lot was empty except for a beat-up, old couch that lay on its side. Large trees formed a canopy over the area, making shadows dance and sway in every corner. I shivered, seeing ghosts everywhere I looked.
Near the rear of the building was a solid metal door marked “Private Property – Keep Out” in blotchy red paint. We stopped in front of it and Walker turned the knob, pushing on it with his shoulder. I held my breath, expecting something terrible to happen.
The heavy door gave a loud, ear-piercing metallic screech as Walker forced it open. The bottom dragged along the floor but it still didn’t open all the way. Taking a step back, Walker shoved his shoulder against it again, forcing it another foot.
It wasn’t much but it allowed us a tiny opening we could shimmy through. Walker motioned Bentley to go first then me. Bentley wiggled his way
through, barely fitting. I was next but didn’t have any trouble getting in. Being small had its benefits.
As Walker squeezed around the door, I glanced at our surroundings. We were in some kind of manager’s office. A dusty desk set against one wall. A broken chair lay on its side, covered in cobwebs and a fine layer of dust. Streaks of sunlight hit the grimy tile, showing its filth. The room smelled like decay and disuse. My nose itched from the smell but I refused to give in and scratch it. I was too busy keeping my eye on the dark hallway across the room.
Walker pushed the heavy, metal door closed, plunging us in shadows. I automatically stepped closer to Bentley, afraid of being trapped in a half-lit, unfamiliar building.
Pieces of paper flowed across the tile floor, making a sea of white. Walker headed for the hallway, ignoring it. Bentley and I followed close, unwilling to be left alone.
We had only taken a few steps when a kid appeared, emerging from the dark hallway. I jumped and grabbed a fistful of Walker’s shirt, frightened that we weren’t alone.
The kid eyed us with hostility, standing in front of the open hallway door. “I know you, esé?” he asked, thrusting his chin out at Walker.
“Nope,” Walker answered flatly.
The boy studied Walker, glancing down at his worn boots then back up at Walker’s face.
“What’s your name?” the kid asked, his accent thick.
“Walker.”
The kid’s eyes rounded slightly. “No, shit? You know Manny?”
Walker gave a quick nod, still keeping his distance from the kid.
The boy’s thin lips jerked up in an awkward smile. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and rolled forward on the balls of his feet.
“He’s my cuz, man. And he’s here,” the kid said with pride in a thick accent, suddenly friendly.
“We’re good then?” Walker asked, ignoring the boy’s grin.
The kid’s smile grew larger. “Hell, yeah. Come on.” He motioned for us to follow, turning and jerking his head toward the hallway.
Bentley went first and I followed. No way was I letting him or Walker out of my sight; I didn’t trust this boy.