“Listen, kid,” the stranger said in a voice made of gravel. “Stay away from guys like him. They’re dangerous.” Then he turned and walked away.
Cas stood rooted to the pavement for a solid minute, mouth gaping, before he ran to catch up. “Are you serious? I knew what I was doing. You just fucked up everything.” This guy had just dragged him away from food and shelter and smashed in Thump’s nose, probably ruining any chance of Cas going back now.
“He’s a pimp, kid. You get that, right? Go home, back to Kansas or Nebraska or wherever you came from. This town will chew up somebody like you.”
“Somebody like me? You don’t even know me. I know he’s a pimp. I was trying to make a deal with him.”
That brought the stranger up short. “A what?”
“A deal. I’m not… I don’t care about getting paid for sex. Lots of people do it. It’s not that big of a deal. I’ve seenMy Own Private Idaho.”
The man gave Cas an incredulous look, shaking his head. “Getting paid for sex? Let me tell you how tonight would have gone. That asshole would’ve taken you back to some roach infested motel, tied you up, fucked you, and started injecting you with heroin around the clock. While you were all fucked up, he’d let his friends have a go at you, doing every disgusting thing you could imagine just to break you in. Get you used to the idea that you’re merchandise. After a couple of weeks, when you’ve been fucked round the clock and are good and addicted to the needle,thenhe’ll turn you out. Is that how you want your life to go? Thirteen or fourteen years old servicing forty to fifty kiddy-diddlers a day in exchange for smack and Twinkies?”
They stared at each other for a long moment as the man’s words sank in, Cas’s blood whooshing in his ears, his face flushing at the thought. He scanned the other man’s face, hoping to distract himself from the panic crushing his insides.
Cas couldn’t help but notice his eyes, as gray and stormy as the Washington skies back home. Looking at the man full on, he was still attractive, but there was something about him that made Cas leery. He wasn’t old, no more than mid-to-late twenties. But there was a harshness to his features, creases in the corners of his perpetually narrowed eyes, a bump in his nose that made Cas wonder if he was a boxer.
His mind bounced back to the way Thump’s nose had exploded. Yeah, definitely a boxer. A grumpy boxer with a permanent grimace, like he was in pain.
The man turned on his heel and started to walk away again. Cas slung his backpack over his shoulder and ran to catch up with him. Again. “I’m sixteen,” Cas blurted, hoping his honesty might slow the guy down.
He looked at Cas like he was a gnat that he couldn’t shoo away. “What?”
“I’m sixteen,” Cas repeated. “Almost seventeen.” That was a lie, but only a tiny one. “Not thirteen. Just so you know. I’m Caspian.”
The man walked faster, and Cas had to jog to keep up.
Mr. Grumpyface did a double-take when he realized Cas wasn’t leaving. “I don’t care.”
Cas made a decision then. “Well, you should ‘cause I’m staying at your place tonight.”
“No.”
Cas nodded like a bobblehead. “Yes. You owe me.”
That earned him a side-eye, but Cas thought he detected the barest hint of a smile. “How do you figure?”
“Well, I have no money and no ID and no job, and now you just beat up my only hope of food or shelter. So, I’m going home with you,” Cas huffed, wishing the man would slow his gait just a little bit. It was hard to maintain this level of false bravado when he was breathing like his aunt’s asthmatic pug.
“You need to get out of this city, kid. First, you’re trying to scam a pimp, and now you’re inviting yourself to spend the night with a stranger. You have zero common sense or street smarts. You have no idea what kind of predators prowl these streets.”
“Are you a predator?” Cas asked.
“Would I tell you if I was?”
Cas shrugged. “I mean, I don’t really know. I don’t know many predators. Just one, really. If by predator you mean, like, abusive assholes. My stepfather was an abusive asshole, and everybody loves him because he’s a cop, which is stupid really because a lot of cops are dicks. Do you know there’s an almost fifty-percent domestic violence rate among police officers? It’s—”
“You always talk this much?” the stranger cut him off.
Cas wasn’t even offended. He shook his head quickly. “No. Well, yeah. Sometimes. If I don’t have my meds. I can’t help it. I have ADHD, and sometimes, when I’m nervous or I took too much or I haven’t eaten, I just can’t seem to stop myself…like now,” he finished weakly.
Silence stretched between them, and then the guy muttered, “One night. You can sleep on my couch for one night. Then you’re gone, and if you want to run back to your pimp friend after that, I won’t stop you. I don’t have room in my life for strays.”
Cas’s relief was instant, a weight lifting off his diaphragm that he hadn’t even realized was there. “Hey, at least I won’t pee on your couch.”
He got another side eye. “You’d better not.”
“Do you have a name?” Cas asked, now that they were walking at a reasonable pace.
