Out in the living room, he was met with shambles. Several photographs had been knocked off the walls. Frames lay broken upon the floor, glass scattered like starlight across the hardwood. His sister knelt on the floor, sweeping the glass into a dustpan.
He pulled his shirt over his head and sank to the floor in front of her. “Tess, you okay?”
“I’ve been better.” Her voice shook. She tried to smile and failed. “But I’m starting to think maybe you haven’t been working as a stripper this summer. Is it the Mafia? Th-the CIA?”
“Tessa.”
But Tessa’s nervous energy had always spurred her into speaking too much, and all at once. It was one of the reasons he’d moved into his own room. “Is it the men in black? Is Vivienne from Roswell? Area Fifty-One? Did you just hook up with a space alien? You weren’t very quiet.”
“Where is she?” Thomas asked.
“They took her,” said Tessa, rambling again. “She came out to get water. I was still awake. I ate your cupcake. I ate all the cupcakes, actually. I had a stomachache, so I was watching a movie. We were—we were talking when they came in. There were five of them, all in suits.”
“Fuck.” Thomas launched to his feet.
“I’m sorry,” said Tessa. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know what to do.”
“It’s okay,” Thomas assured his sister. “You couldn’t have done anything.”
The front door had been left wide open. Outside, he could just see the first twinges of dawn. A car engine turned over, sputtering to life. In the garage, the dogs began barking without end. He raced into the dark of his yard, leaping over the garden beds, the perennials his mother had once so lovingly planted now overgrown with weeds. Landing on the front walk, he edged barefoot along the bricks, making his way toward the concrete retaining wall that led down to the driveway.
Parked behind his truck was a single van. White. Unmarked. Beside it stood Vivienne, dressed in his T-shirt, her wrists bound, her mouth muzzled with a ball gag. At the sight of him, her eyes went wide.
He broke into a run, so determined to get to her he didn’t even see the assailants waiting there in the dark until he slammed directly into them. They restrained him easily, shoving him back another step each time he heaved against them.
“Get your hands off of me,” he snapped.
“All in good time,” said the man to his left. “Let’s see her off first.”
He was forced to watch as a bag was lowered over Vivienne’s head and she was carted away, loaded hurriedly into the van by two identical men in suits. Thomas swore, shoving against his captors.
“Let go of me!Vivienne!”
Behind him, there came a voice that made his knees nearly give out. The very last voice he wanted to hear, small and sleep addled. “What’s going on out here?”
“Who is that?” snarled the man to his right.
“It’s mymom,” spat Thomas, still struggling to work himself free. “Calm down.”
“Get rid of her,” said the man to his left. “Or we will.”
He was shoved back a step, his arms blessedly freed. Keeping one eye on the van, as he moved around the rhododendrons and headed back up the walk toward the house.
There stood his mother, her robe loose on her brittle frame, her skin ghostly in moonlight. She looked both one hundred years old and eternally young—the exact way his memory had cemented her. Tess skidded out the door a half step behind, her eyes wide and apologetic.
“Tommy?” His mother blinked down at him, surprised, her hand shaping into aTover her heart. “I didn’t know you were home. What happened? I felt a crash.”
“Everything is fine,” he said, rushing through his signs. “I’m sorry we woke you.”
She took him in through pale, sharp eyes. Eyes she’d given him. Eyes that missed nothing.
“You’re in trouble,” she guessed. Thumb tucked. Fingers closing. He knew that sign too well. Trouble, trouble, trouble. Thomas Walsh was always in some sort of trouble. He didn’t want that to be what he was to her anymore—a mess to clean up after, when he knew she was too tired for messes.
“I’m fine,” he said, lying through his teeth. Lying with his hands. “Go back inside, Mom. You shouldn’t be up.”
Over her shoulder, Tess was glancing between Thomas and the van, partially obscured by the wild tangle of bushes out front. He gave his sister a look that he hoped conveyed his desperation.
You owe me, she mouthed, picking up on it at once.
