I’d been away from home for many years. My stomach still tensed up at the sound of my father’s voice. He wasn’t even yelling, but that automatic response seemed to be stitched into my DNA.
I thought I’d forgotten what my parents sounded like ages ago. It was strange to realize I could still recognize it.
In my mind, some part of me hoped that he was better, that they were better. And I was surprised by that grace, given how little they’d ever given me.
But then my father’s voice grew closer. “Stop fucking bitching. Just reuse the old one.”
It was a common argument I’d overheard a thousand times growing up. My mom upset that she didn’t have fresh needles, then my old man telling her to just reuse the old ones. Like infections weren’t a serious risk.
Well.
I guess I knew where things stood, even all these years later. I was just glad there were no kids around to suffer through their addiction with them, since they showed no signs of wanting to turn things around, even all these years later.
All the while I listened to them talking, bickering, arguing, my fingers kept sifting through Noa’s hair. And my heartbeat stayed steady. My stomach unclenched.
In a small way, it felt a little like healing.
When my brother eventually texted me that he and Coast were around and didn’t see anyone around, I texted him back saying to give it an hour to make sure.
When that hour was up, I demanded he find some cardboard and slide himself under the car to make sure there wasn’t some kind of tracker on it.
That took another solid forty minutes for him to finish. And I requested just one more drive around to check for a suspicious car with blackout windows and the paint scratch down the side.
I was just buying Noa some time, since I knew she was going to want to hit the ground running once she got up, and whether she wanted to admit it or not, she needed sleep.
Eventually, before I could even wake her up, she shifted in her sleep, her brows pinched, then she blinked awake.
There was a second of confusion and shock, but she relaxed back down.
“You make a good bed,” she said.
“You slept hard. Feel better?”
“I think so. How long was I out?”
“Three hours, give or take.”
“Three hours?” she jerked upright. “Why did you let me sleep so long?”
“I wanted to be sure about the trail being cold. And have my brother check your car for a tracker.”
“Was there one?” she asked, sounding hopeful.
“No.”
“Alright,” she said, sighing. “So we can get out of here?”
“Yeah,” I agreed, getting to my feet and grabbing her bags.
A quick glance out the window showed me no one hanging around, so I opened the window, tossed out the bags, then waited for Noa to push herself through.
“Alright. We need to talk next moves,” she said, sounding fully refreshed after catching a few hours. There wasn’t that desperate edge to her words like there’d been before. “What happened while I was asleep? Is your friend working on this?”
“Yeah. But he just got started not long ago.”
“Why?”
“Well, it was odd that he wasn’t home when we showed up there last night. Arty is always home. Always. The guy hardly goes anywhere. And wherever he was, apparently, he got roughed up. So the guys were getting him patched up before he got to work.”
