“You’re safe for now, guys,” he said to them, calm and even. “No one is coming back for you.”
They didn’t respond, but Seth muttered something to his brother and finally unscrewed the cap on his water to take a careful drink.
The flames in the distance climbed higher, then disappeared behind the bend in the road, and I could easily imagine the moment the flames advanced on Ball-Cap, the screaming would have been so loud, until it wasn’t. It was a shame I’d poured accelerant on him—he probably died way too fast.
Caleb was quiet, tapping on his screen, and the boys whispered once in the back, then fell quiet again.
I adjusted my grip on the steering wheel and kept my eyes on the road.
Innocents hadn’t died.
Caleb was safe.
That was all that mattered.
SEVEN
Caleb
Less than forty-eighthours after the rescue, we were in the middle of a storm that wouldn’t let up as I sifted through everything we’d found at the house. We were getting results, and I should’ve been happy.
But right now, I was anxious and stressed, sitting on my ass on a concrete floor at Reed Way Hostel, where any kids we rescued went for their second chance at life, pretending to work and track downBlueRoom69andSaintMichael. It would have helped to get at least one of Skinny or Ball-Cap out of there alive, but I couldn’t fault Novak for his aim on Skinny, nor for the fact we’d managed to get two extra kids out at the expense of Ball-Cap dying in the flames.
What if we hadn’t gotten the kids out?
They would have died as well.
I felt sick.
It would have been my fault for not seeing the space before. An old room blocked up and used as a holding cell.
So close to losing those kids.
The security lights along the expanded fence cast long white beams across the courtyard, and every time thunder sounded,the clinic windows flickered like distant lightning strikes in the war zones I’d never quite left behind. The place was safe, layered, guarded—but trauma didn’t care about reinforced gates.
This wasn’t the first time I’d spent hours here, working through intel the kids passed over when they were ready to give it. I’d built maps at the kitchen table, reconstructed timelines in the clinic office, cross-referenced fragments in the common room while Mickey Gillespie, the man who owned and ran Reed Way Hostel, pretended not to hover. But it was the first time I’d sat on the floor outside the dormitories to work, laptop balanced on my knees, line of sight fixed on a bedroom door as if my being here could fix everything for Ezra and Seth.
They’d nearly died.
It would have been on us.
Mickey’s boots scuffed down the hallway, and he crouched beside me with a soft grunt, gray threaded through his beard and hair, looking exhausted as usual. He was permanently busy, even more so since the Cave funded it as a safe place for the kids Doc rescued to stay.
He held out a mug. “Coffee.”
I took it. It was strong and already cooling. I’d been mostly awake nearly forty-eight hours now, only interspersed with short naps, and my eyes were gritty. Caffeine would help me with the work I needed to do.
And my vigil to keep an eye on the two boys in the room.
He set a napkin on my keyboard. Something flattened and defeated sat on it. “Stale Danish.”
“Luxury,” I muttered and smiled at him.
He studied me instead of the laptop. “What exactly are you doing?”
“Working.” I gestured to the open files on the screen.
Mickey leaned slightly, following my line of sight to the open doorway across from us. “Working where you can see the door to the room of the two kids you rescued?”
