It’s probably nothing. It’s gotta be.
I lean away instead and move to the dresser. I pull the top drawer fully open, just to see.
And I freeze.
The domestic, harmless illusion of Bill the retired grandpa shatters into a million jagged pieces as my eyes adjust to the contents hidden inside the drawer. My heart slams into my throat, a cold, prickling dread spreading across my scalp.
And I feel utterly sick to my stomach.
“Noah!” I explode. “Come here!”
39
NOAH
I’m on my feet.I’m moving to Rue. I’m not even awake fully.
And as I stumble into the spare bedroom, I sigh with relief. Rue looks startled, yes. But she’s alive and unharmed.
“What?” I breathe out. “What’s wrong?”
“Look…” She gestures to the drawer. “Bill is… Bill isnota good guy.”
I lean over the drawer, catching the photographs. Of boys. And Bill. Bile rises in my throat, and I slam the drawer shut. “What the fuck. What. The. Fuck.” I squeeze my eyes shut and exhale.
But as my mind replays what I know about Bill, it makes sense.
I’ve been around way too many guys like him in prison.
“Noah…”
I shake my head, place my hand on the small of her back, and guide her back out into the hallway. “Don’t go in there again.”
“We should call the cops.”
I nod. “Yeah, I agree. We should. How are you going to do that?”
“We’ll call them when we leave. We’ll turn him in,” Rue’s voice is rushed. “That’s so sick, Noah. It’s so fucking sick!” Her voice pitches upward, and I want to comfort her more than anything else in the entire world.
But I can’t burn those images out of her brain.
“Those poor kids…”
“I know,” I pull her into me and pet her head. I don’t know what else to do. Despite having made a horrible mistake that night on the docks, Rue hasnoidea of the evil that lurks in the world. Some of it is so fucking heinous that there’s no point of return.
And I lived with them. But the truth is…
We all do. Those kinds of monsters areeverywhere.
“I want to leave,” Rue pulls away from me, peering up at me. “We should just leave. I can’t stand to be here.”
“Let me get the bike going, and we’re out of here.” I kiss her head, breathing in the scent of her. There’s no arguing with her, and I don’t blame her for feeling the way she does. We have to leave anyway. We only have a few more days.
“I can’t just sit in this house, Noah,” Rue whispers, her hands trembling as she looks back toward that cursed hallway. “Every second we’re in here now, I feel like I’m suffocating. I feel like I have his dirt all over me.”
I know the feeling. Ten years in a cell makes you an expert on suffocating.
“Then we don’t sit,” I tell her, my voice confident. I keep my hand firmly on the small of her back, letting her feel the solid weight of me to ground her. “Go put your shoes on. We’re going to the barn.”
