Page 53 of Finding Noah

Panic wrestled with my heart.

“Wait, you’re actually arresting me?” I asked, my voice higher in pitch than it had been when I was in the sanctuary of the water.

Meg had warned me once. I saw now that she’d been right.

“Noah Mason, you are under arrest,” Sergeant Patrick Kinney said, then continued to read me my rights like I was a damn criminal.

A bad guy.

But I wasn’t a bad guy.

I was a stupid, fucked-up kid. I was an idiot. I goofed off, I had some fun, but I wasn’t bad … right?

My dad … Seth … he had been bad. And I wasn’t anything like him! Right?!

Maybe this apple didn’t fall that far from the tree after all.

And maybe this apple is just as rotten as he was.

***

“Put these on.”

The door of the holding cell was pulled open, the bars sliding against each other, and Sergeant Kinney stepped inside to throw my clothes and shoes on the floor at my feet.

“You went back and got them?” I asked sheepishly, gratefully shoving my legs into my boxers.

“No,” he replied curtly. “Your buddy brought them by, along with your phone, wallet, and keys.”

I looked up, my brows rising with hope. “Can I call—”

“No,” he cut me off. “I’ve already taken the liberty of calling your parents. Your dad’s on the way.”

I furrowed my brow. “I thought I got a phone call. Isn’t that part of the whole thing or something?”

“I guess under normal circumstances, that’s how it would go,” he replied. “But you’re not exactly a normal circumstance, are ya, Noah?”

I snorted. God, this town was ridiculous. “Why? Because you’re friends with my dad, you think you can just—”

“That’s exactly why, and you know it,” he fired back. “Finish gettin’ dressed.”

With that, he left the cell and closed it behind him. I watched him walk down the hall, heading toward the front of the station.

Good, I thought as he left because fuck that guy.

But why?

Sergeant Kinney hadn’t done anything wrong, and I knew it. Yet I was so angry.

I was mad at him, mad at Jay, mad at Dad and Mom and Miles. Hell, I was even pissed at Mayor Fischer, who’d done nothing but get an eyeful of my dick.

Yeah, I was furious, and as I finished pulling my shirt over my head, I decided the entire fucking town was at fault. For what? I wasn’t sure, but fuck them all. Fuck all of Connecticut. Fuck everyone I’d ever known.

I had one shoe laced up by the time Sergeant Kinney walked down the hall again, this time accompanied by the big and powerful Soldier Mason. The guy who had chosen to legally adopt me six years ago.

Right now, he looked like he regretted that choice.

He stood on the other side of the bars, his arms crossed over his brawny chest. He frowned at me, and although I was a lot taller now than I had been when I met him, I still had to look up to meet his stony glare.