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“Sonofa…” I chased after him. He was small, and he wasn’t going very far.
In fact, once he got to the Charger, he stopped at the back, hopping slightly, trying to jump up on the rear fender. He was still making the little worried whining noise he’d been making in the car, which I was starting to realize had absolutely nothing to do with having to pee.
My heart sank into my stomach the longer he whined at the trunk.
“No.” I wasn’t sure who I was talking to. It didn’t really matter. I already knew what I’d find. “No no no.”
I grabbed my keys from the ignition and came back to the trunk, holding my breath while I fiddled for the right key on my ring. If you count to five, it’ll be empty when you open it.
One.
Two.
Fen whined again, scratching at the leg of my jeans.
Three.
I took a deep breath and realized I was holding the keys so hard they’d started to dig into my palm.
Four.
Leo had returned from the store with a coffee cup in hand and a puzzled expression on his face. “What are you doing?”
I didn’t answer, and instead slid the key into the lock.
Five.
I popped open the trunk, and she made a little eep noise, trying to make herself invisible while shielding her eyes from the sun.
Leo came to stand beside me, peering into the trunk, where Sawyer was curled up in a ball, pretending she wasn’t totally busted.
“Shit.” He sipped his coffee.
“Shit indeed.”
We both stared down at the girl—the stowaway minor we had technically kidnapped—and I debated how I should react. I ultimately landed on offering her my hand and helping her climb out. She’d made herself a little nest among our bags, which meant she must have jumped in when we went to return our keys to Yvonne that morning.
A million angry thoughts swirled around in my head, but given how terrified and guilty she looked right then, I decided to hold off on the yelling. At least for a few minutes.
“Do you need any water?” I asked instead. It had to be over a hundred degrees in that trunk. She was covered in a film of sweat, and I wasn’t sure if it was from the heat or her fear over having been caught.
She nodded.
Leo didn’t wait to be asked. He went back into the store and returned a moment later with a few chilled bottles of water. As soon as Sawyer had hers she drank it back with an unmasked thirst, taking swallows that were so hard they must have hurt her throat. When the whole bottle was gone, she sat on the open mouth of the trunk and stared at her boots.
“Please don’t send me back.”
“Fine. I’ll leave you here.” I nudged her out of the way and shut the trunk lid again, securing it firmly.
Fen was furiously sniffing at Sawyer’s boots, a pair of scuffed Doc Martens identical to ones I’d owned at her age.
What was it about being a teenager that made every generation rebel in the same way? Weird haircuts, ugly clothes. So much of her was a mirror of who I’d been when I was fifteen and wanted to spit in the universe’s eye.
“You can’t leave me,” she squealed, her voice edging into an octave of pure panic. “Leo? She can’t leave me, right?” She gave him an imploring, desperate look. The kind that made men do really stupid shit because they felt compelled to save someone.
“She won’t leave you.” He patted her shoulder comfortingly.
“I’ll leave both of you,” I corrected. “I didn’t ask for him to join me in the first place. I can live without both of you just fine.”
