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But Hale will never message me again. The closest I can ever come to hearing his voice is running my fingers over the scribbled message on the back of a photo of me.She stays out of this.
Out of what?
I doubt Father has the answers. Or Colton.
So... I wait. Long after the hours meld into the early morning. Long after my intuition warns me to call the police for real. When someone finally does shake my shoulder, rousing me awake, I lurch upright, sighing in relief. “It’s about time!”
But Daze isn’t standing before me.
“I have to go to school,” Sammy declares mournfully.
Tears roll down his chin, wetting the collar of his fire-truck top. He’s still holding Daze’s phone, which is on its last leg of battery life. The time flashes eight-thirty AM and nothing else. Not even a missed call notification.
“I have to be there by zero-nine-three-zero,” Sammy insists, his bottom lip trembling. “Ihaveto.”
“Okay...” I stand and start to pace. Looking around the narrow room, I can tell that Daze hasn’t been home. Not once during the night.
Either he’s dead or in jail. That’s the only way I can rationalize it.
Those two scenarios don’t help me much now...and looking at Sammy wringing his pajama shirt in his hands, I don’t have the heart to call the police. Yet.
“Do you have your school clothes with you?” I ask.
Sniffling, he nods, and together we find a crisp white shirt and jeans in his backpack, along with clean socks and underwear. Apparently, Lyra didn’t judge Daze’s parenting skills too highly either because she left explicit instructions taped to the back of the school shirt, including the address.
The doors close at nine-thirty,she wrote.Nine-thirty! Not a second later, or he’ll get a demerit, and it will be on you. Don’t fuck this up, Daze! And while I’m on the subject, go over his spelling. Even in preschool, they have pop quizzes, and those fucking prissy teachers think it’s odd if a four-year-old can spell DAMN better than BEAUTIFUL. Love you both. Lyra.
Tossing the note aside, I help Sammy change and feed him breakfast, but he doesn’t look any less miserable.
“I need a lunch,” he says, his voice hitching. “I don’t have my lunchbox. I don’t want to eat a ‘special lunch.’ I don’t like bananas.”
“It’s okay. I’ll make you one. Don’t worry.”
Darting back into the kitchen, I find a Tupperware container in one of the cabinets and set about finding random things to form some semblance of a decent lunch. With a fresh pack of bread, I make a sandwich and rip off the crust—something Mom used to do. A juice box, apple, and a bag of chips form the rest of my attempt.
But it’s something.
“There,” I say, holding out the container to Sammy, oddly wary of his reaction. “It’s a lunch.”
He eyes the items with his mouth wrinkled, still sniffling. “Okay.”
Now the only other hitch is how to get him across town in twenty minutes. I head for the door and barge into the hall. Sure enough, a voice calls tiredly from two doors down. “Morning, sweet cheeks.”
“He needs to get to school,” I say, nodding toward Sammy. “Now.”
Ben sighs and glances at his wristwatch. “Fucking Daze,” he says loudly enough for both Sammy and I to hear. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s pray the damn thing can even get us that far.”
ELEVEN
As it turns out,Sammy goes to school in the same neighborhood I did—something I suspect is Lyra’s doing rather than Daze’s. I highly doubt a school of this caliber accepts money that’s been shoved underneath a bachelor’s filthy mattress, that’s for sure.
A teacher wearing a gray uniform stands guard near the front doors, overseeing a line of small children streaming into the building. Her eyes home in on our arrival like a hawk’s.
“There’s Jake,” Sammy declares into my ear. “He’s my best friend.”
The tears are gone, at least. He seems completely oblivious to the attention he draws from every soccer mom in attendance and for all the wrong reasons. For one, he’s stepping out of a coffee truck.
Despite it all, his lips form a beaming grin before he races off, tucking a Tupperware lunch under his arm. “Thank you, Ms. Lady,” he calls back. “Bye, Benny!”
