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“Make it good,” I tell him, giving him his money.
He counts the two bills like they are hundreds, and this time he stashes them away before I have a chance to steal them out of his hands again.
“You’re looking for Zoey. Zoey and Layla, right?”
My chest tightens at the mention of their names.
“They are not here anymore. They got out just in the nick of time.”
My brows furrow at the ominous comment, but right now the only thing I can focus on is where they went.
“Where did they go?”
He runs his tongue over his teeth, making my hands ball into fists.
I don’t even wait for the little dipshit to blackmail me again for more money. Instead, I just grab the rest I have in my pocket.
The little prick even has the nerve to smirk at me.
“Give me two secs, old timer, and I’ll tell you.”
Before I have time to ask what he means by that, he drops his board against the chain-link fence and races back to the foster home. I stand outside for what feels like an eternity as I hear more than one voice coming from inside the shabby house.
Is this really the best we can do?
Leave traumatized kids in a place where they are bound to get even more scarred?
Fuck this decaying society.
No wonder there are men like me walking about.
I start to tap my shoe on the sidewalk, counting down the minutes for Gray, or whatever his name is, to come back outside. I’m about to lose my patience and go in to find the prick when he finally emerges from the rat infested house he calls home.
“Here,” he says, handing me a piece of paper.
“Great. Another fucking Post-it.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing, kid. You did good,” I praise him, eyeing the new address written on it, this time with a name.
“I thought they only had that aunt of theirs who came to pick them up. You don’t look like family to me,” he remarks suspiciously.
“That’s because I ain’t, kid. Stop asking so many stupid questions when you already know the answer to them,” I advise with a leveled tone.
His face suddenly looks almost subdued, which raises my hackles since this kid has been nothing but a jackass since I met him.
“Are you going to look out for them? For Zoey?” he asks with genuine concern in his voice.
“That’s the plan, kid.”
“Good,” he retorts, looking somewhat grateful, or at least as grateful as a kid like him can be. I eye him for a moment, noticing his black eye, his worn clothes, and his too skinny frame, all covered up by a big mouth.
Safe to say, kids like him have never been grateful for anything that has happened in their lives.
“They are good, you know? You don’t see much good in this place.” He tilts his head back to gesture to the place he just came from.
“Yeah, well, let that be a lesson to you, kid. There isn’t much good anywhere these days.”
