AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The boys look down at their plates and then at each other, but don’t answer Sam. Lewis mumbles something under his breath, upset that his brother almost let out a secret between them.
“What note, boys?” Sam demands.
BeLew exchange something in their unspoken language, but they refuse to answer Sam.
“If you gave Alexander a note to pass along to your mom, I understand, and I’m not mad,” Sam sighs. He’s exhausted, unable to fight them over something he deems trivial. “But it’s likely he had to destroy it. You understand why?”
“He didn’t,” Beau says and Lewis smacks him on the leg, telling him to shut up under his breath.
Sam grates his jaw, looking back and forth between the boys. Morgan whines, her cries growing steadily louder, but his rocking doesn’t settle her. His fork clangs on the plate, and he stands, giving away his frustration, even though he’s hiding it as best he can.
“I’m making her a bottle,” he says. “When I get back, there better be less food on your plates.”
Sam doesn’t shut the door between the two rooms, keeping an eye and an ear on the boys. He’s thinner, but still a wall of muscle. I notice how his face is drawn, and I look over the table. There isn’t enough food — not nearly. Have they been starving?
“Please just eat,” I beg. They’re shadows of my sons, but it’s all I have. “You’re scared, and being hungry won’t help.” They’re beautiful even when they act like this, and I long to touch them.
Lewis drops his fork and crosses his arms at his chest. Beau does the same, staring at Sam through the open door, daring him to keep the argument alive. They’re strong-willed for their age, and that’s a good thing most of the time.
“Boys, you need to eat. Fuck, I wish I was with you, too,” I complain. “Sam thought I was right behind him because I told him I would be. I made them take him here and leave me. Trust me, he’s not keeping things from you. Just eat your food, and we’ll get through this just like we have everything else.”
I’m not sure, but there’s a flicker in Beau’s face before it hardens. He picks up his fork and throws it toward Sam.
“Go and get her,” Beau yells.
Lewis has his fork in his hand when Sam takes two large strides toward him and rips it out, slamming it down beside his plate. “That almost hit your sister!” he yells at the boys. “Now eat your food and then go to bed. No story tonight.”
Sam returns to Morgan, who’s begun crying in the other room, and slams the door on his way out. The boys let out a strangled scream under their breath, frustrated that they have no control.
“Boys, I’m so sorry,” I cry. “Please just eat.”
They both turn and stare at… me.
“No!” Beau barks in my face. It’s more than looking in my direction. He sees me, and there’s no mistaking it. His eyes, full of all the fury a child can manage, bore into mine. I’m unable to say anything or reach for him before he screams again. “Wake up and come home!”
Chapter Six
He Decides
Anursestandsoverme while I cough, waking up in the same bright room and looking at pretend curtains against a brick wall. It feels like they wheeled me in moments before, but my clothes are fresh and I don’t smell myself. It’s been longer than the one meal I spent with my family.
My family.
The thought of them makes my dry lips crack in a smile.
She picks up a small flashlight, moving the beam across my eyes. I jerk away, my cough slowing to a rattle at the back of my throat, and she taps on a cup of water next to the bed. I nod, and she lifts my mattress until I’m sitting up, and then positions the straw next to my mouth.
I’m alive.
The vision wasn’t in death, but what was it? The way Beau looked at me and shouted at me felt so real. He saw me, but that would mean… My mind spins while I struggle to use my limbs after laying in this bed for too long. How long, I’m not sure.
When I successfully get the straw between my dry lips and the small cup secure in my hands, she moves to the end of the bed, picking up a tablet and tapping her finger across the screen.
A few sips go down, and I set the cup back, my hand trembling a bit with the movement. I relax back into the bed, struggling to make sense of the dream. Beau looked at me, not through me. He saw me sitting next to him. They both did.
I know it.
I believe it.
