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I had asked her why she had the book. It stood out against the shiny, glossy covers and the more subdued matte designs. She waved her hand dismissively, bringing the nub of her cigarette back to her lips.
“I wrote it.” That was all said with calm indifference as if she was merely reciting that the sky was blue. A fact. I stared at the woman I had called mom for the better part of my life. Gray hair coiled in tight curls. Too much red lipstick. Eyeshadow that ranged from midnight black to emerald green. Larryanne wasn’t a bad foster mom, as far as foster mothers could go. She was crass and impulsive, but I had the sense that she genuinely loved me. At first, I had been bitter that Ronan had been allowed to stay with our birth mother while I had been shipped halfway across the country, but that resentment was gone now. After all, I hadn’t known he existed until he showed up at my doorway demanding money for drugs.
Larryanne wasn’t my mother, but she was the closest I ever had to family at the time.
I remembered her house more vividly than any other foster family I had lived with, mainly because it was located in the middle of fucking nowhere. The whistles of freight trains flew one after the other for miles over prairie lands, brushing the rough, dry tips of corn stalks, filling up the blank spaces of country roads, and whistling around cold, steel silos until they slammed against the vinyl siding of her home and into my ears. I could never sleep due to the constant buzzing of noise.
Anyway, the woman once wore a diaper for a week because she wanted to go to a music festival and not worry about porta potties. She even robbed a restaurant once, though she had never been caught. I imagined she wouldn’t have been granted her fostering license if that little tidbit of information became known. She was an enigma, my foster mother, but I loved her.
But her as a writer? A published author?
That was fucking hilarious.
The disbelief must’ve been evident on my face, for she swatted me with her hand.
“Don’t give me that look boy,” she said. Smoke drifted up my nostrils from the cigarette now held between her two fingers. “I had an idea. Some characters are never able to have their stories told. I was determined to change that.”
I didn’t know why I thought of my dead foster mom as I stared at the bodies on the ground. My skin was red and blotchy from the rain. I had tried to save who I could - the girls, Ali, Amanda, and No Name as well as the two boys. But by the time I had dragged two of them inside, the rain pounding relentlessly against my bare skin, they had all been dead.
Dead.
Five people whose stories would never be told. Five people who had their life snuffed out in a span of a second. All I could do was stare at their blotchy, bloody skin.
One of the girls had still been alive. Only for a second, but it was enough for me to see her face twisted in agony. As I watched, helpless, the life bled from her eyes.
Kai let out a scream.
For as long as I lived, I would never forget that sound. He had lost his brothers. His friends. Hell, maybe even his girlfriend.
If I were to lose Ronan or Addie or any of the others…
Shaking my head, I focused on the sight before me. Ronan was attempting to restrain Kai. The man was positively enraged; the timid guy who had threatened me with a shaking hand was nowhere in sight. In his place was a prowling tiger.
“Let me save them! Let me go!” he screamed, bucking against Ronan’s arms. I had only been able to “rescue” the ones who were still breathing. Still moaning. And even that word, rescue, wasn’t an accurate description. They had both died despite my efforts.
Dead.
Just like Larryanne.
Just like those characters that never had stories written about them. The side characters. The woman in the background in the movie. Everyone had a story, but only a select few were heard.
“They’re dead,” Ronan was saying. “If you go out there, you’re just going to die as well.”
“Then let me die!” Kai screamed.
I remembered the fear I had felt when the rain first began. When the screaming began. Instinctively, I had ran outside.
My entire life has been devoted to helping people. Why would I change who I was now? I had winced when the first droplet of rain hit my skin.
Coming to the decision quickly, I pulled up my hood, tugged the sleeves down until they covered my hands, and ran into the damning rain. The stench of burned flesh saturated the air, so intense I could physically taste it.
All of that effort had been for nothing. Five people - five strangers - were dead. And all I had to show for it was more scars. More pain.
More death.
Ronan decked Kai over the top of his head after a particularly brutal struggle. The man fell in an undignified heap, his head ricocheting off the tiles. When I quirked a brow at Ronan, he merely shrugged.
The rest area was silent besides for the rain. Thunder crackled, the sound almost malicious, and lightning flashed in the darkening sky. Ronan came to stand beside me, eyes focused on the window as well. I didn’t know if he was staring at the bodies or the sky’s vivid light show.
