Vigilante 01 - Who Knows the Storm (15 page)

“I gotta go—you okay to get home?”

“Yeah.” Sam tucked his phone away, looking up at Cade with a bright smile. “Thanks for everything. I appreciate it.”

“Sam, it has been my honest pleasure.” He extended his hand for Sam, who shook it with enthusiasm. “You call me if you need anything.”

“I will.”

They parted ways, Cade watching the teenager retrace their footsteps back up the street.

Inside the cab, the driver gave him a strange look.

“A friend of mine,” Cade said coolly. “Let’s get going.”

Chapter Twenty

“I
COULD
go out for you,” Sam said from the doorway.

Nox didn’t bother to answer. He was using all his strength to stand up and pull his clothes on.

“You know you can’t walk with your leg like that.”

“Go to bed.” Nox shook with the exertion as he pulled the black sweatshirt over his head, tightened the buckles along the shoulder, then attached the hood to the collar.

“Let me go with you.”

“Sam.”

“What are you going to do if you run into some dealers? Ask them to lie down so you can punch them? You can’t walk, Dad.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re stubborn.” Sam sighed dramatically. “I’m getting dressed. I’m getting the second Sig.”

When had Nox lost control of this situation?

“Fine—you can come, but no gun.”

S
AM
WAS
six when he discovered what Nox did after hours. At that point Nox was still just walking the perimeter, keeping watch on their house lest someone sneak into the neighborhood. The paranoia was worse back then; Nox slept in tiny increments—a half hour here and there between taking care of Sam and going out on patrol.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Jenny and her gun. Every night he dreamed of her words.

Interlude

T
HE
N
ATIONAL
Guardsman takes them to a makeshift hospital. They tend to the baby and give Nox a heavy blanket, two sandwiches, and water. There is chaos everywhere, injured people screaming and wailing, others frantically searching for lost loved ones among the beds. Nox stays in the corner on a cot, watching the nurse who has his baby brother on an examination table.

“What’s your name?” a man with a clipboard asks.

Nox starts to say his name—opens his mouth and makes a sound—but something in his gut tells him to lie. “Roy Grimes.”

“How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

The guy gives him a look but marks down the number anyway. “And who’s that baby belong to?”

A beat. “Me.”

This time the guy doesn’t write anything down and his look says “try another one, son.”

“My girlfriend had him the other day at her house—we couldn’t get to the hospital, and then we, uh, we got separated when we left our building on 118th Street.” Nox gulps, tears coming to his eyes. He needs this man to believe him, needs it so desperately.

For the longest time, the guy says nothing. Then he scribbles down the information and walks away.

Nox pulls the blanket over his face and cries.

Later, they bring the baby back to him, warmly dressed in better-sized clothes and sound asleep, his little mouth pursed in a bow. “A little small” is all they say, assuring him he’s fine. They tell him how to take care of the gross stump of his umbilical cord and give Nox a bag of formula and diapers and an extra blanket.

Nox falls asleep with the infant snug next to him. An hour later he is woken up by a flashlight in his face.

“They found your girlfriend!” A nurse smiles down at him, and Nox’s heart stops.

T
HEY
MOVED
slowly, walking the blocks closest to the house. Sam, tucked into an extra hood and leathers, strode ahead while Nox stuck to the shadows, his leg screaming after forty minutes. The bad weather had chased the dealers and junkies back to their hovels, and no one was out.

After an hour Nox leaned against the side of an abandoned tenement and whistled.

Sam turned and jogged back.

“Let’s call it a night,” Nox said, but Sam shook his head.

“You go back. I’m going to walk over another few blocks.”

“Sam….”

“Don’t yell, because I’m going to run in the other direction now,” Sam said with a smirk. “Go home!”

And his teenager took off in a sprint in the other direction while Nox cursed a blue streak under his breath.

Interlude

J
ENNY
IS
standing near the entrance of the makeshift hospital. She manufactures tears, cooing as she takes his brother in her arms.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she whimpers, pressing herself into Nox’s side. “Mommy’s here.” She curls her body against Nox, nuzzling her face into his neck. “Oh baby, I was so scared!”

He fights nausea at her convincing performance.

“You need to come with me quietly,” she whispers in his ear as the adults watch the reunion with tender smiles. “Or something terrible is going to happen to these nice people.”

He gathers up the baby things, his backpack, and the blankets, and follows Jenny out the door to a large covered jeep parked outside.

“You need not to run anymore,” Jenny tells him as she drives down the wet empty roads to his neighborhood. “I can’t help you if you run.”

“You’re just going to kill us,” Nox says, cradling the baby in his arms. He knows he’ll run again. He knows he’ll kill her if he gets the chance.

“Maybe I won’t,” Jenny answers. “Maybe I won’t.”

Chapter Twenty-one

S
AM
FELT
like he’d been let out of a cage.

He would never be glad his dad got hurt—never. His love for his father was absolute. But oh God, it felt so good to be out on his own.

Work didn’t count. The only reason Dad let him take the job was because he went everywhere with another messenger—someone his dad used to work with on a construction site—and never out on his own. He was just someone to open doors and carry heavy parcels, climb stairs when Steve didn’t feel like it.

It seemed like he spent his life two ways: watched like a hawk or alone in his room.

He didn’t understand it all. His dad was very specific about following rules and how the world beyond their front door was dangerous and how they kept to themselves because people couldn’t be trusted in this city. And it all seemed logical because he’d never had anyone else but his father, never heard another opinion. Never saw anything from the few people he’d met except that same deep suspicion.

And he owed Nox his life, literally. Sam could have died in that car, but his father
saved
him. Was so absolutely brave that he saved a little orphaned baby and raised him all on his own. That was amazing—Sam didn’t think he could be that selfless or responsible. With his own parents killed in the flooding, his father made their life here in the city on his own. Sam was in awe of his father.

Sam tried to be always grateful, always follow his father’s orders to show his appreciation—he did. But sometimes he just wanted to be free.

And right now, walking along the dark streets of the Old City, when he should be feeling fear, Sam was euphoric.

He stuck to the shadows, following his father’s route. He’d only been allowed to come along a few times, but he remembered every turn like it was habit.

A few blocks from the very edge of the Old City, where miles and miles of burned-out neighborhoods were interspersed with new construction sites, he spotted a white truck idling behind a building.

Sam stopped, ducking into the doorway of an abandoned high-rise.

Well, that was weird.

He considered turning around, but the thrill of being out on his own held him back. His father would make him go home. His father would lecture him about never calling attention to himself.

Sam crept out of the doorway.

He would only go see what they were watching—then he’d go home. They’d never know he was there.

He went the long way around, around the block to front of the building. There were no lights, no signs of activity, at least from the outside. So Sam took a deep breath, reminded himself that this was what he wanted—to make his own decisions, to be an adult—and walked around until he found an open door to the building.

T
HIS
USED
to be a hospital.

It had been stripped bare of everything, by looters, elements, and time. Sam’s footsteps echoed as he walked down the hallway, the beam of his small flashlight helping him navigate. The musty smell of disuse and abandonment, the sound of his boots—nothing else seemed to be happening.

So why was anyone up here?

Sam did a circuit of the first floor. He reached the front entrance, sticking close to the wall so he could look outside through one cracked windowpane. The truck remained, but now a nondescript car idled behind it. Sam watched as a man jumped down from the cab, then walked to the driver’s side of the car. After a moment of conversation, the man handed something to the driver, then quickly turned away.

The man got back in the truck and within minutes was gone in a cloud of exhaust as the truck took off downtown. A second later, the car came to life and followed in its wake.

Curious.

Sam waited a few minutes to make sure no one returned, then eased out the front door. His heart beat wildly in his chest. He had no idea what he’d seen, but it made him feel important.

Hands jammed in his pockets, Sam hurried home. He could barely contain his excitement—something he’d have to push down before he walked through the front door. His father could smell a secret, and Sam’s poker face was crap.

A block away from home, Sam stopped. He tipped his head back to look up at the sky, making out a few stars through the cloud cover. Sometimes he imagined another life—getting off the island, going to college, living his life in a city where everything wasn’t a struggle. He’d live in an apartment he furnished himself, he’d work a job he found on his own. He’d go to places where people drank coffee and talked over tiny tables.

He’d meet a boy who thought he was handsome and charming and they would…

Do things.

Sam bit his lip, trying to push away the suddenly intrusive thought of what his father and Cade might have been up to at the Iron Butterfly. To think of himself dating—well, that was amazing. To imagine his father?

No, thanks.

Dad had never dated, never brought anyone home. Sam didn’t even know he was gay until a few years ago, when Sam was struggling with his own sexuality. He just thought—well, he just thought his father was too busy and too paranoid to date. Not to mention the lack of women in the general vicinity. Dad didn’t have any friends—they only had each other.

Which was wonderful.

And not so wonderful.

Sam took a deep breath, let the cold air rattle around in his lungs. He didn’t want this night to end. He wanted to feel this free, this alive, for just a little bit longer.

Chapter Twenty-two

T
WO
HOURS
later Sam came home. He was bright-eyed and panting from the cold, but the smile on his face told Nox he didn’t even notice the weather.

His first solo patrol.

“Anyone give you a problem?” Nox said from his perch on the bottom step of their stairs.

“Nope.” Sam stripped out of his leathers, clearly elated by his little adventure. “There was some stuff going on by the old hospital on 101st Street, though.”

“What?” Dealers liked to hang out there in bad weather, and there were junkie squatters in the basement.

“A truck idling by the back loading dock for about twenty minutes. A car came up, and then everyone left.” Sam put his boots on the mat near the door. “That was it.”

Nox tucked it away for future reference. “Well, then—good job.”

Sam glanced up at him in surprise. “Thanks. I was sure I was going to come home and get the full lecture.”

“I’m tired—you can have the half lecture,” Nox said, wobbling a little as he stood. “We have rules, Sam….”

“Right. I know. We have rules to keep us safe, because this city isn’t,” Sam sighed. “But, Dad—how long before you realize I’m an adult now? I can handle myself.”

“You’re right,” Nox murmured. “You can handle yourself. I promise to remember that.”

Sam brightened, his smile so warm it hurt. “No, you won’t. But I’ll keep reminding you.”

Nox felt resignation and panic deep in his bones.

N
OX
SENT
a text message to Addie before he crawled into bed. His leg hurt, his head thumped a steady rhythm, and there was no way he was going to work in a few hours. He didn’t like to admit he was human and his body needed rest, but tonight—this morning, this moment—he was.

Not to mention the small part of him that didn’t want to leave Sam alone at the house.

Just in case.

He pulled the covers over his head, moving gingerly until he found a comfortable spot for his various aches and pains. Of course there was no position that stopped his brain from racing.

Interlude

T
HEY
ABANDON
the jeep a few blocks away. The National Guard is herding people down the streets toward the Seventy-Ninth Street Boat Basin, and it’s chaos. Nox thinks he can duck into the crowds of people and get away from Jenny, but she takes one look at him and makes a grab for the baby.