Take Me Tomorrow (18 page)

“Well, maybe he can break Broden out of jail, Mr. Tomery,” Lyn
murmured, dissatisfied by the turnout of the explosion.

“I’ll get him out,” he promised,
but he was looking at me. “What about Rinley? Does Anthony have her?”

I shook my head. “Anthony suspects she’s here, but he doesn’t think that’s what you’re really after.”

“I don’t either,” Lyn agreed.

Noah’s expression darkened. “It is.”

Tension filled the living room, and I placed myself between my practical mother and the boy who had brought a war upon us. “Stop,” I interrupted their useless battle. “Anthony told me where to find her.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your sister,” I clarified, but he didn’t respond. “We need to get into your old house while the officials are distracted with the Traveler’s Bureau.”

“Why?” Miles interrupted.

“Because her file was moved there − as a trap to find anyone in the Tomery family,” I explained what Anthony had told me. “He told me we could get inside without getting caught. But we have to hurry.”

The entire house was a trap, but
Noah already knew that. He hadn’t returned for a reason.

“There’s no
way Phelps will be watching it,” I said, “not with the building up in flames.”

Noah shook his head. “We can’t trust Tony on that.”

“Do we really have a choice?” Miles lingered on the truth of the matter.

“You guys have come
this far,” Lyn sided with us. Her black hair hung in her face, and she shook it as if she couldn’t quite believe it herself. “I’ll wake you up in a few hours, but you all need to get some sleep,” she ordered. “Tomorrow is going to be another rough day.”

The Broken Pieces

Miles drove
his car around the Topeka Region. “I can get you two close,” he said, surveying the road.

He had taken the back roads to avoid the chaos of the Traveler’s Bureau, but we snuck fleeting glances whenever the roads connected to the main street. The city was filled with sage uniforms. Most, if not all, of the police force was diligently
working to figure out what had happened.

“Where are you two going?” I asked, knowing that we had come to
an agreement. No one could stay at my house. It wasn’t safe. Lyn was at the hospital with Falo, and I was going with Noah. When the twins responded, I hadn’t been expecting to hear, “Home.”

“Our mom lied for Lyn,” Miles explained, “but she’s mad.”
Ms. Beckett knew something now.

“We’ll come up with some excuse,” Lily added. “I have volunteer work at the institute anyway.” She made the correctional home for troubled girls sound like an intellectual retreat.

“And I might go into work,” Miles mumbled. The Traveler’s Bureau wasn’t as destroyed as the record’s building, but it was damaged. “They want to interview us anyway.”

“Another interview?” I asked, waiting for clarification that he wouldn’t get hurt again. He just nodded in response. He didn’t know.

No one spoke a word about Broden. We were doing this without him, and there wasn’t anything we could do about that. We couldn’t help him. We didn’t even know where he was. All we could do was move forward with the plan, hoping that Broden would be safe − and alive.

Knowing that we were only yards away from his house was unsettling. His parents hadn’t even called me, something they did when Broden got into trouble, and I didn’t take it as a good sign. Even worse, if we were near Broden’s house,
we were near Noah’s childhood home.

“Right here,” Miles’ voice was barely audible as he parked against
a curb.

No
ah, without thanking him, got out of the car. I didn’t follow him immediately. Lily was staring at me in the rearview mirror. Her brown eyes darkened against her white hair.

I looked away and locked on Noah’s blond hair as if it were a beacon. I followed him, only hearing Miles’ car squeal away. B
efore I could look back, the twins were gone. We knew we might get caught. The house seemed too obvious, but we walked toward it anyway. I didn’t bother looking at the other homes. I didn’t know which one was his. They all looked the same – tan, huge, and empty.

Noah didn’t talk, and
we didn’t walk very far until we were at the end of a short, curved driveway of a light blue house. The shudders were pearl-white, and delicate, purple flowers lined every window. Sitting in the middle of the circular driveway was a small fountain, trickling water away as if the owners still lived within the walls. The grass was even cut. Noah’s abandoned childhood home didn’t look abandoned at all.

“Please tell me someone new doesn’t live here,” I muttered.

“No one does,” he said it matter-of-factly, but he didn’t explain how the house was clean. Someone must have been taking care of it because the flowery lawn could’ve been on the front cover of a real estate magazine. It reminded me of Phelps’ mansion.

“How are we g
oing to get inside?” I asked.

“The front door,”
he laughed casually, “How else?”

With that, he bounded up the driveway, and my veins surged will panic. “What?” I squeaked. “Noah
, you cannot be serious.” But he continued to walk.

I ran after him as he jumped over the front steps as if he had done it hundreds of times. I had to remind myself that he probably had.

Standing in front of the door, he laid his palm on the blue wood. His fingers curled against the paint, and a heavy breath escaped his lips. He looked like a boy who had realized his illusion was real.

“I don’t see why not,
” he finally spoke.

“Someone will see us,” I argued.

Noah rolled his eyes. “If Tony set us up, they already know we’re here,” he pointed out, ignoring the fact that his neighbors could be home, ready to report us. “If he’s not, we’re fine.”

“But your neighbors—”

His hand dropped to his side. “You really think we lived around Phelps’ lovers?”

I glanced around, taking in the identical houses that surrounded us in the small cul-de-sac. Of course they had been a part of Tomery’s plan. Nothing as simple as neighbors would have prevented the creation of the drug that began a war.

Noah fiddled with the handle. The door was locked. “There are tunnels, Sophie,” he added, “a lot of tunnels with a lot of people keeping them hidden and safe.”

Shivers ran up my spine.
“Why didn’t we take those?”

“They aren’t necessary.” He
twisted the doorknob to the right until it clicked. That’s when he pulled − hard − and it shot out. A slit shaped like a circle appeared out of a wooden panel. Noah detached his silver watch, turned it over, and placed it inside.

“You have
got to be kidding me,” I said.

Noah chuckled
as the panel turned. He reached over and turned the knob as if it had always been unlocked. It moved easily. He had unlocked it.

“What else can you do with that watch?”
I asked.

“You’d be amazed what
a man can do with a great watch.” Noah winked.

Heat rushed over my face, but he hadn’t seen my b
lush. He had already turned toward to the door. When he pushed it open, he swung out his arm in a grand gesture. “Ladies first,” he said. He was glowing.

F
or the first time, I truly felt like we were two teenagers hanging out. Not two teenagers running from the law. For that moment, I wanted to forget. I wanted to return to a normal world and pretend that Noah’s last name didn’t mean he was involved with a practical drug lord. Hell, I wanted to forget that Noah was addicted to tomo, but I couldn’t. Not one part of me could pretend.

I stepped inside, avoiding eye contact,
and searched the house. Portraits of landscapes covered the walls, and miniature statues decorated the halls. In one corner, a grand piano lingered in dusty silence. A cello leaned against the wall behind it. White carpet spread across the living room floor where two couches, one longer than the other, were put out. A television hung on the far wall, and empty water glasses sat on a coffee table in the middle of the room. Nothing was covered. The windows weren’t boarded up. The floors weren’t falling apart. Next to me, a staircase spiraled upstairs, showing no signs of damage. In fact, the house looked as if it were waiting for the family to return home from dinner.

T
he front door closed, and a gust of humid air pushed past me. I turned around to face a dazed Noah. He glanced around, seemingly lost in his memories, and his chest fell as he sighed, “Looks the same.”

His hand rose to
the nearest light switch, but he didn’t pull it up. His hand dropped, but he didn’t have to explain. The electricity would bring too much attention. His neighbors might not turn him in, but someone driving by might. Noah wasn’t going to risk that.

I opened my mouth to speak, to say an
ything, but I bit my lip. For a minute, we stood there in silence, mourning something that I recognized as Noah’s reality. His family − his dead mother and brother − his missing sister − his directing father. I couldn’t imagine it, yet I was standing in the remnants of it.

Noah moved into the next room, disappearing around the corner to what I assumed to be a kitchen. I listened to his footsteps echo around the house, and I tried to imagine the living room full of people chatting, laughing, anything. Just alive.
But they weren’t. The same people who had drank from the glasses on the table were dead.

“Are you coming or not?” Noah ask
ed as he spun around the corner. He beamed beneath the floppy, white hat on his head.

I giggled, “I’m coming.”

…

Minutes passed like hours, and every room we searched proved to
be a like the Traveler’s Bureau − full of paperwork, but nothing linked to Rinley.

The upstairs was as large and clean as the downstairs,
and rich colors plastered the walls. Like a museum, paintings of foreign lands hung from golden frames. I wanted to study the hills of green and waves of blue, but I didn’t have the time. We had already been in Noah’s house too long, yet we weren’t done.

Noah tossed papers to the floor
of the master bedroom. “It’s going to get dark soon.” He didn’t have to say what we were both thinking. The police could be waiting for nighttime to get us. They didn’t like to do their dirty work in the middle of daylight.

“That’s too much of a risk for Phelps
.” I sucked in breath, trying to hide my concern. “We could’ve found the file by now and left.”

“It’s not here,” he said.

“It’s here.” I picked up his scattered papers and placed them on the desk.

Noah
stretched to open a corner of the blinds. The purple mist of night melted in. “It’s getting dark,” he whispered, looking back at the room. It would be hard to see without electricity soon. He stood. “I’ll be right back.”

When he left the room,
I tried to follow him, but he was too quick. The boy didn’t know the definition of walking. He ran everywhere he went.

I continued without him. I walked down the long hallway and opened the next door, only to linger in the doorway.

The bedroom was painted cobalt blue. School achievements hung on the walls, lined up from oldest to newest, and a twin bed was pushed against a window. Thin marks scaled the windowpane, showing how tall the resident had been while living in the bedroom over the years. One small desk was located at the edge of the bed, and a painting of the ocean was tacked into the wall above it. The sun rose over the waves that crashed into the rocks below, but it wasn’t a professional photograph. It looked like it had been printed at home.

I tiptoed
the bedroom and surveyed the framed achievements. I couldn’t breathe. A picture of Noah in a graduation cap hung at the top. Topeka South Middle School explained the occasion, but his face told me his age. His cheeks were softer, and shadows didn’t cling to his eyes. His grin was wider. He had braces.

I walked over, wanting a closer look, but
I was halted by another picture on his desk. In a silver frame, a small photo collected dust, but five faces managed to peek out. The woman with thick, black hair stood next to a fair-haired man, and three kids sat in front of them. All of them were smiling. Without hesitating, I picked it up, and the bumpy frame pushed against the palm of my hand.

“That was taken righ
t before—” Noah’s voice faded. He was standing in the room, feet away from me, but I could only look at his siblings. Seeing Liam grinning, alive, was worse than seeing a bullet hole through his chest. It made the bullet real.

My words took over,
“You look a lot like your father.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Where did you go?”

His breathing quieted.
“I locked us inside with the security system my father set up.”

I looked up.
“What?”

“We can get out, but no one can get in without breaking something,” he explained. “The security runs on saved electricity in case the power is cut,” he
continued, “No one will know we’re here.” If they didn’t already.

“Oh.”

He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I checked the tunnels,” he said. “They’re all sealed. I don’t know how, but they are.” His trusted neighbors might not have been as trustworthy as he originally thought. Either way, we were stuck, and we didn’t have time to worry about them now.

“So,” I tried to sound casual, “w
e’re staying here?”

“For the ni
ght,” Noah confirmed.

I
spun my back to him as I placed his family portrait on his desk. “What’s this?” I asked, reaching out to grab a small trinket that resembled some sort of god, but my nervous hands didn’t hold onto it. It slipped through my grip and crashed to the floor. When it hit the air vent, it cracked in half.

I leapt back
, squeaking as my hand shot to my mouth. Before I could move, Noah was across the room and picking up the pieces. His knee was on the ground as he stared at the broken pieces in his hands.

“I—I’m so sorry, Noah,” I m
anaged, fighting back tears.

“It’s fine,” he muttered,
pressing the pieces together. The wild-haired man held a sun in his fingers. It looked like the sun imprint on tomo. “It was just an old keepsake.”

His face was unreadable as he placed it on the desk
, but he pointed to the picture above his desk. “That’s the only thing that matters to me anyway.”

I stared at the photograph. The edges were curling, but he laid his hand on it as he pulled out the tack. He stared at it before he spoke, “I took this.”