Children From A Lesser God
Chapter Four: Control
The car of course did not start. Fox couldn't be that lucky. The cab driver however took pity on him and said he would drive them home for no extra cost.
Fox weighed up his limited options.
Go home. What would his father say? He told Fox to drive at all cost. To keep the girl safe. He hadn't done any of those so far. Going home after not even a few hours, his father would ...
But he couldn't exactly drive when his car wouldn't allow him to. They were sitting ducks stranded here. He had no cash, but had a card, which was only to be used in an emergency.
Did this qualify as an emergency?
Could he even trust this guy?
Did he have any choice? Five miles home would be a ball ache to walk but he was pretty sure she couldn't even walk ten steps with her belly so full.
Fox needed the cab driver. He didn't see any choice but to trust him.
...
The cab, pulling up to his house, it was exactly how it was supposed to look like in the middle of the night. Quiet darkened street, no activity, no sound except the hum of the engine. The curtains to the house were all drawn shut, and the lights all off; and Fox started to wonder maybe he could do this without his father knowing, or at the very least, without waking him up.
Opening the passenger door onto the curb, he realised his father's car was no longer on the street like it usually is. It didn't mean anything though, he probably parked it in the garage soon after they left. Fox thanked the driver, sparing a glance to make sure the girl had gotten out too, before treading cautiously up the driveway. Antsy butterflies swarmed around in his stomach, his heart was heavy and he was mentally preparing himself. His father was going to be so disappointed in him. He was sure his father knew, somehow his father would know.
It wasn't until he reached the front door, did he realise he didn't have the keys to his house. Fox flung his head back in despair. Could anything else go wrong with this evening?!
He could knock.
He glanced at his wrist watch.
03:47
Was his father in bed or was he waiting the other side of the door for him to knock?
Remembering the girl again, he turned in the direction of the driveway, only to find her directly behind him with the back of his t-shirt crunched in her hand.
Was she nervous?
She found him comforting?
Sure she had been with them for over a month, but ... they have hardly interacted with each other. He doesn't even know her name! Not that he wants to, 'girl' will suffice.
He feels her slowly untangle her grip, obviously taking his silence the wrong way.
Or has she?
Fox doesn't know exactly on the scale of 1 - 10 how he actually feels about her. One feels too harsh.
"We're not going to be long", he supplies. "Ten minutes the most, but if you need to - I don't know - pick up anything else from your room, you can. OK?" He knows he definitely needs to pack more layers. He's still wet from his rendezvous in the lake. What was even going through his head then? How could have he crashed the brand new car his father had given him only yesterday. He was supposed to be eighteen years old. He was a man now, no longer a kid to make silly mistakes. He needed to exercise more power and control - maybe he has time for a shower?
The girl hasn't said anything. Not that he finds that surprising. It's too dark to read facial expressions. But she definitely speaks and understands American. Whatever. He shrugs internally. "Just wait here. I need to get the spare key", because he does still have a duty to her. But when he moves, she follows with him. She's attached both her hands to his arm.
Why is she so scared? Is this a fourteen year old girl thing? "What's wrong?!" he exasperates.
She's silent.
"I know you can speak. So you can stop with that bullshit"
But she is still silent and she still doesn't let go of her grip. Her nails are something to be reckoned with.
Well that's a lie, she's not silent - she is sniffling now.
Fox rolls his eyes, great - he has made the little girl cry. "Just keep close", with the arm she doesn't have a hold on, he pries one of her hands in his and leads her to the garage.
...
Putting in the garage lock combination, he cringes at how much noise it makes. There was no way that went unheard. Closing it immediately once they are inside, as he has firmly decided on his decision to have a shower. His father waking up be damned.
The garage flooded with auto-light, Fox has what must be his twentieth surprise of the night.
The garage is empty.
His mother's car hasn't been here since August because his sister, Sam, wrote off her car again, and 'borrowed' it for her drive back up to Massachusetts for school. But she is in some country in Africa at the moment that Fox forgets and his mom continuously reminds him, beginning with M ... maybe Mozambique - But most importantly - his father's car.
His father's black Jag is also not there.
Which must mean ... that he isn't here either.
Wordlessly, Fox walks them through his house and to his parent's bedroom. Not even trying to be quiet, his mom sleeps like the dead an - But it's empty.
What?
Where are his parents? Where would they go without him? Without him knowing? Did something happen? Was something wrong with Sam? ...His grandmother was reaching ninety.
He turns around, colliding with something he bounces off.
Her bump he realises. His cheeks heat instantly. "Sorry", he mumbles. "MOM. DAD", cheeks still flaming. There is no response.
He checks their bathroom.
Empty.
He shags the back of his hair.
Where could have they go-
- He jumps a mile at the loud knock, and she lets out a squeak.
It originates from downstairs.
The front door.
Who is knocking on his door at 4am in the morning?!
It bangs again, and her grip cuts off the circulation in his hand.
But then it's quiet for a good minute.
He breathes out a long breath.
THANK GOD he shut the garage behind him!
"Let's be quick", he says, pulling them in the direction of his room.
In his bedroom, he forces her hand off of his so that he can take the rucksacks filled with their rushed possessions off.
Riffling quickly through his top draw, he gets the bunch of billed notes he keeps saved in his socks, before putting the whole of his coin Ham piggy bank in his rucksack. He then grabs a few of his hoodies out of his wardrobe.
"Here", he throws one to her, "put this on", stuffing the third one in her bag.
He's zipping up his hoodie, when it becomes combined with another foreign noise.
The front door again!
"-said he saw activity".
Fox strains his ears, trying to recognise the voice, but it is not his father.
"The license number from the car is a local taxi service. There is someone tracking it down as we speak". English. That voice was definitely English.
"They're fairly certain it was Bill's boy and the girl that entered the house. I'll check upstairs. You check down".
Fox's whole body had broken out into a cold sweat. And it wasn't until he heard footsteps coming up the stairs did he think to move, as his bedroom was the closest to the stairs.
Not only that, he had left the door open and the light on!
Throwing his duvet over their bags, he rushed for under his bed, but a hand grabbed him, pulling him into the wardrobe.
In the wardrobe, they stood on opposite ends, arranging himself behind hung clothes.
The wardrobe door opened slightly from their movement. Fox was going to grab it shut, when he heard the footsteps outside his bedroom.
Willing his breathing to slow down and quieten, he slowly retracted his hand.
The footsteps walked quietly into the room.
"This wasn't how I left you", the voice speaks. American. Masculine. Not young. "Fox".
He knew his name.
The footsteps walked further into the room.
Through the slither of opening, Fox saw the person kneel to look under the bed.
She had been right.
"Charles", the English voice. "The back door is open. They're probably outside again".
"No guess what it was that alerted them", he grits, before sighing. "They were in here though", the figure standing up. "Why? Why did they come back? What did they forget?"
Fox was too busy trying to decipher out the voices, before he realised that there were footsteps right outside the wardrobe.
The girls voice inhaled sharply, in an almost cry.
His side of the wardrobe door opened and the face looked directly at where he was hiding. It paused. Moving some of the clothes. Fox closed his eyes tight when he felt his face become exposed.
"Empty", the voice said, closing the door properly.
Fox blinked his eyes, not believing the words.
"We'll keep them monitoring the front of the house", the voices and footsteps were retreating, but all Fox could think was that there was noway that English dude didn't see him.
Why?
Was he protecting him them?
From what?
From who?
Most importantly, why?
'Son she is very important.
Her baby is very important.
There are people who will stop at nothing to get them.
That can't happen'.
...
Fox waited until he heard the front door had closed again before climbing out of the wardrobe.
He helped her out before turning on her. "Who are you?" he asks, gripping her arm, just as tightly as she had to him.
They were here for her.
They had to be.
All the commotion when she had first arrived. ...His father's black eyes. "Why are they looking for you?"
But she is silent.
Her eyes wide.
Frightened.
He can see her heart thumping wildly in her chest.
If the circumstances were different, he would have sympathised.
He pushes her against the wardrobe, no longer caring about her bump. "Who. Are. You?" enunciating each word. "Where are my parents?"
"I don't know. Please, I don't know anything. One moment I was at school and everything was fine. The next moment there was this", his face is pressed so close to hers, he can see the red veins tarring her white orbs as her voice becomes more and more hysterical and her eyes crumple into tears. "And, and, and then they took my father. My brothers. There were so many people. I tried to tell them it wasn't them but no one would believe me", and the rest he cannot make sense of as she erupts into sobs.
"OK, OK, OK", he says, moving away from her, registering his headache. But her hands are gripped to him again. This time the pockets of his hoodie. "You don't have to do that you know!" he snaps. "I'm not going to leave you!"
"...Everyone else has", she squeaks, and her voice still sounds like the angels.
"What's your name?" much softer.
She gasps, her eyes widening.
"You don't know your name?" Dryly.
"Your father told me not to tell anyone my name, but ...", she bites her bottom lip.
"Don't tell me then". His father must have told her for a reason. "Let's, let's get out of here".
...
He chucked their bags back on and putting up their hoods, they made their way through the house to the back door.
The back door was locked. Which only convinced Fox more that the Englishman had seen him. Why was he helping him escape, when the other was so set on finding him?
Using the key that they hid in the penguin shaped ceramic pot, he opened the back door, deciding to keep it just in case, before locking it from the outside.
Now what?
She still gripped onto him like a lifeline.
Everyone else has let her down.
But how was he going to get them out...?
She couldn't exactly jump the fence.
... Or maybe not jump, just climb over... There were people allegedly patrolling the fr- he saw a flash light and quickly pulled them against the wall.
"... all they do is tell us to watch the front. And what, suddenly its our fault that they disappeared. Nowhere in our instructions did they say to apprehend". The flash lights weren't pointed in their direction, against the back fence instead. But they were getting closer. So he brought her down to a crouch, hoping they wouldn't turn their flash lights around. "It's darker then Tutankhamen's tomb out here. How where we supposed to know it was them?"
The other flash light hummed in agreement. "Give me a leg up"
"You think they went over the fence?"
"Nothing but trees it looks to me. Perfect hiding place"
"Who will watch the front?"
"They're not going to be out front. We would've seen them".
"I think I'll stay out front, just in case Old Smokey comes back. That guy gives me the besiegers"
"I know what you mean".
This was their chance.
Standing up, Fox slowly but quickly tiptoed them around the corner of the house, before hurrying down the grass of the driveway. He turned them left instead of right as the road was more covered. Trees encased the whole of the cul-de-sacs around these streets and Fox knew them pretty much off by heart, as long as he didn't go too far in. He knew what he needed to do. He needed to get a car. He needed to drive exactly like his father had told him, and far away from those men who were trying to track them down. And he had a plan on how to obtain one.
...
They had been walking between houses and foliage for about five minutes before he started to slow down. He knew she wasn't going to like what he was going to do next.
"Don't leave me", she gasps desperately, sensing his next moves.
"I'm not! ... Not for long", weakly, as she embraces him tightly. Her bump pushing into him. He must be getting used to it because he doesn't lurch away. "I need to get us a car. But I can only walk so far with you".
"I can walk", she whispers against his chest. "Please, don't leave me". Pushing her nose into him. Her fingernails digging into his back through his layers.
She is really quite pathetic, he thinks. Well pathetic isn't the right word, he quickly resolves, but he can't think of the word right now. She tucks neatly under his arm pit. She would weigh practically nothing without her bump. When he saw the blood on the corner of her shoes at the station, he hadn't thought he had seen shoes as small on anyone but a child.
He sighs, and looks at the house in front of them.
...
Pulling out the spare hoodie. He wraps it around the brick sized rock he found amongst the trees. He hopes it doesn't make too much noise. It doesn't make that much noise in the movies. He also hopes that they don't have a dog ... or any kind of pet that would alert them of an intruder.
It takes four hits before he gives it enough force to even crack the glass of the veranda back door. She's stood beside him with their bags, finally relenting his freedom from her clutches.
He waits a minute but doesn't hear anything.
He decides to use his fist this time. Unwrapping the rock and wrapping his hand. After a few minutes of slowly prizing his hand through, he makes a forceful punch and the glass falls - luckily cushioned by carpet, but they still both run for cover behind the willow tree in the back garden.
But no lights turn on.
No one calls out.
Ditching the hoodie, and telling her to stand guard. The glass cuts his wrist as he forces it through to lift up the lock.
Trying the handle, the door miraculously opens! He spares a moment to inspect his wrist, but its not bleeding too badly. They have to be quick. He doesn't know what alarm system this house has.
He signals her to follow and she does. Her hand dutifully gripping onto the material of his hoodie while he searches for the kitchen. There is always a phone in the kitchen.
But he finds better.
A cell phone on the kitchen island.
He is dialing the number for a cab - a different company - when he realises he can no longer feel her behind him.
Fear seizes him and he assumes the worst.
Doing a 360 on the spot, she isn't in the room either!
"Where are you?" Fox whispers loudly, exiting the kitchen into the hall.
And then tiptoeing through the hall and past the stairs.
She was literally right behind him. Where could she have-
But he notices the light on in a room off the hall. Toilet most probably. He puts his ear to the door, and hears the faint sound of peeing.
Pregnant women are known to pee a lot.
Relieved over finding her, his brain registers there is an impatient voice on the other line and quickly gives the address they are at for immediate pick up.
Putting the cell back on the kitchen counter, he makes sure there is a very unimpressed face greeting her when she steps out.
She looks at him alarmed.
"I don't leave you, and you don't leave me without telling each other. Got it"
She nods.
His heart is still in his throat.
"Let's get out of here. The cab's on its way".
...
While they sit in the shrubbery waiting for the cab - a message was sent to the cell, saying it would be twenty minutes - she reaches for his wrist that got cut.
"It's just a scratch", he says. Even though it isn't. He should probably get it bandaged.
She digs into one of the bags and pulls out a small water bottle and washes the blood off.
It stings, but he isn't going to show her.
She then pulls out a first aid kit.
"Where did you get that?" he asks.
"It was in the bathroom", she whispers.
"You got it for me?" Oddly touched.
She nods. The sun is starting to break through and he can see the faint smile on her face. She is too busy concentrating on his wrist, so he figures she won't see his if he smiles.
By the time the cab arrives, she has his wrist bandaged, they've shared some water, and he has both bags on his back again.
Her hand holds his through the short drive.
She's probably hungry, he thinks. That is another thing that pregnant women do a lot.
Not too long though, the cab pulls up outside Sarah's house and after he has paid the man, and they are walking hand in hand up the driveway. Fox thinks, being Sarah's boyfriend really did have benefits. Like how he knew they kept a spare key to the house, and where they kept it. Like how he knew the code once they were inside so that the alarm didn't go off. Knew where they hung all their spare keys. Sarah's father's car was the closest to the garage door - the last to return, the first to leave - which considering it must be near five in the morning, didn't give them that much time as he knows from the times he has snuck into Sarah's room, her father's alarm went off at 6:15.
Fox even knew the combination to open the automatic garage door.
Did he care he was doing this to Sarah? No not really, he was ashamed to say. So much about this day. This evening. These last few hours had left Fox in a state where he would not be restful until he had left the state of Maryland. Maybe not until they were in New York, or even better Ontario. That was what he had planned. Drive North because everyone expects you to drive South. Canada, he only thought of while he was putting in the code to open Sarah's garage, but Canadian's are always famed for being nice and understanding. And that was exactly what they both needed at that moment.
Regardless, driving in Sarah's father's dark blue Ferrari F12, Fox definitely felt more in control. He knew he would have to get rid of the car soon, as there was noway Sarah's father wouldn't report his pride and joy missing the moment he realised. But that wouldn't be for atleast another two hours. With his foot down, Fox could be across the state border by then.
He nodded his head.
He was in control.
And she looked good in the passenger seat next him.
... A curious feeling he had never felt before was buzzing through him, that he didn't want to dwell on too much. Resting a hand on her knee, he feels her jump a mile.
"Sorry. You can sleep if you want", he says, even though she looks too wired. "We'll stop off at the nearest KFC we see and get you something to eat".
Her eyebrows furrowed but she nodded.
"Or McDonalds if you prefer?"
She shrugs.
"You do eat burgers and fries right?"
She shrugs her right shoulder, a smile curling.
"Come on", stealing a glance at her, but not for too long as he doesn't want to make the same mistake. He should probably have both hands on the steering wheel too, and he rectifies this. "Please tell me you have eaten at one of those places"
She purses her lips and then grins widely, showing her fluorescent green braces.
He lingers on them for a moment, before returning to the road.
She's like a little sister.
And yet, she was very pregnant.
A confusing juxtaposition.
There is nothing remotely promiscuous about her. She doesn't have a woman's body that would attract boys. She looks innocent. Untouched. The way she jumped when he rested a hand on her knee...
"You can trust me you know", glancing at her again, so she knows he's sincere. "I'm not going to hurt you", returning to the road. "I'm not going to let anyone else hurt you either. Or, or your baby".
He glances back at her, and she is looking at her bump with indifference, almost distaste. But then something softens in her eyes and she rubs it lovingly.
He turns back to the road - and just in time to notice the red light at the crossroads.
He needs to concentrate on the road, and keeping them safe. The sun will be up soon and the car will be reported missing.
Uploaded: 22/6/16
Edited: 25/6/16
I know - loong time since I updated. But with the Nanny Files finished, this is on the list to finish next. I don't think I made Fox an only child ... I did re-read through, but if I am mistaken, let me know. You are all more vigilant on these things then I am.
Hope you enjoyed! Let me know your views. Until next update!