Feeling light-headed, like a balloon that has been untied and whose air is being let out, I drop into the seat beside Beth. “How much do you guys have, because I don’t have that much.”
Beth places a hand over my wrist, and the friendly gesture shocks me with a jolt of electricity. I stare at her, absolutely bewildered. Her blue eyes flood with sadness as she answers, “Isaiah and I would be lucky to pull fifty dollars between us.”
It’s like my soul split open. Noah’s innocent of this. I close my eyes. He has to be. The man I love...the man I made love to...he wouldn’t do this to me. He wouldn’t purposely hurt me.
A slow, painful pulse begins in the center of my forehead, and I massage my temples, hoping it will force the hurt and this entire night to go away, but life is never that easy.
Noah’s behind bars. A couple thousand dollars. Nausea rolls in my stomach.
I’ve got to get him out, and there’s only one way I can do that. I stand and both Isaiah and Beth jump to be near me.
I wave them off. “This is something I have to do alone.”
“What?” Isaiah asks.
I suck in a large gulp of air, but I still tremble with the idea. “I need to make a call. Just give me a few seconds alone, okay?”
Isaiah pops his head to the right as if saying he’s not okay with it, but is granting permission anyway. “Stay by the door where I can see you.”
I nod then step out into the night. Mist hangs and dances in the air, and I shiver. From the cold, from the situation, I don’t know, but I try not to overanalyze. This isn’t about me or how this call will murder the fragile relationship I’ve spent months developing. This is about Noah.
My cell has never felt so heavy or the buttons so hard to press. Even with the time difference, this will be a wake-up call. An unwanted one. One, to be honest, I had been told they’d be expecting.
For years I craved my father’s approval. For years I sacrificed my happiness to receive it. Leaving Kentucky with Noah was one of my first real strides toward independence. Through the weeks I had been traveling, I felt my father relax his stance and side with me instead of against me, but this will cause him to be full of disapproval and anger.
I swallow when the phone rings once. Clear my throat when it rings a second time.
“Echo?” My father’s voice is groggy with sleep and full of worry. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m okay, but...” Deep breath before I fall off the ledge. “It’s Noah. I need your help.”
Noah
With my head in my hands, I sit on a cold metal bench and count the two million ways I’ve fucked up not only in the past twenty-four hours, but over the past week, too.
I’ve been fingerprinted, photographed and processed. I had everything. Everything. Isaiah told me the path I needed to take and because I’m messed up in my damned brain, I ran in the opposite direction.
We made love. I had Echo in my arms and because I’m terrified of losing her, I’ve trashed everything between us.
“My dad is going to freak!” With blotched cheeks and tears streaming down his face, the guy standing beside me in the cell is seconds away from getting his ass kicked by the ticked-off mob sharing our breathing space. “What am I going to tell him?”
“Someone get him to shut the fuck up!” a guy with a Mohawk yells from the other side. Twenty of us share a large holding cell created for caging animals like me.
“Leave him alone.” I win the stare-down contest with Mohawk guy in less than five seconds. I fucked it up with Echo and not a damn person here wants to mess with me—the stewing volcano.
“Thanks—” Blotched cheek guy starts, but I cut him off.
“Sit your ass down,” I mumble.
“My dad—”
“Is going to be pissed if he comes here to claim you in a body bag. So shut it.”
The guy’s my age, honestly a few years older, but he’s still got a plug-in for an umbilical cord. Most of the guys here were busted from the party. Who the hell knows if this kid was arrested for selling, holding or for stupidity, and I’ll be damned if I ask.
He collapses to the bench next to me. “Dad will stop paying for college.”
My head hits the back of the cinderblock wall with enough force that pain weaves through my brain like a spider’s web. Fuck me—college. The only reason I’m able to go to school is because of the system. They had me sign papers that stated I understood that by receiving the money I’d stay out of trouble.
This is trouble.
What happens a thousand miles away will affect school...my future—my throat tightens—my brothers. Carrie and Joe kept me from them for two years because they thought I was bad news. This isn’t think—this is know.
Pure anger races through my veins, and I bolt to my feet, searching for something to ram my fist into—someone to blame because the truth, that I’ve destroyed my life...I can’t face it.
I pace the floor and rake my hands through my hair. This burning in my lungs, in my throat, it’s a damned pressure cooker ready to explode.
In front of me is an open patch of wall. My fist rolls back and right as I’m about to lose my shit with the cinderblock... “Hutchins, Noah,” a cop calls out. “Let’s go.”
The low murmur of conversation dies as the door to the cell slides open. It’s like they’re half expecting me to drop dead the moment I leave. Part of me is expecting it, too.
I wait for the bastard to cuff me again, but he doesn’t. He crooks his finger for me to follow. Two steps behind and attempting to watch my back, I do. With a key, then a card, two dead bolts unlatch on a thick door, and he opens it. He walks through and so do I.
I stop breathing. Not five feet away, Echo slides her fingers along the length of her scars. The door shuts behind me, and my gaze nails the cop. “What’s going on?”
Echo’s head jerks up, and our eyes meet. Beth and Isaiah scrutinize me like I’m a damn ghost being resurrected.
“Charges were dropped. Both you and your girlfriend are free.”
Girlfriend. Echo’s forehead wrinkles, and my eyes snap shut. Girlfriend. “Echo...”
Another click and a cold draft hits my back as the door behind me opens again. Echo’s sight falls beyond my shoulder, and she lifts her chin in that familiar pissed way.
Appearing pale and for the first time smaller than life, Mia walks up beside me. “I believe a thank-you is in order.”
“Why does he think she’s your girlfriend?” Echo demands.