Home (Finding My Home Book 1) Read online

  Maybe I should’ve but I didn’t. It would make no difference to them if I was actually bothered enough to tell them that. They’ve already painted me as guilty. Which means they’ll be planning their revenge and ways to punish me for a misdeed I didn’t even commit. I can say for certain that it would not end well for me, if I was placed in one of the cars with them.

  I just want to be free from this life. I want to graduate and go to college, then have a simple and predictable future, but most of all I want to be safe and that’s never going to happen if I don’t take the risks in the first place. My resolve hardens as we pull up to the police station and the cop lets me out of the car. As he’s escorting me inside, he remains respectful of my aversion to touch, and keeps a respectable distance between us. Making sure that we aren’t touching but he’s close enough to grab me if I decided to run. That makes up my mind.

  I turn to him.

  “Was the raid just on my father’s place?”

  “No” he watches me cautiously.

  “I'll tell you everything, his associates, the drop off points. I'll tell you everything I know. I'll even testify but I want all charges against me dropped, I did nothing willingly” I state firmly. I'll tell them everything anyway even if I have to go back to juvie for a while but I figure it’s worth a shot to ask.

  “There weren't going to be any charges held against you. We are well aware you were not a willing participant” he growls.

  His reaction makes me think that they’ve been watching my father for quite some time. He wasn’t shy about when he dished out the beatings, only being cautious enough that the school wouldn’t notice anything was wrong. The people he surrounded himself with though they didn’t give a shit and in the last week or so he’d struck me in front of them on multiple occasions. If the cops were watching him as closely as it seems, then they would’ve seen it. It could even be why they made a move when they did. I know this is my life and I’ve accepted it, but normal people don’t take kindly to grown men using their seventeen-year-old daughters as punching bags.

  I nod as he leads me to an interrogation room with a woman officer and then takes my statement. It takes a while, but I tell them everything, they both look horrified at what my dad has put me through but then again, any decent human being would be. I give them my statement with a blank expression, keeping my emotions locked down, there is no room for them right now. This recount of my life should always be told with no emotion.

  Emotions are a weakness; one I can’t afford to have and one that has been used against me before.

  “Is that everything?” the woman cop asks softly.

  She’s actually a detective and the guy in tactical gear who escorted me in is also one. Despite how uncomfortable he must be still in full gear he has stayed throughout the whole process.

  It also became obvious that they aren’t part of the local cops either but federal which means my father was into a lot more shit than I knew. My suspicions were right.

  “Yes” I say curtly.

  There’s a knock on the door before either of them can say anything and a cop in uniform enters, glancing at me with pity that has my jaw clenching. He steps up to the woman detective and leans down talking quietly in her ear. She nods once and then turns to me as the guy leaves, closing the heavy door of the interrogation room behind him.

  “Whilst you’ve been here, we’ve managed to get hold of some people mentioned in your mothers will. As your father didn’t seem to have one, we had to do some digging.”

  My heart clenches, no, please god, no. Don’t say it.

  “They were more than happy to take you in and get all your school transcripts transferred to their local one. We will have to keep your previous school name out of the records due to the nature of this case.”

  Fuck, please, don’t say it, I silently beg again.

  I can't go back there, I'm broken, damaged. They won't want me anymore and they’re my happy place. I can pretend that they’d still want me right now, but I’m not stupid enough to think that, that would actually be the case if they saw the kind of person I’ve grown into. I live in the dark and I don’t completely hate it, in fact sometimes I crave it. I may have said that I want a boring predictable life, but I know myself better than that. I wanted to escape my father sure, but I wouldn’t have been able to stay away from the temptation of the darkness. The adrenalin and thrill of the fight, would’ve tempted me away far too easily. The temptation to use the darkness in me to protect those who still have their light would’ve become almost overwhelming.

  I can't have my happy place taken away from me; I won't survive it.

  “Rob and Jenny Parker are who your mother mentioned. In fact, there were quite a few people mentioned in her will, all of them from the same town. We had several officers contacting each of the people mentioned and all of them wanted to take you in, as far as I'm aware they ended up discussing it amongst themselves and Rob and Jenny worked out the best, do you remember them?”

  Fuck!!

  Of course, I remember them, how could I forget? They’re Trick’s parents. They are sending me back to the only place I’ve ever really considered my home.

  “I, erm, yeah” I stutter showing the most emotion I've shown throughout this whole process.

  “Good I'm glad. A woman from social services is waiting for you and will take you to get your belongings from the trailer and then drive you to Oregon.”

  Crap, I won't be able to take my bike then. I might have to call in a favour to get someone to bring it down to me, although the fewer people that know where I'm going the better, just in case.

  Echoing my thoughts the cop continues, “there are only a handful of people who know where you're going and we’re going to keep it that way. No one else has seen your mothers will and your father won't be able to point anyone in the right direction” she adds somewhat reassuringly.

  I just nod. My mind still stuck on the fact they’re sending me home; I'm going to see my boys again. The boys who are my happy place.

  No.

  They aren’t mine anymore and they won't want the me that I've been forced to become through circumstance. I'm not the carefree child who’d laugh at pretty much anything and who’d runaway screaming from a tiny spider. I've since learnt there are far worse things out there than a harmless arachnid.

  “There’s still a few things I need you to sign before I can let you go, I know you’ve had a long night but on the plus side you can sleep for a bit on the way to Oregon. Would you like a drink whilst I get the last of the paperwork together?” she asks kindly.

  “Coffee please, black?” I ask cautiously, it's not really how I like it but my father, for all the money he made, only gave me fifteen dollars a week to do all the grocery shopping for myself.

  With the lack of sleep I get, coffee is an essential, but milk and sugar aren’t. So, in order to buy more food I stopped taking sugar and milk in my coffee, now it's just a habit to ask for it black.

  “Sure thing” she says gathering her papers and striding out of the door, the male detective whose name I’ve already forgotten, follows her out, nodding at me as he goes.

  As soon as the door shuts behind them my thoughts are consumed with the boys I left behind. I mean logically I know they’re all seventeen or eighteen. Actually, Rafe might be nineteen now, my brains too fuzzy to work it out. Either way, they are definitely not boys anymore.

  Until I see them though, I can't imagine them as anything other than the boys I knew. Will they hate me for not saying goodbye? I scoff silently at my thoughts, they're going to hate me because of who I am now. It'll make no difference that I left them without saying goodbye.

  Not that I had a choice.

  If they ever even found out about half the shit I’ve done, they’d look at me with disgust, I know I do. Most of it was in self-defence or to protect someone who couldn’t protect themselves and I’m proud of that part of my life. Just not the lengths that I had to go to or the way th
at I became who I am now.

  The woman detective soon comes back saving me from my spiralling thoughts and bringing me the coffee I desperately need at this point. It's not great but it's warm and it’s the first drink I've had for quite a while so it tastes like heaven to me.

  It doesn’t take too long to get all the various bits of paperwork signed and she tells me that the trial won't be for a while. Instead of testifying in several different cases for each faction of criminals that my father managed, she said she should be able to get my whole testimony recorded and used for all the smaller groups, but I'll need to be there in person for the main hearing.

  I agree because honestly, I just want them all behind bars. I'll do it individually if they need me to. I want to be free of anything to do with my dickhead father.

  Finally, she leads me out of the interrogation room and into the front waiting area. A woman in a creased brown suit, stands to greet the detective, not even acknowledging that I’m stood right next to her.

  I frown, fantastic, first warning.

  She turns to smile at me eventually, when the detective officially releases me into her care and although her mouth is smiling, her eyes are cold and bored.

  Second warning.

  She leads me out to a dark blue sedan making me sit in the back without a word as she drives me back to the trailer and then waits until I get out of the car to open her window.

  Ding, ding, ding and there it is. We have warning number three people.

  I just know that whatever comes out of her mouth now is going to be a fucking shit show.

  “Look I’ve been sat in that precinct all fucking night, waiting for your bratty ass. I'm not driving you to Oregon you can find your own way there and I will be making sure you actually find your way there, do I make myself clear?”

  I stand staring at her mutely through the car window for a minute before nodding and watching her drive away, wheels spinning and everything. I've had some shitty care workers before but she takes the fucking biscuit.

  The police have all cleared out by now and I was cleared to come back here to get my stuff anyway. So, with that in mind I duck under the police tape that’s crossing the hole where the front door to the trailer used to be. Stepping inside, I carefully avoid all the bloodstains on the carpet and splattered up the walls. Nice. Apparently, although the cops are done with the place, the clean-up people haven’t arrived yet. I make my way back to my bedroom; it's obviously been searched but thankfully my English book and hoody are still in front of my baseboard hiding place. It wouldn’t have been a massive deal if they were found but, they would’ve been confiscated and those knives have protected me and other people, more times than I’d care to admit. So, I’m somewhat attached them. Not to mention that it would be unwise to go anywhere unarmed at the moment.

  I grab my school backpack and tip out my school supplies, repacking only a pen since I'll need it at my new school. I grab the small pile of clothes that are stacked neatly on the floor since, they're my only clothes. Picking them up, I pack my other Henley, a pair of jeans, four pairs of socks, five pairs of underwear and my spare bra into the bag, keeping my burgundy jumper out to put on under my bike jacket. I guess now that the social worker has proven herself to be useless, I can take my bike and don’t have to worry about calling in a favour to get it bought to me. What the hell would she have expected me to do if I didn’t have transport? Did she even know I had a bike?

  It briefly crosses my mind that I could just run but I dismiss the thought almost as soon as it appears. If I do that those criminals won’t get the justice they deserve, and I’ll always be running. I want this ended so I can move on with my life.

  I fish out my only other pair of shoes from under my bed and chuck them in the bag. They're only a pair of flip flops that I use in the summer, so they don’t take up a lot of room in my backpack. I reach further under my bed and feel around until my hand lands on a small box. Pulling it out I open it up, ignoring the faces in the photos. If I see them right now, I’m going to lose my nerve and I can’t let that happen. Oregon is the safest place for me right now, at least until my dad’s associates are dealt with.

  The small mementos that to most people would be junk, but to me are memories of me and my boys, get shuffled around as I pull out an old, folded map and a handful of emergency cash.

  Thankfully, my bike can go quite far on one tank of gas so I have enough money to get me to Oregon. I have crackers and couple of bottles of water here as well that I can take with me. Eating hardly anything is the norm for me so that’s more than enough to keep me going. I’m also used to running on hardly any sleep, I’ll be safe enough to make the drive there, especially since the coffee from the precinct is still coursing through my veins.

  I gently place the box in my bag with my clothes before placing the crackers and water that were stored under my bed on top. I unfold the map a spread it across my bed.

  My cell is a really old shitty one, pretty much all it can do is make calls and send texts so no google maps for me. I slip my hand back under my bed, this time reaching for the slats on the bottom of it and pull out my spare sim card. Taking the one out of the phone, I snap it in half before replacing it with the new one, just to be safe. I’d rather be overly cautious than regret it later on.

  When we first got here, I dreamt of running away and going back to Oregon. I even managed to find this map at a grocery store. It’s the first thing I ever stole. I planned this journey thousands of times in my head before the harsh reality of my situation dawned on me and I became someone they wouldn't want to have back.

  Although I sometimes revel in my darkness, I know that most people wouldn’t be able to deal with it or even understand.

  I memorize the route back to my small hometown and to Trick’s place, assuming of course they still live where I remember. The stupid bitch of a social worker didn’t actually tell me where I’m supposed to be going. It’s almost like she doesn’t want me to make it. I shake the thought off, dismissing it as irrelevant. That would be a bit too conspiracy like for me. Once I'm sure I've got at least the first part of the journey memorized, I fold it carefully and drop it into the bag zipping it up. It's sad that this small backpack contains all my worldly possessions and still isn’t full.

  I pull on my burgundy hoody, zipping it all the way up before putting my leather bike jacket back on over the top. It’s December now and it’s cold as balls outside, it makes me wish I had more clothing to put on actually. Riding a motorbike in the winter isn’t much fun but at least it’s not raining right now.

  Please don’t rain, showing up like a drowned rat would make an amazing first impression, not.

  I check that my bike keys are still in the pocket of my jacket, then pull open my baseboard hiding place. I pull out my knives and slip them into the very roughly made sheaths I stitched myself, for inside the sleeves of my bike jacket. They keep the knives secure, easily accessible and stop them from stabbing me. I'm counting it as a win.

  I also pull out my licence plate, I've never used it. Using fake ones instead. I don’t want to get caught using fake plates though and since no one knows my real ones, as soon as I'm far enough away I'll swap them over. Sliding the plates into the large front pocket of my bag, I take one last glace around before making my way back through the trailer, once again avoiding the bloodstains. I tighten the straps on my bag and without sparing the shitty place another glance, they can burn it for all I fucking care. I stroll towards the neighbourhood where my bike is parked.

  Now that I've been given a way out my skin is practically crawling with the need to escape. It takes everything in me not run to my bike, the need to escape is that strong. If I run though, I'm automatically suspicious, especially in this neighbourhood. Someone would stop me, if they stop me, questions will be asked and I’ll either be hauled back to the police station or robbed, depending on who stopped me in the first place.

  Although I’m eager to leave, I’m only allowing
myself to focus on the escaping part, not where I’m going. I know I’m going to have to deal with the fact I’m going to see my boys again.

  No Ever, you need to get out of that fucking habit right now dumbass, they aren’t yours.

  I’m just going to put off thinking about where I’m headed for a bit longer.

  Coward.

  Too fucking right I am. They’re going to hate who I’ve become, I’m not exactly sunshine and fucking rainbows anymore, I’m rough and broken edges.

  It feels like it takes hours of walking until I finally see my bike but really it can't have been any longer than ten minutes. There’s a feeling under my skin, like an itch I can’t scratch, practically screaming for me to leave right fucking now. I trust my instincts implicitly; they’ve saved my ass countless times now. With that thought pounding through my head, I quickly throw my leg over my bike pulling my helmet on and then turn the key in the ignition, double checking my fuel gage to make sure I have as much gas as I thought I did.

  Well thank fuck for that, I have enough gas to get me to the gas station a few hours outside of town, where I had planned to stop. It should be the only stop I'll need to make assuming that I don’t have any issues. Please for the love of just every damn thing, don’t let me have any issues, I silently beg. I’m about at my limit right fucking now.

  It's around seven a.m. I’m guessing I should arrive by about five this afternoon, so long as everything runs smoothly.

  I’m running on no sleep for over twenty-four hours now and very little sleep the night before. It might be a good idea to grab a coffee at the gas station. I should have just enough money after filling my tank to get one.

  The first hour I'm on the road, I check my mirrors every few minutes to make sure I'm not being followed, by hour two I start to relax having not seen any suspicious vehicles or any sign that someone’s following me. A couple of hours after that I pull into the gas station I already found on the map, fill my tank back up and stretch my legs for a few minutes. Chugging some of the water as well before deciding I really do need coffee, if I’m going to drive safely and stay alert for the rest of the trip. I nip inside the station, keeping my hood up as I grab a black coffee from the machine. The guy behind the counter pays me absolutely no mind, barely looking at me as I pay for my gas and coffee. His lack of attention makes my shoulders lose a small amount of tension.