Chapter Six

 

Not much made sense at the moment. Summer still couldn’t wrap her head around that man named Nobody and how he had just materialized out of nothing. Or that he was married to the doctor’s sister. Or that his wife already knew Summer was here and was extending greetings.

Or that the sheriff had just walked out of his bedroom wearing enough weaponry to start a war and she had told him she’d wait up for him.

What on earth that she gotten herself into? The reservation hadn’t seemed nearly this terrifying when she’d come the last time. She hadn’t even been here for twelve hours and already she had been concerned for her safety at least twice.

She heard the water shut off in the bathroom. She hadn’t been able to understand everything Tim said to Georgey, but she’d distinctly heard him tell the boy where his firearm was and how he was to use it to defend her. She didn’t know if that was sweet or the most ridiculously stupid thing she had ever heard in her entire life. Or both.

If anyone was going to fire a gun, it was going to be her.

But then they had kept talking and she hadn’t heard everything.

A few minutes later, Georgey walked—no, strutted—into the living room like he was hot stuff. Whatever Tim said to him, it left the boy with a clear case of overinflated ego. Which was almost as dangerous as him with a gun.

“Sit down,” she told him.

“Let me just check the perimeter,” he said with a swagger.

Summer rolled her eyes, but she didn’t stop him as he checked the windows and locks on the doors. When he was done, he sat on the edge of the couch, his body tense and his eyes restless. It was as if he expected to be attacked by the creatures of the night at any moment.

Which would’ve sounded ridiculous about an hour and a half ago. But now? She didn’t know anything. Not anymore.

“We need to figure out what we’re going to do,” she told him in her most grown-up voice.

“I’m going to keep you safe,” Georgey said.

“I was talking more about the long-term rather than the next three hours,” she said, unable to keep the ice out of her voice. “You're a minor and I prefer you not handle guns.”

“I know how to shoot.” Just like that, Georgey’s swagger was subsumed beneath a teenage boy’s attitude.

“I appreciate that the sheriff told you to keep me safe, but that gun better be under his pillow and not tucked in your waistband.”

“You’re not my mom, you know.”

This again. Summer knew she had long months, if not years, of this awaiting her if she took custody of this child. “No, I’m not. But I have rules. You will watch your mouth around me and you will not pack firearms. Put it back. Now.” Then she waited to see what he would do.

Georgey held her gaze for the longest moment—just long enough she was certain he was going to defy her openly. Then he got to his feet. “Your rules suck,” he muttered under his breath as he headed back down the hallway.

When he came back, he did not sit at the edge of the couch and look vigilant. Instead, he slumped back, crossed his arms and scowled. She had her work cut out for her.

“What would you like to see happen, George?”

“What do you mean? And why do you call me George? My name is Georgey.”

She didn’t answer immediately, holding the silence just long enough the boy began to squirm. “I called you Georgey when you were three. But you’re not a little boy anymore. However,” she added before he could shoot off his mouth again, “I will call you whatever you’d like, since we're going to be together for the foreseeable future.”

Georgey managed to look both worried and defiant at the same time. “So I’m stuck with you? Is that it?”

She shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. “You can stay here. I don’t remember very much about your mother, although the Sheriff has made it clear he would prefer not to turn you over to her.” She leaned toward him. “I’m sorry about your grandmother, but I don’t know that she’ll be able to take care of you anymore.”

The look that passed over Georgey’s face was brief but intense. It told Summer what she needed to know—the boy truly did care about his grandma. “Whatever,” he muttered.

“It’s not whatever,” she retorted. “I’m willing to wait and see how she does. I can’t tell you if she’s going to get better or not. But I can tell you what I expect from you. You will go back to school. If you stay here, I still expect you to get your high school diploma or your GED. If you come with me, I will personally enroll you in my school and keep an eye on you.”

Georgey made a pfft noise, but he didn’t say anything smart-ass. Summer took that as a good sign. She went on, “Right now, I live in a one-bedroom apartment. If you come with me, we’ll move into a two-bedroom apartment. You will have your own space. But there will be rules. No firearms, no weapons in general, no drugs and no alcohol. You’ll maintain a C average or higher for your grades.”

“Yay, more rules,” he mumbled.

“In exchange,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “I will provide you with clothes that fit, food to eat, and a safe place to sleep. We might be able to negotiate about transportation. A bike is fine for the summer, but you might need a car for the winter. Minneapolis is cold.”

She could tell Georgey was trying not to look excited. His studious boredom, however, cracked around the edges as his eyes widened at the mention of a car. “I, uh, I don’t have my driver’s license. But I do know how to drive.”

She leveled her sternest glare at him. “Yes, I saw the part where you’d stolen a truck. If you live under my roof, you will follow the law. Being arrested will revoke any privileges you have. If you get a car, you would lose it immediately. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yeah.” Georgey started tapping his fingers on his forearm. “You got a boyfriend or something?”

“Nope. I don’t even have a cat.” She smiled, and he almost cracked one back. Then she took a deep breath and told him what she didn’t want to. “There’s one complication with this potential plan—my mother. She’s not a big fan of our father and I don’t think she’s going to be…happy to see you.”

Georgey stared at her, looking young. She could almost see the toddler he’d once been. “Would we live with her?”

“No.” For the first time, Summer realized that her mother might actually disown her.

Was that a risk she was willing to take?

Georgey leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “I don’t like school,” he warned her.

“I don’t care,” she replied. “What do you think you’re going to do with your life if you don’t have a high school degree? I’ll be risking a lot to bring you home with me—do you understand that? I don’t have a lot of money and I’m sure my mother won't help. But we are family and once upon a time, I promised our father that I would look after you. I keep my promises. What I’m asking from you is a promise to do the same. You get good grades, you don’t get kicked out of school and you don’t break the law. You might have to get a job to help out. And in exchange I’ll take care of you. I’ll help you figure out what you’re going to do for the rest of your life. This is the deal, Georgey. Because Sheriff Tim seems to think that if I leave you here, you’re going to be spending a lot more time in a jail cell. So which is it going to be? Are you going to give up? Or are you going to try to work for something?”

Silence settled over the living room. She had no idea if she had gotten through to him. It was pretty clear the concept of living within a certain set of rules was daunting to Georgey. How long had he been running completely wild. Had his grandmother been able to do anything for him?

Summer harbored no illusions about what would happen if she took him home with her. There might be a grace period where he tried—but sooner or later, he’d rub up against one of the rules and he’d push back. He was ten years younger than she was, but he had a good four inches on her.

He’d never been arrested for assaulting anyone, though. She’d checked.

Finally she said, “You can think about it, you know. I had to give up my summer teaching job to come out here and Tim said he might be able to get me a part-time job teaching GED classes. We could be here until school starts in the fall. But you’ve got to stay out of trouble. You finish up at the clinic and you do whatever other community service chores Tim assigns to you and you show me that you can follow the rules and that I won’t regret taking you in and then we can talk about a car when you get to Minneapolis. Understood?”

The car was going to be stretching it. But Georgey nodded. If a car was the carrot she needed to get him to behave, then that was what it took.

“Now,” she said in a softer voice. “I know all about your arrest record but I don’t know very much about you. If I’m going to be cooking you dinner, you better tell me what kind of food you like.”

***

Nights like this made Tim wish he worked in a nice big city with a nice modern jail that had whole cellblocks on separate floors instead of three cells, all within shouting distance of his desk. Because every cell was full and there was a shit-ton of shouting going on.

He had the Killerz in the far left cell and the Warriors in the far right one. The unconscious ones from both gangs were in the middle. Tim scowled at Nobody’s handiwork. He didn’t think anybody was on the verge of death in there, but he wasn’t sure.

“Man, you can’t hold me!” Levi shouted. A few of the Warriors made some unflattering comments about Levi’s parentage and if Tim hadn’t been worried about having to repair the damage on his own dime, he would’ve fired a couple of shots into the ceiling just to shut them all up.

If they didn’t settle down soon, ceilings be damned.

Tim looked over at Jack. “Did you get an ETA?”

Jack shook his head. He'd called in the state troopers and made contact with his FBI handler about the Los Perros lead, but it was two in the morning and no one was in a great big hurry to get out to the White Sandy.

It was going to be a hell of a long night.

Jack leaned forward and said quietly, so that only Tim could hear him, “We need Nobody.”

Tim nodded. The only way these idiots would sit down and shut up was if Nobody was scaring the hell out of them.

“See if he’ll come in,” Tim said.

Jack got up, which drew the attention of multiple gang bangers. They turned their attention from Levi to Jack, and while the deputy was normally hard to ruffle, tonight he’d taken some direct fire and had been grazed on the shoulder. It hadn’t done wonders for his mood. He threw open the door and turned around to glare at the prisoners.

Then he turned off the light.

Everyone got blissfully quiet as they waited to see what Jack was going to do. He walked back to his desk and turned on a lamp. Almost everyone’s gaze followed Jack, which meant they missed Nobody slipping in like a shadow. It wasn’t until the leader of the Warriors, Chuck, stepped forward and told Jack where he could put his lamp—only to be yanked against the bars so hard Tim heard something snap—that everyone realized Jack and Tim were not alone anymore.

Everyone—except for Chuck—shut the hell up and backed against the far wall, out of the way of Nobody’s long reach. Chuck made a noise that was half groan, half scream. Tim took advantage of the silence and said, “There are worse things in this world than being locked up in jail for the night. I’d be happy to let any of you go right now. But once you’re no longer a guest of the White Sandy police, you’re on your own, aren’t you?”

Nobody released his grip on Chuck and shoved him back. The leader fell on his ass and scooted back as if he’d seen the face of the devil himself.

No one requested to be released.

“Now,” Tim went on. “I hope everyone has a clear understanding of how far we will go to keep this reservation a safe and law abiding place to live.”

“This is police brutality,” somebody muttered. It sounded like it came from the Killerz cell.

“How can that be? Jack and I are the only police on this reservation,” he informed them at large. “We had no knowledge of any other force. There are no other deputies and no other sanctioned law enforcement members. Anything else you’re seeing is most likely a figment of your imagination.”

“Goddamn sica,” someone else whispered.

An electric charge passed around the room, making Tim’s teeth chatter with the force of the power. Jesus, Nobody wasn’t going to turn into a fireball, was he? Tim had been on the receiving end of some of his electric shocks before, but this was crazy.

What only made it worse was that even Tim wasn’t exactly sure where Nobody was in the room.

“Can you turn the lights back on?” a small, scared voice asked. If Tim hadn’t been one hundred percent sure Georgey was back at his place with Summer, he would’ve guessed it was the boy. But it wasn’t. It was the kid everyone called Shorty. And he probably wasn’t older than fifteen. “Blaine isn’t moving,” Shorty went on. He sounded like he was about to start crying.

“Shut up, Shorty,” someone snapped. It sounded like Levi.

Tim tilted the shade of his lamp so it shone where he thought Shorty was standing. The kid looked all of twelve surrounded by older, tougher men.

“Here’s the thing,” he said to the kid. “The doctor is a good woman who won’t take any of your shit and Clarence doesn’t like idiots. I’m trying to figure out why I should bother to wake either of them up in the middle of the night to take care of any of you.” Shorty looked stricken. “What did you think was going to happen? You were all going to miss? No. You went there to hurt someone. And someone got hurt. This is what happens when you declare war on your own people. You watch them die and you know it was your fault.”

Now the kid was crying and Tim felt bad. He tried to think—who the hell was Blaine? But he drew a blank.

Normally, this was the point where Jack would jump in and be the good cop. Tim was the bad cop and Nobody was the scary not-cop. But Jack was still pissed about being shot and he made no move to smooth over the truth of the situation. Instead, he sat there and glared.

Still, Tim couldn’t exactly have a bunch of dead prisoners on his hand. It would look bad. So after another minute—and he made damn sure it was a full minute—he said, “I’ll see what I can do. But I hear one lewd or rude comment to any medical professional who bothers to show up to save your sorry hides, and I will turn the lights off and walk out. Do I make myself clear?”

Just in case he hadn’t, Tim felt a little burst of the electricity coming off of Nobody. Apparently, the man was standing by the front door.

The only sound was of Shorty sniffling. Tim remembered telling Summer that it depended on the kid and it depended on the crime, but he’d had other kids sleeping on his couch. It wasn’t a lie—but it wasn’t entirely the truth either.

He looked at Jack and nodded. Jack got up and walked slowly to the front of the room, and although Tim kept his eyes on the door, he didn’t see Nobody slip out. But when Jack flipped on the light, there were only two people in the room who weren’t in a cell.

“Now, we can do this the easy way,” Tim told the stunned group, “or we can do it the hard way. And we all know what the hard way is, don’t we?” A few people turned their backs on him, refusing to see him or Jack. That was fine. “Shorty, come to the front of the cell.”

Tim wanted to go home. He wanted to see if Summer was tucked in his bed, if she’d wake up when he stuck his head into the room to make sure she was all right. He wanted to make sure Georgey hadn’t done anything stupid, like sleep with the gun tucked into his waistband. He did not want to spend the next several hours calling parents and grandparents and dealing with state troopers and FBI agents and filling out accident reports explaining how some people’s arms might have gotten broken while in custody.

But he didn’t have much of a choice at this point. This was the job.

His job.