Chapter 2: The Boy Who Wouldn’t Let Go
Laura had spent enough years struggling to know when someone was lying. Eli was hiding something, but he was not pretending to be scared.
He held the backpack so tightly that his knuckles turned pale.
“What’s in the bag?” Laura asked softly.
Eli shook his head. “I can’t tell you.”
“You can’t, or you don’t want to?”
“If I tell you, you’ll be in danger too.”
Laura almost laughed, but there was nothing funny about the way he said it.
She looked at Sophie asleep in her arms. Danger was the one thing she had tried hardest to keep away from her daughter. Yet here it was, sitting beside them, soaked and shivering.
“Who are you running from?” she asked.
Before Eli could answer, the bus slowed at the next stop.
Three men stood under the bus shelter.
They were not dressed like passengers waiting in the rain. Their coats were too neat. Their faces were too still. One of them looked directly through the windshield at Eli.
The boy slid lower in his seat.
“No,” he whispered. “No, no, no.”
The doors opened.
The three men stepped aboard.
The first man smiled at the driver. “Evening.”
The driver nodded nervously. “Last route. Where you headed?”
“End of the line.”
But none of the men paid.
The second man reached behind him and locked the bus door from the inside.
The driver turned. “Hey, you can’t—”
The tallest man leaned close and spoke quietly. Laura could not hear what he said, but the driver’s face lost all color.
The bus kept moving.
The men began walking down the aisle.
One showed a photo on his phone to each passenger. The old man shook his head. The nurse did the same. The college student took off one headphone, saw the screen, and quickly looked away.
Laura’s pulse quickened.
Eli pressed himself against the seat.
Laura did not think. She simply moved.
She pulled Eli closer, tucked him against her side, and draped Sophie’s blanket partly over his shoulders.
“Put your head down,” she whispered.
“What are you doing?”
“Pretending you’re mine.”
The tallest man reached their row.
His eyes moved from Laura, to Sophie, to Eli.
“Ma’am,” he said politely, “we’re looking for a boy.”
Laura forced herself to look tired instead of terrified. “At this hour, I’m looking for my bed.”
He held up the phone.
The photo showed Eli.
“Have you seen him?”
Laura glanced at the screen for half a second. “No.”
The man’s smile did not change.
“And this boy?”
“My son,” Laura said.
Eli stopped breathing.
The man looked at him. “What’s his name?”
Laura’s mind raced.
“Daniel.”
The man tilted his head. “Daniel what?”
“Daniel Bennett.”
Sophie suddenly opened her eyes.
Laura’s heart nearly stopped.
Sophie blinked sleepily at Eli, then at the man. “Mommy, who’s that?”
The man’s smile widened.
Laura squeezed Sophie gently.
Before she could speak, Eli whispered, “I’m sorry, Mom.”
Laura stared at him.
The man’s expression shifted.
May you like
Not much, but enough.
He knew.
