Page 66 of Inside the Maelstrom: Part Two
Her face said bullshit, but the haunted look in her eye told me she had reasons for her wariness. That fucking broke me. She was just a fucking kid.
“Do you have a name at least?”
“People call me Lottie.”
“You got a home, Lottie?”
The girl looked at me like I was stupid. “Would I be sleeping in a fucking dank ass public restroom if I did?”
Kid had quite a fucking mouth on her, and that made me like her. Aviva reappeared, holding two tests in an iron grip. She set them on the small shelf beside the hand dryer, looking pale, and I pulled her into my arms.
“Doesn’t matter what they say. We’ll deal with it, okay?” I kissed the top of her head, and Lottie made an exaggerated puking noise.
Aviva laughed, turning toward the girl. “You go to Jameson High?”
The girl looked wary again. “Yeah.”
Viva nodded, letting out a small yawn. “I went there. Is the gym teacher still creepy as fuck?”
“Grabby-hands Gibson? Hell yeah.”
They laughed, reminiscing about the school they’d both attended, though they were never there at the same time. Lottie had just transferred here last year, after absconding out of foster care.
I wondered if being an adult meant I had to turn her in to the cops, but I kept remembering her haunted look.
Finally, it was time to check the tests. I wasn’t sure I was breathing. We both stared at the shelf above the sinks like it held the fate of the world. “You check,” Aviva whispered, but I made no move to pick up the tests. Because the truth was, I would be happy either way.
Lottie jumped off the toilet seat. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Pussyfooting around isn’t going to change the reality of it.” She reached up and grabbed the first test. She frowned. “Negative. Congrats?”
All the tension left Aviva’s body. She reached up and grabbed the second one. “Negative too. Fuck, that was a close call.”
“Mazel tov, I guess,” Lottie snarked. She wandered back to her cubicle.
We couldn’t just leave her there, could we? No, I couldn’t just leave her, not if I wanted to sleep at night.
“You got someone somewhere?”
She hesitated, but shook her head. “Not anymore.”
I huffed under my breath. “Let’s go.” Aviva walked toward the door, though she was eyeing me. “You too, Lottie.” There was no way Aviva would let me leave without the girl.
“Uh, I don’t know what kinky shit you two are into, but I pass.”
I rolled my eyes and seriously thought about reversing my previous standing and leaving her there. “You’re a fucking child. I’d rather fuck a beehive. But you can’t stay in this filthy fucking death trap either, so guess what? You’ve collected the last fuck I have left to give to humanity, and I am getting you out of here. Let’s go.”
She eyed us both warily, and I could see her weighing up the risk. When she reached down to grab a battered backpack, I let out the breath I’d been holding. I strode out of this darkened hellhole and over to the car.
Lottie let out a long whistle. “Nice car.”
“It’s a rental. In the back. We gotta stop and get some cash.” I watched her in the rearview mirror as I asked, “Do you drink? Do drugs?”
She shook her head. “Not all teenagers are fucking addicts, you know.”
The attitude on this child. How Evan had put up with three of us as teenagers without dropping us off a bridge was a fucking miracle.
“I was a teenager once, and I would disagree.” I pulled up to an ATM and withdrew five grand. Stuffing it in my wallet, I got back in the car and scrolled through my phone as Viva talked to Lottie. She seemed tense still, but was slowly letting down her guard.
Finding what I wanted, I got the navigation system to direct me there. When we pulled up to a divey motel, Lottie frowned. “Why are we here?”
