Take Me Tomorrow

Chapter Three: That Sounds Dangerous

A soft rapping caused my bedroom door to creak open. A hulky man carried in my white laundry hamper with one hand while eating with the other. Argos, the fierce black dog that normally kept at my side, was at the man's feet, his doggy eyes focused on my father's peanut butter sandwich.

I laughed. "Explains where he was."

My dad dropped my laundry basket, glanced down at the dog, and shrugged as if he hadn't noticed Argos begging. My bedroom was painted a soft brown, but the golden light from my single lampshade caused my dad's fair skin to look tan and worn. His wrinkles appeared like a badge of stress.

I sat up from the pile of pillows I was using as the perfect reading spot. Tonight, I was obsessing over The Iliad, but it could wait. Chilly night air rushed over my once-warm back, and I shivered, glancing at my open window. "You're home early," I said.

My dad wiped breadcrumbs onto his dark pants. "Just got home," he said, fiddling with a pair of glasses that hung from his front pocket. His eyesight was perfect, but he carried glasses like the students that wore Phelps' achievement badges − for demanded respect.

"You weren't supposed to be back yet."

I hadn't expected to see him for two more weeks. He was assigned to direct new military trainers to Boise. If anything, his job should've taken more time, not less.

He glanced around my bedroom as if he thought it would change while he was out of town. "Are you ready for school tomorrow?" He reminded me of how my summer freedom was coming to an abrupt end. I cringed and he laughed. "At least you can look forward to that one party."

That one party was Topeka's Homecoming. It happened during the last weekend of August, and it was thrown by the students. Considering it was the one evening curfew on minors was lifted, the event was highly anticipated. It also allowed students from different schools to meet.

This year, Miles' twin sister, Lily, was coordinating the party. It was an honor since she was being recognized for all of her achievements. She couldn't stop talking about it, yet I had barely paid attention to it. Now that Broden couldn't come, I was even less inclined to think about it.

"Lyn told me about Broden," my dad spoke up.

I frowned. "Is that why you're home?"

He shook his head. "Phelps had an emergency."

I whistled low. "That sounds dangerous."

"Probably is. Border patrol detected someone entering Topeka illegally."

The blond-haired boy from earlier flashed as if I had consumed tomo and watched him appear before my eyes. My vision disappeared as I curled my hands into fists. "What?"

"Nothing to worry about, kid. It happens more often than you think," he said, revealing a truth about his job that I doubted he was supposed to share. But his comforting didn't work this time.

Crossing the region borders illegally and successfully demanded skill. Whoever had done it knew what they were doing, and they would know how to protect themselves afterward.

"What's the big deal then?" I asked.

He shrugged, but his wrinkles deepened around his frown. "I wanted to take it on. I'm only back for the rest of the week."

"You're leaving again," I reworded his sentence.

"Early Friday morning." His rough hands pet Argos. "You'll still be asleep."

Unable to respond, I gazed out my bedroom window. The stars burned against the darkness, the sky clear from yesterday's storm. The sight relaxed me only for a moment.

Argos barked, and I jumped. When my dad raised his brow at me, my cheeks burned with an unspoken apology. He may not have been around often, but he was still my father, and Dwayne Gray seemed to know everything, even when he wasn't supposed to.

"Everything's fine," I promised. "I'm just stressed about the first day of school."

He smirked, but didn't argue. Instead, he reached into his pocket and threw a small bag full of miscellaneous objects at me. I caught it, but the weight of the coins flung it over my outstretched fingers until it wrapped the plastic around my hand.

"Your pockets," he lectured. "Clean them out before putting your clothes in the washing machine."

I grinned. "Next time." We had this conversation every time I attempted laundry.

"I'm sure," he laughed as he backed out of my room, shutting the door behind him with Argos at his side. I listened to them walk down the hallway, my father murmuring to my pet as if Argos was his other child, but alas it was just me.

I laid back to stare at the ceiling, the tiny cracks in the plaster like the millions of stars outside. Then it hit me. My memory.

My heart pounded against my ribs as if the organ was trying to break free. I clawed myself across my covers to the plastic bag, and I ripped it open with one desperate tug. Coins splattered across the floor, pieces of thread and old receipts littering the my duvet. My breath stopped.

With shaking hands, I dug through the trash, an image of the blond-haired boy consuming me − his ripped shirt, his black watch, his calm exterior, and then, the panic in his eyes when I snatched up his paper. I had shoved it in my pocket, but now it was among my trash, crumbled around the edges.

I straightened the paper out. The writing scrawled across it was smudged from water, but it remained legible. The note revealed the stranger's intentions. He wasn't a lost boy trespassing onto my land to find a park. In fact, he wasn't lost at all. He knew exactly where he was, and he was confident on where he was headed.

Scribbled down in permanent ink wasn't a phone number or a name, or even a clue about who he was. It was my address.