Page 36 of Heir of Ashes

I turned, alarm bubbling in my chest. The first thing I noticed was the blue aura, no smudge, no shimmer. The second was that he wore plain clothes—black pants, a blue knitted shirt, and a black biker jacket draped over one shoulder. But anyone from the PSS could ditch the suit to blend in and to throw me off. This man had broad shoulders tapering down to lean hips and long legs. A linebacker, no doubt, or something in the football line. Nothing particularly threatening, but adding the way his t-shirt was loose enough to conceal a weapon, and how he knew my name … I paid extra attention. He was clean-shaven, with a strong jaw and small mouth. His straight jet-black hair had fallen over the corners of chocolate-brown eyes.

Said eyes were anxious and, after a brief shake of the head, anxious turned disappointed, lips turning down at the corners. Not a threatening look either.

“Sorry, thought you were someone else.”

Chocolate-brown eyes. Striking eyes I had known once. Imagined and fantasized about seeing over and over again.

“Tommy?” I blurted. My heart galloped a thousand miles, and a prickling sensation stung the back of my eyes. It had been a long time since I had last fought to keep tears at bay.

He whirled around, his face a slideshow of emotions. Disappointment cleared to disbelief, bafflement, joy, and back to disbelief, then his face broke into a tentative smile that grew and grew, splitting his face in two.

“It is you! My God, Roxy, it’s you.” He surprised me by giving me a huge, bone-crushing bear hug. “It’s you. Roxy, my God,” he repeated over and over, the words spoken in my ear.

I hugged him back and patted his back awkwardly. I had no idea what else to do. It was an ineptitude I blamed on the PSS.

An eternity later, he let go, and we eyed each other, taking in the changes time had carved on the other. He’d grown into a handsome man, but even as kids, he’d always been a pretty boy. I’d been taller than him back then, but he had at least three inches on me now. His hair was still black, like mine used to be before I’d dyed it, and, unlike mine, his was perfectly straight. His skin had a warm tan, not from too much time at the beach or Navajo ancestry like people often assumed, but from his Spanish heritage. He also had some Asian ancestry, the combination giving him striking features.

I remembered before I was taken, he had shorn his hair to less than an inch to discourage some of the older kids from teasing him that he only needed longer hair and makeup to pass as a girl. Vicky and I had laughed our heads off about it over cups of hot chocolate in this same mall. The three of us—Vicky, Tommy, and I—had grown up together, inseparable until the day I was taken away. He seemed to have thought about that too, because his grin vanished, and his gaze turned serious.

“What happened to you? Where did you go?” he asked, as if I had disappeared yesterday instead of a decade ago. He went on, a shadow of the confusion and hurt he no doubt felt all those years ago clouding his features. “My God, Roxy, my God. You just up and disappeared. We came over every day and asked for you. Vicky and I came over every single day,” he repeated. “Sometimes we came by more than once. Your mother wouldn’t let us see you.”

I nodded once, not knowing what to say, then shook my head and settled for a sliver of the truth. “I wasn’t there.”

He huffed a humorless laugh. “Hell, if we knew that. We went to the cops, you know? But only a guardian could file a missing person report. Vicky and I kept insisting something bad happened to you; we even got the Navajo twins to come with us. Then Dad talked to this cop he knew, and they sent a patrol to check on you.” He searched my eyes for answers I knew he wouldn’t find. “We knew for certain something horrible happened when your mother showed them custody papers, feeding them some bull about your father gaining guardianship. But we knew your dad was dead, and it was all a lie …”

He paused for a second, waiting for me to either confirm or deny, then added softly, “Vicky and I broke into the house and searched it. But then your mother came home and caught us, and she called the cops on us. We couldn’t believe that. Imagine? We even had this sort of restraining order served to us … had todo some community service.” He fell silent, his eyes distant, lost in a memory from a decade ago.

For all the years I had been gone, I never imagined my friends going to the police to report me missing, breaking into my home to search for me. In the earliest days in the PSS, I’d imagined campaigns, missing person flyers, detectives turning every stone looking for clues. But it had been my mother heading the details and checking with the police. For Vicky, I’d imagined some tears before she moved on, and Tommy—a stricken boy too proud to cry—moving on even sooner.

“Do you know what she did after that?” Tommy asked.

I waited, not saying anything. “She left. One day she was there, and the next she was gone, the house empty.” This time, when he looked at me, he was expecting an answer.

I shook my head again before saying, “I’m sorry. I had to go.” There was a lump in my throat that wouldn’t budge no matter how much I swallowed, and the prickling in the back of my eyes intensified.

“But couldn’t you have called or emailed or anything?” he persisted, scanning my face. “We thought you died,” he added quietly.

Another shake of the head. My vision blurred, and I swallowed twice. I was fighting a losing battle. I looked away. We were surrounded by people, some even bumping into us as they passed by, but we might as well have been alone.

Tommy placed a finger under my chin and turned my head to face him. I kept my gaze fixed on the collar of his shirt. A tear fell, followed by a few more.

“Hey, that doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over now. You’re here. You’re back.” He brushed my cheek with his thumb, the motion soothing. I wiped the other cheek with my coat. I wanted to keep my head buried in it.

But then Tommy gently tugged me closer, and I let a few more tears fall onto the crook of his neck. His arm went around me, patting my back. That was Tommy—ever the comforting, gentle type. He had always been there, lending a sympathetic ear, comforting either Vicky or me whenever we had a fight. He had been the linchpin in our trio. It was good to know some things hadn’t changed.

After a few deserved tears, I wiped my face and got myself under control. Tears were useless and I, more than anyone, knew how futile they were.

Tommy gave me a gentle smile when I stepped back and brushed a knuckle softly over my damp cheek. “Your face hasn’t changed much. It’s thinner, and your cheeks seem higher, but I recognized you right away.” He then gave an appreciative look down. “Your body has filled out in all the right places too.”

There was a shocked silence before his face flushed pink. “I mean, not that you were gangly before; you were definitely attractive. I mean …” He winced, his cheeks turning crimson, and I couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped.

He gave me a sheepish smile, his soft chocolate eyes crinkling at the corners, and mimed opening his mouth and inserting his foot. I gave him a genuine smile, appreciating his diversion. Some people never changed.

“What happened here?” he asked, tracing a finger over my bandaged forehead. I wished I had left my hair down after leaving the hotel instead of tying it into a tight ponytail. It wouldn’t have covered the bandage, but it wouldn’t have left it so starkly exposed either.

“I ran into an invisible wall,” I told him, and he smiled, probably thinking I was evading the question.

“So, you’re shopping?” He nodded down at my bags.

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