Page 15 of His Reluctant Savior

“You owe me, man.”

“Yes, yes, we’ve already established that. Whatever you want.”

“I don’t know what yet, but I’ll hold on to your I.O.U. It’s gonna begood,” he cackled before he hung up.

When I reached the store, I parked and got out. We needed enough food to last several days. Things we could cook, and wedefinitely needed something to drink, so I would have to hit the liquor store, too. Dalton and I both needed to chill.

After Sid left, I wanted to take Owen and run on instinct. Despite his saving us and his lecture, I still didn’t trust him. It wasn’t like killers were upstanding citizens and didn’t lie. Hell, he could’ve trapped me here just to make my death appear like a suicide, just as he’d intimated earlier. Make it seem like I died by accident or from suicide. A car chase and shooting weapons were messy… his words.

Sid had always been an asshole as a kid, too. He’d always been aggressive and cruel. But upon reflection, Iremembered seeing a broken boy when he let his walls come down a bit. He hadn’t dropped them for long, but you couldn’t miss it, seeing how unhappy he was mixed with some fear there, too, both of which had very little to do with me.

Instead, I listened to him and stayed put. For now, I’d use him to keep Owen and me safe, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t keep my gun under my pillow and sleep with one eye open.

I looked around the house as Owen slept, trying not to stress about him at that moment. Sid kept his place neat, with comfortable furniture that was light and airy. The walls were painted a cream color, while the wood trim around the doors and windows was stained walnut. The kitchen had been upgraded with modern appliances and quartz countertops. It didn’t matter how nice it looked, though. It wasn’t Sid’s home. The place was completely barren of personal effects and touches. It appeared completely unlived in.

I tried to get into the basement, but Sid kept it locked, and only a keypad and fingerprint scanner could open it. That must have been where the security room was located and where Sid kept his weapons.

“Daddy! Daddy!”

The sudden belting scream had me rushing up the stairs and shoving the door open to find Owen sitting up, looking terrified, tears streaming down his face. His hazel-brown eyes were wide and confused, being in such an unfamiliar place and unable to find me.

My heart broke for him. He was too young to have faced such violence today, never having seen his dad shoot at someone before.

“I’m here, Little Man.”

He held his arms open, reaching up. I swept him off the bed to hold him. “I’ve got you, kiddo.”

Thank god he wasn’t afraid to reach out to me. I worried he would be.

“I was scared, Daddy. I couldn’t find you.”

“I’m here. We’re at a friend’s house. We’re safe now.”

“Who were those people? And you… you…”

“Shhh… We’re safe now,” I said again, rocking him in my arms. “I’m so sorry I scared you.”

God, I felt like such a fucking failure. I chose to be an analyst to keep my family and me safe, and here I was, risking our lives. In the end, all that work hadn’t mattered. No, I couldn’t think like that. It wasn’t my fault someone betrayed me. It wasn’t my fault Speaker Rush chose to be a monster. If I had ignored that to keep my son safe, I would have been complicit.

“Are you hungry?” Owen snuggled into me and nodded on my shoulder. “Let’s see what we can find.”

I carried him downstairs and tried to sit him down at the kitchen table, but he clung to me tighter, not wanting me to let him go. Fuck, his fear was visceral and gutted my soul. I held him and dug around in one of the bags I’d brought that held some snacks for him. I couldn’t do much else until Sid came back with groceries.

Owen sat on my lap at the kitchen table, munching on fruit snacks as I stared out the window. The mountains cast a blue hue in the distance, and the trees were thick with green leaves. Soon, the leaves would change, and fall already hung in the air.

The land was so beautiful, so incongruent with the cruelty of humanity. There were many good people in the world, buttoo many didn’t care who got hurt on their way to the top. We witnessed too many horrors in the world because they were more newsworthy than all the good. And for years, I’d seen how bad people could be. Now I was on the run, and my son was in danger because of them. Sometimes I struggle to see and experience the good while being surrounded by so much bad. I saw what people could do to each other firsthand. It could be difficult to brush aside when I got home from work to put on a happy face for my son.

The back door to the kitchen swung open, and Sid came inside, hauling several grocery bags. “I got enough to tide us over for several days,” he said, a bit out of breath, setting the bags on the floor.

Owen suddenly whimpered and literally tried to crawl inside me. “Shhh… it’s okay, Little Man.”

“He’s bad!” he wailed.

I looked up at Sid with a frown on his face before he started putting groceries away.

“Owen, he’s not bad,” I lied. “His name is Sid, and we used to go to school together when we were kids. He’s here to help us. He protected us today.”

Owen peeked out from where he buried his face in my chest to look at Sid, who stopped messing with the groceries to give my son a small smile and wiggled his fingers at him.

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