Page 5 of Lost and Found

“Aye,” Dash replied, teasing the other guy by adding in the brogue. Dash thought he’d done a pretty good job at the accent too. Callum must have thought so as well because he chuckled softly.

“But the police didna believe ye, did they?”

Another rub of his ribs. Another deep sigh. “I didn’t tell them. I wasn’t able to say anything by the time the police arrived. The man smacked me around before he called the police. He finally knocked me unconscious. By the time I came to, the police were already taking my mom out in a body bag and, apparently, my step-father had told the police that she’d beaten me up and he couldn’t stop her.” He paused, obviously thinking back to that horrific night. “They shook my step-father’s hand and wished him good luck, explaining how he could get financial help for the funeral and…well, a bunch of other stuff.”

“Sometimes, life sucks.”

Dash opened his eyes, grasping the significance of the other guy’s tone. He stared at the kid for a long moment, then said, “You went to the police too, didn’t you?”

“Aye,” Callum replied. He shrugged. “The police dinna want te listen to a kid. It was easier to just…go along with the flow, so te speak.”

“I get it,” Dash nodded. “Life sucks.”

He felt the other guy’s body tense, his anger simmering now. “I’ll have me revenge!” Callum vowed. “I will get me home back from the bastard who cheated me Da!”

Dash looked at the guy, then nodded. “I believe you.”

“And you?” Callum asked. “What are ye’re plans fer the future?” He looked around. “Ye dinna plan on sleeping here in this palace fer the rest o’ ye’re life, eh?”

Dash laughed, enjoying the kid’s accent. He looked around, noting the rusty ceiling beams and the broken glass of the windows. “Hell no!” he hissed. “I’m going to make something of myself. I don’t know what that is, or how I’m going to do it. I just need to find my half-brother first. Then I’ll figure something out.”

Callum nodded. “Family is good. Finding your family is a righteous endeavor.”

Dash chuckled. “Yes. We all need righteous endeavors.” The two boys laughed. They weren’t friends. But they…weren’t enemies either. That felt good. Well, it felt good enough for now.

Marco

The warehouse looked abandoned. But Marco could “feel” that it wasn’t. Someone was here.

No. He tilted his head, ignoring his eyes for the moment. There was more than one person living here. Years of living in survival mode had made his senses extra sharp.

Opening his eyes, Marco looked around, assessing the run-down building. He knew that the place was large enough for more than one person, but what if more than a couple of people were living there? Continuing his assessment, he looked at the broken up parking lot and the rusty doors. The windows on the lower floors were broken, probably shattered by bored, restless neighborhood kids entertaining themselves by throwing rocks at the windows, laughing uproariously when one of their rocks shattered any of the remaining glass. Idiots!

Still crouching behind a pile of trash, he debated the pros and cons of the area. At sixteen, he’d lived on the street for years now. Foster care was…dangerous. Especially for teenage boys. There were probably some excellent foster parents out there, but the ones he’d lived with had been corrupt and negligent, relying on the payout provided for each child they took in and completely unconcerned about the welfare of the kids. The other foster kids had learned to be vicious in order to survive and the social workers overworked, unable to keep up with the growing case load of children who need foster care.

Living on his own was safer, after he’d learned street smarts. He’d learned to avoid the violent street gangs and vicious drug dealers, with their false promises of family and protection from the vagaries of this unjust world. Instead, he’d survived on the sidelines. He’d taught himself to read and write, to judge a situation and react quickly. He knew how to get in and out of the homeless shelters and food banks without being trapped. He’d figured out when to run and when to stand very still. He’d learned to dress himself so that he blended in more easily, not an easy thing to do with his height! And he’d learned to live in the shadows, finding odd jobs at construction sites, grocery stores or delivery companies. Those were all places where his height and brawn were an advantage. No one asked his age when they needed extra hands and muscles to lug things around. And he got paid in cash at the end of the day.

Well, most of the time he got paid. Sometimes, he didn’t, but he was starting to learn how to determine if a foreman or manager was a cheat, or a good guy just looking for some extra help for the day.

Unfortunately, his previous “residence” had been taken over by a gang. That was why he was here, looking for another abode. As a certified street rat, Marco knew how to protect himself. Shifting the backpack on his shoulder, he moved slowly around the perimeter of the warehouse. No lights. That was always a good thing. There was a big parking lot surrounding all sides of the building, so the warehouse had most likely been built around the nineteen-fifties. Buildings that were created before the advent of cars were closer together because people walked to work. There’d been no need for large parking lots. That didn’t mean that the building was stronger or built with better materials. It only meant that there were better ingress and egress routes. Both of those words he’d just learned tonight at the library.

After walking all the way around the building, noting the exits, both the doors and the windows…because sometimes, one had to be creative when leaving…Marco headed towards one of the loading dock doors. This one was steel and he might not be able to get through it, but this area was the most open. So if there was danger lurking inside, he’d have an easy escape.

Of course, easy was a relative term. If there were gang members inside, easy didn’t apply. If bullets were being fired at him, easy was impossible.

The steel door squealed when he pulled it open and Marco froze in the doorway. Listening, he let his senses gauge the security of the area.

Nothing. At least, there weren’t any noises. Still, he suspected that there were people inside. Despite that possibility, Marco didn’t sense danger.

Moving into the dimly lit interior, he looked around. There were piles of junk, mostly scrap metal and broken machinery, heaped in the center of the building. Shards of glass shimmered on the concrete floor, obviously from the broken windows. Marco continued his inspection, looking to his left and right and…coming to a halt.

Two men…no, not men. Guys about his own age. They were standing about ten feet away now but spread out, both of them holding a pipe in their hands. No guns, Marco thought. That was good.

“Who are you?” one of the teens demanded.

Marco assessed the guys. Both of them were extremely tall, probably as tall as he was, which was unusual. And both were strong. They looked healthy and relatively clean. So what were guys like that doing here in an abandoned warehouse? Their clothes were worn but clean, and they looked well fed. Both of those details were extremely rare with the other teenagers he’d met on the street. Most street kids didn’t bother to wash their clothes or bodies. Marco was meticulous about cleanliness. He didn’t know why, but he preferred being clean and not stinking like so many of the kids hiding in plain sight while living on the street.

“Name’s Marco,” he called out, getting the sense that these two were kindred spirits. He could be wrong, but he’d learned to trust his gut over the years. It had saved his life too many times.

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