Page 4 of Lost and Found

Out of the corner of his eye, Dash noticed that the boy woke up and looked around, but Dash was too angry to stop. He raced after the man, picturing his step-father in his mind’s eye and wanting revenge for all his hurts.

The bedraggled man growled in warning, but Dash was beyond listening. He continued forward, swinging the metal pipe from the right and left. The tip of the pipe clipped the man and that was all it took. The man raced out of the warehouse, finally accepting that Dash wasn’t going to relent.

Still, Dash chased after the man, screaming words of anger, fury pulsing through him until the man disappeared into the weeds and thinning trees along the edge of what used to be the warehouse parking lot.

Finally, drained of energy, Dash let the end of the pipe drop to the broken asphalt, his fingers still clutching the weapon, but it now dragged behind him. Turning, he walked back into the warehouse. Sleep, he thought. He needed sleep. Hours of sleep. And water would be nice, but that probably wasn’t going to be forthcoming.

As soon as he stepped into the shade of the warehouse, he caught sight of a hand extended. More water? Was this an illusion?

No, the boy he’d seen before was offering him more water. “Thanks,” the other kid blurted out.

Dash took the cup of water, gulping it down. When the water was gone, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at the other guy. “You’re welcome.” Then he moved to the other side of the warehouse.

The other kid picked a rock up from the floor, tossing it back and forth in his hands. The moment felt awkward. He looked out the window, then back at the rock. It wasn’t actually a rock. It was really a piece of broken cement from…he had no idea which part of the warehouse it might have come from. There were so many possibilities.

“I’m Dash.”

The boy looked up, startled by the introduction. He hesitated for a moment and Dash would have sworn that he was going to walk away. Instead, he looked out the opposite side of the warehouse and said, “Callum.”

That’s it. No last name. No greeting. No other piece of information.

“I like what you’ve done to your side of the place,” Dash started, unaware of the crooked smile he offered.

The other kid…Callum…was startled again.

“What?” Dash challenged. “I’m just…”

“I’m sorry,” Callum interrupted. “I’m just…not used to someone helping me.”

Dash nodded. “Me neither.” He looked away, then back at the guy. “I like your accent.” Callum blinked. “Where are you from?”

“Does it matter?” Callum asked in a belligerent tone.

“Nope. Just trying to make conversation.”

Callum’s chin jerked towards his body. “What happened to your chest?”

This was dangerous territory. If Dash admitted that he was injured, would the other kid turn him in to Child Protective Services? Send him to the hospital? It would be an easy way to get rid of him. Callum could have the entire warehouse to himself again.

“You don’t have to explain,” Callum interjected. “I get it.”

What did he get? For some reason, his words seemed like…Dash wasn’t sure. This was all dangerous territory. “What the hell do you think you ‘get’?” he demanded, hearing the belligerent tone to his words but unable to stop them.

Callum didn’t take offense at the hissing demand. He simply shrugged, gave him another one of those crooked smiles and said, “I came from Scotland a year ago. A bastard cheated my father out of our ancestral home. We came here to the United States after me Da got a job with a bank here.” The guy sat down on a “chair” made up of a broken piece of rusted metal. He kept tossing the “rock” between his hands. “Me parents were killed in a car crash about two months ago.” He looked around again. “Some smelly woman came by and took me to a bad place.” He shuddered. “There were about a hundred other boys there. All of them ready te fight me for a piece of bread.”

“So you left,” Dash replied. It wasn’t a question.

“Aye,” he replied.

Dash sighed, exhausted and lowered his body to the cement floor. Callum had saved his life. Dash…owed him something. Sighing, he looked around, trying to figure out what to say. But the words, the truth, seemed to flow out of him. It felt good to tell someone his story, even if it was this stranger. \

“My mother died.” Absently, Dash rubbed his ribs, trying to ease the throbbing pain. “Nah, that’s not the whole truth,” he spat out. “My step-father beat her to death. One day when she came home from work.”

“What did she do?”

Dash closed his eyes, remembering his mother’s sweet, if tired, smile. “She waited tables at a truck stop diner over off of the highway.” He paused, thinking back to that night. “She came home after a double shift.” It took him a moment to control the tears at the memory of that night. No way was he going to show even the slightest bit of vulnerability around this other guy. He seemed like a good person, but Dash had learned not to trust anyone. So when he had his feelings back under control, he continued. “She hadn’t made enough in tips, according to my step-father. So the ass smacked her around. The last smack was hard enough to cause her to stumble down the stairs.”

“That’s murder!” Callum growled.

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