Page 3 of Mending Fate

Most of the time, that leads to the adult not only abusing the kid themselves but loaning the kid out to friends. From there, kids end up working the streets, being sold to other predators, forced into making pornography, and the majority never make it out alive.

My stomach churned, bile rising in my throat. I swallowed hard but didn’t slow down. I needed to get to the bus stop before the bus left, or I’d have to wait twenty minutes until the next one came by. I’d given Soleil my address, so stopping by the apartment first made sense. During the ride, I’d make a list of places to check, places that most foster kids knew about, even if they’d never go there.

I’d been fortunate enough to make it through the system without being abused, and I’d never run away, but I wasn’t naïve. I’d listened to other kids, remembered things they’d said.

I knew some places where desperate kids would go, places that even caseworkers and foster parents wouldn’t know to look. I didn’t even want to think about her being in any of those places, and I clung to the hope that when I arrived home, she’d be waiting for me.

But I knew I had to be realistic, which was why, even as I hoped, I made a mental list of the places I’d go and of how I’d get there. Having to rely on public transportation meant I needed to figure out the best ways to get different places based on how much I needed to walk and where the bus stops were.

Not for the first time, I wished I had a car. It would have made things much easier.

I was up on my feet the moment the bus rolled to a stop, slipping past the other passengers and hurrying down the stairs. I grimaced as a gust of wind blew cold rain into my face, but I didn’t let it slow me down. My pace made my shoes pinch my toes, but that didn’t slow me either. I needed to get home.

Soleil wasn’t in the lobby when I arrived, and she wasn’t in the hallway either. The moment I realized she wasn’t sitting outside my apartment, the hope I’d allowed myself to feel died. I didn’t bother trying to convince myself that Mai could have let Soleil inside.

Besides the fact that I knew Mai was at work and that she would have texted me the moment the girl showed up asking for me, I simply didn’t have the energy to hope again, just to have it dashed in seconds. Rollercoaster emotions were a bitch.

When I opened the door, I was glad I’d made that decision because the apartment was dark and empty. I flipped on the light and kicked off my shoes, dropping my bags on the closest table. I stripped out of my dress clothes as I went and tossed them toward my laundry hamper when I entered my room. I grabbed a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt from my dresser, quickly dressing and putting together what I’d need.

Despite my desire to get going as quickly as possible, I knew I had to be smart about this. Whether Soleil had left under her own power or not, I needed to be prepared to deal with some unsavory people in unsavory places. That meant I needed money and protection.

I didn’t have much of the first, but I gathered what I had. As for the latter, Mai and Hob had bought me a taser for Christmas the previous year. For legal reasons, I couldn’t carry it to and from school, so I’d invested in pepper spray for my commute. Both were going with me.

Maybe I was overthinking this entire situation. I supposed it was possible that I could get a call any minute saying Soleil had shown up back at the home, or I’d find her simply walking around. I might never need any of the things I was putting into my bag, but if I did end up in a situation where any of them were necessary, I’d be glad to have them.

A couple bottles of water and some protein bars finished things off. I jotted a note to Mai, telling her what had happened, and that I didn’t know when I’d be home, and then I started toward the door before stopping and turning back. I added a postscript in the hopes that she wouldn’t completely freak out at the thought of me wandering around Seattle by myself at night.

P.S. DON’T FREAK OUT! I know what I’m doing.

Yeah, that should do it.

I slipped on my tennis shoes and headed back out into the shitty October weather. This wasnotgoing to be a fun way to spend the rest of my day.

At least if I was focused on trying to find Soleil, I wasn’t thinking about how badly Alec’s words had hurt me. He hadn’t verbally attacked me, exactly. He’d been upset and worried about Evanne, so his reactions had been understandable, but that hadn’t made the content any less painful.

He’d dismissed Soleil as unimportant only because of his little girl. Logically, I knew that. He wasn’t unfeeling. Evanne just took precedence, and I could hardly fault him for that.

Except logic did nothing to relieve me of the all-too-familiar cold indifference that came with dismissal. No matter the explanations behind it, I knew what it was. I’d spent my entire life having it directed at me for one reason or another. Some understandable. Some not. All bullshit when it came down to it because neither side could truly understand what it meant to be the other one.

I would never know what it was like to have a family looking out for me, putting me first, being concerned with my well-being. Alec would never know what it was like to not have family. Even if he lost power and money, nothing short of being a horrible person would cause his family to walk away from him, and even then, I wasn’t so sure.

When I climbed on the bus, I put all that behind me. I wouldn’t do to Soleil what Alec had done. I wouldn’t make my personal life take precedence over her safety. I could do what he could not. I could makeherthe important one.

And the way it started was by me going to the abandoned bowling alley that kids sometimes used when they needed a night away…or a place to meet someone they weren’t supposed to be meeting. I was hoping the former was all there was to this.

Three

Alec

“Answer the fucking phone!”I hung up before I shouted the words, having enough presence of mind to want to keep Evanne from possibly hearing me yell.

It had been two hours since I’d gotten Keli’s text, and I’d been waiting at the house the entire time, continuing to call and text but getting no response.

In all honesty, I had expected her to show up at some point, perhaps making me wait a while simply to see me squirm. Perhaps she intended to use this as a way to ‘convince’ me to rethink my decisions regarding custody of Evanne and my relationship with Lumen.

If that was her goal, she would be sorely disappointed. If anything, this proved that I could no longer trust Keli to do what was best for our child. For some reason, the rational woman who had cared so well for our daughter the first eight years of her life was gone. I suspected it was a combination of Alessandro having broken things off with Keli and then me deciding that I wanted to be with a woman other than her, but none of that excused Keli’s actions.

“Fuck this.” I grabbed my keys and jacket. I had given her time to come back without bringing the authorities into it. She had no one to blame but herself for the police getting involved.