Take Me Tomorrow (2 page)

You Took Tomo

“If we get caught − if you get caught − I had nothing to do with this,” Lyn said, her gaze shifting from the rearview mirror to her steering wheel. Her cropped, black hair, sleek, dark skin, and a pair of deep, brown eyes made her look bold and unafraid.

The first time I had ever seen her was the day she moved into my father’s house. She wore a purple sweater
over her small baby bump. When she rolled the sleeves up, she revealed an array of tattoos. Birds, buildings, and vines circled over her arms, but the top of a bridge poked out of her collar.

They
reminded me of Albany, the region my father and I had transferred from when I was seven. I had fleeting memories of my mother, the woman who stayed behind, but Lyn gifted me with her silver necklace the day we met.

“I know
your mother,” she spoke like my counselor did, too soft, too delicate. As a motherless thirteen-year-old, I didn’t appreciate it. I was too angry. But the jewelry changed everything.

I grasped the
necklace, and my cheeks burned. “I like your sweater,” I stated.

I was positive Lyn would
continue chatting, but she ended it after she told me that her favorite color was purple. Now, three years later, her purple scrubs replaced her sweater, and her three-year-old boy slept in the backseat. Her son’s name was Falo.

“We won’t get caught,” I promised as rain splattered against the
windshield.

My father’s black Jeep may have been government issued, but the night-pass sticker had yet to be applied.
Even though Lyn was over eighteen, we could get pulled over because we were out after the ten o’clock curfew. The police had the right the check any vehicle, and Lyn didn’t have the legal right to transport a minor around. We were already breaking the law, and we hadn’t even arrived at the hospital.

Miles
didn’t come with us for that very reason. He worked under my father as an intern for the Traveler’s Bureau, and he couldn’t risk his job. He returned home after delivering the news.

Broden had
gotten into another fight with a boy, and Broden had lost. He was beaten up, but Miles left him at the hospital before he could be questioned. Why Miles thought he would be interrogated was beyond me, but he didn't like the police. No one did. Miles was barely able to recall the brawl, yet his words thundered inside of me as hard as the rain that pounded the roof of the Jeep.

I told myself I wouldn’t dwell on it, not until I saw Broden myself. Even so, I couldn’t let go of his silver watch fo
r a second. I wouldn’t tell Lyn − my practical sister − what I was thinking. If I said anything, I would expose my entire day, including my run-in with the boy. Lyn could tell my father any or all of it, and I didn’t know if I wanted him to know anything. He might take my responsibility of scouring the acres away from me, and that was the only freedom I had.

I clutched the passenger door for su
pport as Lyn sped down the road. Topeka’s clock tower loomed over us, the sharp hands pointing past curfew, but we continued to drive in silence. Lyn already had a plan in place in case we were pulled over. She always had a plan. Hopefully, the night patrol would accept the excuse.

Lyn rounded the last corner before the hospital and cursed at the
sight of a police car. When it turned on its red and blue lights, my hand shot up to my mother’s heart-shaped necklace.

“Don’
t talk,” Lyn ordered, pulling her long sleeves to her wrists so they covered her tattoos. Only Albany residents had tattoos, and Albany was notorious for being chaotic. Most citizens avoided the topic, and it was easy to when most denizens lived and died in whatever region they were born in. Lyn was an exception. She gained her Topeka citizenship through my father, but she wasn’t about to peak the officer’s suspicions by showing off her ink.

She pulled the Jeep over, and the vehicle rumbled
beneath us. In a minute, the cop’s flashlight jumped in the rearview mirror as he stalked up to Lyn’s window. She had already unrolled it.

“H
ello, officer,” she spoke as the bright light flashed in our eyes. It remained there, only allowing his silhouette to be visible. The officer was checking our eyes for reflecting irises. Everyone called it “cat-eyes.” It was a side effect caused by consuming tomo, the forbidden drug.

I squinted as he spoke, “How are we doing tonight?” His voice was harsh,
and he lowered his flashlight.

“Trying to avoid the rain,” Lyn responded
as she leaned forward to grab her wallet off of the console. “I’m a night-nurse,” she explained. “We received this Jeep last week, so I haven’t gotten my night pass yet,” she apologized, “but I should soon.”

The officer took her wallet, flipped it open, read the information, and looked up with a curious glance. His eyes were black. “And who’s this?” he asked, questioning my young age without hesitation.
At this time, I was supposed to be sleeping in bed.

“So
phia Gray,” Lyn answered. “Her father is Dwayne Gray, cooperate manager in transportation communication for the State. He works for Wheston Phelps himself.” Lyn smiled as if she were proud of the fact that my father worked for our country’s dictator. I wanted to cringe. “I have guardian rights over her while he’s out of the region.”

“Is he traveling
, then?” the man asked, and Lyn nodded. “Where is he?”

“I’m never
told,” Lyn responded truthfully, “but his info is on the back of my card, and my son, Falo, is asleep in the backseat.”

The officer leaned over, peered into the back, and smiled at the toddler boy sleeping. I wondered for a moment if he had a son himself, sleeping at home, but the question dissipated wh
en a wicked smirk crossed his lips. “Well, then. I’m going to go back to the car and check this information out. I’ll be right back.” He left the Jeep, disappeared into the rain, and returned to his vehicle.

We let out a heavy sigh as if we breathed together.

“Good job,” I whispered, keeping my eyes on the dash while Lyn applied gloss to her bitten lips.

“Everything is a scare tactic with these people.
They don’t check everything,” she reminded me of how she had spent twenty-four years of her life in Albany. “A coworker told me they upped security recently,” she added. “Hopefully, he’s done asking questions.”

Before I could quest
ion our decision, the officer returned. He handed Lyn her wallet. “Everything checked up,” he stated. “I’m assuming you’re off to work.”

Lyn
’s polite smile was practiced perfection, “I didn’t want to leave the kids at home by themselves. Not on a weekend, anyway.”

The officer chuckled
, and rain droplets bounced off of his jacket. “If only more parents were like you, we wouldn’t have as many problems.” Then, he nodded, wished us safe travel, and returned to his car.

Lyn gripped the steering wheel as she pulled away from the curb. “You still want to go through with this?” she asked, referring to my visitation of Broden. She knew how much his friendship meant to me. He had been in trouble before.
He had just gotten out of military school, and if he was getting sent to Phoenix, I had to see him now or I might not have the chance to again. Even then, my decision was selfish.

“Will
you still let me?” I asked, waiting for Lyn to decide that the risk wasn’t worth the trip, but she kept her gaze on the road.

“Just tell that boy to behave when you see him,” she gru
mbled, driving straight toward the hospital.

…

Stretching over a series of blocks, the hospital was more of an enormous neighborhood than an array of sterilized buildings. My father continuously joked how it was the largest neighborhood, jail, and employer in town. Under the thunderstorm’s shadows, I didn’t find the comparison humorous.

Lyn parked the Jeep in the main parking
lot, and I snatched her security card off of the mirror. “You stole that card from me,” she reminded me, her brown eyes blazing in the blackness.

I nodded, got out the passenger
door, and met the rain. The cold wetness tempted me to rush to the front door’s covering, but the side entrance was the only one I could get into without questions.

I darted
between cars, and I allowed gravity to guide my feet down a slick hill, grateful that I wasn’t wearing my school uniform. At the bottom of the hill, I pressed against a brick wall, one hand supporting my sudden stop, the other hand scanning Lyn’s security card through the lock.

With a loud click, the thic
k door sprang open, and the air-conditioning stung against the rain on my skin. I hugged my favorite sweater as I shivered. I spent enough time following Lyn around the hospital that I already knew I was in the right wing. Finding Broden’s room wouldn’t be much harder. Broden’s mother had a voice that was beyond distinguishable. It was high, whiny, and tight, not to mention, loud. I hardly had to walk down one hallway before I heard her arguing with an unfamiliar doctor.

“This
is his third fight in two years.”

“His first fight in six months,” his mother retorted as I gripped the wall behind them, waiting. “He’s doing much better
outside military school.”

“Ma’
am,” the doctor paused. Someone tapped their foot. “Sir,” the doctor turned his attention to Mr. O’Conner, Broden’s father and fellow doctor. “I know this is hard. I know how hard you’ve both worked to keep your son out of trouble, but—”

“But what?” Mrs. O’Conner’s voice was threatening. I could only imagine
what she must have looked like − her light brown curls frizzing from rain, her dark red lips pressed together in a thin line. Her lipstick was never out of place.

The doctor sighed. “This fight—”

“Attack,” she corrected, making my heart jump.

Another sigh. “There’s no way to prove Broden was attacked.”

“There’s no way to prove otherwise.”

“He has a history,” the doctor cut her off. “And, quite frankly, Mrs. O’Conner, your son needs structure. Milit
ary structure. And without it, he’s going to continue this erratic behavior. Next thing you know, he’ll be taking tomo—”

“Our son,” his mother’s voice dropped to a low tone she
saved for when she was furious, “does not do drugs.”

“We tested him.”

“And it came out negative,” she snarled.

“It may have been
negative, but his x-rays proved that he didn’t come in here immediately after his injuries,” the doctor’s voice rose, “and one of the nurses swears on her job that she saw his eyes reflect when he was brought in. Whoever dropped him off fled.”

Broden’s mother didn’t argue this time, but Mr. O’
Connor begged her to calm down. Muffled whispering echoed off the sterile walls before the two men began to speak, discussing paperwork. Broden was returning to military school, an institute he had earned his release from two years ago. He had worked earnestly to prove he didn’t belong with the troubled, angered, and violent kids of the Topeka Region, but now he was going back. With his record, he would be lucky if they only sent him there. He could easily be forced to work in the lumberyards, or worse, he could be deported to Phoenix for jail time.

I couldn’t breathe.

“You can get everything at the check-out desk,” the doctor explained. “I have other patients to attend to, but I will check on Broden in twenty minutes and sign his leave.”

T
he doctors thanked one another while Broden’s mother remained silent. Footsteps rushed down separate halls, and I counted out my few breaths to slow down my pounding heart. When my heart slowed, I peered around the corner.

The hall was empty.

I rushed forward and pushed my way through the heavy cloth of the room they had been guarding.

There
he was, lying on the table. When he saw me, he sprung up as if he weren’t injured, “Sophia—”

“What happened to you?” I spat out,
yanking the blinds closed behind me. It was only then that I took a chance to look at him.

Hi
s brown hair matted to the left side of his face, dirt and sweat settled into his exposed scalp. Red scraps ran down the right side of his face, and he had a black eye. Two jagged cuts split across his eyebrow – now, stitched closed with a thin, black wire. His blue jacket had spots of dried blood, and his left arm rested in a white sling, wrapped up. Broden’s good behavior was ruined.

I gawked.
“Your arm is broken,” I managed. Miles was right. Whatever fight Broden had been in, he had lost, and Broden never lost. The word “attacked” echoed the way “tomo”
had.

“It’s
only a fracture,” he corrected, opening his palm. This was his way of telling me to calm down.

“
Only a fracture?” My question was my way of refusing to calm down.

“Sophia.” H
is legs kicked over the side of the bed, so he could face me. “I’m okay—”