Take Me Tomorrow (6 page)

Call the Police

Lily had short, dark, and curly hair.
While one part clung to her face, another section sprung out. Her wide eyes were brown, and a blush skimmed across her round cheeks. She hugged me before I ever knew her name.

“Sophia,” my father had spoken unco
mfortably as he watched his seven-year-old dive into the social realm. “This is Ms. Beckett,” he explained as he pointed to Lily’s mother, a woman who looked identical to her children. “She’ll be your nanny while I’m not in the Topeka Region.”

I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. With Lily hanging onto me, I really didn’t know what to do.

“We’re going to be best friends,” Lily squealed, seeming younger than me even though I was told we were the same age. I couldn’t say anything to that either.

“You’ll really l
ike it here,” Ms. Beckett said, giving a slight push to a young boy standing next to her. He had stumbled forward, but his gaze never left the ground. His curls were matted with gel, and his shirt had a collar. He looked like a child dressed in an old man’s suit.

Miles managed to tell me his name, while Lily exclaimed that he was her brother. Twins. I had never met twins before.

“I’m Sophia,” I said, glancing up at my father for social direction.

“You’ll like it here, kiddo
,” he repeated Ms. Beckett’s words, playing with the glasses in his pocket. I nodded mechanically, knowing that his new job would keep him out of the State most of the time. I was stuck here, and everything was about to change.

My life had shifted almost every year since then, but so did everyone else’s. The clairvo
yant drug, tomo, was released five years later. I was twelve, but I understood true fear. Topeka fell into absolute madness, and the Phelps’ Massacre happened within one year. Hundreds of people were arrested, and it was still unknown how many people died, but it was all in the name of safety. The drug was successfully confiscated and outlawed, and it wasn’t long after that the curfew was put in place. Lyn moved in weeks later, and a year passed without much trouble, but life didn’t seem normal until I befriended Broden one year later. Now, at sixteen years old, I was looking at a boy I had never even heard about.

I stared at Noah whenever I was able to
do so without being noticed. I wanted to know where he had been all of this time, what he saw during the massacre, or even if he were in Topeka during it. Granted, there were plenty of kids in the Topeka Region that I hadn’t met yet, but they weren’t friends with my best friends. I couldn’t understand how Noah knew Broden or Miles without having met me, but here we were − complete strangers with the same friends.

It didn’t make sense.

As we walked, I searched for any part of him that I recognized, but I failed over and over again. He was much taller than me, maybe an inch taller than Broden. His face was relaxed, but the little shadows that hung from his eyes revealed how tired he was. His sage uniform and dyed hair suited him naturally, like the sudden change of identity was an everyday thing. It was otherworldly, seeing a stranger, Noah, as another stranger, Nate Harper, and questioning whether or not I had met him before under another name. For all I knew, Noah wasn’t his name at all, but another identity altogether. For all I knew, Noah didn’t even know his own identity. It would explain how he was so comfortable playing dress-up. He never had to be himself.

I had seen him three times now, and his black-faced watch
was the only consistent part. He even used it with Broden, and I recalled Miles wearing one a few years ago. That was the only information I knew meant something. The question was what it meant.

Noah
broke my concentration when he turned to me and winked. “Are you getting a good enough look?”

My face scrunched up. “I’m not looking,” I said, gesturing to the sun. “The light’s just in my face.”

“Whatever you say, Sophie.”

I made sure not to look back at him as we continued forward.
The hospital loomed over the city, and shadows began to crawl over the sidewalk. We remained silent as I checked the town’s main clock tower. Curfew was approaching, but we still had time. Walking was our current enemy. It took an hour to walk across town, if not longer, and we had almost burned up our sunlight. I would have time to get home if I left Broden’s immediately, but I doubted Noah would. Military students had a sunset curfew, one that would happen within thirty minutes, but Broden had obviously found a way around it, and I had to bet Noah did, too.

When we
entered the neighborhood behind the hospital, Noah spoke up, “Why are we going to Broden’s house?”

“How do you know where Broden lives?” I
asked.

Noah’s stoic expression faltered. “We lived down the street from one a
nother as kids.”

M
y eyes darted around the large cul-de-sac, looking at the homes as if I could guess which one used to be his. Since he had talked in the past tense, I knew he had moved, but I needed as much information as I could get, even if it were just a house he no longer resided in.

“Quit trying to figure
me out, Sophie,” Noah warned in a half-whisper. “My life isn’t something that you want to be a part of.”

My
throat clogged as I stopped at the end of Broden’s driveway. Before I could question him, Noah marched up the driveway. The old house − a large, beige home with a roof made of dark clay tiles − looked empty from the street. There were no lights on, nor were there any cars in the driveway, but I knew he was home. When Lily gave me the fliers, she explained why Broden had stopped by for his usual high-fiving ritual with Miles. Broden had permission to watch his parent’s house while they were working late night shifts at the hospital. Tonight was one of those nights. Even so, Broden didn’t seem to be home, but Noah didn’t question me.

He pas
sed the two-car garage and rounded the corner to walk up to the steel doors that decorated the front of his house. He didn’t even knock. He simply shoved them open. “Oh, Broden,” Noah bellowed. “Broden, where are you—”

I cursed at myself
as I chased Noah into the house. As soon as I had reached Noah, Broden entered through the entranceway, his brown hair sticking up in five different directions. His face was blotchy with the pattern of a blanket pressed to his face, and his sage jacket hung loosely off his shoulders. With rolled up sleeves, his splint showed off his injured arm, but the stitches above his brow were much less severe. Nevertheless, the cut burned as he glared at Noah. “What are you doing here?” he asked before pointing at me. “What is she doing here?”

Noah
opened his arms up in loving mockery. “Thanks for the welcome, Broden. Long time, no see.” His grin was a borderline snarl. “I was sort of expecting you today − around three-thirty − at the ravens, you know, where you said you would be, but—” Noah spun in a theatric circle. “You didn’t show.”

“Of course I didn’t show, Noah,
” Broden yelled. “Are you insane?” He marched across the room to slam the front door. When it shut, he locked it and leaned his back against it. Now that he was facing us, he looked Noah up and down. His once-blonde friend was now a brunette, and the reality sunk in. “Looks like I wouldn’t have even recognized you, anyway,” he said. “What the hell happened to you?”

Noah gestured toward
me. “She recognized me,” he said, sounding strangely proud.

The mention was the only reason Broden remembered I was there. “You
can’t be here. They could catch you,” he stumbled over his words before switching his focus to Noah. “Our house could be bugged. We’re not sure if it is. We’ve never known.”

His words were impossible to comprehend.

“Bugs?” Noah sounded like he was on the verge of laughing. “Who cares if it’s bugged?”

“My family,” Broden said, grabbing his hair. He was panicking.

“How is your family?” Noah asked, but his serene state was cruel.

Broden’s lips
pressed into a thin, white line.

“It doesn’t make a difference if your home is
bugged anyway,” he mentioned. “If it is,” he continued, placing a hand on an entryway stand that held a decorative china plate, “they already know I’m here,” Noah stated before he pushed it to the ground.

The china smashed across the floor, and I leapt
back. Broden, on the other hand, shot forward and screamed at Noah to leave. Instead of leaving, Noah shoved another stand to the ground, glass scattering across the hallway. Broden threw his hands in the air, but his splint forced his one arm down.

I pushed my back to the wall and clutched my bag
. Noah’s demeanor had flipped from strange, nice guy to threatening bully in seconds, and I had seconds to react. I grasped my bag, felt for my knife, and slipped it out as the boys fought.

Broden
held himself back, but he shouted, “You’re going to get us killed.”

“Not
if you give me the tomo,” Noah threatened.

At the sound of the drug’s name,
my fingers tightened on the knife’s grip.

“Give it, and I’ll leave,” Noah continued with his back to me. He always had his back to me.
“They’ll never come after you.”

Broden held his ground. “They’ll kn
ow you were here,” he promised.

I couldn’t worry about who “they” were. It didn’t matter if it were drug dealers or the government because it was probably both.

Noah waved his arms around the broken room. “Don’t you think they would’ve arrived by now?” he tested.

Broden shook
. “My parents—”

“Aren’t coming home for another three hours,” Noah finished confidently. “Don’t think I was dumb enough to forget to look into your life before coming here.”

Broden didn’t react, as if stalking was the perfectly normal, maybe even the expected, thing to do, but my blood pressure rose. Apparently, he had already known Broden would be home. He didn’t need me to tell him that. He didn’t need me to take him at all. Why he had come to me was beyond me, but there was a reason, and I had fallen blindly into his plan, but I could see my way out already. I just had to wait for the opportunity.

“Where are the drugs
?”

Broden
shook his hand, “Just get out.” His voice was consumed with sympathy instead of anger, acceptance instead of vengeance.

I watched, planning my attack, as the boys erupted into argument
. Broden moved toward him. Noah shifted, and his peripherals were even out of my sight. He wouldn’t see me coming. Not in his sober state. Not without tomo.

Before either of the boys knew what happened, I kic
ked Noah in the back of the leg, knocking him off balance. His forehead smacked the doorway, and he fell down. I landed my foot on his ankle and held my knife to his throat. He didn’t even have time to grab his head.

Noah was completely dazed.

I wanted to order him to leave and never return. I wanted to call the police, call Phelps himself, and learn exactly who this boy was. I wanted to guarantee the government arrested him for everything he had ever done, and I wanted my life to return to normal, without him in it, and I wanted him to know that. But I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. I could only concentrate on the feel of the blade in my hand and how coarse my breathing had become.

A
red mark appeared on Noah’s forehead, but it was the fear in his eyes that I saw. His pupils were dilated, and he tried to hold his unnerving breath, but it escaped out of his shaking bottom lip. He, suddenly, didn’t seem capable of danger at all.

I heard Broden step toward me before he spoke,
“Sophia—”

“He needs to leave,” I spat, locked on
Noah.

His shocked demeanor had shifted, but not enough. His lips had pulled into a smirk, but it
still shook. His eyes were glaring, but his brow was twitching. His finger curled, but his hands weren’t in fists. He wanted to be calm, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t in control. I was.

“I don’t think you know who
you’re dealing with, Sophie,” Noah whispered.

My anger
increased with the nickname he used so casually. He didn’t know me. He wasn’t my friend. He had no right to have a nickname for me, let alone use one.

“I don’t care who I’m d
ealing with. I don’t want to deal with you at all,” I retorted, watching his only confidence crumble. “You’re lucky I’m not having Broden call the police.” I moved the knife back, but not by much. I gestured to the door with my head. “Now, go.”

Noah remained on the floor, looking up at me as if my words had more of an impact than my weapon. I wasn’t sure if Noah was sho
cked at my bravery or stupidity, but either way, he was clearly shocked.

“Sophia.
” Broden laid a hand on my shoulder and pulled me away. It wasn’t until my back was against his chest that I realized I was shaking with adrenaline, and it wasn’t until Broden slowly took my knife that Noah stood up. He even took the time to straighten out his uniform.