The Bloom Series Box Set: Bloom & Fade (7 page)

Haven sighed. “We’ll see.”

It was just past ten o’clock and the
streets were mostly empty. Kayla turned onto the road which led to
Haven’s house and leaned forward over the steering
wheel.

“
What’s that?” she said,
pointing toward the horizon.

A red glow lit the night sky a mile
away. As they drove closer, the glow intensified and flickered like
a giant, red candle.

“
It looks like a fire,”
said Kayla.

“
Drive faster,” said
Haven.

Kayla sped up and drove down the
middle of the street. A black car with tinted windows and no
headlights appeared under a streetlight, moving toward them fast.
Kayla screamed and jerked the steering wheel to the side. The black
car zoomed past, barely missing them.

“
Did you see that?!” she
said, breathing hard. “That guy almost killed us!”

Haven was barely listening. She stared
at the fire ahead and swallowed hard as her throat slowly
tightened.

Through the car’s windshield, Haven
watched her house burn.

Bright red flames licked up the sides
of her two-story home and crawled onto the roof. One of the front
windows shattered into a thousand shards of glass as fire burst out
of the family room. Wood groaned and popped as beams split from the
heat. Neighbors walked out of their own houses in pajamas and
bathrobes, squinting bleary-eyed at the bright light.

“
No!” screamed Haven. She
kicked open the car door and ran into the yard. Tears streamed down
her face as she stared up into the dancing flames. Even standing
thirty feet away, the heat made her sweat. Her eyes wanted to close
against the smoke but Haven forced them to stay open as she watched
the raging fire.

“
Haven!” shouted Kayla.
She got out of the car and ran over to her. Haven started toward
the house but Kayla grabbed her arms and held her back. “You’ll
die!”

A burning support beam snapped on one
corner of the house and the roof sagged down with a slow
crunch.

Haven tried to push Kayla away so she
could run inside, but she wasn’t strong enough. She pulled as hard
as she could but grew weaker as the flames spread across the entire
surface of her home. Kayla guided Haven to the ground so she could
sit down.

The front door to the house fell off
its hinges and broke against the porch. Parts of the second story
collapsed into the first, crashing down and sending a flurry of
burning embers into the air. Haven screamed and sobbed as the roof
caved in and half of the house crumbled to the ground.

“
Noooo…” she said softly,
her voice tapering to a whimper. She sat with her knees tucked up
to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs while she rocked
back and forth. Her tears glinted with the refection of red
flame.

Kayla sat next to her and placed a
hand on her back. In the distance, the piercing wail of police
sirens grew louder.

10

C
olton stood in one corner of the holding cell and crossed his
arms. He tried to look tougher than he felt in the company of the
other men who had been tossed into jail that night. There was only
one long bench lining the wall opposite the cell door, and it was
fully occupied by a row of mean-looking, tattooed brutes. Smaller
men sat around the edge of the large cell and leaned their heads
back against the concrete walls.

After being pushed into the room a
couple of hours earlier, Colton had taken the only open spot on the
bench. A little while later, three more criminals arrived, each one
bigger than the last. The largest of the three walked over and
stood before the bench, looking down over his enormous gut. Colton
needed no further motivation; he got up and walked over to the
corner, where he could see everything going on in the
cell.

Most of the men kept to themselves,
but a couple of them seemed to know each other and talked at length
about what was going on in their lives. Colton was surprised that
they never mentioned the crimes for which they had just been
arrested, and instead spoke of family life and other things he
would not usually expect career criminals to discuss.

Colton had never been in as much
trouble as he was at that moment. There was no need to worry about
the police calling his father; even if they were lucky enough to
catch him awake and not in one of his alcohol-induced stupors, he
would probably laugh and say that his son was getting what he
deserved.

Colton made a strong point of not
thinking about his father as much as possible—there were too many
emotions that flooded his mind. Love mixed with hate; regret at the
happy childhood he was denied; sadness and loneliness rolled into
one. It was easier just to push it all far away where the confusing
mass of feelings became fuzzy and blended into the background of
everyday life.

It was simple enough for him to blame
his mother for abandoning the both of them, but as he grew older,
he realized that as much, if not more, of the fault rested with his
father—there was a lot he could have done to make their lives
easier. Instead he chose alcohol and anger.

To Colton, the gulf between them
seemed impossible to bridge.

An hour passed, then two. Half of the
men in the holding cell were either asleep or passed out drunk.
Colton shifted on his aching feet. He wanted to sit down but the
floor was filthy and the benches were still full. Cigarette butts
and clumps of wet paper were scattered everywhere, and discolored
puddles of unidentified liquid pooled in several spots around the
room.

He never expected them to hold him
such a long time. Reece had been the one to steal the CDs—Colton
merely helped him get away from the police. He supposed the police
officer he “fell” against in the alley could have upgraded Colton’s
criminal charge to assault, in which case he was utterly doomed.
Still, Reece could have been locked up for a year or more if he had
been caught.

As a first-time offender, Colton hoped
the judge would go easy on him and give him a small amount of
community service with no actual jail time. There was always the
possibility that they would try to make an example of him to
prevent other potential screw-ups from assaulting police
officers.

The rattle of keys and the sharp
clicking of hard shoe soles in the hallway outside the holding cell
grew louder as someone approached. All of the men in the room sat
up eagerly and watched the door, hoping one of their friends or
loved ones had come to pay their bail.

The same officer Colton ran into in
the alley looked at him through a small viewing window as he
unlocked the door.

“
Great,” said Colton
quietly.

The officer stepped into
the cell and pointed at Colton. “You,” he said. “Let’s go.
Now
.”

The other men in the room grumbled and
sank back into their seats. A few of them stared at Colton with
malice as he walked past them and out into the hallway. He wondered
if Reece had called his lawyer father and talked him into getting
Colton released from the police station. In the morning he would
have been processed and likely transferred to an actual jail, where
he would spend the next few weeks waiting to go to trial for
striking a peace officer.

He didn’t know how much money it would
have cost to avoid all of that unpleasantness, but he imagined it
was a great deal more than Reece could afford on his
own.

After he was out of the room, the
officer—whose name tag read “Sanders”—shoved Colton in the back,
pushing him toward the end of the hall.

“
Spoiled little rich boys
like you really get on my nerves,” he said, then shoved Colton
again.

“
Where are we
going?”

“
You ruin my day, then
you’re out by midnight when you
should
be rotting in that cell.” He
pushed him harder.

Colton fought the urge to turn around
and punch the cop in the face. He realized that was exactly what
the man wanted: an excuse to keep him in the cell even
longer.

“
And you must be someone
extra special, because they don’t let
anybody
out if they hit a
cop.
Especially
if that cop is me. I got pull around here, let me tell
you.”

Another shove.

They reached the end of the hallway
and Sanders knocked on the door. There was a loud buzz and an
officer in the next room pulled open the door to let them
through.

They were in the main lobby of the
building. An officer sat behind the counter reading a magazine and
looked up over his glasses.

Sanders pushed Colton toward the exit.
“Next time you hit a cop,” he said, “you won’t even make it to the
station.” He walked back into the hallway that led to the holding
cell and slammed the door behind him.

Colton looked at the officer sitting
behind the counter, who dropped his eyes to his magazine and
whistled softly to himself.

The waiting area was empty. Colton
looked outside through the large glass windows on the front of the
building and out at the street beyond. The exterior of the police
station was well-lit at night, but he still couldn’t see the person
who supposedly paid his bail and got him out of the holding
cell.

The street outside the station was
empty except for a few pedestrians hurrying along the sidewalk. The
air was cold and Colton still wore the dirty jeans and t-shirt he
had been wearing all day. He waited for a few moments with his arms
crossed against the cold night air, thinking someone was going to
appear and explain what was going on. He eventually gave up and
started the long walk back to his apartment.

Colton turned the corner at the end of
the street and saw Reece ahead, leaning against the brick wall of a
building with his hands in his pockets, staring across the street
at a pair of scantily-clad women who were hanging out in front of
an adult video store. He didn’t notice as Colton walked up next to
him and slapped him on the back of the head.

“
Hey!” said Reece, pushing
off the wall. He clenched his fists as if he were about to start
throwing punches, then relaxed when he saw that it was Colton. “You
scared me half to death.”

“
Making new friends?” said
Colton, nodding at the women across the street. The women giggled
and waved when Colton looked their way.

“
They wish,” said Reece.
“But I should remember this spot for later.” He fell into step next
to Colton when he started walking again. “So, how did it
go?”

Colton shrugged. “Just a bunch of
waiting around, really.”

Reece nodded. “Look, I need to say
thank you before my ego takes over and won’t let me.”

“
You would have done the
same for me if I was in your situation. I should say thank you as
well for getting me out, even though it was your idiotic idea that
landed me in jail in the first place.”

“
I got her phone number,”
said Reece, smiling.

“
If you didn’t, they would
be dragging me back to the police station right now for murdering
my best friend.”

“
Aw, come on. It’s not
that bad, right? You’re out, at least.”

“
Did you have to call your
dad and ask for the money?”

“
Yeah, about that. It’s
funny, but I actually didn’t have anything to do with your
release.”

Colton stopped. “What do you
mean?”

Reece walked a couple steps ahead,
then stopped and turned back hesitantly. “I meant to tell you a
couple weeks ago, but it just never came up.” He scratched the back
of his neck and looked away. “My dad kind of cut me off. He’s not
gonna send any more rent checks until I ‘get my act together’, or
so he says, anyway.”

“
So who got me out of
jail?” asked Colton.

“
That’s the funny part.
After the cops hauled you away and I went back to the apartment to
change so I could go ask the record store girl out on a date—her
name’s Chloe and not Jenna, by the way—this guy knocked on the door
right as I was about to leave. Real creepy dude. Tall with black
hair and a grey suit. I thought he was from the funeral home and he
was gonna tell me you died in jail or something.”

“
Reece…”

“
Right, sorry. So this guy
hands me this briefcase and tells me that if I give it to this
other guy at the District Attorney’s Office, they would let you
out! I can’t believe it worked!”

They started walking.

“
Who was the guy you gave
the briefcase to?”

“
No idea. Never seen him
before in my life. Looked very political, though,” said
Reece.

“
So you dropped off the
briefcase, then went and got Chloe’s phone number?”

“
Wellll…” said
Reece.

“
You went to the record
store first.”

“
I knew you would be okay,
and look at you!” said Reece. He slapped Colton on the shoulder.
“Like nothing ever happened.”