A Thousand Ways To Run

Chapter 14

Porter reappeared in the room four minutes and thirteen seconds later; this time I counted because I couldn’t do anything else. He held two giant stacks of paper in his arms.For a moment I was terrified that they were more pictures of how I’d screwed up.

I still had the thinnest thread of hope that Warren and I had gotten away with all our reckless adventures. It was easier to believe we made only one slip-up than to think it was doomed from the beginning.

The larger stack was dropped onto the desk. The six-inch thick monster shook the desk with earthquake-like malevolence. He left me to stare at it dumbly before he started to explain.

“Those are the threats to your father’s life.”

“His whole life?” I chirped optimistically. As much as I loathed my dad for putting me in that dreaded position of being a prisoner, it was unsettling to picture the bounty placed on his head.

Porter showed no blissful sympathy. “Just this month.”

“Oh.” The word was breathed out in surprise.

Did he expect me to thumb through the stack? Was this some sort of deterrence exercise to keep me out of trouble and away from Warren? I’d lived with the man for a few years in my early childhood. I had learned quickly enough that ‘home’ is a bed and warm blankets, and there were more bad people than I could count. I knew what life I was being put into.

And then Porter let the other stack fall, rumbling the desk not as fiercely. It was a little less thick—I’d wager that it was three fifths lighter than the other stack. “And this is yours.”

That was a lot of papers.

I treated it like a threatening rattlesnake, not even risking a glance at it. I sure wasn’t about to look through them.

“And this,” Porter said at last, letting a whole new file I hadn’t seen before, about an inch thick, plummet right in front of me, “is just tonight.”

“Oh.” The short word escaped my lips again.

“You were on a fucking roof! A roof, Charlotte!” Porter yelled, losing his ever so precious temper. I winced at the volume and ferocity of it, feeling more stupid with every word that came out of his mouth. He had begun to talk with his hands, using them in such a way I was sure he could have been strangling me.

“But it was beautiful,” I murmured dully, eyes unfocused and clouded over as I relaxed.

Sometime after the moment Porter had completely ripped my heart out and fed it to the dogs, I’d lost the filter from my brain to my mouth. I was trying so very hard to be numb.

“It was stupid! You might as well have put a giant target on your head,” Porter drolled on, and it seemed like his ranting would never end. By now, didn’t he know that I could scarcely take in every other word? He was doing nothing but scorning me for a decision I didn’t regret. Why would I want to listen to words that would hurt? I’d had enough of that even before I’d met him.

My screen in my mind worked both ways. He talked on for awhile, using his hands in aggravated and violent gestures. Out of it all, I’d gotten the gist that he thought I was an idiot being fueled by teenage puppy-love. I begun to notice a trend in his rants. He blamed me for it all – I mean, it was my fault – but he never once asked if I was okay—if I was scared of that pile. He just carried on blaming me, thinking I didn’t understand the repercussions of my actions.

He saw me like everyone else did, looking at me and talking to me like I was a robot that didn’t have feelings. He couldn’t hear my thoughts, feel my emotions. All he saw was the blank expression on my face as I disregarded his words. He didn’t know what was happening below the surface. Something I spent years mastering seemed to be my greatest fault.