Free Bird

Chapter 8

Danny's POV

Red and blue lights flicker and flash against my wall while I lay on my twin sized mattress on the floor. This can't be good- those are fucking cherries. The cops are outside.

I sit straight up and rush to my window to see at least a half dozen cop cars out there.

Fuck.

Where's mom!? Where the fuck is mom!?

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit...

I turn away from the window and grab my back pack, emptying it of its contents: useless school projects, text books, and incomplete assignments, and then stuff it with random things from my bedroom in a panic.

"MOM!!! MOM! IT'S THE COPS!!! Shit. MOM!!!!" I call for my mom as I frantically stuff the few things that surround me into my back pack and then grab my gigantic off-the-shoulder black bag that contains the things I really need, along with my junk.

I rush out of my room and into the living room where my mom's futon is. It's empty. Fuck. She's not fucking home. Fuck. No no no no no no!!! I nearly hit my knees. Where the fuck am I going to go!? What do I do!?

I rush back to the window to watch the police cars. Then I see her. Mama. They've handcuffed her. They're putting her in the backseat of one of their cars.

They couldn't get a warrant to the house so they waited for an excuse to pull her over and busted her with something else.

Now they have an excuse to look in the house. Me. I'm the fucking minor. I'm their excuse to come in now that they've busted her with whatever the fuck she had in her trunk.

Oh shit. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

I have to get the fuck out of here before they finish with mom. I have to fucking jet.

I can't go back to that shit. I fucking can't.

I grab my back pack and bag, rush to the mattress to pull out mom's stash, and sprint out the door and down the stairs. I see police opening the glass doors on the north side of the apartment building and immediately turn around to the south side exit. There's cherries flashing on that side as well. I'm fucking trapped!

Without another thought, I slip into the door on my left. The maintenance man's closet. He liked to drink and lost his keys so often that he just left the door unlocked. I slid in and locked the deadlock from the inside before backing up against the wall and sliding down to a crouching position.

What the fuck was I going to do!?

I sat up from the couch in my apartment and rubbed my eyes. I didn't usually think about... that, but when I did it was when I was asleep and not mentally aware enough to prevent it. Fucking memories have a way of coming at you when you're at your weakest. Everything tries to come at you when you're at your weakest.

That's why the world is full of drug addicts and alcoholics. They haven't figured out how to make the memories disappear when they're awake. So they just do anything they can to make them disappear. To get some peace. To fucking forget.

But not me. I know exactly how to make it all fucking disappear. It's to decide that you don't fucking care anymore. Once you tell yourself that and once you believe it, the only thing you have to fear is your dreams. And even dreams start to spread themselves out so it doesn't hit you as often.

I look forward to the day when even my dreams forget how much I used to hurt.

It's been four days since James picked me up from Sammy's place. I haven't seen hide nor hair of either one of them and I've decided that that doesn't bother me too much. We all have work to do. Mine is primarily on the weekends and theirs is more of a weekday thing, I guess. No biggie.

Today is the day that I hit the library that James went out of his way to show me on Sunday afternoon. It's only six blocks away from the gym so I can walk from here no problem.

I'd been secluding myself to my apartment, mostly playing games on my phone and eating noodles. I was trepidatious about leaving because there was always a slight possibility of someone noticing me going in or out of this building and I really didn't need that shit. I supposed I could tell them I was looking for James, but it would be best if I didn't need to answer any questions at all.

I need to get out of this sardine can of an apartment, though.

With the sensation of the walls closing in on me, I finally dressed myself in my ripped blue skinny jeans and a long sleeved forest green shirt. I put a zippered black hoodie over that and left my hair down since it was behaving today. I wasn't going to a party today so I kept my make up simple with concealer for my freckles, a touch of grey eyeliner, black mascara, and some pink lip gloss.

It was unlikely that I'd run into one of the college students on this part of town, but I needed to be ready for that possibility. Plus, they might not be able to find what they need in the campus library and go search for it at the public library.

Also, I know for a fact that Cal frequents this gym. With that thought in mind, I open my window, duck out to the fire exit, and climb down the ladder into the alleyway.

I keep my hood up and my ear buds in as I walk out to the side walk and head toward the library with my head down and my hands in my pockets. It would be wonderful if I could get through this trip without anyone seeing me.

Something takes a part of me
Something lost and never seen
Every time I start to believe
Something's raped and taken from me from me
Life's gotta always be messing with me
Can't they chill and let me be free
Can't I take away all this pain
I try to every night, all in vain, in vain

As I walk my mind tries to wander to the dream I had the night before, but I won't allow it to. What happened happened. No mulling it over will change it. Mom was in prison now with most everyone else I had loved as a child and that was just life. Some people spent it in a cage and others spent it trying to avoid the cage.

Within a block of the library, the heat became cumbersome and I decided to pull my hood down. I was far enough from the gym and the nastier streets to avoid any suspicion so it wouldn't be a big deal if someone from the party saw me anyway. I reached the steps to the library shortly after and walked up to the door, suddenly feeling excited. It had been awhile since I lost myself in a good book.

Upon entering I grabbed an application for a library card off of the front desk and headed deeper in to find a table to sit and fill it out. On the way I passed the fantasy section and paused to peruse the selection.

I jumped and turned when one of my ear buds was removed.

"I called you from the street outside when I saw you walking up the steps," Cal said with a little smirk. "Must not have heard me because you were listening to..." he lifted the ear bud to his ear- Korn had long since finished and had been replaced by Rob Zombie, "... Feel So Numb?" His eyebrows shot up in surprise.

Well crap.