Chris Jordan - Torn

I can’t take it anymore. This ends now, or I really will go stark raving mad.

“Noah!” I scream. “Where are you!”

Shane, startled, reaches out to caution me, but I duck under his hand and fling myself out into the hallway, bellowing at the top of my lungs, “NOAH! NO-AHHH! IT’S MOMMY! NOAH! NOAH! NOAH!” chanting and screaming with all my strength, with everything I’ve got, and to give him credit, Shane doesn’t really try to stop me.

“NO-AHH!” I cry, running back and forth, doing my best to shout the walls down with the sound of my voice. “NO-AHHH! NO-AHHH! NO-AHHH! I WANT MY SON! GIVE ME BACK MY SON! NO-AHHH! NO-AHHH!”

I scream his name until my throat is so raw I can’t get out a sound, until the air is out of my lungs, until the strength is fading from my body, and hope from my heart.

And then I hear it. Very faint. Not Noah, not his voice, but something. A tiny thump no louder than the thudding of a single sparrow wing. But it’s enough to get me flying down the hallway, through the open door, and into one of the empty guest suites that we’ve already checked twice. And exactly as I enter the room, there’s the faintest flutter of movement under one of the dust sheets, a simple white cotton sheet covering an unused desk.

Hands extended like eager talons, mama bird zeroing in, I rip away the dust sheet and there under the desk is Irene Delancey, who looks almost as terrified as I do. Struggling in her arms is a desperate little boy. She has her hand clamped over the boy’s mouth, and her face is bleeding from where’s he’s scratched her, and his feet are kicking.

That’s the thump I heard, that’s what made the dust sheet flutter. Noah, my son, my beautiful true-blue boy, responding to his mother’s cry.

“Let him go,” I tell her, my voice hoarse and croaking.

“I saved him,” she whimpers, pleading for forgiveness. “They want to kill him and I saved him. You’ve got to believe me.”

“Let him go.”

She does, she lets him go, and then he’s in my arms, hugging me as if his life depends on it, crying Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, clinging with all his might, and everything is good. I am made whole again and everything is right in the world.

Except for one thing. Cradling Noah with my left arm, I lift my foot and stomp Mrs. Delancey right in the nose.

For weeks I’ve dreamed of this moment. Dreams so palpable, so real that I awoke convinced my son was back home, and I’d find myself staggering into his empty bedroom and realize that the real nightmare was in being awake.

Now that it has finally happened, now that I can feel Noah’s heart pounding against my own, all the pain and grief starts to melt away, and it is as if I’m finally, truly, wide-awake to the world. Strangely, my rage at those who stole him melts away, too. It’s as if there’s only room enough in me for love. Maybe that will change over time, but right at this moment, this wonderful, wonderful moment, all I feel for Irene Delancey and her Ruler friends is pity.

They are so utterly pathetic. Worshipping a mean old man who encouraged them to be selfish, is there anything more sad?

Cupping her hands to her bleeding nose, Irene looks at me imploringly. “We have to get out of here,” she whimpers. “She’ll find us.”

“Evangeline?” asks Shane. “Is she the one?”

I hadn’t even noticed that he’d come into the room. He’s been standing apart, letting me hug Noah, who is clinging to me as if he never intends to let go, his wet face buried against my neck, his legs locked around my hips just as he used to do when he was three or four and still wanted to be carried.

“Something has happened to her,” Irene says. “She was always dangerous, but lately it’s gotten worse. I think she must be delusional. All of her Sixes have seen Noah, so why does she think she can make him disappear? Everybody already knows he’s here, she can’t just make him disappear. It doesn’t make sense.”

Shane goes into the bathroom, returns with a cold cloth. “You may need to have that cauterized,” he says. “This will help with the swelling.”

“I never wanted to do this,” she says, pleading with me. “You’ve got to believe me.”

Her nose may be broken, but there seems to be no way to stop her from babbling on, making her excuses. How her husband got in trouble with the Rulers for cheating on his share-in, and how Evangeline and her horrible boyfriend were about to ruin them-leave them virtually penniless, imagine!-and the only way out was to do what they demanded. Take the job in Humble, befriend the child, bring him to Conklin. She’d never known that the police chief would be killed in front of the children, or that the school would be blown up, honest! And she’d only agreed to continue as Noah’s tutor to make sure he was okay, blah blah blah.

“Let me get this right,” I say. “You’re given a choice-lose money or kidnap an innocent child-and you choose to kidnap the child? That’s your defense? That’s the best you can come up with?”

Noah, clinging to my neck, whispers, “She’s lying, Mom. She’s a liar, liar with her pants on fire.”

“I know that, sweetie. Hush now. It doesn’t matter. We don’t have to listen to her anymore. Not ever again.”

“No,” agrees Shane. “But she’s right about one thing. We do need to get out of here, and fast. If I’m not mistaken, the entire building, or most of it, has been evacuated.”

I’m really too busy comforting Noah to pay close attention to what he’s saying, but I can see from his expression that he’s very worried, that in his mind we’re still in immediate danger.

“You were yelling loud enough to rattle the walls,” he points out. “No security response? There’s only one explanation-nobody comes to see what’s going on because they’ve already left.”

“Evangeline is still here,” Irene says, talking around her clotted nose. “She and her Sixes. At the top level, in the private residence. They’re holding vigil for Arthur.”

“But the guards are gone,” Shane says, pondering. “Rats deserting the ship.”

He decides we can’t wait for the Hostage Rescue Team to breach the building. The fastest way out is the way we came in-through the tunnel.

“Follow me,” he urges. “No sneaking around, we’ll run for it.”

“Don’t leave me!” Irene begs, following us out the door, into the deserted hallway.

Shane is right. I was yelling to raise the dead, that should have attracted attention. And if the building has been abandoned by the security chief and his men, there has to be a reason.

“Mom?” says Noah, releasing his grip on my neck. “Put me down. We can run faster that way.”

Holding his hand, we run for the stairs. Shane in the lead, his long legs eating up the yards, and Irene whimpering and stumbling as she tries to keep up.

Part of me is frightened-who wouldn’t be?-but part of me can’t help noticing how fast Noah can run. He’s nimble and balanced, physically healthy. So they must have fed him okay. My mommy gut tells me he hasn’t been damaged beyond repair. Whatever else he’s been through, whatever mental traumas he’s suffered, we can deal with all that.

He clings to my hand, though, and won’t let go, as if he can’t bear to lose physical contact. I expect he’ll be back sleeping in my bedroom for a while, as he did after his father died. That’ll be okay. That’ll be fine. And if he doesn’t want to sleep in my bedroom, I just might move into his. For a little while. Just until I get used to the idea that he’s safe, that no one will come to take him away in the middle of the night.

Making plans, even as we run for our lives.