Snared(40)

“I can’t even talk to them.” I dipped my head until my lips barely brushed hers. She responded immediately, moving her lips over mine in a sensual dance.

“You can talk to me.” She kissed me again. Her tongue met mine and I groaned, leaning closer to her so I could get more. I’d never been kissed like this . . . ever. I’d thought Robyn had been an incredible lover, but I hadn’t a clue what was considered amazing if kissing April was any indication.

Shrieks from down the hall made us both jump apart. I’d heard those kinds of screams before. Without thinking, I flung the door open and ran down the hall to where the noise was coming from, April on my heels. What I saw when I entered the room made my blood run cold. Robbie was yelling, his little cheeks red as tears poured down his face. One of the counselors held him as he kicked and screamed, cursing at anyone and everyone.

The reporters stood in the front of the room, their mouths agape. “Get them the fuck out of here,” I told April. She left me, and I turned back to the child. His eyes connected with mine, rage pouring out of them. The counselor wasn’t looking at me; he was shouting to one of the other workers to call a doctor.

“We’re going to have to sedate him,” he said. “Get him here immediately.”

“NO!” I shouted, causing the entire room to stop and stare at me. I had no idea where Bex and Natalie were, but it didn’t matter. “No one sedates him. Let him go so he’ll stop.”

“He’s already punched another kid, thrown chairs and broke a window,” the counselor said. “I can’t let him go!”

Robbie thrashed and screamed, spit flying from his mouth as he continued cursing and yelling. He flung his head back, and it connected with the counselor. He let him go as blood poured from his nose. Robbie ran, and I followed him. At one point, he turned back and saw me, which only made him run faster.

Alarms sounded as he pushed open the back door. He couldn’t get far; the back yard was surrounded by a concrete wall at least six feet high.

“Leave me the fuck alone!” Robbie screamed, running to a tree and collapsing under it. Sobs overtook his body as the adrenaline left him. I stopped a few feet from him, my heart in shreds as I watched him. I knew exactly how he felt. His life was out of control, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. While his life had sucked before, it was the only life he’d ever known, and now it was gone. He had nothing. He was nothing.

I heard the door open behind us, and I turned quickly, holding up my hand to stop April from coming out. When she saw me, she froze and then went back inside, shutting the door behind her. Robbie was still shuddering, but at least he’d stopped crying.

“I was in foster care when I was a kid.” He didn’t look at me, but I knew he was listening. “It sucked. A lot. I just wanted to go home, even though home wasn’t that great of a place, either.”

Robbie sniffed but still didn’t move.

“I’m not going to tell you everything will be okay, because I don’t know that. But what I wish someone would’ve told me when I was a kid was that I could decide to do whatever I wanted. That my crappy life didn’t have to stay that way.”

“My mom died,” he said, his back still to me. “This time, I don’t get to go home again.”

I walked around the tree and faced him, crouching down in front of him. “My dad died when I was a kid.”

Robbie turned his watery eyes toward me. He studied me, from the gauges in my ears to the tattoos sticking out from my clothing. “I don’t have a dad. My mom never told me who he was, and now I’ll never know. She said we were here to find him, but . . .” His voice trailed off as sobs overtook him again.

I wouldn’t get into who my mother was or what she’d done to me with this child. He didn’t need any more baggage. “My mom wasn’t very nice.”

His eyes zeroed in on my nose piercing. “My mom did drugs. She didn’t love me enough to stop.”

My heart clenched We weren’t so different, this child and I. “Sometimes the people who are supposed to love us don’t love us enough.”

Robbie nodded. “He took my picture.”

“Who?”

“That kid in there. He walked up to me and yanked my picture out of my hand. It’s the only picture I have left of my mom. He can’t get away with that.”

Well, no wonder he’d flipped out. See, and they wanted to sedate the child, probably take him out of this home, and he’d never get his picture back again. Then he’d lose the last little bit of his mom he had left.