What Nobody Else Sees

chapter forty six

Sam got back in his truck, taking a sip of his soda. Bless Callie and her perfect timing.

"To summarize," Sam said, looking over at Dylan, who had calmed down considerably since the beginning of their drive. "Jackson started having another breakdown, insisted that you spy on me, or he would kill both of us?"

Dylan nodded, avoiding his eyes.

Sam whistled. "Alright then," he said, pulling off the side of the road and back onto the long interstate. He turned up the radio, letting the loud drums fill the vehicle.

"What are you waiting for?" Dylan finally said over the noise, eyes squeezed shut.

Not sure he had heard right, Sam turned down the volume. "What was that?"

Dylan didn't open his eyes. "What are you waiting for?"

Sam tilted his head to the side. "I'm not following, kid."

Running a frustrated hand through his blond hair, Dylan finally looked at Sam. "I could've gotten you killed. It doesn't matter that I'm young, or that Jackson threatened me, or that I was scared, I almost killed you. So, what are you waiting for? You could've dumped me hours ago, or handed me off to the police, or just killed me yourself. Why not?"

Sam's mouth hung open in shock. The idea of killing Dylan, or any kid for that matter, was insane. He glanced at Dylan, eyebrows raised high. "Because you are a child who was manipulated and threatened by a grown man. I have no reason to be upset with you. C'mon, kid, you saved my ass back there," he said, lightly slapping Dylan's shoulder.

Dylan frowned, sinking deep into his seat. "I'm not a kid. I'll be sixteen in April," he muttered.

Sam scoffed. "Yeah, sure. I was four years older than you when I came to Memphis, and I was still considered a kid by everyone in the group."

Dylan's eyes flickered up to Sam. "What were things like before Memphis?"

The radio was low enough that Sam could hardly hear the host talking, congratulating some woman on being the ninth caller. Donna used to obsess over those calls.

"I had a friend, once," he said, testing the waters. Dylan was staring at him with that intense, curious gaze. "He died when we were nineteen."

"How?" Dylan asked, his voice low.

Sam appreciated the caution more than he would admit.

He hummed, trying to create an air of disinterest. "Pneumonia. Doctors think he already had some underlying condition, weak immune system sort of thing."

As he turned left, Dylan muttered, "I'm sorry," the boy fidgeted with his hands. "Were you close with him?"

He hadn't talked about this in years, hadn't openly addressed it out loud ever.

But they were leaving Memphis and getting some sort of nostalgic fresh start, so he figured there was no harm in telling Dylan about a dead man.

"Blake was my closest friend," he said, conveniently leaving out Eileen. "It hit me pretty hard when he died. That's the main reason why I came to Memphis, I just couldn't stand to be there any longer. That, and my family. I...," he trailed off, sighing heavily. Donna married up, Callie got good grades, they would all be fine. No cycle of poverty and abuse would be restarted because of him. "We were a dysfunctional crowd."

Dylan was quiet for a few minutes, a thoughtful look on his face that Sam had rarely seen.

"I'm actually from Jackson, Tennessee. After my mom left, I just kept moving till I reached Memphis, and then I had a reason to stay."
Sam glanced at him in the corner of his eye, raising an eyebrow. "For who? Jackson?"

Dylan shook his head. "No, not really. Yeah, Jackson dragged me in, but I could've left. I only decided to stay when I met you."

Sam startled at that. For him? They had met when Sam was twenty-three. Still cold, still Jackson's favorite stray.

"Why would you do that?" Sam asked, hushed.

Dylan shrugged, smiling sheepishly. "You treated me like a person from the start. Nobody had done that in years. I figured I could stick around for a while, because at least one person was acknowledging my existence as an actual human being. It was nice."

He understood it. When Sam met Jackson, he felt the same way. Finally, finally, someone was looking at him with compassion, with comfort, with support and trust and all those other things he had missed at nineteen. But Sam would grow and watch and learn and realize that Jackson treated every young kid the same way, that it was all just manipulation and lies. Still, he stayed, like any kicked dog, because loyalty was in his veins and it needed to be fed.

"I'm sorry you went through all of that," Sam whispered, barely conscious of his own words. "You should've left anyways. It's all a mess, kid, that's all Memphis was. A damn mess."

Dylan turned his head, looking out the window. He absently fiddled with the tears on his jeans. Blake had done the same thing when he was nervous. "But we're leaving Memphis, so it's ok. It wasn't that bad anyways."

They sat in quiet for the next few miles, unaware of the low drone of the radio.

"So, where exactly are we going?" Dylan asked, arms folded over his chest.

Sam glared at him, turning up the radio.

Dylan huffed. "C'mon, you've got to tell me. You can't just drag me across the country with no idea of where we're going!"

The kid made a point. Still, Sam wasn't used to telling others the details. That was for him to know, it was his leverage.

But Dylan was in the passenger seat, leaving the only city he had ever known. Sam knew what that was like. To leave your life, your world, in the aftermath of grief and suffering, not knowing if you'd live to see tomorrow.

"Alabama," he started, taking it slow. Dylan perked up, clearly waiting on Sam to elaborate. "When we get there, no questions. You'll sit in the bedroom and stay there unless you're told otherwise."

Dylan sank down in the seat, dragging his hands down his face. "Can you at least tell me where we're gonna be staying? You got an apartment all the way in Alabama?"

Sam looked back at him. His blond hair was hanging in his eyes, covering the tops of his ears. The buttons on his shirt were uneven, clearly done in a haste.

"Not an apartment. A house," he said in a low voice.

Dylan parted his hands, raising his head to stare at Sam like he had just said they were going to see the baby Jesus. "You've got a house?"

The corner of Sam's lips twitched. "No, we'll be staying in a house. It's not mine, it belongs to a relative. She's living there, and again, no questions."

They were quiet for a moment. Sam switched lanes.

"This relative," Dylan muttered, staring out the window. "Does she know what we've done?"

He thought of Callie and that first night he came home. He thought of her frantic expression and tear streaked face and the gun hanging limply at her side, like she had no intention of killing anyone else. He thought of how her eyes glazed over and how the glass overflowed with water and how she screamed at him in the kitchen.

"She knows," he said, a frown settling onto his lips. "She knows, and she doesn't care, because she's done bad things too."

He chuckled, though his mouth tasted of blood and vinegar. "When we get there, Dylan, I want you to remember that all three of us are survivors. We did what we had to do to make it out alive."

And when the kid nodded in resignation, all he could see was his little sister standing on the porch, blood smeared on her face.

He wondered if it was her own.