I don’t want you—
I don’t want you—
Moxie stands quickly. There’s a man and woman in suits, and a cop behind them in full uniform with weapon belt clanking. Sam’s insides turn to ice.
‘Hello, miss.’ The man wears entire black – black shirt, smart jacket, impeccably shined shoes. ‘I’m Sammy Lou’s social worker and I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’ He turns flint eyes on Sam.
Sam wonders if you have any chance in a court at all if your social worker looks like he hates you already.
Moxie pushes sweaty hair out of her eyes. ‘I can get his brother—’
‘Not necessary.’ The woman’s hair is a sea of silver. She sets a briefcase down, her eyes flicking over Moxie with suspicion. She turns to the social worker. ‘No visitors for my client. Have the hospital staff notified. This could already be a problem.’
The social worker gives a tight nod and motions for Moxie to leave.
She turns to Sam one last time, her eyes pools of unshed tears. She bites her lip, the lemon and steel fading to this vulnerable, agonised look. She mouths, Let me help.
Sam gives the tiniest shake of his head.
And then they’re ushering her out the door and he loses her.
Sam bunches his fists in the blankets. He needs Avery. They’re not going to let him have Avery. Hot tears sting his eyes and he doesn’t bother to rub them away.
The social worker holds out his hand to shake Sam’s. ‘Emery Evans,’ he says. ‘And this is your lawyer, Celia Polnik. She handles many of our kids’ cases, so you’re in good hands. Now, the police have some questions for you.’
Sam’s throat is dry. He has no words. Can’t they see? He dropped them when he ran, and now his mouth is full of splinters.
Just then Avery sprints into the room, half slamming against the wall in mussed, sleepy, sock-clad haste. He bolts over to Sam and throws himself to his side. His thin chest moves raggedly. Maybe a girl woke him on her way out.
‘OK,’ Avery says, ‘OK, I’m here. You can talk to him now.’
Like they need Avery’s permission to come anywhere near his little brother.
Sam insists he can dress himself, but he underestimates how much it still hurts. He puts on black dress trousers and socks and then decides he needs a break. Possibly a nap.
Possibly he could never wake up.
His fingers brush over the bandages taped to his stomach. It’s been a week and he should’ve been out of the hospital earlier except they have nowhere to put him. And the hospital psychiatrist isn’t happy with how little Sam’s eating. Or how often he screams himself awake at night. No one knows what to do with him.
That’s great, because he doesn’t know what to do with himself either.
Avery, so far, slips through the cracks of everyone’s attention. But flint-eyed Evans has zoned in on him, and Sam knows it’s only a matter of time before he deals with the panicked, flapping Avery too.
Sam starts to go back to bed and tackle the shirt and tie later, when Evans walks crisply in.
Sam pulls himself upright. ‘You said you weren’t coming till four.’
‘I said we’re going to the courthouse at three.’ Evans’s dark eyes flit about the room. No Avery. He seems satisfied. ‘Get your shirt. We leave now so we can start the paperwork before the judge is in. It’s just a preliminary hearing and Polnik will do the talking.’
Sam’s shoulders cave inward. He pulls on the white shirt, still creased from the packet, and slowly does the buttons. Evans brought the clothes in earlier. A vicious ache runs through Sam every time he thinks of the waistcoat. Ruined with blood and sliced by the knife. They threw it out.
Don’t think of the waistcoat.
Or Moxie.
You’re not allowed.
You don’t deserve to.
‘Avery isn’t back yet,’ Sam says. ‘He went to get a clean shirt—’
Evans picks up the tie and impatiently gestures for Sam to stand. Sam feels like a speck of a boy next to Evans’s towering limbs. The man is all spider-thin fingers and a disapproving mouth.
‘He can meet us there.’
‘He won’t know where to go,’ Sam says. ‘He might not make it in time. We have to wait.’
Evans does the tie efficiently, sliding it too tight and then adjusting Sam’s collar. ‘We’re not waiting.’
Sam understands.
Evans did this on purpose. He always brings paperwork and lawyers and police in when Avery isn’t there. When Avery’s sleeping. When Avery’s gone to try and find Aunt Karen. He despises Avery for skirting the system and being guilty but with not enough proof to nail him. From snippets Sam’s picked up, he’s waiting for Avery’s case to be assigned to him. Then his spider fingers will be all over Sam’s brother.
But he doesn’t want Avery at the courthouse. Not Avery’s loud tics or panicked outbursts or the way he freaks out when someone comes close to Sam.
But Sam can’t go without him.
He’s so empty. They tried to stitch him back together, but too much already fell out. Stars and buttons and caramel truffles.
‘I need Avery.’
‘What you need,’ Evans says, ‘is a very merciful judge and a perfectly respectful attitude. Cooperate, Samuel, or this is going to go worse for you.’
My name is just Sammy, he wants to say, but he just picks up the splinters of his soul that are left, and follows Evans out.
Sam tests the car door handles as soon as Evans isn’t looking. Locked from the outside. The car smells of ground coffee and paperwork and there’s not a crumb to be seen. Sam has been around several social workers, but Evans is something else. Maybe when they get a case stamped with the words assault and runaway and thief and invisible boy, they pick the caseworkers who are made of black ink and hard lines.
Evans’s car purrs smoothly through the city. He glances once in his rear-view mirror and Sam stares blankly back.
‘Am I going to jail?’ Sam says at last.
‘I can’t predict the judge.’
A non-answer. Sam should be used to those.
‘When we go back to the hospital to get Avery—’
‘We’re not going back.’
Sam’s eyes snatch to the driver’s seat, but Evans just holds the wheel calmly like he didn’t puncture Sam’s thin web of calm.