Between the Cracks and Burning Doors: Book 2 of The Extraction List Series (2 page)

I stood up straight, ignoring the stabbing pain in my ribs. Of course, the few people who saw me were probably wondering what a young boy was doing outside with a backpack in the middle of the night, but I kept my head held high as if I knew exactly where I was going. I marched with purpose, even when I was walking down an alley behind an old building, all the while sweating with the thought that there might be someone in the darkness waiting for me.

I ducked behind some garbage cans and threw my backpack onto the ground. The street was wet of course, but I was already soaked as I sat on the drenched pavement. My stomach growled as I sat staring at the backpack that held the last of my belongings: corn, beans, tomatoes, soup.

Maybe my mother hadn’t taken off, and was handing the pipe over to the police. She did say she’d take care of it, but she didn’t say how. As I sat there in the alley between a brick wall and garbage cans smelling of half-eaten sandwiches and congealing beer-soaked napkins, I realized that I had just left my fate in the hands of a woman who had watched me suffer for years and done nothing.

Tears fell from my eyes. I scolded myself, told myself I was a weak little boy and to shut up before someone discovered me. I kept my mouth shut but my body shook. I clasped my hands together to try and make it stop but I just kept shaking…until I heard voices from the end of the alley.

From what I could tell, they were all men. I could pick out four of them. One didn’t sound very happy. “Look, why don’t you just come inside. There’s food and water, even clothes. I can help you.”

I heard the familiar sound of flesh hitting flesh, then a thud. I didn’t have to look to know that someone had hit the ground. “Just give us the money. Don’t make us do this.”

Flesh hit flesh again. I slowly got up from my position on the ground and peeked around the garbage cans that hid me. When I saw who was lying on the ground, I felt whatever color was left in my cheeks fade away.

The man on the ground was a priest.

Every Sunday, my mother and father would take me to church. For those two hours every Sunday, I lived without fear of being beaten. I listened to the sermon, hanging on every word. And when I looked at the rest of the congregation, I pretended our family was normal, just one of the many. Church was the only time all week that I breathed easy.

I don’t know where it came from, but I screamed aloud. I yelled despite my cracked ribs and bruised body. “Hey, leave him alone! What’s wrong with you?” Before I could stop myself, my feet were carrying me toward the group of full-grown men. Two of them started to retreat, but one stood his ground.

“Come on, Kyle, he’s seen us. It’s not worth it, let’s go.” His partners were halfway out of the alley, but Kyle stayed.

“Guys, it’s just a kid.” Instead of looking at Kyle, I ran straight for the priest.

My back was facing Kyle. “Are you alright, Father?” The priest started to get up. I felt Kyle move toward me, the soft sound of his feet hitting the earth. I glanced behind me in time to see him draw his fist back.

Before he could follow through, I kicked him in the groin. Hard.

Then Kyle was the one on the ground.

He was down. He wasn’t a danger to the priest anymore.

But he had to be punished.

I kept kicking him. I kicked him in the ribs and in the back, my father’s favorite places to kick me. Over and over again, I felt the impact of my heel against his bones.

When the priest managed to get up, he had to pull me away. “Thank you. You may have saved my life.” I nodded at him numbly. Now that it was over and the men had disappeared into the darkness, I could feel my heart pounding in my chest and the shaking returned. “What are you doing out here? Shouldn’t you be home?”

I shook so hard I couldn’t speak. Just looking at my face, he seemed to know that home wasn’t an option. The priest put his hand on my shoulder. “Come with me.”

The priest helped me down the stone path that led to his church. I could hardly keep my eyes open, but through the slits I saw stars hovering above us. As the door shut behind us, I squinted at them one last time.

Images appeared then flickered away as I forced my eyes open, only to have them fall shut once again. There was a spiral staircase at the back of the church. He let me lean on him while we went past the rows of wooden pews. Blood-red bibles lined the back shelf of each pew. There was nothing else in the church but the crisp white walls and a small stained glass window that hovered above the pulpit. As we ascended the next set of stairs, the stained glass Madonna smiled down at me, as if to say, “Don’t worry, Cain, you’re safe now.”

We’ll see
, I thought.

Yes, I was off the street, but I was being carried into a building I had never been in before, by a man I had met in a dark alley in the middle of the night minutes earlier. I was in that alley because I had just murdered my father. I could think of no legitimate reason a priest would need to be out there in the dampness among thieves.

There was a room upstairs at the end of a small hallway. Carefully, the priest opened the door with one hand, and helped me stay upright with the other. He sat me down on a bed as carefully as he could. It was hard, but it had soft sheets and thick wool blankets. As he covered me up to my chin, I tried to find some words to tell him how grateful I was. Maybe the Blessed Virgin was right after all.

I opened my mouth, but he put his finger to his lips. “Shhh…save your strength. We will talk in the morning after you’ve gotten some rest.” There was a red chair in the opposite corner of the room with a wool blanket draped over the arm. The priest threw the blanket over his knees and curled up in the chair. He smiled at me from inside his cocoon. “Goodnight, kid. And thanks.”

I blinked and it was morning. I don’t remember ever sleeping through the night without waking up every few hours. Every creak, every whistle from the wind hitting the roof sounded like my father opening my bedroom door. Dishes in the dishwasher clinking against each other reminded me of my father removing his belt.

I squeezed the blankets around me as tight as I could. I hoped the priest wouldn’t notice. Maybe I could stay there just a couple minutes longer. The moment he realized I was awake, it was over for me.
I should get out before he tells me to leave.
Yes, I had helped him out the night before, but I knew there was no way that he would want to pay me back with anything more than a night in a warm bed.

In my mind, the priest walked around the room, busying himself with his desk or the curtains that draped over the small window across from the kitchen, any meaningless chore to keep him from having to make eye contact with me as he explained that he couldn’t very well keep a runaway in his home, to be reasonable, and that me going home was really the only option. Then, he gently pushed his hand against the small of my back, leading me toward the door.

Wrong.

He did the exact opposite.

I felt a gentle poke in my shoulder as the scent of bacon and eggs hit me. When I peeked out from the covers, the priest gently sat a tray on the nightstand by the bed. “I’m not much of a chef, but I do fry up a good egg.” In the light, I could see more of the man who took me in. He had a bald head, and his dark eyes were kind. He was not in his priest uniform anymore. He wore gray sweatpants instead of black dress pants. The arms that spilled out of his white tank were as thick as wine barrels. I could even see the edge of a tattoo. If I hadn’t already seen him the night before, I would have never guessed he was a clergy member.

I smiled as I shoveled the eggs and bacon in my mouth. During bites, I managed to spit out a thank you. He laughed when little flecks of egg landed on the bed. “So what’s your name?”

I swallowed. “Cain. Cain Foley.” As soon as it came out, I wondered if I should have spoken. “I mean—”

“It’s okay, Cain. You can stay here as long as you want.” He came over and took the tray from me. I hadn’t even noticed when I first arrived, but there was a small kitchen on the opposite wall. He spoke as he rinsed my plate, “This place is small, but it’s mine. It’s really all I need anyway, besides what’s downstairs.” He smiled again. “Mind if I sit down?” I shook my head, and he sat down on the edge of the bed. I still hadn’t managed to make myself leave the safety of the church. “You don’t have to tell me details, but do your parents know where you are?”

I shook my head again.

“I’m sure they’re worried.”

Panic surged through me like an electrical charge. I leapt up and started toward the door. “No! You can’t call my parents, I can’t go back there.” I was halfway out the door when I felt a strong hand on my shoulder.

“It’s okay. I’m not going to say anything. There’s no need to run off.” I looked at him. My feet felt heavy as I stepped back into his apartment. “You need to tell me something, though. Are you in some kind of trouble?”

I hesitated. “Father, I—”

“Father Dominic. Or just Dom.” Something about his eyes…they looked nothing like my father’s.

“I did something bad and I can’t go home. Ever.”

“Police bad?”

I sucked in a breath. “Yeah.” Dom stood silently for a moment and the thought crossed my mind that I had made a mistake. But instead of kicking me out, he walked over to his desk and pulled something out of the top drawer.

It was hair dye.

“Well, let’s make you look like somebody that doesn’t match what they’re looking for.”

He motioned for me to follow him into his tiny bathroom. “You ever done this before?” I shook my head. “Sit.” I sat on the toilet, and he opened the box, putting on a pair of white plastic gloves. He got out three bottles and mixed two together. “How do you feel about black hair?”

“Okay?”

“Good, ‘cause that’s your only choice.” He smiled and squirted the dye into my hair, mixing it around my scalp with his fingers.

I couldn’t help but wonder why a bald priest would have hair dye laying around in the first place.

When he was done, he told me to wait twenty minutes and then rinse the dye out in the shower. In the meantime, he was going to grab me some clothes from the collection bin downstairs. As he opened his bedroom door, he looked back at me. “Stay here, okay?” He lingered there for a moment, and then disappeared.

I wondered if there was a part of him that thought he would come back and find his apartment empty with drops of black dye making a path toward the door, down the stairs, and out into the world.

I stayed put.

He returned right about the time when the hair dye needed to come out; awful stuff that smelled like flowers and laundry soap. I could hear him exhale, probably in relief, when he saw me still sitting on the toilet where he’d left me. He tossed a black shirt at me along with some jeans. A pair of sneakers landed next to me on the bathroom floor. When I went to take my shirt off to get in the shower, I realized I wouldn’t be able to get it off without getting hair dye all over it. I mentioned it to Dom. “Doesn’t matter. After you’re out, we’re gonna burn it.”

I let the hot water run over me and leaned against the wall. Pools of black swirled over the white tile and down the drain, weaving in and out from between my toes. I held my breath as I threw my face into the spray, and let the water push away the dirt and the sweat from the night before. A strange feeling crept through my veins, something between numbness and peace. I didn’t recognize it, so I guessed it was what other people called “calm.”

Even dead, my father had a way of poisoning the best moments, between the warm steam and the running water, long enough to snatch them away from me. I had pushed away the thoughts about what I had done so far, but with exhaustion releasing its hold, they came charging in. Why hadn’t I stopped hitting him? I looked at my abdomen and saw purple shapes staring back at me. Each movement hurt.

He was down. The danger was over. I could have just walked up the stairs and out of the house forever.

But I didn’t. I swung that pipe again and again. The sound of bone snapping in two belonged to him instead of me, and after each swing, I had to hear it just one more time.

I heard a knock on the bathroom door. “Bout done? Hot water doesn’t last too long here. Don’t want you to get a jolt.” With one last inhale, I shut the water off.

“Done. Be out in a minute.” I gingerly picked up the shirt that Dom had grabbed for me. Even though it came from the collection box, it smelled as if it was fresh from the dryer. I slipped it over my head and threw on the jeans.

When I came out, Dom was sitting at his desk, scribbling something on a yellow pad of paper. The television played the local news softly in the background. The moment I realized what the announcer was talking about, my stomach dropped to the floor. I turned toward it and saw an image of my father staring back at me:
Local grocery store owner and pillar of the community Benjamin Foley was reported missing by his janitor this morning. After he did not show up to work, he called the police. Foley’s wife could not be reached for comment. If you have any information, please contact your local police department.

Dom’s pen stood still, hovering over his desk. He didn’t miss the significance of the missing man’s last name. Every muscle in my body tightened as I prepared for the worst. I thought to myself,
This is it
. This is going to be the moment that he would toss me back outside, and leave me for the gangs to finish me off. But instead, his eyes never leaving the paper, he said, “I’m working on my sermon for tomorrow. Do you want to help?”

I exhaled.

He waved me over to his desk and relinquished his chair. “Give it a read, would you? I’m going to hop in the shower.” As I sat down, I glanced up at him. He smiled. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

Nothing. Not a word about the news report. Though my breathing slowed and my heart stopped pounding, I couldn’t help asking myself,
Why
?
Why was a man I had only met the night before willing to hide me from the police?
And how did a priest know how to hide someone in the first place? I didn’t know the details of seminary school, but I was sure that helping fugitives wasn’t covered.