by Trina Solet
They both held their breaths as an old, black Impala pulled into the motel parking lot with Blake at the wheel. Dee squealed and clawed at Finn's arm as Blake got out of his car. He was tall and attractive, and moved with subtle, masculine grace. Finn would expect nothing less from any brother of his.
He and Dee rushed up to him and tried to introduce themselves. They talked over each other, and for some reason Dee insisted that her name was Dee Dee. Crazy girl not knowing her own name.
"I know who you are," Blake told them curtly, cutting through their chatter.
"Then you should have been the one who came looking for us," Finn told him, trying for the same gruff tone.
"That's right," Dee agreed and scowled at Blake from behind her glasses.
"How did you find me?" Blake asked.
"There aren't a million motels in Meadowview," Finn said.
"We just went from one to the other and showed this," Dee held up the picture they had been showing around.
Blake grimaced at it. "That's..."
"Your spitting image. The scruffy guy in reception recognized you based on this," Finn said pointing to the old picture of their father, which was Dee's favorite.
"I flirted with the scruffy guy," Dee bragged. She was so deluded.
"She tried," Finn said. "And it was just as awkward and embarrassing as you would imagine."
"I was sexy!" Dee insisted.
Finn gave her a sympathetic look and a shake of his head.
"I'd rather you didn't flirt with strange men in motels on my behalf," Blake told her.
"That's brotherly protectiveness," Dee said pointing her finger at him accusingly.
"The point is we dragged out underaged asses through every motel until we tracked you down, so we don't want any lip from you," Finn told Blake.
"We went to four motels," Dee said. Whose side was she on?
"And now you can go back home, or to an arcade, or to a mall or wherever," Blake said, trying to act all cool. Who was he kidding?
"Like hell!" Dee yelled. She never even heard of cool.
Ignoring them, Blake went up to his room. They were close on his heels, but he still closed the door on them. They huffed and then knocked. After only a few minutes, he opened the door and came out. It looked like he was stuffing some money in his back pocket and leaving again. Finn and Dee were right behind him.
"He's going to drive away!" Dee said in alarm as Blake headed to his car.
"Let's slash his tires," Finn said then drew back as Blake turned to glare at him in warning.
Dee went around to block their brother's path. "I was hoping that you didn't come here just for Dad's funeral, that you wanted to see us," she said to Blake.
"I didn't come here for either of those reasons," Blake told her.
"Then why are you here?" Finn asked, narrowing his eyes at him.
Blake only looked at him sharply. His look clearly said, "None of your business." Yeah right. Just because he didn't want to have anything to do with them didn't mean they couldn't bug him to death.
Blake stalked to his car. Instead of slashing his tires, Finn and Dee ran to their car, also known as their mom's old car, and a slow speed car chase was on. Surprisingly, or maybe disappointingly, Blake didn’t try any evasive maneuvers. He didn't try to lose them by peeling through an intersection just as the light turned red or by making any sudden, unsignaled, left turns. He drove a little over the speed limit and eventually pulled up to the curb on Collins Street. Finn parked as well, and he and Dee joined Blake as he went into a bodega.
The place was called simply Manuela's and it smelled like something Finn wanted to eat right now. There was some prepared food under glass and the rest was just cold drinks and groceries.
"How long are you going to follow me?" Blake asked as they stepped inside right behind him.
"Until we get bored or distracted by something shiny. Now buy us lunch. We're starving." The smell of something meaty was making Finn's mouth water.
"I'll buy us lunch," Dee volunteered. She went up to the woman at the counter and said, "What's cooking?"
"Empanadas are fresh, $1.25 a piece."
"We'll have two each to go," Dee said pointing at herself, Finn and Blake.
"Don't buy me any," Blake told her.
"Ignore him. Six empanadas, please," Dee said to the woman when she hesitated while filling their order. "And three iced teas."
"Dee Dee, stop ordering for me," Blake told her.
"This is my tutoring money. I can spend it however I want," she told him.
"Dee does tutoring. She sells her brains for money," Finn said.
Blake glared at him for making it sound salacious. Then he went up to the woman behind the counter and asked if Gabby or Roberto were around.
"You are that friend of Reese's. Gabby said he's back," the woman said while wrapping the order Dee put in.
"So he is here," Blake said. There was a stunned, hopeful look on his face as the woman nodded.
Neither Gabby nor Roberto were there though so Blake gave her his phone number and left. Stepping out onto the sidewalk, he looked dazed.
"Eat," Dee told him sticking two wrapped empanadas in his hand. "And don't worry. We'll help you find this Reese guy," she assured him.
Blake looked at her in surprise as if she wasn't supposed to know anything about it. How was she not supposed to know? She was standing a foot away from him when the whole exchange went down.
"I'm not going to ask you who this Reese is. I know you're just going to give me that 'None of your business' look," Finn told him as he bit into his own empanada.
For a while they stood on the sidewalk and ate, even Blake. He was lost in thought, staring off into the distance as Finn and Dee watched him and wondered who this Reese was to him.
*
Until he met Blake, Reese lived under a shadow. Blake was the morning breaking over his world. Everything was clear and bright. Reese's heart sang, and his blood pounded a new beat. All sorts of possibilities came to light. Anything might happen, maybe even something good. All because on his first day of school, Reese's eyes fell on a serious boy with a stay-back glare and an aggressive stance. He was the one who made a light shine inside his heart. And even after Blake hurt him, the light was somehow still there.
Reese and Blake used to stop at Manuela's after school. That was in the days when the two of them roamed the town aimlessly, always together, seemingly inseparable. It was a good place to grab something to eat, and they knew Roberto and his sister Gabby from school. Manuela was their mother, and they often worked at the bodega with her.
After his falling out with Blake, Reese roamed the town by himself. Maybe he was hoping to run into Blake at one of the places where they used to go together. While Reese hung out at the bodega, he got to be good friends with Gabby and Roberto. The two of them kept him from feeling alone, and Roberto helped him out when he decided to leave town more than four years ago.
Reese couldn't come to Meadowview without seeing Roberto and Gabby. He called them a few times, but now he hoped to see them in person. Since the bodega was a public place, Reese felt safe dropping in. As long as he didn't linger, there wouldn't be any harm in it.
Just as Reese was about to turn a corner and cross the street, he caught sight of Blake right in front of Manuela's. Reese drew back before he revealed himself. He should have just walked away, but he couldn't. He ducked back and kept out of sight and then stared.
Blake was right there, so close. He was the one who cut his heart open and left him to bleed. But even after all these years, Reese couldn't take his eyes off him for even a second. He drank him in, memorizing how he had changed since he last saw him. Reese had barely gotten a glimpse of him at his fathers funeral. But even if he looked at him all day, it wouldn't be enough.
Reese kicked himself for lingering, but his body just wouldn't move to take him away from there. Wasn't his life bad enough? He didn't need to torture himself even more by staring a
t Blake.
Maybe that's why Duke used to say, "You are a boy who sure knows how to suffer and then come back for more." Thinking of his thick, insinuating voice made Reese's skin crawl. He looked hard at Blake to force every other thought from his head. It was amazing how well that worked, always did. Blake could drive out every bad thing, fill him up, make him feel free and then crush him into the dirt.
Telling himself how Blake had wronged him didn't seem to make any difference. It didn't make him look away from him, and it didn't make him move. He only walked away when he saw Blake get into his car and drive off down the street.
Chapter 3
Once they were done eating, Blake thanked Dee for feeding him and then tried to send them home again. When they refused, he shook his head and drove away. Finn and Dee followed. Dee was at the wheel as they passed a mostly vacant strip mall, a furniture rental store, and a medical supply warehouse. This was not the most cheerful part of Meadowview. It looked like their next destination wasn't going to be as friendly and delicious as Manuela's.
Blake stopped his car in front of an abandoned parking garage where skaters, druggies and runaways hung out. It had once been part of a planned shopping center that never got off the ground. Chunks were falling off the place. It was just a matter of time before it was condemned. The parking structure was well known, and Finn and Dee were strictly forbidden from going anywhere near it.
When he parked and got out, Blake came over to their car. "You're not getting out. Lock the doors and sit in the car. Got it?" he told them.
"We didn't come all this way to sit in the car," Dee said while looking around worriedly.
Blake kept that stern big brother look on his face. "Don't you have a curfew or something? Where I'm going isn't a place for children."
"Curfew? Listen to him," Finn said turning to Dee.
Of course they had a curfew, but it wasn't this insanely early. And they weren't about to admit to it anyway. Finn got out of the car to show Blake that he wasn't the boss of him. He wasn't the boss of Dee either, so she got out too.
Blake shook his head and walked away. As they trailed after him, he had to accept that wherever he was going, they were coming along. He let them walk close behind him as he went inside.
There was plenty of light coming in through the openings in the upper levels. That's where the skaters were doing their thing. Unfortunately, Blake was leading them down. The underground levels had narrow slits at the top where only a little bit of light came in. Without power, the rest of the garage was dark and shadowy. The low ceiling made Finn feel a little claustrophobic.
"I don't like it here," Dee whispered. Finn didn't blame her.
Overhearing her, Blake stopped and turned to them. "Finn, take your sister home," he said.
"You take your sister home," Finn shot back.
"No one needs to take me home. I'm fine," she said, still keeping her voice down.
"I don't know," Finn told her doubtfully. "You got kind of wimpy there."
"Shut up. I'm tough as nails," Dee claimed.
"Press on nails maybe." Finn was feeling the pain of Dee digging her nails into his wrist just as some guy was coming toward the three of them. He seemed to appear out of nowhere and Finn tensed.
"It's fine," Blake told him, noticing his reaction. "I know him."
Looking around, Finn saw that there were people in the shadows. Most of them sitting or lying down. He saw some bare mattresses and improvised furniture.
The guy who approached looked like a college boy gone bad. His hair was greasy and matted down, his clothes stained. If he cleaned himself up a little, he wouldn't seem out of place in some college bar.
"Blake Monroe, as I live and breathe," the guy said.
"It's Blake Adler. Have you seen Reese?" Blake asked.
Finn and Dee both stared at him in surprise when he said his last name. That's why they couldn't find him all these years.
"Reese was here and gone," the guy said. "He was sniffing around for somewhere else to crash so I don't know if he'll be back."
"Where else might he go?" Blake asked.
The guy looked like he was thinking hard until Blake gave him some money. Then the answer came to him.
"BrillShine is a good bet. Polander's is too."
"Polander's?" Blake said, surprised.
"The poor, old thing finally went under. Just waiting for the wrecking ball," the guy said.
BrillShine was an abandoned cleaning supplies factory, and Polander's was an old department store that had been dying a slow death for years.
"Why was Reese looking for a new place to crash?" Blake asked.
The guy looked around and squinted. "Out of an abundance of caution. Someone is looking for him, and pushing hard for information on our boy Reese," he told Blake.
"Who?" Blake wanted to know.
This time the guy didn’t pretend to think about the answer, just shook his head.
"Here," Blake said and gave him some more money. "That's so you don't repeat what you told me to anyone else who might come looking for Reese."
"I'll go smoke this elsewhere. If anyone comes looking, they won't even find me here," the guy said, pleased with his take and what he was going to do with it.
Blake left the parking garage with a tight jaw and a grim stare. He hardly seemed to know Finn and Dee were still following him.
"Adler? Adler?" Finn asked once they reached their cars.
"That's my name," Blake said simply.
"You changed it," Dee said, disappointed.
"I didn't want his name," Blake told her.
"But it's our name too," Dee said.
"Our name is Huen-Monroe," Finn pointed out to her.
"OK. Then it's half our name," Dee shot back peevishly.
"Well, I didn't want any part of it," Blake said. "The man rejected me when I was five. The least I can do is ditch his name."
"I guess I see your point," Dee said, coming around to the idea but still looking sad about it.
Before they could ask him any more questions, Blake got into his car. Finn drove after him while Dee texted their mom with another bogus update about where they were. Dee looked over at Finn guiltily when she was done. She was such a good kid, which is why her lies were so convincing.
Blake gambled on Polader's and lost. He made the defunct department store his first stop, but it had been raided recently. Yellow police tape was everywhere. A few brave souls were already back to reclaim the place, but they weren't easy to root out from their hiding spots. None of them had seen this Reese guy that Blake was looking for. The good news was that they hadn't seen him get picked up by the cops either.
Finn guessed that their next stop was going to be BrillShine, but Blake stopped Finn and Dee in the abandoned store's parking lot.
"You guys need to go home. I mean it," he told them.
"You didn't mean it before?" Finn said, but he could see that Blake was more serious now. Finn knew why. BrillShine was past the edge of town, and it had a reputation as a good place to get raped and murdered.
"You two can't be going there this time of night," Blake told them.
"It's not that late. It's not even dark yet," Dee said, but Finn could tell that she was scared and trying to hide it.
"In there it will be," Blake told her.
They still followed him, and Blake had no way to stop them. Finn wanted to drop off Dee and go with Blake, but she wouldn't hear of it. As much as he didn't want to take Dee over there, he also couldn't let Blake go alone. Having an extra sibling was already complicating Finn's life.
It was around nine o'clock when they parked on a bare patch of dirt in front of the BrillShine factory fence. The only light was from their car headlights. The windows of the factory were boarded up. From the forbidding look of the place, it was clear that none of them had any business going there. This was how horror movies started.
As Blake got out of the car, he reached under the driver's seat. He brought out a
flashlight that was more of a blunt instrument than a light source. Once again he tried to get them to go home and failed.
He let them stay close and made sure to keep Dee between him and Finn. He earned some good big brother points for that. The light from Blake's flashlight helped them get inside the fence without breaking their necks on debris that was strewn everywhere. The gate was chained, but there was enough room for them to squeeze through.
As they got closer to the building, Finn could see slivers of light between the boards on the windows. They made their way in through double doors that were still padlocked, but one side had been taken off its hinges.
Slipping through, they found themselves in a badly lit, stench filled cavern. This must have been the main factory floor. At first Finn couldn't make out much, just flickering lights in corners and shapes moving around. He could hear voices and sometimes moaning.
Blake looked around until he spotted a guy his own age. For a minute Finn wondered if that was Reese. Seeing that Blake's expression remained grim, Finn knew it wasn't. Blake approached the guy. He was skinny and wore a goatee.
"Hey, JC," Blake said.
"Who's the cutie?" JC asked while looking at Dee and ignoring Finn.
"Never mind," Blake told him. "I heard Reese Kieler might be around."
"He was. He poked around, didn't like the look of the place. It can be kind of hardcore in here." As he spoke, JC's eyes flicked to Dee constantly. If he didn't stop that, Finn might have to ask to borrow Blake's flashlight and brain goatee guy with it.
"Was Reese hanging with anyone?" Blake asked.
"He wasn't really hanging. He's looking for some guy."
"Who?"
"Don't know. I was busy. All I know is he was asking Pietro about him."
"Is this Pietro still here? I want to talk to him," Blake said.
"Nah. Pietro knows people, but you don't want to know him." JC raised an eyebrow at Blake.
