The run to the pay phone seemed to take hours, but in reality only took about three minutes at most. The graffiti-decorated phone booth looked as abandoned and out of service as everything else in this neighborhood, but Drake couldn't allow himself to believe that the phone didn't work. It had to. When the dial tone on the other end confirmed his hope, he sighed and hit 9-1-1.
The nasally voice of a woman bored with her job greeted him. "This is the 9-1-1 operator, what is the nature of your emergency?"
"I need an ambulance right away. A boy and his mother OD'd on some drugs. I think she's dead, but he's still alive, though barely."
Drake searched for street signs and relayed his location as best he could. Then, despite the empty pleas of the emergency operator to "stay on the line until help arrives," Drake hung up and ran back to the house, praying to long dead gods that Toby was still alive.
The house smelled of desperation and hopelessness, but hadn't begun to stink of death. That would happen soon enough. Still, a house whose occupant lay dead inside had a certain feel to it, an emptiness and sadness that a vacant house didn't have. Drake didn't want to walk back in, but he had to. Toby needed him.
He argued with himself that this didn't concern him—wasn't his business. But despite his fall into darkness, Drake couldn't turn his back and walk away—no matter how strong the urge.
Toby reminded Drake of himself as a child—lost, alone, abandoned by the world. If Drake hadn't found Father Patrick, who knows what he would have become? He laughed sardonically at the thought when he realized the truth.
This. I would have become what I am right now.
Thinking of the old priest pushed him into action. He shoved open the door that no longer had a handle or latch, and entered the misery of this family's life. When he went back into the bedroom, he half expected to see Toby still and lifeless again. He didn't expect to find him gone.
The dead woman lay alone on the stained mattress, arm lying limp to her side.
"Toby, are you here?" Drake searched the small house quickly. No Toby.
What the hell? Where could he have gone?
Nothing looked disturbed. In fact, the bed still had an impression where the boy had lain. He reached his hand out to touch the mattress, but jerked back in surprise when his hand touched something that wasn't there.
As if in reaction to being touched, the air shimmered and Toby's body appeared where Drake's hand had been. The boy sighed and his eyelids fluttered, trying to open.
Drake's jaw opened in shock. Toby had survived because he did have a para-power, and his mother clearly hadn't. This created a whole new problem for them both. If the boy kept flickering in and out like that, there was no way Drake could explain any of this. What would he tell the paramedics when they arrived? Should he lie about his involvement? He certainly had no intention of copping to illicit drug use—a one-way ticket to jail.
His choices didn't look promising, with no money, no identification, no address. He was a nobody in the system, a lost soul too far off the radar for anyone to care, but a prime suspect to pin a death and almost-death on. If they tested his system, what would they find? Would he test positive for drugs?
Toby's breathing steadied and he stayed visible, which relieved Drake. The waiting sent him pacing the house looking for something to distract him. He couldn't help the boy, or his mom. He considered moving Toby. Waking up wrapped in the arms of his dead mother was probably a harmful experience for a kid, worthy of some serious therapy.
With that decided, Drake easily lifted the underweight boy and carried him to the living room, and set him on the shabby couch. Drake sat next to him, watching his chest move up and down rhythmically. The couch faced a small, old fashioned television that probably didn't work, but Drake figured it was worth a try. He needed a distraction. What was taking them so long, anyways? This zip code probably didn't rate high on the response time charts—the city of lost souls and nameless faces.
He clicked the ancient relic on and smiled when it actually got a signal, but his pleasure was short lived when he realized it only got one channel, which currently featured a news story that Drake almost ignored, until he saw a picture flash on the screen of a vial with crystal blue liquid in it. They were talking about the drug.
Drake turned it up and sat back down to watch. The newscaster was live on the scene of a wealthy home, with a Chanel-wearing woman crying into a handkerchief. "My boy, he just went crazy. He started throwing things at us, things he couldn't possibly have lifted on his own. I don't understand what's going on. Then, he just disappeared. Someone took my baby!"