Chasing Thunder by Ginger Voight Read Free Book Online Page B

thought to ask for anything. She wasn’t that desperate. Yet.
    She welcomed the invisibility from most of the strangers. As it turned out, only the ones who could help her saw through her. The ones who wanted something from her pinpointed her exactly, like a radar. These were the ones who hollered at her from the street, or honked at her as they drove by. Some, the older ones, the serious ones, sidled up to the curb, rolling down their windows, anxious to engage.
    She kept her head down and moved closer in the crowd around her. Her head was still fuzzy, her mouth was dry, and her heart was heavy. She felt alone on that crowded street, more alone than she had ever been. She now embodied the very definition of lost . She wrapped her arms around her torso, cast her head downward, and pressed herself into the crowd.
    She couldn’t shake thoughts of Tammy or Billy, or that horrible man Isbecky. She would never forget how he looked, ominous and maniacal, as he wrapped that belt around Tammy’s wrists. Haley jerked her head, trying to literally shake the thought free. Tammy knew what she had been in for and had spared her at the cost of her own hide.
    But it wasn’t like she had ever had any choice, either. She had been so matter-of-fact about everything, even in how she had tried to prepare Haley for what kind of man Isbecky was. Their world came with few options. These were things done in order to survive, like bunking in an abandoned warehouse with junkies who would take the very shoes from your feet.
    The vibrant hum of the city rose from the crowd into the air. With each piercing honk of a passing car, Haley longed for that quiet abandoned building where she had hidden in the shadows with the other forgotten children of the night. Billy’s presence next to her on the floor, his arm around her like a shield, had felt foreign and threatening the night before. Now she would give anything for a human barricade against the never-ending flood of strangers. It had only taken a day to forge this trusted alliance, and though they were virtual strangers, Billy and Tammy were far less threatening than the people who now surrounded her. If she saw them now, she’d run to them gleefully and do anything they said without argument or complaint. They had risked themselves for her, which was as close to family as a runaway was going to get.
    Maybe she’d come across them again. Maybe, if she lasted long enough, she could find Tammy and Billy in these familiar stomping grounds and somehow make it up to them, pay them back for what they had sacrificed to keep her safe, which they had done just because she was one of them.
    The best you can do is find what few people who won’t screw you over , Tammy had said. If you’ve found that, you’ve found home .
    Now more than ever, Haley understood what an amazing concept “home” was.
    She began to search the faces of the people on the street, hoping to eventually see Billy’s familiar shock of orange hair, or Tammy’s wise and weary features. It was foolish, she knew. If she found them, she would likely run afoul of Isbecky again. She had the feeling that he wouldn’t take losing her very well. From the moment she had slipped into the wisp of a dress she was still wearing, she knew she was just another possession to him, like the creepy occult pieces that decorated his lair. That bedroom would be seared into her psyche, fuel for countless nightmares to come. The thought of it made her even more desperate to find a familiar face in the crowd, though that task seemed impossible.
    Then she saw him. It was Todd, the boy from the warehouse with those delicate, feminine features and the long hair. He was leaning up against a building, trying to hustle a john from the passing cars. Her elation was short-lived, however. Before she could raise a hand and call to him, a couple of guys rounded the corner and took particular interest in the wisp of a boy. She was shocked when the two men, dressed in