Here Comes Trouble (Nothing Special #3)(59)
Curtis closed his eyes as Green gently pressed on his cheek, making sure there was no damage to his jaw. Green looked up at Ruxs, telling him with his eyes that he wasn’t letting Curtis out of his sight again, but little did his partner know, neither was he. He didn’t care if he had to camp out in a tent in the backyard. The only way they were leaving there was with Curtis.
“The guys here don’t seem to like me too much,” Curtis finally spoke. His voice was shaky and scared. “I swear I didn’t do anything to them. I just wanted to go to bed. I couldn’t stop crying. I missed my mom. I missed you guys. They kept yelling at me to shut up. I was scared.” Curtis accepted the comfort when Green put his arm around him and pulled him to his chest. “I tried to stop, but the more they called me names, the more I wished I was home. Then they… they.”
Ruxs went down on one knee so he could look into Curtis’ eyes. “They what? You can tell us, you know that.”
“They yanked me out the bed. One guy slapped me. I couldn’t see him, it was dark. They said I was a little girl and girls weren’t allowed in their rooms. Then they shoved me in the damn closet and wouldn’t let me out.”
Green’s hand shook as he tried to comfort Curtis. He turned and looked at the woman still in the room with them. At least she had the decency to look sorry.
“When did they finally let you out?” Ruxs asked smoothing back Curtis’ sweat-damped hair from the side of his face.
The look Curtis gave him made Ruxs’ stomach turn. Abuse always did something to him. Probably because he knew it so well, knew how deep it ran, how it ate at you from the inside out. And without a strong support system to see you through it, it could ruin you, kill your spirit. He’d be damned if he let that happen to Curtis. “When’d they let you out, Curtis?”
“I just came out when she called me.” Curtis shook with his confession.
Green sprung up off the couch and Curtis grabbed for him. When Green was out of his reach, he clung on to Ruxs. “Just take me home, please.”
“Where the fuck where you when all this was going on? This isn’t exactly the Bruce Wayne mansion. Are you honestly going to tell me that you didn’t hear a young man being tortured and bullied only a few doors down from your room?”
She rung her apron in her hands, shaking her head. “My room is downstairs. I —”
“That’s no excuse!” Green hollered in her face. Oh man. If she was nervous with Ruxs in her face, she looked like she was about to shit in her pants right now.
“I think I’d better call the —”
“They’re already coming. But they’re coming for you lady, not me. I fully intend on pressing charges and filing an official complaint with the Department of Human Services, and that’s all before I contact WSB-TV, Fox 5 and any other news station that might be interested in the woman that was entrusted by the state with the responsibility of a foster home where she allowed abuse and extreme bullying to go on right underneath her nose!” Green seethed. “If I didn’t have to get back to my son, I’d arrest your ass right now and charge you with child endangerment and child neglect.” Green turned and went back to the couch lowering himself next to Curtis, extracting his arms from around Ruxs and putting them back around his own waist, still glaring at the stunned woman.
“It’s alright Curtis. You’re coming home buddy. You’re coming home today.”
Ruxs stared wide-eyed at his partner as he calmly talked Curtis down. Talked until he wasn’t afraid anymore. He’d seen Green upset plenty. Seen him arrest murderers. Seen him restrain even the craziest S.O.B.s. Seen him shoot and kill. But never had he seen him this angry. Green was so fired up, Ruxs doubted his partner even knew what he’d just said.
He’d heard it though, and Curtis did too. The way the young man stiffened then relaxed in Ruxs’ arms proved it.
Green called Curtis his son. And he was ready to go to war for him, like any good father would.
Home Sweet Home
Green rode in the back with Curtis while Ruxs drove them back to his place. Curtis was exhausted, and understandably so. All in one evening he’d lost his mom, been yanked away from the only family he had, and thrown into the Bates Motel with the Children of the Corn. Forced to stay in a closet for hours with no food, no water. He was weak and surely dehydrated. Green wanted to take him to the hospital but Ruxs had said it wasn’t necessary, that Curtis just needed some peace and plenty of sleep in a place where he knew he was safe.
Green didn’t think he’d ever prayed harder in his life than he did today. If he wasn’t convinced before, he sure as hell was today: his lieutenants were a force to be reckoned with. When they arrived in eight Suburbans with sirens wailing, and God, Day and Syn walked menacingly up to that house with all twenty members of their team, like they were the brute squad, that house mother practically threw herself at the mercy of the law. Although she wasn’t charged criminally, she was no longer assigned to that group home and was suspended without pay while under administrative review. Shelia was able to allow Green to sign Curtis out of his foster home with a forty-eight hour pass. By then his temporary placement order should be in effect, so he was good with this.
As soon as they got in the house, Green’s mom rushed up to Curtis, pulling him away from Green and into her arms. She cried silent tears as she led him upstairs to his new room. “I’ll take care of Curtis honey, don’t worry.”