Bloodshed (Order of the Unseen, #1)(4)

“Come again?”

“It’s Micah. My name.”

I shrugged, noncaring. “Okay.”

He blew a large cloud of smoke out the window and smiled. “What’s yours?”

“Jensen,” I told him.

He nodded, smiling again.

I shook my head. “How can you go from looking like a lost puppy to as happy as a kid on Christmas morning so easily?”

He snorted, rolling his eyes. “I’ve never been happy on Christmas morning.”

“Touché. Neither have I.”

We leaned against the frame of the window in peaceful silence. “I can feel it coming,” he randomly said, taking a small drag. “Coming on like a storm. An unstoppable surge of energy.”

I stared at him like he had ten heads. “Are you high?”

“High on life,” he declared.

“Okay, then.”

His eyes locked with mine. “They say I have ADHD,” he announced. “But who really knows.” Micah flicked the ashes out the window and leaned his back against the wall. “It’s my biggest blessing and curse.”

“I don’t know much about it.”

“It’s different for everyone. I’m up and down. Sometimes I have a hard time concentrating, and sometimes I don’t sleep for days.” He shook the thoughts out of his head as he rushed to his feet, pacing the room. “They tweaked my meds again, but I’ve been cheeking them the last week.”

I raised a brow. “Cheeking?” I questioned.

“Yeah. You know, hiding them in your cheek and then spitting them out when nobody’s looking,” he explained.

I nodded, stunned by his ability to cheek his meds and not get caught. “Gotcha.”

“I’m going to be awake for days. I can feel it coming.”

I stared blankly at him, trying to understand.

He laughed. “I’m an unstoppable force.”

With that comment, I rolled my eyes.

“And I’m breaking out of here,” he told me. “I’m done with this shit. I need an adventure.”

“Do you always share this much with strangers?”

“Not usually.” He tossed the unfinished cigarette out the window and headed for the door. “I need a Red Bull. There’s a convenience store across the street,” he explained, hesitating briefly. “You coming, or what?”

I shrugged. “Sure.”

The next two weeks we spent every waking moment together, not counting the time we were in school. We didn’t have any classes together, but we met up every day during lunch period. Then we would take the bus back to our program, hang out and smoke cigarettes out our window. Sometimes we would even sneak out after the final bed checks at night.

We would walk to Joe’s Pizza, considering they were the only place that stayed open until as late as four in the morning.

When the dough goes, Joe goes.

We would leave Slurpee cups and leftover pizza in the trash in our room and none of the staff ever even noticed.

It was the first time in my life I looked forward to going back to a program.

Because Micah was there.

And he was my first real friend.

He barely slept. This meant I didn’t sleep, either. We’d stay up almost all night talking. It wasn’t long before he was crawling in his skin, as he put it.

“They make me feel like a zombie,” he described, sitting on the curb outside the convenience store. “The meds.”

“That’s gotta suck.” I sat beside him and nodded in understanding. “But not sleeping has gotta suck, too. Maybe you should tell someone that they aren’t helping—”

“I’m going to buy a guitar,” he spoke over me, completely changing the subject.

“Are you?”

“Teach myself how to play.”

“Yeah?”

“Fuck yeah.”

I nodded. “I’ve never played before—”

“—I’ll start small. But I’m going to make it big,” Micah enthusiastically shouted, rushing to his feet and strumming crazily on his air guitar. “You’ll see.”

Staring up at him, I laughed. “I believe in you—”

“Let’s catch a bus and leave this place behind.”

My head began to spin from how fast he had been rattling off his thoughts. “I’ve tried that. Multiple times—”

“We got this,” he cut me off.

“It never works,” I countered. “I always get caught, and the consequences outweigh the—”

“There are no consequences, Jensen.”

“Yeah, there are—”

“Are you doubting me?” he asked, eyes narrowed.

“What?”

He sighed. “You’re doubting me.”

“No, I’m not.”

“It seems like you’re doubting me, Jensen. We can do anything we fucking want. So, let’s get the fuck out of Dodge.”

“Wait.” Rushing to my feet, I chased after him as he headed toward the street, finally catching his wrist in my hand. “Slow down—”

“Can’t keep up?” he laughed, with no humor intended.