Chapter Text
“Excuse me, can you help me?” I try to ask but the woman walks right past me. It seems rude until I notice the Airpods in her ears. She basically just didn’t hear me.
My eyes fly over the area around me, searching for my next target. There are enough of them but I am not sure if I am willing to approach some of them.
God, why am I so bad at this? I moved to LA two years ago and I still get lost so often it is almost a crime. I was just coming back from a nice outing and I thought I had taken the right bus, but here I am. In the middle of somewhere with no clue where to go. It also sucks that I am really bad at following directions on google maps or I might have gotten out of here half an hour ago. Wherever here is.
I am just not used to it, I guess. Having grown up in a small town in Colorado for most of my childhood before moving to the outskirts of Denver. I could have explored a city then, but I was too busy doing other things and getting my life back on track.
I never imagined I would live in a city this big even though this is the city I spend the first few years of my life in. The city I was born in. I don’t remember it, but it is the city that is on my birth certificate.
Who would have thought I would live here now? After all those years? Going to UCLA and leading a life that didn’t even seem possible. And it wouldn’t have been if things hadn’t happened the way they did.
In a way it is cruel that all of those horrible things had to happen for me to find a happy ending. It is cruel that they would have never been possible if life had thrown all of us a couple of curveballs. Losing the boys, getting raped, finding Tommy, moving in with Matt and Monica. Turning eighteen and asking them to adopt me officially like they had done to India when she turned eighteen was the best day of my life.
But when India went to UCLA, I didn’t dare ask them if I could go too. It would be too expensive for them to finance it and I didn’t want to use their generosity to my advantage. So I never asked until they offered. Matt telling me that I am their daughter and that I wasn’t using them in any way by going to college. The next year I was enrolled and ready to go.
Telling Tommy felt like a challenge but he took it like a champ. He was happy for me but I needed to promise him to call every day. He needed to hear from me and know that I was alright often, which I promised him immediately.
Tommy, now also legally Matt and Monica’s son, has grown so much over the years. He is 13 now and he hardly ever talks about what happened to him. We still talk about Finn, just to keep reminding ourselves that he is out there somewhere, but even those talks are becoming different.
It is hard to realize that we have both moved on a little. We are both realistic enough to know that Finn is probably never coming back. Five years have passed since he went missing, we know who had him then, but we have no clue what happened since. For all we know he is dead. I don’t want to think about it but it is probably our reality, we just don’t know it yet.
Tommy has found his place at Matt and Monica. Calling them mom and dad ever since they adopted him around the same time they adopted me. He never talks about his time with that pervert or the time before it. It seems like he sees it as two different things. The only thing reminding me of it really, is the fact that he is tense when he does not know if any of us are safe and coming home. That is the biggest clue as to something being wrong.
I grab my phone out of my pocket again with a heavy sigh. I hate that I have to call India again for something like this, but she has a car and I am lost. I need her to be my big sister. It does help that we share an apartment near the campus.
“Please tell me you didn’t get lost again.” Is India’s answer as soon as the dial tone stops. “Please, Meave. Please.”
“Sorry.” I mutter.
“Meave!” India says, laughing slightly. “You really need to work on that! The public transport in LA really isn’t that hard to understand!”
“I know, I know.” I huff. “I just don’t understand it. I am pathetic.”
“Yeah. You are majoring in Psychology yet you can’t understand a map of LA.” India replies. “Luckily you gave me access to pin your phone. Just let me get in the car and I will come to get you.”
“Thank you, In. I owe you!”
“Yeah, you do.” She mutters. “See you in half an hour.”
We both cut the connection at the same time as I put my phone away deep in my pocket. I might not know where I am, but I am sure as hell not in one of the better areas of town. There are a lot of homeless people or people that look so out of it on some kind of substance that they might as well be dead.
I notice how one of the men on the other side of the street is watching me and I can immediately feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up straight. I don’t like the way he looks at me and I am not sure if I want to stay here for another half hour to be ogled by him.
I sigh heavily before I look around. I am at a cross section, which made me confused before. If I go straight I will remain on the main road, if I go right I will go into a side street of wherever the hell I am. I am standing there debating what to do when I notice one of the men on the opposite of the street walking towards me.
I need to act now. Like right now or I might regret it.
In a split second I decide to take the side street, losing my hands in my pockets as I try to ignore the people around me. The sidewalk is crumbling and my eyes are focused on my feet so I don’t fall. I only look up when a car stops right next to me, the passenger door opening without a care which makes me stop dead in my tracks.
“Get out you filthy whore!” A man screams through his open window while a boy stumbles out of the car. The boy is incredibly thin and barely legal, he is wearing nothing but a thin netted shirt and some leather pants.
As the car speeds away from the curb, the boy leans against the brick wall next to the sidewalk. His lip is split and bleeding slightly onto his chin which he wipes away. His eyes are hidden behind a thick lock of blonde hair.
“Are you alright?” I ask him as he keeps looking at the floor.
“Yeah, I am fine.” He mutters. “You shouldn’t worry about someone like me.”
He looks up at me for only a second but it is enough for me to freeze in place. It feels like I have been hit by lightning, like everything stops.
The short glimpse I get of the boy in front of me startles me. It is almost like I have seen a ghost. The blond hair, the blue eyes, the high cheekbones. A carbon copy of the boy that is at home in Denver. A carbon copy, but a few years older.
He doesn’t seem to have the same reaction, barely even looking at me before he turns around and walks away. For a moment I want to follow him but he soon disappears between all of the other people that suddenly have appeared on the sidewalk. It is almost like he vanishes just as quickly as he appeared. Almost like it didn’t even happen.
Could it be him? After all this time? How fat is the chance that I would find him here in LA, on a random street corner? Is it even possible?
I keep staring at the direction he disappeared in, trying to get him back this way. To see him again, to check if it could be really him. But of course he won’t. If it was him he probably didn’t even recognize me. It didn’t look like he did.
I huff slightly as I think of my dark brown hair that is now strawberry blonde. Of course he would not recognize me from the small glimpse that he got. He must have just thought I was a random stranger that he wanted to get away from as soon as possible.
Or it wasn’t even him but just a boy that resembles him to a great deal. That is probably the most likely option of them all.
I jump up at the sound of a car horn right next to me before I see India pull up. My mind flies back to the place I saw him disappear once more before I sigh heavily and walk towards the passenger door of the old car that India is so proud of.
When I get in she looks at me intently, almost like she knows there is something wrong.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” She mutters as she pulls away from the curb.
“I might as well have.” I mutter. “I am not even sure if what I saw was real.”
“What did you see?”
“Don’t laugh and, god, please don’t call mom.”
“I won’t. I promise.” India replies. “Now please tell me, you are scaring me.”
“I thought I saw Finn.”
“Wait? What? As in Tommy’s brother?”
“Yeah.” I mutter. “As in Tommy’s brother. The boy that went missing five years ago. The boy that we all basically think is dead because of statistics. That Finn.”
“What did he look like?” India asks, looking at me sideways while she also tries to focus on the road in front of her.
“Thin, pale and older than I remember. But he still resembles Tommy to a tee. It is almost scary.” I reply, looking at her. “I can’t really be him right?”
“I am not going to lie.” India replies. “It seems really unlikely, but on the other hand. We have no idea where he ended up. There never was any proof that he got killed. He just disappeared and no one ever heard from him again. It is unlikely but it could be that he is here in LA. And if he was anywhere in LA, this might just be the spot.”
“What do you mean?” I ask her.
“You really have no clue where you are, do you?”
“Should I?”
“Well.” India mutters, smiling slightly. “This is kind of a famous part of South LA. It is the place where they have the biggest issues with drug addiction and prostitution.”
“Oh.” I mutter, instantly knowing why she thinks this would be a place where he could be if he was anywhere.
No one ever kept it a secret that Michael David Moretti abducted and bought boys for one purpose only; to turn them into sexslaves and sell them. It seems kind of logical that if he is still alive, he is still doing something like that.
Maybe someone was watching him from afar. Keeping an eye on him to make sure he wasn’t going anywhere. He seemed pretty free to roam around though. He wasn’t restrained or anything.
“He wasn’t restrained.” I mutter. “And I didn’t see him being watched by anyone.”
“So?” India asks.
“Why does he stay? If he is free to go, then why doesn’t he?” I mutter, not really sure if I am asking her or myself.
“Meave, you are majoring in psychology. You know it is not that simple in most of these cases.” India replies. “There are all kinds of things that could be going on. Someone could be threatening him or he is being watched from afar. It could even be a case of Stockholm syndrome that is keeping him there. You don’t know.”
“I know.” I mutter. “It’s just -”
“It’s just, what?” India asks as we cruise over the big road that leads to our apartment.
“I haven’t thought about him like this in quite a while.” I mutter. “Tommy and I just talk about the times he was still with us. The happy times. We never talk about what happened to him or where he could be now because it is just too painful to think about. But what if he has been out there all of this time? What if he has been suffering and trying to survive and we forgot about him?”
“You didn’t forget about him, Meave.” India tells me. “There isn’t a bone in your body that forgot about him. But in order to stay sane you had to go on with your life. I am sure Finn would understand that. I am sure he would have wanted you to move on in a way. He wouldn’t have wanted you to suffer and stop living.”
“I know. But still.” I mutter. “What if he was out there all this time, India? What if he was out there and we stopped looking for him because of some statistics? His case went cold years ago.”
“His case went cold for a reason. There was nothing you could have done to help him. You had no idea where he was.”
“I still don’t.” I mutter. “I saw a glimpse of a ghost. A glimpse before he disappeared again and maybe it wasn’t even him. Maybe it was just another boy who looked a lot like him.”
“It could be.” India replies as she pulls into a parking spot next to our building. Sighing heavily when she turns off the car. “Do you want to call mom about it?”
“What? Why?”
“Just to get it off your chest. She knows you and she might be able to help you see what is real and not real.”
“I’ll think about it.” I mutter as I open the side door, getting out and walking towards the front door. I all but run up the three flights of stairs, searching for the key in my pocket to open the front door before I immediately walk to my own room, closing the door behind me.
I open the closet door, searching for the shoebox on the bottom of it before finding it and putting it in the middle of my bed. I sit down next to it before I sigh heavily and take the lid off.
I haven’t touched this box in quite a while, the contents are too painful to think about daily. But they are all I need right now. They are the reminders of Finn. The things we got from his room at the Johnson’s, some info on his case. Even some scarce newspaper clippings in which they are anonymously mentioned to protect them.
It really is an unorganized pile of information and memories. But I need to let my hands go through them. I need it today. I need it after seeing him, or after imagining I saw him, whichever one it was.
My fingers take out one of the newspaper clippings that mentions Michael David Moretti. It isn’t even really about Finn. It is more about what they discovered in his cabin. The evidence of the abuse of multiple boys and the discovery of the DNA of multiple young boys on his belongings. It also mentions they were scanning the surrounding area in the hopes of finding bodies, but not finding any.
The next article is about a 9-year old boy named Louis Bastion. His DNA was found in Moretti’s cabin and linked back to a missing persons report for the nine year old boy. He was apparently in foster care and sold by his foster father while his birth mother was fighting a legal battle to get him back.
When they found his DNA they ran a whole story on his disappearance. They did it in the hopes of finding him after all these years, but even that publicity didn’t help. In fact his DNA was matched to a body they found a few months back. The body they found had been dead for years and matched all the features of a boy that couldn’t have been older than ten. Once again confirming my suspicions that boys in Moretti’s care aren’t really lasting long.
I dig deeper into the box, finding some rare pictures of Finn with his mom. He told me once that the old lady they used to live with took them. There is also one picture of them as a family of three. Finn once said it was taken on a rare family outing to a winter fair and it shows Finn on Santa’s lap while Bella is holding a baby Tommy right next to them. They look happy. They look like a family.
On the bottom of the box I find a few toys. Most of them are hand me downs that I gave him myself, but he cherished them. Especially the one he called Nosy, the little stuffed bear and slept with it till the day he was taken. There is also one of his shirts that I took from his hamper, which I press against my nose to take in his smell. It is faint but it is still there. It is a reminder of the boy he once was.
I really should call Tommy or Monica and tell them what happened, but I am scared to do so. What if I just imagined it? What if it was just a boy resembling him? I don’t want to give them any hope. I don’t want to drag Tommy out of this happy state he is in right now. He doesn’t need all the drama. He just needs to live his life and not be dragged into this shit all over again. He experienced enough of it when he was just 8 years old.
It was probably just a figment of my imagination. A boy that vaguely resembled him that made my mind go haywire for whatever reason. I just need to let it go and not bother anyone with it.
It is probably nothing anyway.