Stealing Second (The Amendments Book One 1) by Nicholas Antinozzi

I said, fighting to control my temper. “Cathy, which of these bags is Violet’s?”
    “You can’t leave now,” said Cathy. “It isn’t even dark, yet.”
    “Oh, I most certainly can. And Violet is leaving, too. That is, unless you’ve changed your mind about keeping her here.”
    “Gary, please… don’t do this.”
    “It’ll be dark within the hour,” said Todd. “They should be fine. Gary, let me fix the kid a sandwich, okay? It won’t take a minute.”
    I walked over to a notebook and pen I’d seen l aying on a shelf. I picked them up and quickly scribbled down my parents’ address and telephone number and handed it to Cathy. “I’ll be outside,” I said.
    Much to my surprise, Violet got up from the table and picked up one of the duffel bags. She walked over to the steps and turned. “I’m ready to go,” she said. “That was rude of your friends, Todd. There aren’t any bathrooms in the woods. You told me that yourself. I don’t want your stupid sandwich.”
    “ Violet,” scolded Cathy. “You apologize to Todd. He was trying to be nice.”
    “Oh yeah? If he was being nice, Todd would have sent his friends back to wherever they came from. How would you feel if you were Gary, Mom? Tell me, I’d love to hear it. What about you, Todd, how would you feel? That was just mean.”
    Todd said nothing as Violet and I climbed out into the fresh air. I set my pack down and fished out my insect repellant. Cathy followed us out and closed the trapdoor. She stood and stared at me as I rubbed on a generous layer of the bug dope on my exposed skin. I handed the bottle to Cathy and pointed to Violet. She squeezed a dab into her palm and began to rub it on her daughter. “I’m sorry, Gary. Violet is right, that wasn’t funny.”
    “Whatever,” I said, turning away from her. “You have the address. Be careful.”
    I heard Cathy begin to sob as she hugged Violet. “Promise me you’ll be a good girl and that you’ll listen to Gary, okay? Mommy will be there soon, you’ll see. I’m a soldier, Violet. You do understand that, right? I took an oath to defend our country. I have to do this, please tell me you understand.”
    “I understand,” Violet replied, flatly. “Can we go now?”
    “Take care of her, Gary. She’s all I have in the world.”
    I held my hand up and waved as I walked away. She didn’t want to hear what I had to say. I didn’t want Violet to hear what I was thinking. She was suddenly at my side and reached out and took my hand as her mother cried behind us. The sky had become obscured by clouds and twilight was nearly upon us. We found our bikes just inside the woods, and I quickly bungeed Violet’s bag to my handlebars. I had put the revolver into the pack when we first entered the dugout. I decided to leave it where it was. It would be dark soon enough. I thought that if we ran into a situation where I might be forced to draw it, having the gun on my person might cost the both of us our lives. The fresh scrapes on my tailbone area might have factored into that decision as well.
    We wheeled our bikes to the ditch and I scanned up and down the road. I could still see the pickup in the fading light. I was happy we weren’t heading that way. I could only imagine what the large caliber bullets had done to the old couple. I scanned the sky and after satisfying myself that the road was clear, I nodded to Violet. “Are you ready?”
    “As ready as I’m ever gonna be,” she said. “How about you, are you ready?”
    I looked behind us, but the trail was empty. I wondered about that. I tried to imagine my own mother not walking me out to the road, not that she would have ever entrusted me to a stranger. The fact that Cathy hadn’t followed us spoke volumes about her character; at least, I thought so. I had misjudged her. Violet would be much better off at the farm. I knew that with absolute certainty. My parents would adopt her as one of their own. If Cathy never came back to claim