Chapter 17 - THE GIRL WHO RANA week later, the immediate danger had decreased.
Vale remained in custody pending a detention hearing.
Thomas Keane agreed to cooperate.
The leak inside the investigation had been traced to a contracted security employee with financial ties to Vale.
Elena and Ruby were moved out of protective housing.
That should have felt like freedom.
Instead Ruby became quieter.
She had gotten what she wanted.
Her mother was alive.
Damon was her father.
Nobody was chasing her that day.
Yet she seemed angrier than ever.
Damon noticed first.
She stopped drawing.
Stopped asking questions.
Then one evening Elena told her they might need to move again temporarily while the criminal case developed.
Ruby’s face went blank.
“No.”
“It would only be for—”
“No.”
“Ruby.”
“You said home.”
“I know.”
“You always say things and then change them.”
Elena looked hurt.
“This is about safety.”
“Everything is always about safety!”
Ruby ran upstairs.
An hour later, she was gone.
The guest-room window was open.
Her backpack was missing.
The swallow necklace was gone.
Damon felt terror unlike anything he had ever known.
Police issued an immediate missing-child alert.
Elena blamed herself.
Damon refused to let her.
“This isn’t the time.”
They searched bus stops first.
Ruby knew them.
Then parks.
Then the diner.
Harold had not seen her.
Damon suddenly remembered the first conversation they had.
Ruby had slept in the boardinghouse hallway.
When scared, she went somewhere she had already survived.
He drove to Forest Avenue.
Ruby was sitting on the back steps of the boardinghouse.
Backpack between her knees.
Damon stopped several feet away.
He did not rush her.
“You scared me.”
Ruby stared at the pavement.
“Sorry.”
“Can I sit?”
She shrugged.
Damon sat.
After a while Ruby said, “Everybody decides where I go.”
“That’s been happening a lot.”
“Mom decides.”
“Yes.”
“Social workers decide.”
“Yes.”
“Police decide.”
“Yes.”
“You decide.”
Damon considered.
“Sometimes.”
“I hate it.”
“I would too.”
Ruby looked at him.
“Then why do you do it?”
“Because adults have to keep kids safe.”
“Even if the kid hates them?”
“Sometimes.”
Ruby kicked a pebble.
“That’s stupid.”
“Frequently.”
She almost smiled.
Then her face crumpled.
“What if Mom runs again?”
Damon had no perfect answer.
“If she does, I won’t.”
Ruby looked sharply at him.
“You promise?”
Damon remembered how dangerous promises had become.
“I won’t promise something I can’t control.”
Ruby waited.
“But I can control me.”
He looked directly at her.
“I’m staying.”
Ruby’s eyes filled.
Damon opened his arms.
She moved into them.
When Elena arrived, she stopped a few yards away.
Ruby remained against Damon.
Elena did not demand anything.
Eventually Ruby stood.
“You can’t keep moving me without telling me.”
Elena nodded.
“You’re right.”
“And if you’re scared, you have to tell Dad.”
Elena looked at Damon.
“That seems fair.”
“And no disappearing.”
Elena’s face broke.
“No disappearing.”
Ruby hugged her.
Damon watched mother and daughter hold each other and realized family was not being restored.
It was being rebuilt.
Those were different things.
That night, Ruby unpacked her backpack for the first time.
Not everything.
Just pajamas.
A toothbrush.
Two books.
Then she placed the swallow necklace on the nightstand instead of beneath her pillow.
A small act.
May you like
But Damon understood what it meant.
She expected to still be there in the morning.
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