Page 25 of Hush, Little Baby

“Do you want me to have a sedative on hand for tomorrow’s trip?” Constantine questions.

“Just in case,” I say, my hand cradling the nape of Charlie’s neck as the elevator rises, the boy’s body warm and heavy against mine. “But it’s the last thing I want to use on him. It makes me too nervous, given that we don’t have all of his medical history yet.” A thought suddenly crosses my mind, and I curse. “Shit. He probably has medicine he’ll need to take.”

Constantine winces. “Damn, I bet he does. Okay. Change of plans, then? I can send someone to his apartment tonight. The only concern would be if he has a roommate.”

“No roommate,” I say, more confident than I should be, given the fact that I don’t actually know that. “But double-check anyway. I want his medication, and while you’re there, see if you can grab any sentimental belongings he might have hidden away. We’ll take care of the rest of his things later on.”

Constantine nods, already composing a message on his phone. “I’ll have it done before dawn.”

The elevator dings, doors parting onto the penthouse foyer. The two guards I requested earlier wait on either side of the suite’s double doors, eyes straight ahead, hands folded in front of them.

They look at me, then at the boy slumped in my arms, and return to their stoic blankness. The guards will stay here, discreet and silent, until I say otherwise. There will be no escaping, not unless Charlie wants it more than he wants to breathe.

Constantine peels away to the room next door, leaving me to unlock the penthouse suite alone. The door swings open onto a long, cathedral-lit stretch of pale wood floors, tailored sofas, and curated artwork that probably cost more than my first apartment.

I step inside and close the door with my foot, the click of the lock echoing into silence. I don’t bother to turn on any lights. The city glows beyond the wall of windows, a carpet of blinking signals and sleepless lives.

I carry the boy to the master bedroom and lay him gently atop the vast, king-sized bed. Charlie frowns, his face scrunching up as he begins surfacing from his sleep.

He stirs just as I kneel at the foot of the bed to tug off his shoes, the laces so frayed I suspect they’ve never once been untied and retied in their life. I work the knots loose anyway, determined to set a precedent for order. His feet are small, the socks mismatched, one navy and one gray with a threadbare heel. I want to laugh at the detail, but the ache of it outweighs the humor. I pull them off, then set them neatly aside, despite the knowledge that I’ll likely end up trashing them in the morning anyway.

Charlie looks like he’s fighting the drift toward waking, caught in that pillowy in-between. His nose wrinkles, mouth opening and closing in a silent, involuntary protest as I tug loose the waistband of his sweats. The fabric peels down off his hips, catching once on the curve of his ass and then revealing, beneath, a pair of pale blue briefs that look like they’d be more at home in a child’s underwear drawer. I almost groan at the sight, but I keep my voice low as I lean forward, hands braced on either side of his legs.

“Charlie,” I say, “you need to wake up now, sweetheart.”

He makes a sound between a whimper and a sigh, then rolls to his side, clutching at the comforter with both fists. His lashes flutter, and for a moment I think he’ll sleep through even this, but then his eyes pop open.

He doesn’t move at first. He just blinks, slow and bewildered, as if trying to decide if he’s dreaming. The confusion on his face is so naked it hurts to look at. I touch his ankle, light and reassuring.

“You’re okay,” I murmur as he twitches awake, muscles seizing with a startled, animal panic.

His eyes flicker from my face, to the room, to his own body—where he’s sprawled out on the sheets, hoodie bunched under his chin, sweatpants halfway down his thighs, and those powder-blue briefs clinging so snugly across his hips I can see the faint outline of his cock straining against the soft fabric. The flush that rises to his cheeks is nearly instantaneous.

He tries to curl his legs up, but I hold his ankle in place, gentle but immovable.

“Shh, shh. You’re safe, Charlie. You’re not in trouble.”

He goes rigid anyway, a tremor running through his entire body. “Wh—what are you…” His voice is so hoarse it sounds like it’s been left out in the rain. “Where…”

“The Ritz-Carlton, baby,” I tell him, keeping my voice soft and smooth, the way you would coax a baby bird down from a branch. “You fell asleep in the car, remember?”

He shakes his head, rapid and wild, eyes darting to the door, to the windows, to the expanse of bed beneath him.

“No,” he croaks, hands scrabbling for purchase on the sheets. “No, no—I wanna go—” I grip his knee before he can flail off the mattress, and the look he gives me is so sharp and scared that I almost let him go out of sheer surprise. The little boy from the club is still here, but he’s hiding behind a trembling, twenty-five-year-old mask. “I want to go home,” he says, and this time the words are thick and wet, like he’s already halfway to crying.

I move as slowly and carefully as I can, so he can see my hands. “We’ll be home tomorrow. You don’t need to be scared, sweetheart.”

He backs himself flat against the headboard, his hoodie rucked up nearly to his armpits, his legs spread by my hands just enough that in any other context he would be blushing for a different reason. He’s blushing now, though his shame is drowned out by acute terror.

“I want to go home,” he whispers again, and his voice is so childlike and thin it nearly undoes me. “Please.”

I let go of his ankle—showing him that he’s free to move—but he doesn’t. Instead, he goes perfectly still, eyes locked onto my face.

“Charlie,” I say, even gentler now. I sit at the edge of the bed so my weight dips the mattress, but I keep both hands where he can see them. “You’re safe. I know you’re scared, but nothing bad is going to happen. I just… …I just want to clean you up a little before you go to sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning, I promise. Okay?”

He doesn’t answer.

He’s squeezed himself so far into the headboard that his shoulders disappear into the pillows, hands balled into fists on either side. For a second, I think he’ll fight, and I steel myself for it—I would welcome it, honestly, a little resistance, a little proof of life—but he says nothing. The only sound is the rough, wet suck of his breathing as he tries to keep the fear inside his chest from leaking out.