Page 47 of Laying Low

Anthony grinned at him.“My God, you never disappoint.”

His mouth on Reg’s wasn’t going to seduce him there on the crappy hotel bed, with the kids right there and danger around every corner, but as Reg fell into the kiss, he realized that sometimes a kiss was safety and kindness and human connection.

Sometimes human connection was all you needed to keep the world from spinning so fast it threw you off into space.

ONE MINUTEAnthony was asleep, and the next minute, he heard horns and whistles and angry citizens.

“ICE!ICE is here!Everybody hide!ICE is here!”

“Well, shit,” Anthony muttered as they all rolled out of bed and lunged for their shoes.They’d all gone to sleep wearing pajama pants and T-shirts, except Reynaldo, whose jeans were crumpled at the foot of the bed from when he’d climbed in.Ilia had packed his knapsack for him, right down to the sandwich he hadn’t gotten to, which was wrapped in paper and shoved in a corner of his pack.

But that didn’t mean they were home free.

Reg’s idea about jamming the chair under the door was a good one, and his idea about having sweatshirts and shoes ready was even better.As Anthony and Reg grabbed the extra bags of gear, Ilia silently led Reynaldo to the bathroom, where the window opened up to a shadowed back alley.Anthony had checked out the alley before they’d both fallen into bed mere hours ago and had seen that one end was open to vehicles, but the other was passable—barely—by pedestrians.The garbage wasn’t dangerous—no broken glass or barbed wire—but there were lots of pallets and broken-down boxes that could serve as cover.Anthony and Ilia had hollowed out a couple of places, just in case.

Just in case ofright now, when he found himself scrambling out of the still-dark hotel room, padding through the fetid alleyway on Reg’s heels, the boys silent ahead of them.

The open end of the alleyway was full of flashing lights and masked figures in tactical gear, with guns.

Anthony strained his ears for the sounds of people giving orders or talking to each other, but he could make out neither English words nor Russian accents.

Oh God.It could be either.

Ilia led the way, and soon they were huddled against the wall at the far end of the alley, crouching behind pallets and covered in cardboard.

The boys were shaking.

Reg put his arm over Reynaldo’s thin shoulders, and Anthony slung his around Ilia’s.Nobody spoke—this wasn’t television, where they could quick-talk and banter until the last moment.Instead they stayed absolutely still and silent, listening to the shouts of the men, the protests of the civilians, and finally police sirens.

There were sudden shouts—this time in Russian, and while they could see nothing, Anthony got the feeling that the armed intruders with the weapons had taken off.

Well, it wasn’t like they were turning themselves over to the police, either, because that might get themrealICE, and the boys would still be in a bad, bad place.

After the longest half hour in the history of time, Anthony shook himself out of a torpor and glanced out of their shelter.

He could see lights on in the hotel room they’d left but nobody coming after them.

“Did we get everything?”he asked quietly.One of the things that had kept them up the night before was repacking the backpacks so they only needed one extra bag.

Nobody had wanted to give up the books, so Anthony had made them divvy up the paperbacks so everybody had a couple of their own.

“Where to?”Ilia asked quietly, and Anthony was about to suggest they stay there and sleep, when Reg said, “I’ve got an idea.”

It was hard moving from their impromptu shelter into the gray dawn.The hooded sweatshirts and denim weren’t enough, not even with the handknitted hats and scarves they had packed.The moisture from the air had penetrated everybody’s clothes by now, and he knew if his teeth were chattering, the boys were probably unable to speak.

So they were silent, their footsteps muffled by the fog, as they followed Reg, and it didn’t take conversation for Anthony to figure they were heading for the docks.

“What did you see here?”he asked softly.

“Sh…,” Reg murmured.“There’s a whole row of them.”

And Anthony realized what he was looking for.

Many of the boats docked at the pier were hard-core fishing boats—big enough for sleeping quarters and storage for the fish, needing a crew of at least five or six to take them out and work.But that’s not what Reg had spotted.

He’d spotted smaller day-trip boats, with enough of a cabin to offer shelter, but not enough to store valuables.In fact, most of the cruisers on this particular pier didn’t even have doors or locks.You boarded the boat and either sat in the modest protected cabin, or you made your way to the front and putt-putted your way out of the strand, facing the spray and clutching the railing.

“Move like we belong there,” Reg said softly, and then walked across the pier with his back straight and his backpack over his shoulder, like somebody leaving early for a day trip.He chose one of the smaller boats, not too fancy, not too battered, with an easy step up from the dock before climbing into the cabin.He paused there and waited for the boys, and then moved deeper into the small space, noting, Anthony saw, the pile of tarps and life preservers toward the back of a space that probably sat six comfortably.