The Street Rat 209

Eddie woke up to find Archer leaning against the motel wall while Maria and the boys were still asleep.

“What time is it?” Eddie asked, rubbing his eyes first and then his shoulder. He grimaced as pain shot through it.

“5:30. Drink this and take these.” Archer handed him a glass of water and two ibuprofens. 

Eddie did as he was told and lay down, rolled onto his uninjured shoulder, and fell asleep. 

Archer continued to sit there in silence as the room lightened around him. He stood and stretched after another hour before walking to the bathroom. When he came out, Maria was sitting on the edge of the bed reading a book. 

“You read?” he asked softly, settling back down against the wall. 

“When I can,” she answered without looking up from the book. 

Archer nodded. 

“How is he doing?” Maria asked ten minutes later, after setting her book down. 

“He’ll be fine. He took some medicine an hour ago and then he fell back asleep. Now, he just needs to rest.” 

“So, you’ll be leaving?”

“Sorry, but no.” He shook his head. “The gang promised to come find us. I can’t leave Eddie in his state or the rest of you alone to handle that. I know it’s an inconvenience, but until that is taken care of, I’m here.”

“How nice,” Maria answered, picking her book up again. 

“Wake me up if he wakes or if you think the gang is here for any reason,” Archer said as he lay out on the floor to fall asleep.

***

Archer woke up a few hours later. Eddie was still asleep on his mat a few feet away. Maria, Alex, and Tomas were sitting on the floor next to the bathroom. Tomas was reading a book while Maria talked quietly with Alex, who was writing on a sheet of paper. 

Archer stood and walked over, then stopped when Maria looked up. 

“I’m going out to get breakfast. I’ll bring enough back for everyone. No one should leave until I get back. It’s not safe.”

“Yes, sir.” Maria exaggerated a single nod and turned back to Alex as Archer left the room.

***

Archer got back to find Eddie awake and playing with Alex, and Maria working with Tomas on a sheet of paper. He sat the bag of food down and handed some to Maria and Tomas before taking the rest and joining Eddie and Alex across the room.

“What are they doing over there?” Archer asked as he sat and opened his box of breakfast. 

“I’m guessing math,” Eddie answered, looking over at Alex with one eyebrow raised. 

Alex smiled and nodded with a mouthful of eggs. 

“She teaches them?”

Eddie nodded. “She doesn’t want them to fall behind, so she does her best. She wanted for them to continue going to school, but they’d all be put in the system and likely split up if they were in a real school. Education is really important to her, though, so she goes to the library every week and gets herself books to stay on track and also gets books to teach the boys as they go.”

Archer looked over at Maria and Tomas. Maria was gazing at the paper, but Tomas stuck his tongue out at Archer. 

“You help out with that any?”

“Me?” Eddie laughed. “Absolutely not. I know enough math to add and subtract numbers for money. I can read and write well enough to get by, and that’s it. If anything, I should be sitting next to Alex, learning.” Eddie gave Alex a shove as he said that. “But I’d probably distract him from his work, which is why I haven’t been invited.”

Archer nodded as he ate, looking back at Maria and Tomas as he was having to redo something on his sheet.

*** 

The next two days passed with increasing tension. Archer and Maria refused to let Eddie leave, which frustrated him because “more people are disappearing every day and will continue to do so until we figure out what’s going on.” 

Archer was adamant he wasn’t leaving until the gang issue was figured out, and even though he tried his best to stay out of the way, he seemed to constantly be in Maria’s way or in the way of one of the boys, almost always Tomas. 

Archer was able to work out a deal to read some of the books Maria had already finished but hadn’t had a chance to take back to the library yet. It kept him out of her way and gave him something to occupy himself with during the day, while he would, otherwise, just sit there and think.

Maria had a diverse reading interest, so he had four genre options out of the five books she had given him to choose from. Archer, much to her surprise, chose a book on Spanish poetry to start with.

Three days after Archer and Eddie’s run-in with the gang, a bang sounded at the door. Everyone stopped and looked over at it. A second followed shortly after. 

Archer set his book—this one a copy of English myths and legends—down and stood to his feet, pulling a knife out of his belt. He crept to the door, signaling the others to stay put, and opened it a crack with the chain still in place. Two half-bricks were laid on the ground outside the door. 

“We see you,” a voice yelled from on the ground in the parking lot by the motel. “Come out and play.”

“Lock the door behind me and don’t open it unless you hear my voice,” Archer said as he grabbed his bow and quiver.

“I’m coming with you,” Eddie said as he tried to stand.

“No,” Archer and Maria said simultaneously. 

Archer walked out and closed the door behind him, which Maria quickly locked. 

He stood outside the door against the railing and looked down to see ten men standing and looking up. 

“Where’s your friend?” one asked. 

“Or is he still bleeding out?” another asked as they all laughed. 

Archer strung an arrow into the bow as the gang laughed louder. 

“This man’s never even heard of a gun.”

Archer raised his bow, the man in front lifting his gun in response. Archer loosed his arrow. 

A scream broke through the distant sound of sirens as the man grabbed his hand. The gun fell and skidded a couple of feet away. Archer’s arrow had flown true, penetrating the gun’s barrel as the man was pulling the trigger and causing it to explode in the man’s hand.

Archer had already strung another arrow during the chaos and shot three more in succession as others raised their guns, each one finding a home in a barrel. The men were unable to yank them out and, not wanting to end up like the first guy, decided not to fire.

“The next time I see any of you around here or causing trouble for anyone else in the neighborhood, I won’t be aiming for your guns. Find a new turf. This one’s protected.”

The group stood, looking at one another without moving for a second. Archer lifted his bow and fired another shot, striking the exploded gun on the ground and causing it to skid back into the midst of the group. 

“Get out of here,” Archer demanded, and all ten of the men bumped into one another, trying to flee. 

Archer turned and knocked on the door three times. “It’s me.” 

Maria opened the door with the lock still latched. 

“They’re gone,” Archer told her. “You’re safe now.”

Maria closed the door and sighed in relief, then rested her head on the closed door. 

“They’re gone,” she repeated to the room as she opened the door again to let Archer back in, but he had vanished. 

She looked left and right and peered over the railing to see if he was below, but he had disappeared. 

“We’re safe now,” Maria told Eddie, Tomas, and Alex as she locked the door and returned to the bed. 

The Street Rat continues with episode 210.

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