The Lighter

Please note, this story contains mentions of abuse. Nothing graphic and nothing current, and all instances are past tense.

It took twenty minutes after they’d realized Evelyn was missing for someone to notice Kipp had stolen the car.

Twenty minutes after Kipp snagged the car keys and slipped out the back door, his phone rang. He paused the methodical flicking of his dads old lighter for just long enough to set his phone to speaker and toss it onto the dashboard.

“Kipp, would you care to tell me where my car went?” Eli’s voice was strained, asking a question he already knew the answer too and desperately hoping he was wrong.

“Oh, you know.” Kipp hummed as he turned left on lumber street, scanning the sidewalk absentmindedly. “On a drive.”

“Please tell me your not driving illegally.”

Kipp said nothing. Eli gave a heavy, long suffering sigh of a man who knew the trouble a seventeen year old could get into. Kipp could already picture his foster fathers face, pinching the bridge of his nose and trying to stay collected.

“I’ve got my learners. That’s close enough.” Kipp shrugged, flicking the metal lighter open and closed again.

“Kipp half the cops in this town already want you arrested.” Eli pointed out, to which Kipp shrugged, giving an unconcerned hum as he turned right onto the town outskirts.

“Check your math old man. Ninety percent want me arrested, they just cant agree on weather they want me to go to juvie or jail.” Kipp kept his eyes on the barren scrub brush to the left, checking for any familiar figures trudging or trying to hide in the unkempt field. “The other ten just wants me dead.”

“I’m serious. If they catch you breaking any law, no matter how small, they’re going to be gunning for you to be re homed at best, or a retrial at worst.” Eli was a good man, the sort that actually cared about the kids he took care of without hitting or yelling. He treated them like actual human beings, no matter how damaged a background they came from. Kipp always liked to toe that line and see how far he could push it. “Maud and Nigel are already out looking for Evelyn, I’d rather not have it known I’ve got two missing kids. Please Kipp.”

There, Kipp spotted the bus station half tucked under a long dead oak tree, its branches half sheared off by time and age.

“Oh yeah totally. Hundred percent. Uh, tell you what, I’m about to go through a tunnel, real long one too so uh, I’ll call you back,”

“What, no Kipp do not hang up on me-”

“-Ah, but cant text and drive, so I’ll call you next time I stop. Talk to you later Eli.”

“Kipp come home I swear to god-” He didn’t give Eli a chance to finish what he was saying before he had ended the call and pulled up next to the bus station.

It was a crappy little chunk of cracked tarmac, the bus shelter reduced to its metal skeleton with chunks of broken glass littered across the ground like they were trying to mimic stars painted across the night sky. Sat at the bench with her legs crossed and her only bag tucked against her chest, Evelyn sat like an abandoned doll, her right hand in a bright green cast.

She pulled her bag tighter into herself as Kipp pulled up and rolled down the passenger window, tired blue eyes regarding him lifelessly.

“Y’know, if you run away from one foster home, they just send you to a different one.” Kipp informed. Evelyn stayed silent, brown hair falling over her face as she stared down at her feet. He sighed, reaching over to pop the passenger door and shoved it open. “I’m headed back. Get in.”

The irony of the situation didn’t escape Kipp. When he’d first been stuck with Eli, he’d packed a bag of stolen clothes and food and headed to the bus station the first chance he’d gotten. Eli had followed him, and told him that he’d wait until Kipp was ready to go back.

Kipp had been sixteen and angry, yelling and cursing, itching for a fight. Eli had just parked on the other side of the street and waited. Four hours later, after the bus had come and gone, Kipp finally relented and got in the car.

Evelyn apparently didn’t have the same anger that Kipp did at sixteen. She stood like a silent ghost and got into the car. She reached for the seat belt, struggling to get a grip with the cast that enveloped the majority of her dominant hand.

Three broken fingers and a metacarpal fracture was what the social worker said when she’d dropped Evelyn off the day before. She’d said it in the same hushed tone most social workers used when they talked about Kipp, like they were something unfit for polite conversation.

Her seat belt clicked into place. Kipp hit the gas.

Despite the lack of a proper licence, Kipp was a good driver. He would have had one years ago if the court cases hadn’t kept delaying things. He was confident enough that he kept one hand on the wheel, the other still fidgeting with the old lighter. The silver casing had a six pointed star etched into the metal on one side, the words ‘Protect & Serve’ carved into the other. Kipp clicked it open, closed, open, closed like a heartbeat.

Evelyn didn’t seem to care. Content to stay silent as she sat with her temple pressed against the glass, staring aimlessly at the endless barren fields outside. Eli’s house was on the outskirts on the northern side of town. A shorter drive when Kipp wasn’t searching the streets for a runaway while also avoiding any cop cars who would recognize him.

Kipp should have been content to the silence, but he’d gotten fed up with holding his tongue years ago.

“So, military kid. What was that like?” He asked, watching from the corner of his eye how Evelyn tensed like she’d heard a gunshot, eyes wide as she stared at him in a panic. “Your social worker didn’t keep a good enough eye on her bag.” He added by way of explanation.

Eli was known to take in the problem kids. The kinds that had records or other behavioural issues that other families didn’t want to deal with. Kipp trusted Eli to a point, but he found it safer to know ahead of time who he was sharing his space with.

So, he’d stolen Evelyn’s file while her social worker talked to Eli and read the entire thing. Ex military mom who’d been dishonourably discharged a year ago, and had apparently taken it out on her daughter. A few broken bones and no living relatives who wanted to deal with a freshly traumatized teenager later, and a social worker had brought her to Eli.

Her first proper foster home was the one saved as a last resort. That said more than her file ever did.

She stayed silent and stock still, tense like a loaded spring about to snap.

Kipp gave a hum, clicking his lighter closed.

“Catch.” He tossed it haphazardly in her direction. Evelyn fumbled, nearly loosing it between the seat and the console before she snagged it with her left hand. “My dad got that after fifteen years working for the police department. A commemoration of excellent service from his captain. Every cop in the city admired him. Hell, I did too. Wanted to join the force just like him when I grew up.” Kipp couldn’t help but scoff, staring at the empty road ahead of them as he tightened his hands on the wheel.

It had always just been the two of them when Kipp was a kid. An echo chamber for all the rancid, hateful shit that his father had taught him. He started fights, stolen, and said some cruel things to people he’d been taught were less than him, all to be just like his father. His dad had praised him for every little bit of hurt he’d caused.

“He was the kind of person that thought that because was a white man, he was better than anyone around him.” Kipp sighed, leaning his head back. “And I was his prodigal son. Right up until he caught me making out with a boy instead of a girl.”

If Evelyn had a reaction, Kipp didn’t see it as he kept one hand on the wheel, and used his teeth to pull back the sleeve on his other arm. He was covered in scarred over burns. Small circular ones from cigarettes bordering larger patches of mottled red and beige.

“It took me a few dozen burns and a broken leg to realize he was going to kill me. So, I grabbed the closest heavy object I could find and didn’t give him the chance.” Kipp shrugged. Enough years of saying it in court and he’d grown numb to the words. Even in self defence, attacking a well respected police officer meant most of the world saw him as the dangerous one. “A lot of words were used at the initial trial. I think they wanted to charge me with attempted murder, or at least aggravated assault. I got lucky. A lawyer saw my injuries, stepped in and managed to get the whole thing dismissed after a while. Dad got sent to prison, and I got sent to foster care.”

Evelyn quietly clicked the lighter open then closed, a slow repeat of Kipps compulsive fidget.

“Most of his stuff is in a storage locker I’ll get when I turn eighteen in a few months, but I managed to keep the lighter. Its a good reminder.”

“That he tried to kill you for being gay?” Evelyn’s voice was quiet, raspy from disuse even as she gave him an incredulous stare. There, she had that spark of emotion, of morality and justice that hadn’t been completely smothered yet. Kipp grinned, a finger tapping laxly on the wheel.

“That I’m not scared of him.” Kipp caught the bit of life returning to those tired blue eyes.

She stared down at the lighter in her left hand, flipping it over and running her thumb along the metal engravings Kipp had worn down with his own finger prints.

“I’m tired of being scared.” She admitted quietly, pressing her cast into her chest. “Being scared didn’t do me any good. Scared to disappoint her, scared to be her. I don’t want to be scared anymore.”

“Easy,” Kipp nodded, glancing to the old lighter. “Be angry instead.”

“Angry?”

“Yeah. Angry that they had your trust for so long. Angry that they tried to take so much of your life. Angry enough that you never give them the chance to again, even from in your own head.” Kipp wouldn’t admit it, but the mandatory therapy helped. He was still angry, he just refused to let his father control him anymore. It had been hell trying to unlearn everything his father taught him, but he was better for it.

“I don’t think I know how to do that.” Evelyn muttered, setting the lighter onto the dashboard. Kipp watched it for a long moment, before he slid it back towards her.

“You’ve got time to figure it out. Keep the lighter as your own reminder, at least till you leave.” Kipp decided as he turned the car onto a road populated with houses, and home came into view. He’d come a long way from the kid sitting at the bus stop, daring Eli to do something about it. “Next bus comes on Tuesday. But, stick around for a couple months, and you can help me find a field to burn all my dads shit as payback for my arm.”

Evelyn laughed, a short startled sound as she took the lighter, flicking it open and closed.

“I might take you up on that.”