Spoiler
So what's happening here is that Kalypso is a teenage criminal, and she was brought up as a Neo-Nazi. Tobias has an abusive father and he's Jewish, and he's the reason that Kalypso's left the Nazis. Through an act of kindness, he convinced her that what they were doing is wrong, and so now she's going to try to destroy them. She was forced to bring him along with her after the Nazis find out about her plan to leave them.
I'm not going to post the whole novel on here but if you want to read whole thing then PM me and I'll consider letting you read it.
Just please, please don't crush this. I beg of you.“Wow Kalypso, you’re actually paying for something?” Tobias asked as we moved aside from the front counter after I paid for the cheeseburgers we ordered. I looked at him.
He wasn’t being sarcastic.
“It’d be easier than stealing it,” I said.
“Wouldn’t paying for this be easier than stealing it?” he asked, gesturing down at his new clothes. They were stolen from a discount store across the street. As were mine.
“I didn’t want to waste it on that when we’d need it for this stuff,” I said and nodded towards the front counter. Our little excursion in the woods had exhausted all of my food supplies, and I was starting to get really hungry.
“Yeah, sure. Okay,” he mumbled coldly and crossed his arms. I sighed.
“You still don’t get that I can’t just pay for everything? I’ve got very little green here,” I said.
“Order number 422!” a voice called. I grabbed the bag of hot, greasy food and walked over to a table with a small flat screen TV above it. The news was on. I’d have to see if the Nazis had managed to make their way into the news yet, or at least if there were some hints about how the alliance worked out.
“Well, yeah, I know, but-”
“But what?” I asked, sitting down at the table and tossing him a cheeseburger. “You want us to keep looking grimy and suspicious?”
“Well…” Tobias started.
“I didn’t think so,” I said, unwrapping my own cheeseburger and taking a bite out of it. It was hot, greasy, and perfect. The only other thing I could use right now was an ice-cold Redbull.
I raised my eyes to the TV, and almost fell out of my seat in shock.
A picture of Tobias’s father, smiling, and his mother were up on the screen.
The headline said, Mysterious Murder After Kidnapping.
“What are you-?” he started, then stopped as his eyes glanced the headline. He went rigid. The cheeseburger I’d given him fell from his hands and onto the table.
“James and Martha Delaney were found dead only four days after their son, Tobias Delaney’s disappearance. The suspected culprit is teenage criminal Kalypso Summers. The last reported sighting of her was at the downtown subway station on 34th street, where a man whose name not released to the public attempted to shoot at her. Authorities think these events may be connected, but…” the TV reporter droned on and on.
“No…” he murmured, so faint I could barely hear him. His breathing tensed, and his hands clenched into fists. He turned and ran out of McDonald’s.
“Wait!” I cried and ran out after him.
“No, no, no, no!! This isn’t happening…this isn’t real…” Tobias was on his knees, underneath a tree growing on the sidewalk. His hands were clapped over his ears, blocking out the world around him.
I wanted to say something, but my throat felt dry. I barely managed to choke out a small part of his name.
“Toby,” I said. His hands dropped from his ears.
“What?” he asked. His voice was much higher now and sounded like he was about to burst into tears. “What are you going to tell me? To suck it up? Get over it?”
“W…well, yeah,” I said, my throat starting to loosen up. “Do it for them. They wouldn’t want you waddling around in self-pity, would they?”
“What do you know about anything like that?! What do you know about parents who love you?! Heck, I bet you never had any! You weren’t the one who saw your family fall apart! For all you know, they dumped you out on the streets! You never had a chance to know them! This was all your fault!!” he shouted, turning on me. Anger boiled up in my throat.
“My fault?! What part of this is my fault?! I didn’t kill your parents. I didn’t wish them dead. What the hell did I do?!” I cried.
“You took me away from them! You freaking kidnapped me! If you hadn’t taken me away, I could have stopped him! Protected them!” he retaliated. I snorted in disdain.
“You? You think you could have protected them?! Just look at you! You let your own father beat you up, and all you do is stand and turn the other cheek. What could you have possibly done against a guy with a gun, with intent to kill?! I didn’t expect this to happen! I’m not involved in your parent’s murder whatsoever!! The only reason I kidnapped you was to save your own miserable life. I don’t see why you would even care, seeing what your father did to you!” I snapped.
“Why should I care? Why should I care?1 What do you think it’s like, watching your father who used to read you bedtime stories at night, practice baseball with you, teach you how to fight when he finds out you’ve been bullied, bullying you and your mother?! What do you think it’s like, watching your mother who always held your hand, gave you hugs whenever you were scared, falling apart right in front of you?!” Tobias paused for a breath.
My throat was dry again. I couldn’t speak. He gave a heavy sigh, the anger draining out of him, being replaced with a deep sadness.
“And despite how bad things got, you always had hope that they’d pull themselves together. Always. But now that they’re gone…it’s never going to return to what it used to be. Never…” His voice faded to a faint whisper. He buried his head in his hands and started to cry, great heaving sobs that racked his whole body. I was still angry at him, but instead of being annoyed with him for sobbing like a baby, I felt bad for him. I was angry and sad for him at the same time. Great. Just great.
He looked up at me, his face streaked with tears and eyes filled with sadness. Guilt appeared in them too when he saw that he’d hurt me.
“Oh God Kalypso, I’m sorry…” he said softly, standing up. I crossed my arms in front of my chest and turned away from him, not letting him see how much his words had carved into me, making a scar that would likely stay there forever.
“I didn’t mean it…when I’m angry or upset, things just come out and…”
“I don’t care. It doesn’t matter.”
“I’m sorry anyway.”
“Whatever.”
There was a long, awkward silence. Tobias’s words ran over and over again in my head, biting at me like sharks feasting on some dead animal.
He touched my shoulder. Before I could do anything, he spun me around, wrapped his arms around me, and squeezed me to him so tight I could barely breathe. My entire body felt like lead as his head fell down onto my shoulder and he began to cry again.
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t think.
All I could hear was Tobias’s soft sobs and all I could feel were his arms around me, pressing me to his warm body.
He smelt like fresh spearmint. Maybe it was some kind of soap that he used down at the showers.
“I need someone …you’re all I have now…I don’t blame you for giving me the cold shoulder, but please…” he gasped in between sobs. I took a long breath in and let it out in a heavy sigh, trying to sort out the confusing whirl of anger, sadness, and that something else. Something almost…happy.
The word felt like it was from some foreign language, yet I somehow knew what it was.
“You’re right,” he said, jerking me out of my thoughts. He let go of me and wiped his eyes. “My parents wouldn’t want me to fall apart like this. I shouldn’t have snapped at you. You were only trying to make me feel better, weren’t you?”
“…Only so that you won’t fall apart the next time we try doing something dangerous,” I said quickly, trying to regain my normal swagger.
“Suuure,” Tobias said and smiled shakily. “Thanks, Kalypso. You’re a good friend.”
No I’m not, I thought, thinking about the equally hurtful words I’d spat back at him. But I didn’t bother to correct him. Even though I knew what he said wasn’t true, it was making me feel all warm and tingly again.
“Sure. Whatever,” I said with a scowl. For some reason, this made his smile grow more confident, more real.
“Yup. You’re welcome,” he said. “You know, you don’t have to act all tough. I know you’ve got a heart under there that cares. You don’t scare me.”
I raised an eyebrow threateningly.
“Okay, maybe you scare me a little. But only when you’re stealing cars or blowing up stuff. I know you wouldn’t hurt me. I trust you,” he continued.
“That’s what you’ve been saying from the beginning,” I said.
“Yeah, but…I mean it now,” he said, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.
“So…?”
“I was lying before.”
“Oh?” I smirked. “Well, you totally fooled me.”
“I bet I did,” he retorted in the same sarcastic tone. I rolled my eyes, and he laughed.
“So are we even?” he asked. I looked up at him. Pain was still in his eyes, but a sparkle of hope had appeared there too.
I found myself smiling. Not my evil smirk, but a real smile.
“Yeah. Sure.”
