“We don’t know, Phoenix, that’s what we’re trying to find out. She must be in trouble. There’s no way she’d run away now, not now you're together.”
And of course, Molly was wrong.
Fuck, this is my doing. She’s run away from me. From the shit I said to her.
“We need to call the cops. File a missing persons thing,” I shot out, clawing at my face. The wind blew angrily against the trees that surrounded our house, echoing my inner turmoil.
“It’s not been long enough to do that,” Hudson pointed out.
Turning on him, I got in his face. “What islong enough, Harper lying dead at the bottom of a ditch?” I snarled. Aggressive waves crashed through me.
“Calm the fuck down, Brutal,” he warned, his voice surprisingly quiet.
“Youcalm the fuck down. This is my fault,” I yelled, jabbing my hands into my chest.
“How is it your fault? She’s been a flight risk for some time,” My brother said with a scowl.
Hudson didn’t know her as I did. “She stopped talking about running away ages ago.” Taking a deep breath, I cocked my chin and told them. “I said some stuff yesterday, things that I shouldn’t have.”
My eldest brother then got his psycho on. That was a good thing, as I needed the strength that came from his erratic.
“What are you not telling me?” he growled, grabbing a fistful of my tee in his hand.
I allowed it, my shoulders dropping as I confessed. “We had a stupid fight, OK. I’m not proud of it.”
My brother yanked me forward, his nose at my jaw, “Fuck does that mean?”
“Both of you stop it,” Molly shouted, moving to push between us. Hudson swallowed and released my top before stepping back. At that point, I didn’t blame him if he wanted to pound on my face. I deserved it.
Molly was now deadly serious, all business, “We don’t have time for this. Phoenix, you know her the best. Where would she go when she’s upset?”
“Her room usually.”
“Well, as we know, she’s not there, and hasn’t been for some time.”
“Maybe she made her bedbeforeshe went out?”
Hudson shook his head. “No, Ma waited up all night. She never came home. How about a friend's house?”
Molly instantly put him right about that one, “No. Harper’s a bit of a loner. There’s only Storm and me. Please, Phoenix, think?”
“The places I would suggest are the ones where the others are already looking. I don’t know what else to say.”
My chest felt like it was going to cave in.
“Does she have someplace special, maybe one of her old foster homes or something?”
“No, shehatedthe Jacksons.”
“Come on, Nix. You need to fix this,” Hudson barked, impatiently pacing back and forth across the driveway. The shouting must have alerted our neighbors as Mrs Fellows started to eyeball us through her lounge window. Fucking curtain twitcher.
Clawing at my hair, I closed my eyes and lifted my chin to the sky. “I don’t know. I can’t think straight.” And then I dropped my head, opened my eyes, and confessed to everyone within hearing distance. “I love her,” I bellowed out, my entire body shaking.
Hudson placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. “We know you do, that’s why you will be the one to find her.”
And then, a thought occurred to me, and I grabbed my cell, clicking on Find My Phone.
It took a minute or two to access the app as my fingers were shaking. And there she was.
