“Okay...?”
He took another slug of soda as he approached the keg, holding up the bottle and shaking his head in a no-thanks-I’m-good as he passed the kid who was handing out the red cups for beer. He worked his way around the line and over to...
“Hey.” He smiled as he touched Mindy-Mandy’s arm. “I’m Jules. I’m new in town. Hobbit—Kevin—just told me that you play the flute, that you’re really good...?”
He started stepping back, away from her, which forced her to follow him away from Belle and the others in the group as she answered him. “Oh,” she said. “Yeah, well, I mean, I guess? I’ve been playing since I was seven.”
“Wow,” he said, not having to fake his reaction, “that’s impressive.”
She was a really sweet kid—a junior, Hobbit had said. And it didn’t take much to get her talking about a subject that she clearly adored.
Jules had always wanted to learn to play the flute—not entirely a lie if you substituteda musical instrumentforflute. Did she think it was too late for him to start now, at seventeen instead of seven? Did she have a good teacher that she might recommend? Or would she consider giving him lessons herself? What was a good source for renting a flute—he’d definitely want to rent before buying one...
All the while he just kept backing up and turning his own body until her back was to Belle. Not a friend, not together.
He kept her talking for fifteen, maybe twenty minutes while across the yard Hobbit continued to hang with Topher and Joey. While Belle got in line for her fourth cup of beer, which meant that another trip inside to the bathroom was surely going to be coming soon...
In fact...
Whoa.
What.
The...?
Jules fumbled and dropped his empty bottle of soda, but it was plastic so it bounced away.
The world shifted, and then shifted again, and as Jules turned his head from the bouncing soda bottle to Mindy-Mandy who was telling him about a musical instrument rental company in downtown Boston that actually had quality flutes in a voice that was suddenly distorted and strange, to Hobbit, still sitting at their table, the world actually swirled and spun.
“Fuuuhck.” He said it with a tongue that felt thick and ungainly, and he knew he’d spoken aloud because Mindy-Mandy looked surprised. But he couldn’t tell how loudly he’d spoken and he knew, as he pushed and stumbled his way through the crowd at the keg-line, that he was going down, hard, in a mere matter of seconds.
And every freaking second counted.
So he gathered all of the air that he could manage into lungs that weren’t working right and he pushed it out asloudly as he could. “Hobbit!” Had he shouted or whispered, God he didn’t know, so he did it again. “Hob!”
People were staring because he’d fallen, but he still moved forward on his hands and knees—he had to get to his friend. “Hob...”
And then, thank God, Hobbit was there, right next to him, his eyes wide. “Jules...”
“Don’t leave me don’t leave me don’t leave me!” Did he say it aloud? Please God let him have said it aloud. Drugged. He’d been drugged. Had he said that out loud?
Belle was there, too. He saw her in the blur of faces above him. She was shouting something, but all he cared about was Hobbit, warm and solid and steadfast beside him. His fierce, courageous friend, who would protect him no matter what. He grabbed onto the boy’s shirt, so pretty and green, wrinkling it as he tried his best to tether them together.
Don’t leave me don’t leave me...
“I’m right here.” Hobbit wrapped his arms tightly around Jules, holding him close, thank God thank God. “I’m not going to leave you. I swear to god, Jules, I will not leave your side.”
Thank God thank God thank God thank...
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Present Day
Burbank, California
Mission Day Two
“The security team was on site, twenty-four/seven,” Rene the housekeeper told Sam and Jules when they went back inside the estate, “entirely due to the threats Mr. Devonshire’s son had made. We weren’t told much more than that—but we were to keep an eye out for him, at all times. Not just coming and going, but while we were out and about, living our lives. It was... unnerving. We had photos of him up in the office and in the rooms that the nursing and security team used in their downtime, but they were all at least ten years old.”
