“Oh, that’s real nice,” I grumbled. “Seriously. Thanks for being on my side.”
“I am on your side,” he said, waving me off before letting out a short, sharp whistle for Thunder. “But you can’t see the forest for the trees.”
I was too pissed to follow them inside, so instead I stomped over to the barn. The inside was a mess of random shit that we didn’t have room for anywhere else. I swore under my breath as I grabbed a pair of gloves out of the cabinet and got to work.
Random tools littered the room where Grant and Seamus had left them, and I took my time—mostly because everything hurt and I wasn’t moving very fast—as I rolled up the cords and put them away in the bottom of the cabinet. I stacked short two-by-fours and pieces of plywood against the wall. Pop’s portable air conditioner was on wheels, so I covered it with its little bag and shoved it into the corner, looping the air tube over the topof it. I searched the ground and found four pairs of pliers, two Allen wrenches, and various-sized sockets and bits that the boys had left out. I needed to remind them to put shit away where it belonged, so if Pop came outside, he didn’t have to go searching for the tools he needed.
After a while, I had to sit down on a crate to catch my breath.
I hated feeling so weak.
After an hour of sitting there, watching the rain and urging myself unsuccessfully to get up and do something, I finally made my way back into the house.
I paused inside the doorway.
The kitchen table was covered with newspaper, a pile of rags, solvent, oil, and various firearms.
“Grab a rag,” Pop offered, nodding at the pile.
“Is there a reason we’re cleaning our weapons?” I asked.
“Needs to be done,” he replied, reaching for a rifle barrel.
“And you chose today.” I shook my head and moved around him. “Let me change my clothes first.”
My shirt was still damp with a mix of sweat and rainwater when I took it off. The shorts were better, but not much. I kicked them into the corner of my bedroom and pulled a new set out of my drawers. I needed to do laundry, but it was hard to find the resolve to do it. I wasn’t going anywhere. No one saw me except Pop—who didn’t care—and Daniel, who was more interested in taking off whatever I was wearing.
I sometimes wished I were one of those people who were productive when they had extra time on their hands, but I wasn’t. Too much time just made me bored out of my mind.
As soon as I was dressed, I lost all sense of time as I crawled onto the bed on my knees and curled into a ball, my feet tucked under my ass and my arms sandwiched between my torso and the bedding. I didn’t even bother pulling a pillow under my head as my chest tightened, aching like it was being squeezed in a vice.It was time for the panic, and although I always thought I was ready for it, I never was.
Thoughts raced through my mind like lightning, the last one barely fading away before another one took its place. Daniel getting into a horrific car accident, being ambushed on the drive to his parents’ house, stopping for gas and getting ambushed there, fighting off the militia on the front porch I remembered from the night we met, stepping in front of a faceless woman that I knew was his sister-in-law and being taken down in the process—the scenarios felt endless and devastatingly specific.
They weren’t premonitions. I didn’t have some magical connection with him that would tell me he was in danger. No, these were my own worst fears slapping me in the face. And while I knew that they weren’t real, and I was terrified for no reason, my body didn’t get the memo. I was frozen on the bed, shaking and gasping for breath as I struggled to snap myself out of it.
Eventually, my body was so exhausted from the tense muscles and irregular breathing that I fell asleep. It was the best possible scenario.
When I woke up hours later, expecting the symptoms to be lighter, even manageable, they weren’t.
I was still on fire. My stomach still roiled with nausea. My ribcage still felt too small for my lungs. My muscles still ached from prolonged contractions.
I scrambled out of bed and stumbled into the living room in shock as I realized that the sun was going down.
“Where is he?” I asked, finding only Pop in the living room.
I hurried to the front door and swung it open.
Daniel’s car wasn’t there.
“Still not back,” Pop replied, his tone grim.
“What?” I looked at the clock on the wall, even though I knew it hadn’t worked since my mom died. “What time is it? Why isn’t he back?”
“It’s five o’clock.”
The urge to scream burned at the back of my throat. We’d passed the three-hour mark hours ago. I’d been asleep all day.
Where was he?
