The wind howls outside, and I focus out the window as winter white dances with the storm. Jansen’s heavy hand rests on my head with Fluffington wedged between me and the back of the couch, his tail drooping over my ankle. Trips stares at the silent TV, eyes red from exhaustion, hands clenching and relaxing like the motion might make something change.
Mattie is missing.
Mattie isn’t dead, but by the time we find her, she might wish she were, because Bryce has her. “How did you know about Bryce?” I ask, my voice cracking from lack of use.
Jansen doesn’t answer, so I tilt my head to see if he’s sleeping. He looks down at me, his usually smiling face grim. “We found his second phone, the one he used to talk to Mattie. We sent photos anonymously to Trips’ dad so the intel wouldn’t come back on you two.”
“I guess that got him a wedding invite,” I mutter.
“Why didn’t you warn us?” Trips asks, pulled from whatever thoughts that have held him hostage for more than a week.
I know what I’m reliving. I don’t know what he is.
“We did,” Jansen says, brow furrowed as I force myself upright.
I miss his hair, his new piercings glinting in the lamplight as the wind rattles the old glass beside us. He’s still handsome, but more feral than before, like all the soft bits of him were carved off along with his hair.
We’ve all aged a decade in the last few months, even if the evidence of that would be invisible to anyone outside this house. But I feel it hovering between us, this quiet truth that we aren’t the same people we were before. We’re not college kids or young adults. We’ve shed the last of our childishness over these last few months, and I’m not sure what that means for all of us.
“I never got a message,” I reply, feeling Trips’ anger simmering across the room.
Walker comes in then, his face lighting up when he sees I’m sitting up instead of comatose. “I was just going to heat up some cinnamon rolls—would you like one?” he asks.
“We sent them a message about Bryce and Mattie, didn’t we?” Jansen asks instead of answering.
Walker’s smile fades. “Yeah. But we never got a reply. I take it you didn’t get it?”
I shake my head. “They took my phone as soon as they got the list.”
Footsteps sound on the stairs, brought by the first noise that’s happened in this house in who knows how long. RJ joins us, squeezing into the corner of the couch. After a second, he holds an arm open, hope clear in the set of his shoulders.
I know what I’ve lived through. But what have they survived? RJ looks fragile, like I might not want him anymore. Which is so untrue I tremble at the thought. So I crawl into his lap, and he wraps an arm around me, a sigh getting caught in the tangle of my hair. I see a similar look on Walker’s face, so I pat the spot I just left on the couch. And he takes it, the three of them lined up, RJ under me, Walker and Jansenmaneuvering me so my legs sprawl across them. Trips, as always, sits a little separate.
I reach a hand across the gap, and I know the same tentative hope is on my face when Trips’ glare relaxes, his hand grasping mine. It’s uncomfortable, but worth it, to have all of them here with me.
It’s like the room sighs, something clicking together that we all feared might be broken forever. I swallow back yet another wave of tears, then clear my throat. “Where are we at with Mattie?”
The surprise from Walker and RJ leaves a sour taste in my mouth. How long have I locked myself inside my head? With nothing to mark the days—no job, no class, only my dad’s funeral to break my vigil—it could be any number.
RJ recovers first. “We’ve gotten access to all her friends’ cells. It looks like she was fishing for a place to stay right after your wedding. We narrowed it down to three locations, so now we’re looking at nearby security footage to figure out which one they ran to. But so far, there’s nothing.”
“Can I see? The messages with the timestamps?” I ask.
Walker pulls out his phone and hands it over, showing me the screenshots he’d made of them.
Trips takes back his hand, running it through his hair. “Yesterday was her sixteenth birthday. She should be planning her party, not running away with a fucking pedophile.”
“Agreed,” RJ says, not commenting on how Trips has been just as useless as me since we got back.
“If I could sleep, I might be more help,” he says, like his guilt requires explanation.
It’s Jansen who answers. “Sometimes we’ve got to lean on each other. And that’s okay. That’s family, man. So, do what you need to do to process, and we’ll find your sister.” After a moment, he adds with no context, “RJ’s birthday is Saturday.”
“Of course you’d remember that,” Walker says, a teasing annoyance in his voice that I didn’t realize I’d missed while I was gone.
“It’s a birthday. Those are important. We have to celebrate, assuming we find Mattie first.” He squeezes my foot. “And if you’re up for it, of course.”
My dad is dead. I’ll be grieving him, probably forever. His life was cut short. But he gave his life for me, so I can live, love, and celebrate for as long as I have left on this rock.
