Page 66 of Playing With Forever

Oh, fuck.

This was Saul Trapp.

“I don’t know why either of you are here, but there’s nothing⁠—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Saul snapped at me, then to Tyler. “Did you find it?”

“No. It’s not there.”

Stay calm, Evan’s on his way.

“Where is it?”

It took me a moment to realize Saul was addressing me. “Where’s what?”

“The fucking backpack.”

On any given day, I saw dozens of backpacks.

“What backpack?”

“Fucking shit, keep up, bitch, Tyler’s backpack.”

I could wrap my head around why Tyler would come back to the center for a missing backpack.

“Did you lose your backpack? The lost and found⁠—”

“He didn’t lose it. He stashed it. Where the fuck is it?”

Stashed.

You didn’t stash a backpack full of books.

You stashed a backpack full of drugs.

“I haven’t seen your backpack. Where’d you put it?”

“Under the sink in the bathroom.”

Well, that was an incredibly reckless place to stash anything.

“No one uses that bathroom, and the cabinet in there is empty,” Tyler rushed on to explain his teenage idiocy.

“That bathroom flooded⁠—”

Saul moved so quickly I didn’t have a chance to react, but I did have the chance to feel, and what I felt was excruciating pain ricochet around in my head. I wasn’t sure exactly where Saul’s fist had made contact since my face throbbed from temple to jaw. But it was indisputable he’d packed one hell of a punch. I vaguely heard my phone clatter on the tile floor and the thump my purse made.

“Where the fuck did you put the backpack?” Saul shouted in my face.

“I haven’t seen⁠—”

The next blow was to my stomach, but this one felt different—white-hot searing agony stole my breath.

“Don’t, Dad. We’ll find it,” Tyler pleaded.

“One last time, bitch, where the fuck is my kid’s bag?”

I would’ve given him the same answer as I’d already given if I could’ve caught my breath enough to speak. But as it was, my lungs weren’t cooperating, and I could feel something wet dripping down my stomach.