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I reached Isaac and the guy I instinctively knew was Gary and ripped him away from Isaac so that he stumbled backward. I turned to check on Isaac and felt pure rage explode inside of me when I saw the bruise forming on his right cheek. Gary chose that moment to yell, “Hey,” and grab my arm. I turned and decked him and he went flying backward. I was on him before he could even register what had happened. But I only got a few punches in before Ford and Isaac were pulling me back.
“Maddox, stop!” Isaac yelled as he got in my face.
I managed to pull in a few breaths as I tried to calm myself. Gary scrambled to his feet and stumbled back away from me.
“Get the fuck out of here!” I snapped.
The older man with Gary seemed confused as he looked between Gary and Isaac. “Let’s go!” Gary called to the man as he hurried to the only other car in the parking lot besides Isaac’s and Ford’s. The man hesitated, then followed Gary.
I turned back to look at Isaac. I grabbed his chin and only noticed then that the knuckles on my right hand were bruised and bloody. “Are you okay?” I asked.
Isaac let out a breath and nodded. His eyes stayed on Gary’s car until it was gone. Then they went wide. “Newt,” he said. “I have to find Newt.”
I stilled as I realized I hadn’t noticed him anywhere.
“Was he with you when they arrived?” I asked.
“No,” Isaac said as he began hurrying down the path leading toward the livestock barn. “He wanted to give the animals some carrots that Nolan left for him this morning. I told him to come back to the office when he was done. But Gary showed up and… Newt!” Isaac yelled as we hurried to the barn.
“Newt!” I called.
The concern in my chest grew when I saw Jerry standing out in the paddock rather than in the barn. The zebra was a treat hog. If Newt was in the barn giving the animals goodies, Jerry would’ve been there for sure.
We continued to call Newt’s name until we reached the barn. Ford had followed us.
“Oh God, where is he?” Isaac cried when we found the barn empty.
“Loki,” I said. “Where’s Loki?”
Isaac shook his head.
“He didn’t show up when Gary arrived?”
“No,” Isaac said. “Newt! Loki!” Isaac screamed.
“Okay, let’s split up and search the property. Isaac, you go check the house.” Isaac was already running that direction when I told Ford where to look and where to meet back up. With the wind whipping up like it was, visibility was difficult. Five minutes later, we met back at the livestock barn. When Isaac saw that Ford and I were both alone, he began to panic.
“Oh God, Maddox, what if he saw Gary and got scared? What if Gary got him somehow? What if—”
“Enough,” I said as I grabbed him by the shoulders and gave him a gentle shake. “He’s here somewhere. We just need to find him.” The words came out much more calmly than I was feeling. I willed myself to think. “If he saw Gary, what would he do?” I asked.
“Run,” Isaac whispered. “He’s scared to death of Gary. He… he used to have nightmares about him finding us. He’d wake up screaming and telling me we had to run and hide.”
“Then that’s what he’s doing,” I said. To Ford I said, “Can you check the east side of the property for any tracks and call me if you find anything?”
“Yeah,” Ford said with a vigorous nod, then he was off and running in that direction. “Listen,” I said to Isaac. “If we don’t find any sign of him in the next few minutes, we need to call for help.”
“I don’t care,” Isaac said. “Just find him. Please, Maddox.”
I could tell he was on the verge of a full-on panic attack. I grabbed his face and said, “We’re going to find him, Isaac. Just take deep breaths.” I took his hand in mine and led him to the back of the property. There was a large, open field that led to a more densely populated wooded area. My gut was telling me if Newt had been headed up toward the parking lot and had overheard Gary yelling at Isaac, he would have turned around and run back the direction he’d come. So I focused on the swath of land just behind the livestock barn. We worked our way north looking for any tracks.
“There,” I said after a few minutes when I saw both a set of human and canine tracks on the far side of the barn. We followed the trail to the end of the dog enclosure, which was the last pen on the property before it opened up into the field. But the blowing wind covered the tracks within a matter of minutes, so by the time we reached the middle of the field, there was no way to know which direction Newt had gone. We screamed for Newt over and over, but there was only the howling wind to answer us.
