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Axel breaks the silence that follows, rubbing his eyes aggressively. “Okay.” He surrenders. “What are we going to do?”
Calder jumps in. “We’ll start with the woods. There’s miles and miles of forest, we’re gonna have to split up if we’ve got any chance of finding her. And if that fails, we’ll check with public transportation, shit, I can probably even figure out a way to get flight and passenger information at the airports. I don’t fucking know. And you’re right, if we have any chance in hell of finding her, we’ve just got to start somewhere.”
I nod in gratitude for the support trying to convince myself that this isn’t a lost cause and we’re fuck out of luck. “I like the idea of the flight information Calder. Why don’t you map out how you’re going to do that? Axel and I will work on figuring out the geography of this town and see where every street leads, where the woods lead and map out how we’re going to navigate our search through all of it. We’re gonna have to do some of it on foot but it’s fucking ridiculous to imagine doing all of this on foot. We’re gonna need cars. We’ll need to find an excuse not to show up at work. Fuck, I guess we can call in sick or some shit.”
This is all such a mess. Fuckdamn it. I lay my weapons down on the couch and drag myself to the kitchen. It’s going to be a long night and I doubt any of us are going to get any sleep. “I’m making myself some coffee, you guys want any?” I shout out behind me and they all agree to a cup.
After making the coffee, the steam of it on my face harsher than usual, I hand them their cups and sip on mine while my thoughts run amok. How would they even have found us? I thought I chose the perfect place for us. As a former cop, I know where the cops are looking for runaway criminals. Maybe in places like New Mexico where there are endless dirt roads and abandoned shops still fully stocked with canned goods that have gone rusty. Where you can hardly spot another human and you begin to wonder if humans exist around those parts. Then when you do spot someone, they are so unlike people you’re accustomed to seeing, and you start to wonder just how far back in time you’ve traveled or whether the heat of the desert’s relative dehydrated you so much you’re hallucinating.
Or maybe even in large cities like New York or California where there are so many people all way too busy with themselves and the material world that it’s easy to get lost in the crowd, blend in and become overlooked. And well, you’ll find mobs in the big cities and you’ll find members trying to hide out in towns where people are far and few. So I chose here, a small town though scantily occupied by our standards, not so scanty that it would be a dead giveaway of our location. I chose a town where the crime rates are significantly lower, deciding that meant that these places aren’t heavily controlled by mobs, and well if there’s hardly any crime, why would they look for criminals like us here?
Man, this coffee isn’t hitting me hard enough and I find myself overcome with a strange craving for a cigarette and a case of beers. I guess I didn’t have everything all figured out as well as I thought I had. Fuck! I feel responsible for her disappearance like I put her in danger, bringing her here. If anything happens to her, I don't know what I’ll do with myself. I check my phone for the time again and it’s 2:30 am. Pain shoots through the side of my head, grabbing me in the stomach in fear of the unknown.
I set my coffee aside and sink into the sofa, grabbing my laptop resting on the side table that I use each night to keep me up to date on the news and see if anything is being said about us. The other guys have dispersed, Calder went to his desktop in his room and I guess Axel’s in the bedroom, doing the same thing we are. I can’t bring myself to go in there though, Julissa’s things are everywhere and I don’t think I have the mental strength to handle seeing her things and not her. I pinch the bridge of my nose and let out a huge sigh just typing in the name of our town into the search engine and narrowing the search down to the woods.
Fuck me, everything’s just a mess. Where the fuck is she? When I get my hands on whoever took her, they’re going to regret the day they were born.
I hear the door rattle and the hairs on my body stand up. My ears feel like those of a cat’s, scanning the room for sounds, completely alert. I grab a gun. “Guys!” I say both quietly and loudly. They come running at the urgency in my voice and see me standing with my gun facing the door.
“I just heard the lock on the door wiggle,” I fill them in.
“Shit, you think they found…” Axel starts while he and Calder move swiftly toward their weapons.
The damned knob of the door starts to turn and I cock my gun, finger pressing lightly on the trigger. I hear the click of the door signaling it’s about to swing open. I’m ready when Axel puts his hand out and yells, “Wait!”
Calder adds, “What if it’s…”
And the door opens.
“Julissa?!” I let out in complete disbelief.
Chapter 7
Julissa
Calder,Axel,andMikhailall run toward me as soon as I step through the door. I haven’t even gotten both feet inside yet. I stand there frozen as they take turns hugging me. “Oh my fucking goodness, you’re okay!” Mikhail breathes into my hair as I awkwardly pat him on the back.
Calder is as pale as a ghost, clutching his chest after releasing me from his hug. “Whew, thank fuck.”
Axel hugs me the longest, squeezing me. “Julissa.” He breathes as if he just ran a race. “Don’t scare us like that again.”
I didn’t miss the guns that were first pointed at me as soon as I stepped through the door. My heart is pounding as I look past them now thrown down on the couch. Who the hell were they expecting? I push past them walking quickly over to the couch and pointing at the guns. “Guys, what the fuck? What happened? Is everything okay?”
I start to take my jacket off and reach for the weapons, unsure whether or not I need to arm myself too. My eyes are wide as I stare at them waiting nervously for an answer.
“You tell us!” Mikhail shrugged toward me, urging me to speak.
“What do you mean?” I crinkle my eyebrows and twitch my mouth. “How the hell should I know?”
He looks at the other guys like I’m the one with the missing puzzle piece then looks at me. “Where the hell were you, Julissa? You had us worried sick!”
Calder has taken a seat, drenched in sweat though heavily relieved it seems, and Axel is standing with his hand on his hips staring at me.
I look at the gun in my hand and at all the weapons strung across the sofa then back up at them. “Wait, you didn’t… what?” Oh no. I wipe at my mouth with the back of my hand, holding it there for a bit with my head lowered, feeling guilty. They thought, oh no, they thought we were found. And look at them. Shit, they couldn’t handle it if we were. I feel horrible putting them in this position. “Guys, I know I should’ve called but, I mean, this is…I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say to them.
Axel moves across the floor to take a seat as well while Mikhail stands like a brick wall, unmovable. Calder speaks and his breath is winded. “So, you didn’t answer the question J. Where were you?”
I scratch the corner of my head and wipe my hand across my face. “Guys, I’m really sorry I scared you.”
