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God, this day sucks.
Maison is who brings the sheets and blankets, putting them on the bed as Jake continues to stand beside Carter with his hand on the back of Carter’s neck.
“I’m okay,” Carter finally manages to say. “I’m okay now.”
He’s not.
They all know he’s not.
But they respect it anyway.
Jake leaves first.
Maison trails behind him, stopping in the doorway. He puts a hand on the frame and turns to look at Carter. Carter quickly looks away.
“I didn’t mean to,” Maison whispers.
Carter isn’t sure if he’s referring to this most recent incident, or one of the other times he’s hurt Carter.
It doesn’t really matter.
Maison leaves, closing the door behind himself.
Carter locks the door, grabs Travis’s sweatshirt, and crawls into bed.
Will this be how it always is? Is he more broken than he thought? Was he wrong thinking he made it out of that compound with enough of himself intact?
Was he right in thinking he’d be better off dead?
Unknown: Check-in ASAP
The text comes in just after Keats has heated up some MREs for them to eat. Travis frowns down at his burner phone, wondering if it can wait until after their make-shift dinner. He’s fucking starving.
But what if something happened?
What if it’s about Carter?
“I’ll be right back.” Travis gets up and heads down to the lower half of the warehouse. He decides to climb into his SUV for some privacy, since the whole place is empty and open and he doesn’t want his conversation to echo up to Mr. Nosy-Pants upstairs.
He dials the number, thankful he doesn’t have to go through the bullshit of giving code words now that this isn’t an official operation. Instead, he’s rewarded almost immediately with Jake answering the phone.
“Hey man, how’s it going?” Jake asks right away, not even saying hello.
“Could be better, could be worse. Haven’t been able to set eyes on Mica yet, but I have a good feeling about it. There’s no security we can see. I think maybe he’s pretty deep underground here. We decided if 48 hours pass without anyone in or out, we’ll infiltrate. It's been about 17 since we set the clock.”
“If you’re sure…” Jake says, not sounding sure at all. “It could be an ambush waiting in there.”
“The place is small. If anything, we’re looking at a handful of people, probably extremely untrained when compared to us. I think we'll be okay. I'll call just before we leave though and call again when we have everything handled. If we go more than an hour between the two, you can call in back-up if it'll make you feel better."
"Yeah. I'll see who I can get on stand-by "
Travis taps the steering wheel, heart racing. "But that's not why you messaged. What's up?"
"It's Carter, man. I don't even know if I should tell you. You can't be distracted."
"Too late now."
"I know." Jake sighs heavily. "Maison yelled at him today. Banged his hand against something. It startled Carter and he dropped."
