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Jake
Travis is a fucking cheater.
After spending nearly a week feeling like we're crawling out of our skin waiting to hear from the two men who insist on only speaking to Maison for check-ins, the fucking asshole cheats. He goes to Carter's work and spies on him.
It's disgraceful.
It's ridiculous.
It's not fair.
Why can't Casey be the one with a fucking job so I can spy on him?
The time away from Casey has made an aching chasm form in my chest, widening every hour that passes without me hearing from him. I’ve sent him two texts, keeping them short and friendly, lacking any pressure to respond if he doesn’t want to. And he hasn’t wanted to. My one missed phone call - sans voicemail because I didn’t have a good reason to call him and couldn’t think of anything good to say - has also gone unreturned.
I’m in the middle of boring as fuck paperwork for an incident that happened last night with a security guard and a survivor - a complete misunderstanding, evidenced by the video camera that caught the whole thing, but still requiring an official note in the files - when my phone vibrates beside my hand. I go perfectly still, trying not to let my hopes surge. It could be Maison or Ace or Travis. It could be an auxiliary worker like Keats. It could even be the head of the organization, though that would mean I was in serious fucking trouble, so hopefully not.
But it could also be Casey.
I let my eyes fall to the screen, my breath catching in my chest at the name I find there: Casey.
I nearly drop the phone in my haste to grab it. “Casey?”
"Um. I-" his voice cracks.
I immediately stand, already looking around for my wallet and keys. "What's wrong, lit-” I stop myself, remembering the hurt in his expression when he’d asked me if I call everyone that. I swallow hard. “What’s wrong, Case? Talk to me."
"I - I'm sorry."
"Hey, shh. You don't have to be sorry. Can you tell me where you are? Can you do that for me?"
"The b-bathroom."
My mind races. Did he try to shower? Is he hurt? Is someone there?
"At the apartment?"
"No. The - the store." He tries to muffle a sob, but I hear it. "I don't know - I can't - I can't-"
"Are you safe?" I ask, cutting through his rising panic to get to the most important thing.
He whimpers. "Y-yeah."
Relief floods my body, allowing me to breathe properly for the first time since hearing his voice. He’s not breathing well though. In fact, he sounds damn close to hyperventilating.
"Good. That's good. Can you take a deep breath for me, Casey? Try to take a deep breath." I switch him to speaker and pull up the app Ace installed for all of us to track Casey’s and Carter's phones. He's at the small grocery store in the center of town, just a block from the apartment. His breathing is still erratic but improving. "You're doing so good, Case. Deep breaths. I'm on my way but I'm going to stay on the phone with you the whole time, okay?"
"You d-don't have t-to come.”
"I'm coming, Casey. Do you want to stay there and wait for me, or do you want to try to walk home?”
He gasps for breath. "I don't - I don't know."
"That's okay. Just stay there. If you feel better, you can always walk home and I'll meet you there instead, okay?"
"O-okay."
"What do you need from me?" I ask as I badge out of the safehouse. "Do you want to talk? Or just listen to me talk? I can play the radio? Or we can just be quiet together?"
