Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 129881 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 649(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129881 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 649(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Where is he?
Where am I?
CJ?
I’m calling out and moving, I need to run, I need to go find my brother and tell him I love him and beg him not to hate me because I can’t take knowing he does, but I can’t move, I’m too heavy, and I can’t hear my own voice anymore because Felix is screaming above me.
“Jake! Jake! Fuck! NoNoNoNoNo! Fuck please! Hold on, okay!”
Fingers jam inside my mouth and choke me, they’re stuffing down my throat until puke runs down my neck, and my brother is going to hate me for this. He’ll hate me forever now.
What have I done?
“Come on, Jake!”
I gag until I can’t breathe.
Oh god. I can’t breathe.
I’m face down in the water at our favorite pool, and I’m playing dead so my brother can save me and impress his stupid girlfriend. I’d do anything for him.
I’m floating.
I’m drowning.
Where is he? Where is CJ? He’s supposed to pull me out because, “You’re my brother, Jake. I’ll always protect you.”
He sat across the table from me with bloodied knuckles.
“JAKE!”
He drove four hundred miles and broke down my door.
Where is he?
“Jake, please!”
Felix screams and screams.
I sat in my car with the keys in my hand.
I wonder if he knows how hard I fought it.
“I love you! Please! I love you!”
I love you, Felix. I really fucking do.
I sink to the bottom where it’s quiet and dark.
WE (WON’T) BE OKAY. HOW CAN WE?
FELIX
ONE HOUR EARLIER
MY PHONE RINGS and rings, and I’m so fucking dead tired that I keep ignoring it until it finally stops and I can start to drift off and dream, but then it immediately starts ringing again, this has to be the third or fourth time, and no one calls me like this.
Unless…
My eyes shoot open, and I roll over and hang off the side of the bed and yank my phone off the floor to disconnect it from the charger, and I think I just bent the shit out of the prongs that are still stuck in the outlet.
“Fuck. Yeah? Hello?” I answer, sitting up so quickly the room spins.
“Felix! Is Jake with you?”
“What?” I think I recognize the voice. “CJ?”
And then he’s screaming in my ear, “Do you know where Jake is? Is he with you?”
“No. He’s at work. Right? He’s… he left for work. He should be there.”
I start dressing in any clothes on the floor I can find. I tug on my briefs, pinching the phone between my shoulder and ear while asking, “Is he not there? What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. Fuck! He got laid off. Reed just called me and I can’t fucking reach my brother. His phone’s off.”
“What?”
He got laid off? What the fuck!
“Fuck. Fuck!” CJ yells, and then I hear a soft voice in the background and recognize Riley. “Felix, where is he? Where would he go right now if he’s not with you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. Um. Fuck. Hold on. Let me make sure he isn’t here.”
I pull on Jake’s sweats and grab the hoodie of his I stole on my way out of the room, tugging it on, and my heart is stuck in my throat as I’m searching the other bedrooms and calling out, “Jake! Jake!” and he’s not answering me but maybe he can’t, so I still check everywhere.
The other bedrooms. Both bathrooms. The hall closet that’s just big enough to pass out in. The fucking attic.
I climb the ladder and stick my head up into the small crawl space, but there’s nothing but boxes and dust.
“Shit. Hold on, I’m still checking,” I tell CJ as I race down the stairs. “Jake!”
I run through the house, searching every inch of the first floor and calling out, “Jake! Are you here?”
And there’s nothing, no sign of him anywhere, and then I’m rushing outside and hoping, praying, but the porch is empty too. He’s not sitting on the step and smoking like I wished for, and his car is gone.
“He’s not here,” I say, gripping my hair and pulling. “Fuck. CJ, I—”
CJ screams and curses and tells Riley to call Ben and Luke, “Now. Right fucking now!” and he’s a cop who has cop buddies, and they have resources and probably know everything about this town and where to look.
I’m sure they’ve arrested junkies and delinquents and dealers, and they should know every corner and every alley and every—
I gasp in a breath.
“Jake went to a meeting yesterday and there was a dealer hanging around,” I say, and I don’t know when I started crying but my face is wet now.
“Where.”
And CJ sounds like a killer.
“Um. Shit. Uh.” I wipe my hand down my face. “It was at this Methodist church, I think. Hold on.”
I fumble the phone, nearly dropping it I’m trembling so badly, but I finally steady my hands and I’m able to do a quick search, and even though I’m only going off very limited information since I’ve never been to this meeting before, I narrow the location down to two possibilities.