Chapter Nine

Riot

I didn’t have to ask my aunt if I could go and stay at Cash’s place because she’s not home again. Instead, I sent her a text to say that I’m staying there since he’s got the pool and it's too fucking hot outside. She didn’t reply, but the chances of her having a problem with it are pretty fucking low. As far as she is concerned, if I’m out of the house, that’s one less thing she has to worry about.

I don’t blame her; she loves her job, and she didn’t think she would get saddled with a teenager with a traumatic fucking past. We are pretty much roommates at this point, although I think roommates probably see each other more often.

It didn’t take me very long to pack, and I’ve been waiting by the front door like an excited kid for the last twenty minutes, hoping that Trick is going to get here soon. He will pick us up in reverse order since otherwise, those he dropped off last wouldn’t have that long to pack and get shit sorted with their parents.

I keep having to stop myself from getting too excited.

We have been let down every single fucking time so far when one of our contacts has said that they have found her. It always turns out to be nothing and I am almost one hundred percent certain that it will be nothing this time as well. Still, there is that small part of me that so badly wants to believe that we have found her this time, that I can’t help that small bit of hope from creeping in.

Even though, realistically, I know that I’m only going to be disappointed.

A horn blaring from outside snaps me out of my thoughts, and I pull the door open, smiling broadly as I see Trick’s truck idling by the curb. Slamming the door behind me, I quickly lock up and then go to the truck, throwing my shit in the back before I hop in.

“Everything go okay with your aunt?” Trick asks as we pull away and go to get Rafe next.

I shrug, “I don’t know. She wasn’t at home, so I texted her. She will message me back when she can. I’m guessing Jenny was fine with it?”

Trick smiles, “Yeah, I think they are going to turn it into date night. I didn’t bother telling them that we would be gone longer than a night. I will just do what we usually do and message tomorrow saying we are having too much fun, so we are going to stay longer.”

“Good idea, I’ll probably do the same, if my aunt asks,” I reply.

It’s not long until we are all in the car and on the way to the city that Luke said Ever worked in. I am nervous as hell, not only because I’m worried that it won’t be her, but because if it is, what if she doesn’t remember us? Or worse, remembers everyone but me? I know it’s unlikely, but it has been a fear that has woken me up several times over the years. The longer that we drive, the more my anxiety ramps up, and I know that I’m not the only one who is struggling. The whole car is silent, which is pretty much unheard of for us; we are usually quite talkative.

“I have booked us a house to stay in while we are there. I figured it would be better than booking hotel rooms,” Cash says in the silence.

“Good idea,” Trick replies.

“I hadn’t even thought about where we were going to sleep,” Jensen adds.

Luc frowns, “To be honest, I haven’t really thought any further than we could be seeing Ever in a couple of hours.”

“Same,” Rafe signs.

“What’s the plan?” I ask, and then clarify, “Are we just going to be like ‘hey, remember those kids you used to play with that called you Dragonfly, that’s us, we tracked you down’ , that would be really weird actually.”

“Fuck, yeah, I mean, she’s a normal teenager, and we aren’t; it would be really odd to her that we had tracked her down,” Cash curses with a deep frown.

“So, we don’t tell her that then,” Jensen suggests. “We just act like it’s a coincidence.”

“Yeah, I suppose that could work,” Trick mutters.

“What about after?” Rafe signs, “What if she’s just like, ‘ Yeah , hi guys, what can I get you to start?’ ”

“Dude,” Jensen says, looking at me, “you have set everyone off. Now everyone is worrying about the what-if scenarios right now.” Jensen replies although he doesn’t answer the question.

I shrug, “Sorry, it’s just all swimming around in my brain.”

“Mine too,” Luc agrees quietly.

“I’m guessing no one has an answer to my question?” I ask after a moment; they all shake their heads.

“Let’s just take it one step at a time. We could just be worrying about a whole lot of unnecessary stuff. Especially if it’s not even Ever,” Trick reminds all of us.

Once again, he is the voice of reason and says something that we all, especially me, needed to hear. I needed that reminder to stop my anxiety from running away with itself any more than it already has. It may not be Ever, and in all likelihood, it’s probably not Ever. Having said that, it still doesn’t change the fact that we have no idea how Ever will react to seeing us again and that once we find her, it’s not like we can just take her home with us. She would stay here or wherever we found her, and we would go home. That would mean that we had found her and knew where she was but still had to be apart. I suppose it would be different if we could then stay in touch with her. That would make a massive change from what we have now.

All of these thoughts continue to swim around my mind as the car falls silent and everyone gets pulled into their own thoughts, which are no doubt focused on Ever.

The thing is, when this inevitability turns out to be a bad lead, and not in fact Ever, we are all going to be in foul moods for a while. Jensen is going to need to beat the shit out of someone, actually, we all will, but Jensen will need to even more so than the rest of us. Rafe will become even more closed off and barely sign, Cash’s scary blankness will be closer to the surface, and he will scare the shit out of anyone that talks to him without meaning to. Luc will go almost as silent as Rafe and as stabby as Jensen, Trick will try to stay positive and put a brave face on for us, trying to make us feel better about it, and as for me, the nightmares will just get worse, which means I’ll be sleep deprived and an ass because of it.

You would think that it wouldn’t affect us this much still since she’s been gone for so long, but it does. We saw her almost every day from when we were born until she left when she was eight. The suddenness of her departure and the fact that we didn’t get to say goodbye also made it harder. The other thing that plays on my mind about the way that she left is that she didn’t know that it was going to happen. If she had known, she would have told us, and she didn’t, so it was as much of a surprise to her as it was to us.

It has always bothered me that she didn’t know.

None of the parents knew either, and they used to consider themselves best friends. Ever’s mom died, and Ever’s dad left without telling anyone. None of it ever sat right with me, but I was just a child, and I could have easily been viewing it through the eyes of one who just had their best friend taken away from them for no good reason that they could see. I’m sure as a child, I missed a lot as well.

My thoughts are starting to go around in circles, and I take a deep breath trying to remain rational.

At one point during the journey, I try to get some sleep before I realize that’s probably not a good idea since my emotions are already heightened, and that will fuel my nightmares. The last thing I want to do is have a nightmare and end up swinging while we’re in a moving vehicle. I can only imagine that wouldn’t end well for anyone involved, and one of the guys would end up getting hurt trying to stop me, or even just because they are in close proximity to me, and then I would feel fucking awful.

I still feel bad that I hurt Rafe that time, although he won’t let me apologize for it. For someone who is silent all of the time and doesn’t speak, he’s fucking difficult to win an argument against.