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“It’s normal for people to be on edge and agitated when they’re here. I didn’t think more of it… I’m so sorry, Mr. Hawthorne.” The young nurse is distraught as her superior takes her out of the room.
“What are you doing to find them?” I bark at the officers.
“We’re reviewing the hospital security footage. It appears that your rental car is gone from the parking lot. We’ll contact the company to activate the tracker on the vehicle,” the male officer informs me, sounding far too calm when my whole world is falling apart.
The breath in my lungs grows hot and hard, suffocating me from the inside out while I desperately try to think of what else I can do. How can I find them? How can I get them back?
“Sir…” The blur of the officer’s call ripples the air around me. “Sir?”
“Yes.” My voice is foreign to my ears while I try to gather myself.
I could’ve lost Easton once. My beautiful baby boy who’s way too fond of noodles and won’t take no for an answer. While I stare at the officer and watch him talk at me, all I see is the dirty little boy I promised to never let down again. After the day I took him away from Heather, I swore I would protect him with everything I had. And now…now, he’s gone. She’s taken him and the one person I’ve ever truly loved. My rainbow girl—she was the constant light, bright, and beauty in the storm.
“We’re working on tracking the vehicle…” he says, but all I can focus is on the information that slowly skins in. “You’re opening the hospital up?”
“We’ve searched the building and the grounds, and with the footage clearly showing that they’re no longer—”
“Okay!” I snap, for no other reason than the fact that every word he says blurs the images in mind. The memories that our little family has made together in such a short frame of time, and all I want is more of it.
“I don’t care what you do, just find them. I want my family back in one piece…please,” I all but fall to my knees and beg.
“Oh my God, Parker! Where’s my girl?” Miranda barrels into the room with Maria and Rosie behind her.
There’s nothing I can say to answer her question because I don’t know where Summer and Easton are. Instead, I shrug while squishing the monkey tighter to my chest.
“Fred, what’s going on, and what are you doing to fix it?” Maria asks the officer. Her hands are on her hips, and there’s a clear don’t-fuck-with-me pinch to her brows.
Taking a deep breath and giving her a wide berth, he tells me, “We’re going to find them, son.”
The void inside me pulses wider, growing until I can’t find my voice. All I do is nod as he walks out of the room, and I search it once again in vain.
“I know that it’s not what you want to hear right now, but if there’s one thing I know about my cousin,” Rosie murmurs, perching on the window ledge to look out toward the parking lot. “Summer will protect your little guy with everything she has.”
“I know.” My reply comes out wet, gritted, and so angry that it burns me from the inside out.
Rage unlike anything I’ve ever felt consumes me. The world around me darkens, and the only thing I have inside me right now is hate. So strong that I don’t care if it’s wrong or not, but I wish Heather dead a thousand times over. I wish I never went back for her that day. That I’d taken my son and left her to rot.
“Also, if there’s anyone that’ll find them, it’s Fred.”
Nodding seems to be the only thing I’m capable of at the moment. Everything Rosie says earns her another nod until she gives up trying to pacify me and moves on to her aunt.
The vibration of my phone in my back pocket breaks me out of my fog. Without thought or hesitation, I answer without a second glance.
“Hello?”
“Hey, man,” Seb greets. “We’re downstairs.”
“Dow—what?”
“What floor are you guys on?”
Before I can answer, Harrison’s voice filters through, “Got it!”
There’s no logical reason for it, but their presence fills me with shame, thickening in my throat and making me super aware of the people around me. All of which are affected by my decision to ignore Ellen’s calls. All the shitty choices I’ve made right up to this moment, and now Seb and Harrison are here to witness my ultimate fuckup.
They have no fucking idea what’s happened because I can’t even bring myself to really, truly admit it. And in my state of panic, shock, and embarrassment, I try to tug my rumpled clothes into place.
How could I let this happen? I ask myself on repeat, again and again until my stomach twists to a constant nauseating knot.
