4
Austin
As Xavier drives us to Rosie”s addressin a trailer park on the city”s south side, I instinctively know she’s not there. This scenario has more questions than answers, but I don’t want to burst Xavier’s bubble of hope by mentioning them. Why didn”t she take the van if Emaline was at Rosie’s place? It’s in good nick. I checked the engine and replaced the taillights and there’s no single reason she can’t drive it at night. Going by the state of that little hatchback of her friend’s, it’s a better and safer option anyway, so I’m kinda puzzled why she’s not driving it.
Unless she was kidnapped, too. Or maybe her friend Rosie betrayed her to the kidnappers and persuaded her to go for a drive and ended up at some undisclosed location. Emaline is stowed away somewhere for some undiscovered reason, while Rosie gets a backhand payment. Seriously, once Brielle is well and able and, hopefully, in a protection program, we’d need to ask her what the fuck has been going on.
“What did Fred say about why he’s kidnapped Brielle?” I ask Aaron in the passenger seat as Xave enters the trailer park.
“It’s number one six nine,” Xave reminds us. “Keep an eye out for a hatchback.”
Aaron glances back at me in the dark, so I can’t read the expression on his face. “He said he was paid to kidnap her and didn’t say why. If I had enough time before the cops showed up, I would’ve beaten it out of him.”
“Can ya keep your eyes on the fucking mailbox numbers,” Xavier roars at us, feeling the strain.
“Just chill, bro,” Aaron spits back. “We’re not going to find her faster with you barking like a fucking hound dog at us.”
As my brother argued in the front, I searched for the trailer with 169 either on a mailbox or painted onto the side of the wall. There’s a party at one of the trailers, and several people are spewing out onto the road carrying plastic cups of alcohol while moving to pounding music.
“What’s the next action plan if she’s not here?” I ask my brothers.
Several beats of silence fly by before Aaron mutters, “Fuck knows.”
Xave remains silent like he’s stewing on the prospect that she, too, had been stolen, and perhaps saying it out loud is too much to bear. When Xave started visiting her bedroom late at night, I wondered what the attraction was. Why he kept returning to her window, and why he took her to the Landers silo. Emaline is the first and only girl that any of us took there. It’s not like Lander’s Silo was special and secret or anything. It was just a place for us guys to hang out and get high and drunk without being hassled by girls.
It’s like a secret code was broken by him taking Emaline there and any other girl. I would’ve been pissed about it. But Emaline is unoffensive and easy to like due to her geek habits and sweet disposition. She doesn’t want for anything except, maybe, to give herself over to us undeserving fuckers.
Xave comes to the end of the road and turns left. His headlights beam upon a trailer with a neat white picket fence and the number 169 on the small mailbox by the gate. “There,” I point out to Xave, and he pulls up outside.
“No hatchback,” he states the obvious as I open my car door.
“I’m going to knock on the door to see if Rosie’s mom is home, and I’ll ask her,” I say, ignoring Aaron’s mumble that I’ll likely frighten her.
Now that the rain has stopped, fireworks are being let off down the road at the alcohol-fueled party, lighting up the side of the tiny house. Once I reach the door, I tap gently on the wood, hoping I don’t scare her into not answering. It’s close to midnight, and the party down the road is likely unsettling for a lone woman.
“Yes?” a frail voice asks.
“Is this Rosie’s mom? Sorry, I don’t know your surname, but I’m a friend of Emaline’s, Emaline Applegate,” I explain.
“Oh?” she asks behind the closed door.
“Yeah, we’ve been looking for Emaline all night. We’re getting worried about her. We found her sister-”
“Brielle?” she cries out in relief. “Is she okay?”
“Yeah, Brielle. She’s injured and has been taken to the hospital,” I tell her, stifling my impatience. “It’s a long story about how we found her, but now we can’t find Emaline to let her know. We figured she was probably with your daughter, but she’s not answering her phone. And as you can understand, it’s kinda urgent.”
“Oh, of course,” she sympathizes. “Rosie told me she and Em were going to a party.”
I gaze down at the party down the road, firing off my fireworks as someone runs around with sparklers cackling in drunken laughter. “The party down the road here?” I ask to clarify.
“No. She gave me little detail of the location or whose party it is, but it most certainly would not be down there.” I suspect she disapproves of whoever lives at that address. “Anyway, she said she supported Emaline while doing her detective work.”
“Detective work?” I ask in confusion.
“Searching for clues of the whereabouts of Emaline’s sister,” she adds to clarify.
“At a party?” I ask again.
“Yes, I believe so, but as I said, I didn’t ask questions because those two girls are so level-headed. You know, they’re unlikely to do anything stupid, so I wasn’t concerned,” she states. “But let me call my daughter now.”
“Okay, sure. Thank you,” I glance back at the boys in the car as silence falls behind Rosie’s mom’s door. More fireworks are let off, lighting up the sky as I stew on what she told me. Those two geeks went to a party to search for clues as to the whereabouts of Emaline’s sister. Weird.
“It went straight voicemail,” Rosie’s mom calls through the door, now sounding even more concerned than before.
“Okay. Thank you. We’ll keep looking, and once we find Rosie, I’ll tell her to call you ASAP,” I assure her.
“Thank you,” she says through the wood as I back away and run down the small path to Xave’s car.
As soon as I get inside, Xave asks hopefully, “What did she say?”
“She called Rosie, and her phone is switched off too,” I tell them and exhale. “She said they went to a party, and I have a sneaky suspicion it may have been our party.”
“What?” Xave hisses. “I would’ve seen her. Or at least she would’ve come up to us.”
“You wouldn’t have seen her if she had been masked,” I argue. “Rosie’s mom said that they were doing detective work.”
“Bro,” Xavier argues, “if Emaline were at the party, she would’ve approached me. Fuck, I was just talking to her in her bedroom, and she never once mentioned that she was planning on coming to our party.”
“Calm the fuck down, bro,” Aaron says firmly to Xavier. “Austin, what do you mean by ‘detective work’?”
“Here me out,” I start as Xavier drives away from Rosie’s house toward the party. “Rosie’s mom said they were searching for clues to her sister”s whereabouts, right?”
“Fuck knows, you’re the one telling the story,” Xavier grunts in a grumpy mood.
“What if Emaline had a lead as to where her sister is…” it finally hits me as the pieces fall into place. “It was Brielle that we saw being bundled out of the tomb and into the van, so what if Emaline knew she was in there and went undercover in a mask to rescue her?”
“Why didn’t she tell us?” Xavier bellows to receive a solid shove from Aaron.
“Bro, stop yelling,” Aaron yells back at him. “I’m going deaf in this ear.”
I waited until Xave’s mood had cooled a little before I added, “Maybe she didn’t want us to know because she doesn’t trust us. Or maybe she thought we were the kidnappers.”
“Or maybe,” Aaron suggests, “if we knew what they were doing, they couldn’t go in stealth.”
“Fuck,” Xave snaps after several moments of thoughtful reflection, adding up everything I just stated. “She’s at our party. She probably walked right under my nose, and I didn’t notice. Fuck.” He slams his hand on the steering. “We could’ve saved her.”
“We didn’t know she was there, bro,” Aaron reminds him.
“Exactly my point,” Xave reasons.
“Stop fucking arguing and just get us to the fucking party alive,” I shout at my brothers.
“For fuck sake,” Aaron blurts. His deep voice drives like a bulldozer through our debate. “We don’t even know if she’s in trouble.”
“Better not be with another man,” Xavier mumbles, and I stifle a feeling of jealousy at the thought of someone other than my brothers fucking her. That thought makes my blood boil. I haven’t fucked her yet. Hunting her down solely to fuck her is strangely appealing, and then I’ll pass her over to my brothers.
“Velma Dinkley is not exactly to most men’s taste,” I try to rationalize.
“She doesn’t have to be to someone’s taste to fuck her,” Aaron adds. “I’ve fucked plenty of chicks who I wasn’t attracted to.”
“Me too, and been sucked off by ugly chicks,” I state, not helping the cause of making Xavier feel better.
“She wouldn’t go near another man,” Xavier finally concludes.
“Of course, she wouldn’t—not by choice, anyway. Besides, we’re getting off-topic.” I agree. We’ve come full circle with our stupid debate because stress causes men to do and say stupid things at inappropriate times. We won’t know the truth until we find her, so chill.”
The drive back to Demon Cove was as quiet as it was from the accident where we found Brielle. Half the number of cars were parked outside, meaning most people had bailed and gone elsewhere, especially with the hosts, us, having abandoned them.
“Hatchback,” Xave shouts, and I jump out of my skin. “She’s here.”