Chapter Fifteen
Andi
“You still haven’t heard from Spence?” Andi asked Travis, wringing her hands together. He just shook his head and she could see him swallow. “Well…then we go and find him. We go and find Benji.”
“It’s not in our protocol to do that until it’s been seventy two hours. You know that, Andi.” Matthew chimed in with a sigh.
“It’s damn near it though! It’s been like seventy!” She shouted, “You can’t just sit there and not be worried about them.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t.”
“Well you’re damn well acting like you’re not! You’ve just sat there and carried on with business as usual when my brother and your son said things weren’t right! We should have left right that instant!”
“And put all of us in danger? What good would that do us, Andi?”
“That shouldn’t matter! They’re our family!”
Matthew just sighed and shook his head while he rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his palm. “We’re not talking about this anymore.”
Andi’s bottom lip quivered as she just stared at her father.
She knew the protocol. They had all agreed to it.
They wouldn’t intervene or start searching until seventy two hours had passed.
It was for the safety of them all. But that was all conjecture because there had never been a time when people had gone radio silent for days. That never happened.
Without another word, she grabbed her coat and walked out of the main office. She needed some air. Throwing open the door to the garage, she walked outside and took a seat on the curb, wrapping her arms around her knees once she had put her coat on.
She thought about what Benji had written to her about three days ago.
I don’t feel good about this.
Something isn’t right.
I’ll be okay. I love you.
Tears immediately welled in her eyes which she just aggressively wiped away.
Crying wasn’t going to do anything. She knew that but what else could she do?
Their dad wasn’t budging on the stupid protocol and she barely had any time to even think about what to do.
Their dad had assigned her so many jobs.
Probably to keep her mind off things but she could say with full certainty, it hadn’t helped.
There was only one person she could see convincing him to start the search.
Pulling out her cellphone, she dialed their mom and placed her phone to her ear.
A few short rings later, the familiar voice of Meredith Madison came through.
“Andi? What’s going on? You never call me at work… ”
“I-I know… I’m just thinking about Benji.”
She heard a soft sob just from his name. “I know, baby.”
“Can you talk to him, mom? Please? It’s going to be seventy two hours in like…two or three hours or something. That’s close enough. We can’t just leave Benji and Spence out there.”
“I’ve tried and tried. I talked to him for hours about it when he came home.”
Andi sniffled. “I don’t understand why he won’t, Mom. It’s not fair.”
“It’s just…protocol.” Even as Meredith said those words, Andi could tell she didn’t mean them.
“It shouldn’t matter. That’s our blood.”
“I know.”
She had tried to keep her emotions together, but it was just so hard. Andi sobbed while she kept the phone plastered to her ear. “Do you think they’re okay?”
There was a long silence between them. “I hope so.”
“I just…don’t know what could have happened. The whole mission crashed and burned, it seemed.”
“That’s what I heard… Well, as much as your dad would tell me. You know he tries to keep me out of things now.”
Andi rolled her eyes. “It’s stupid.”
“I know.”
“It’s not like you suddenly forgot everything about what we do.”
Meredith chuckled. “I suppose it’s his way of letting me retire.”
“Hard to be retired when your son is missing in action, isn’t it?”
“Very.”
“You’re welcome to come out of retirement and tell Dad what’s what,” Andi half-joked.
She sighed. “It’s crossed my mind these past few days…”
“I wish you would… I miss you here.”
“I miss being there, baby.”
Andi sniffled again and shook her head. “I miss Spence,” she paused.
“And I really fucking miss Benji.” As crazy as it sounded, Andi had never gone so long without talking to her brother.
They were always in contact with each other.
It was probably horrendously codependent of them but it was just how it was.
They were each other’s rocks. Each other’s best friend.
Without Benji around, it felt like half of her was missing.
“I miss them too…”
Andi sighed and nodded. They all missed them.
At least Andi wasn’t alone in that aspect.
She knew that Spence being gone was killing Travis.
Shortly after Benji had pulled the plug on the operation, Spence’s comms also went offline.
They hadn’t heard from him since. “I know,” she finally responded, unsure what else to say.
“I guess I’m gonna go… I don’t want to hold you up. ”
“It’s fine, Andi. You know I don’t mind.”
“I know.”
Meredith was quiet for a moment before she said, “They’re going to be okay.”
“I hope so, Mom,” she sighed. “I love you.”
“Love you too.” And with that, the conversation ended and Andi dropped her phone onto her lap. She wrapped her arms around her knees again and buried her face into them, just sitting with the feelings of despair and loneliness.
She was able to sit with it for quite a while but eventually, the biting cold had started to get to her.
Andi released a huff of a breath while she stood up, turning around to head back inside.
From the corner of her eye, she saw something moving.
The first thing she thought was that Benji was there.
Benji had come home. She turned immediately.
The body was much bigger than her brother.
There was no mistaking it though. That was Spence.
Andi immediately bolted and ran to her uncle.
“Spence!” She didn’t think twice about throwing herself into him and wrapping her arms around his shoulders.
He grunted loudly from the impact but he returned the gesture nonetheless with only one of his arms. “It’s so good to see you.”
Once again, she was crying. She really couldn’t help it that time. Her uncle was back but it was painfully obvious that her brother wasn’t. “Where’s Benji?” Andi asked, keeping herself wrapped around the man before her.
He didn’t answer. He just hugged her tighter before he released her. “Let’s go inside.”
“Spence… Come on. Is he–”
“Shh,” he commanded, “Come on.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders before he guided her inside.
It felt wrong. Andi should have been the one bringing him in but she was so overwhelmed.
She didn’t know how to feel. It was great that Spence was back, it was.
Of course it was. But her brother… Where was he?
Was he hurt? Lost? Dead? She couldn’t help but think it didn’t bode well that Spence didn’t outright tell her right then and there.
And where the hell had he been?! It took her a moment to realize that his arm was in a sling, which she then felt extremely guilty for throwing her entire body weight on him like she had.
The two walked inside and over towards the office. The first to look up was Matthew and he audibly gasped as he stood up from his seat.
“What?” Travis asked and turned around. The moment he saw his brother, he was up and moving towards him.
While, yes, the three men in the room were all brothers, Spence and Travis were closer to each other than they were with Matthew.
In a way, they were just like Andi and Benji, just without being twins.
They were practically joined at the hip.
Travis pulled his brother close by the back of the neck and their foreheads met.
Travis’ whole body was shaking as he shifted and pulled his brother close.
After the initial shock, Matthew had crossed the room and he placed his hand on Spence’s back.
Once he had the life squeezed out of him by Travis, he switched to hugging the oldest of the three.
It was a bittersweet thing to watch for Andi.
She moved around the three and took a seat at the table in the center of the room.
Her heart physically ached.
She wiped at her eyes and sniffled softly, watching the three men before her.
Matthew was the first to break the hug so he could cross over to Andi.
His hand brushed over her hair but they didn’t say anything.
They didn’t need to. Even though he was happy to see his brother, she knew he was hurting about his son as well.
“Sit down,” Travis finally said and pulled out a chair for Spence, which he happily took. “What the fuck happened? Where’ve you been?” He swallowed. “What about Benji?”
Spence sighed heavily and closed his eyes.
His body slacked some in the chair. “It wasn’t good…
We had everything planned. I set up my eagle eye and Ben went in.
Things were quiet… That much I expected,” he sighed, “But they were quiet for too long. He wasn’t supposed to be in there that long.
” Spence turned his gaze towards Matthew.
“Right? A quick job. That’s what you said. Get in, get out.”
“That was the plan, yeah.”
Spence shook his head. “After forty five minutes of radio silence, I knew something was wrong.”
Benji knew it.
Andi knew it too.
Something isn’t right.
“I had set up a little less than a mile out from the bunker. I thought I was hidden, especially with the storm. Figured if I could barely see or hear shit, no one else could. Clearly, I was wrong,” he shrugged, “They took advantage of it, I guess. I saw them leaving the bunker and then I got sniped from behind. I was expecting it from the bunker but not from anywhere else. Fuckers got me right in the shoulder. Thought they blew my whole fucking arm off.” Spence sighed, rubbing at his eyes with his only available hand.
“I was stormed by two other bastards. They knocked my ass out, took my shit and broke my comm. I lost contact with Benji. I-I don’t know where he is. ”
Her heart dropped. She was hoping that wasn’t going to be the case. She was hoping that he would have some information about her brother. “Did you see him at all?”
Spence shrugged. “I don’t know. Saw a couple people come out and that was about it before they got me.”
“Then what happened?” Travis asked with a furrowed brow.
“Woke up and dragged my ass back to where we parked the car but it was gone. I’m guessing they jacked it.”
“No shit.”
“Yeah. Luckily, a cop was driving by and they drove me to the hospital before I got hypothermia. They kept me for a couple days so I could heal up and I came right here as soon as I could.”
Andi sat back in her seat and ran her hand under her nose. “So, he’s alive, right?” All three of the pairs of eyes turned towards her. “What?”
“We can’t assume anything, Andi,” Matthew stated and gave her shoulder a squeeze.
“Okay, sure. But now that Spence is back, we’re going to start looking, right? We can start at that bunker and we can find some evidence of what the fuck happened and we can–”
“Stop it,” her father said, shaking his head, but she didn’t stop. Andi continued to go over the half-baked plan she had concocted but it was better than nothing. “Andi, I said stop it!” Matthew suddenly shouted.
It was enough to get the attention of the three in the room. Her brow knitted together in confusion. “What?”
“You’re not listening to me. You’re just spouting off random ideas without thinking about them and that will get us into trouble.”
“But–”
“Do you think we can just go back there? The job wasn’t even completed. You said it yourself. You were only halfway done with deleting the information before the operation was cancelled. There’s no way they’re going to let us within a click of that building.”
“Dad, come on. You have to ask–”
“No, I won’t do that. The contract was cancelled and they cut ties with us.”
“Mattie. You sound ridiculous right now,” Travis cut in. “We shouldn’t have to ask for permission for something like that.”
“So, what? The four of us are just going to pack up, fly to Pennsylvania, drive for hours to the location for a chance at information?” His gaze shifted between all of them before him. “That’s ridiculous and you know it. Benji would agree.”
“Benji would also agree that we should do everything we can for each other,” Andi quickly threw back at her father. “I don’t understand why you’re being so resistant to this.”
“Because we have other jobs to do, Andi. You have other jobs to do. I’ve given everyone the last few days to ruminate on this but there’s nothing we can do right now,” Matthew sighed and looked towards his brother, “Spence is back. We have one of them. Let’s celebrate that and get back to work.”
“You can’t be serious, Dad…”
He wiped at his eyes and shrugged. “One of us has to be, Andi,” Matthew sighed, “I’m worried about your brother too, but he would understand. We have other people depending on us.”
She didn’t understand his sentiment at all and she didn’t say a word as he turned back around and sat down at his computer like nothing at all had happened.
Andi turned her attention back to her uncles, who also seemed perplexed by the whole interaction but neither of them said anything regarding it.
They just changed the subject to something that didn’t seem pertinent at all if it wasn’t about figuring out where the fuck Benji was.
It seemed like she was on her own.
She’d figure it out one way or another.