Page 125 of Shattered Veil

When I finally brought myself to meet them, I swallowed through the lump in my throat and gave him a curt shake of my head no.

Seeing his face twist in worry that was clearly directed toward me made the vision of him blur, and I rapidly diverted my attention back to the road, sniffling to keep the tears at bay.

The silence that followed was thick, permeating the air in a weighted humidity that sat in my lungs like lead.

I changed lanes.

I got on the highway.

I wiped my face once, quickly, and then my phone began to ring through my car’s speaker. Clicking the button on the steering wheel to answer it via Bluetooth without even registering the name on the incoming call, I spoke:

“Hey.”

“Fuck, are you okay?”

It was Claire, and, yes, I had anticipated the person on the other end of the line to be the entirety of the three in Luke’s vehicle, hence my expectant greeting. I would have said that her question about my current mental state was astute, but because of my tortured tone, it was more coming across as…obvious. While it would have been far nicer for me to thank her for her inquiry into my well-being and say something along the lines of, ‘No, but let’s focus on the matter at hand,’ the idea of doing such was far, far from my mind.

“No, Claire,” I admitted in a whine. “I’m not!”

She stammered, “I—sorry, Cas, I—”

“Not trying to be a dick here, guys,” Colton cut in through the speaker, “but we don’t have much time until we’re getting to this place. I don’t think we can spend it debating who’s okay and who’s not.” He rapidly went on before anyone could argue, “It’s lookin’ like we’re going to a little neighborhood here, and if y’all haven’t noticed, it’s the middle of the day. We need to check out the area before we decide what the plan is.”

“Wait…no, that’s not what I thought…” Luke asked incredulously, “Are you seriously saying that we’re getting to this guy’s place and staying put?”

Colton replied, “The last thing we need is a neighbor poking around wondering what-in-the-Scooby Doo our group is doing—observe first. Act later.”

The last word wriggled under my skin.

“Later?” I scoffed. “Later? Didn’t you say that time is of the essence earlier?”

“Which is why we’re dropping everything and going to check out this place now,” he assured me, “and we can figure the best time to get in there once we get our eyes on it. Normally, with something like this, ya gotta scope a place out for days. Weeks. Figure out a pattern, yadda, right? We aren’t doing that, so let’s just…breathe, okay?”

While I heard Luke anxiously murmur, “We’re breaking into another place. This is fine. Everything’s fine,” Colton told him:

“Technically…I’m breaking into another place. Y’all are just…accomplices…aren’t ya glad I’m here with my special skillset?”

Luke grumbled, “If I say yes, I fear for the size of your ego.”

I announced, “Look, I’m glad we aren’t waiting days or—or weeks, but I’m not waiting until fucking nightfall or some shit to see if we can find more clues from the one thing we’ve got right now.”

Luke said something unintelligible on the other end of the phone, but it sounded like agreement.

“Off the highway at the next exit, Cas,” Zoey spoke up, and I steered accordingly.

“I don’t think nightfall’s in the cards, anyway,” Colton remarked.

“No?” Claire questioned him. “Bit more cover to get into a house, right?”

“Claire, we cannot wait hours until we’re making moves to figure more shit out,” Luke rasped.

“I know, I know,” she replied, her tone shaking with jitters, “and I agree, but if a neighbor sees and calls the police—”

A quiet thump emitted through the speaker, and I could practically see Luke’s head falling back to the headrest in exasperation.

“God dammit,” he uttered.

“Left at the light,” Zoey instructed, “then right on Quinton Street.”

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