Page 12 of Wandering in Darkness
“I am… but I just want to see if the dog’s here first,” I reply before I get out of the vehicle and hurry over to where Felix is swinging the front door open.
“Oh noooooo… the dooooooor opened alllllll on its owwwwwn,” he says as I see him slip his lock-picking gear into his pocket. “Hellllllo? Mr. Grayson. I’ve come to punch you. It’s Felix, in case you can’t tell from my sultry voice you’ve heard over the phoooone.”
Silence.
“Why the fuck isn’t the dog here?” I ask as I rush to the open door. “Traveler? Hey, Trav! Hey, buddy.”
But I get no reply.
I hurry inside and look around the house, not quite sure what I’m expecting. There’s a part of me that’s convinced I’m going to turn around the corner and Grayson’s going to be standing right there, thrilled to have fooled me into meeting with him. Butanother part of me, a bigger part of me, realizes that something’s not right.
The place looks fine… but then why isn’t Trav here? Maybe Grayson started crating him or something.
“Is there a crate somewhere?” I ask.
“If there is something to be found, I will find it,” Felix announces as he fingers everything in the room like there might be some fun and hidden lever that leads him to a secret room.
I pass through the living room and into Grayson’s bedroom, where I slowly look around. It’s weird being in his home. I’ve never been in this house before. When we’d met, he didn’t even have a house, instead living where they stationed him. He was still in the military and being moved from location to location, which made settling down impossible. But there are things here that are clearlyGrayson.
My eyes go straight to a small marble figure of a dog that is sitting right on his bedside table. I remember I bought this for him because it reminded me of Traveler. He got me one too, but I don’t remember where I put it.
Hell, maybe I left it along with many other things when I ran from that life. I don’t think I took anything with me but the clothes on my back because that’s what I felt like I deserved. I was drowning and the only way I knew how to keep myself afloat was by drinking… but I never realized that all I was doing was helping myself sink faster.
I pick up the figurine and question why he left it on his bedside table. Why not toss it in some drawer out of sight? Slowly, I set it back down, finding that it feels heavy in my fingers.
“Find anything?” Antonio asks me, apparently having woken up enough to join us.
“No. Lane, can you call him?”
“Sure,” he agrees as he tells his phone to call Grayson. I wander around the bedroom for a moment just looking at shit before I see Lane shake his head. “Went right to voicemail.”
“What the fuck,” I say, irritated. “None of the doors were open, right? There’s really no way for Traveler to get out.”
“Is this the right house?” Antonio asks. “Are we just wandering around a random person’s home that Felix broke into without remorse?”
“It is the right house,” I say. “I recognize some of the stuff.”
I walk out and look around for Felix, who seems to be the only one missing. When I head into what looks like a spare bedroom made into an office, I find him going through Grayson’s desk.
“What are you doing?”
“This drawer was locked,” he responds, waving toward the now unlocked drawer.
“You think the dog might be in there?”
“One never knows,” Felix says as his fingers dance over the drawer, eager to see what he’s found.
“Were you born this nosy?” I ask.
“I sure was. I popped out of the womb looking for shit to get into,” he assures me while he begins leafing through the papers that were in the drawer.
“Boring, boring, boring,” he mutters as he sets them on the desk. “Next time you see Grayson, tell him all his secrets are boring.”
“I will probably not care to tell him that,” I inform him, which makes Felix seem disappointed in me. Not quite sure why. “But you are more than welcome to tell him anything you want.”
“Can I tell him that I wake up with you spooning me?”
“Sure.”
