Page 9 of Fractured Chances

He’s right. What am I doing? I’ve called a meeting with all of them tonight and all I’ve managed to do for the last couple of hours is worry all of us with no solutions. I turn around and open the door to our basement.

“Ah, fuck where are you going now?” Calder asks, sounding just as exhausted as I am.

“You’re right. We’re not getting much done. We’ve got to be prepared. We’ve got to go find her and if we’re right and they have her, then we’re going to need to defend ourselves so is anyone going to help me collect the weapons, or are you just going to keep staring at me?”

They both look at each other and back at me with a nod. The sound of our six feet going down the wooden stairs are in tune with the beat of my heart. Quick, hurried, nervous.

“Shit, man,” Calder swears under his breath.

“I hope she’s still…” Axel starts.

At the bottom of the stairs, I turn around to him, and say sharply, “Don’t you dare.”

He presses both of his lips together in silent understanding, Calder drops his head with weariness and I turn back around, continuing toward the center of the room that only appears to be empty, quite contrasting to other basements we’ve seen. But we didn’t travel with much. Just money and weapons, which we concealed in our suitcases, and a few pieces of clothing for each of us. As I put my foot forward, a creak in a loose board gives away our secret.

Like the truth just jumped from the floor and smacked Calder across the head, he begins to do the kind of pacing that I was doing upstairs. I look up to see his face turning red, his forehead sweating, and he looks like he’s about to become friendly with the hard floor soon.

“Dude, you gotta breathe, man,” I say, and Axel looks at Calder as if he just remembered he was in the room with us. He grabs his shoulders and starts to rub them.

“I know, man,” Axel whispers, patting him on the back. “Just when we thought we were free.”

I shake my head at Axel fearing he’s just going to add more stress to the anxiety Calder’s already experiencing. No need to remind him now.

“Hey Cal,” I say standing before him and gripping him by the shoulders. “Look at me man.”

Calder inhales deeply, closes his eyes, and forces his head upward before opening his eyes and looking in mine.

“I know how hard this is. Trust me, I know. But we’ve made it through a lot, haven’t we? You got this, man, you’re built for this shit. We always kinda guessed this day would come, and now that it has, well, all we can do now is be prepared, right? You want to see Julissa again, don’t you?” I ask him.

He doesn’t respond but I see his acknowledgment in his eyes.

“If she needs our help, don’t you think we should go help her? Don’t you want to help her? Or not? I mean, it’s up to you.”

I realize toward the end that if he’s going to be a weak link in this plan, maybe it’s best not to force him. If he wants to stay out of this, he has that right. Because if he’s not committed full-heartedly then he’s a liability and he’ll only make things worse for us. We don’t need more weight than is necessary.

So I release his shoulders with my hands in the air and back away. “Say the word Calder, and you don’t have to be a part of this.” I stand there waiting for an answer.

His eyes shoot up at mine defensively and he clears his throat, pushing past whatever was blocking his voice before. “Of course, I want to help her, and I know what I got involved in. I’m not backing out. But I just…I wanted that second chance and I really fucking hoped that it wouldn’t have to come to this.”

“I know, man,” I say, patting him on the shoulder. We don’t have much time to just stand around here talking. Who knows what Julissa could be facing each second that passes by? I step forward and pull the board loose, revealing two large metal boxes. I pick up the one filled with the weapons, and the three of us hoist it out of the ground.

The three of us together wouldn’t be able to haul all this up those stairs, so I unlock the combination and flip open the box, grabbing weapons and moving out of the way so the other guys can grab theirs too. Once we are satisfied with our armaments, I lock the box and put it back under the floorboards.

We take the steps by twos and we’re back in our living room. “Okay, now what?” Axel says.

Fuck if I know. Where would we start looking? “Fuck! The lakes. The woods, the rivers! We’ll start there. Those places aren’t so populated and are a great hideout for wackos. If they’ve got her, and they’re trying to move her without raising an alarm, they’d probably take her through there.”

“The fucking lakes, man?” Calder shouts at the implication.

“Look, knowing our Julissa, I wouldn’t be surprised if we found the wackos who took her at the bottom of the lake instead. Let’s fucking hope so…” My voice trails off.

“Isn’t this all just a little too far-fetched?” Axel stares at me, his face all scrunched up. “I mean, what if she’s just…”

“What if she’s just what? We’ve run through all the other possibilities of where she could be and those are all dead-ends so what if she’s what Axel? What would you suggest we do now that we’ve waited until it’s damn near the next day and she still hasn’t been home yet? Would you like us to wait twenty-four hours to decide on whether she’s missing or not when it’s damn fucking obvious?” I feel the flames pouring off my tongue at him and instantly regret it.

He doesn’t back down though. “I’m just saying, maybe we can’t keep tabs on everybody all the time. Maybe we’re not fucking robots that are programmed to the same routine day in and day out, maybe, just maybe she decided to do something different today! And I get it, she hasn’t called. That’s driving me crazy too. Do you think I’m calm and don’t give a shit about her safety? Of course, I fucking do?! But I just think it’s fucking ridiculous for us to lug all these weapons around out in the public, searching the forests and shit when we could just end up on a fucking wild goose chase,” he says.

“Look, I’m sorry, you’re right,” I respond in a softer tone, kinder. “And I’ve thought about that too. But at this point, I’m all out of ideas. I don’t fucking know what to do.” Admitting that feels like I’ve just been run over by a train and I need a minute or two to gather myself but everything that lies beneath my skin is racing so fast right now that I might pass out if I try to take a break. “All I know is we’ve got to do something.”

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