I woke up the next morning on the floor sore, the blanket that Ryker was wrapped up in last night
covering me and Ryker was nowhere in sight. I knew he wasn’t doing well. I think he felt guilty, either about leaving Maya behind or putting all of us in danger in the first place or both maybe.
I got up, my ears picked up on the shower going in the bathroom. I got up approaching the bathroom door, I open it slowly, Ryker’s clothes and glasses are sitting on the counter. I turned and looked into the misty glass shower box. I could see Ryker sitting on the floor, his head buried in his knees.
“Ryker?” I call over the rushing water of the shower.
His brown hair is flattened against his head. I open the door and rolled up my pants so they wouldn’t get wet. The shower is out of the way at the other end of the glass box. I attempt to avoid it. When I
get closer, I notice he has his earplugs in. He can’t hear me, period. The water is getting cold, how
long had he been in here for?
I gently reach out and touch his shoulder, he skitters away until he realizes it’s me. He reaches up
then and takes the earplugs out.
“Sorry,” he murmurs.
“It’s fine, are you okay?” I ask.
“She’s dead,” he murmured quietly.
“Who?” I asked.
“Alice, it was in the paper,” he continues resting his head sideways on his knees looking at me.
“Come here,” I say quietly offering him a hand.
“I’m all wet, you’ll get wet,” he replies shaking his head.
I move and sit down beside him, soaking my pants.
“Why are you in here?” I ask quietly looking up at the shower.
“I was trying to block the songs out,” he murmured. “The earplugs weren’t working fully, so I figured the shower would help.”
“Have you eaten?” I ask.
“A little,” he replies. “I don’t feel good.”
“Have they left yet?” I ask.
He shrugs, “Haven’t been out of the room since early this morning.”
Ryker’s seems to notice the coldness of the water, he pulls his feet closer to himself.
“Maybe we should get you out of here,” I suggest lightly.
“It’s noisy out there,” he murmurs.
“It’ll be quiet once they leave, then it’ll just be us and Ezra,” I encourage quietly.
I hold out a hand to him. He glances at it and then looks up at me. He lifts his hand off the tiled floor
of the shower, then he hesitates before placing it in mine. I use my other hand to steady myself on
the wall so I don’t slip. He steps closer to the showerhead and turns it off. I lead him out of the
shower carefully onto the mat so we can dry off. I remove my pants, underwear, and shirt as they’re wet now. I go out into the room and pull new clothes out of my suitcase.
When I come back, Ryker is drying himself off and dressing. I take his glasses and wipe the fog off
them. Once he’s fully dressed in a “The Neighborhood” t-shirt and black jeans, I hand him his
glasses.
“Thanks,” he replies putting them on.
I fix his wet hair so it’s not sticking out at odd angles. He looks up at me nervously.
“Come on, I’ll make you something,” I said quietly nodding toward the door.
He takes my hand lightly and I lead him downstairs. I spot the newspaper he was talking about on
the living room table. I take the paper so he doesn’t have to see it again.
“Just stay here, okay?” I say, touching his shoulder.
He nods and lays down on the couch. He picks up the remote for the TV and turns it on. I can hear
him flipping through the channels from the kitchen. People getting cut off mid-line or sentence.
I start looking through the cupboards to see what we have. I find some loose eggs in the crisper. I have no clue why they weren’t in a carton on a shelf. I pick four eggs out, scrambled them, adding salt
and pepper. I find a loaf of bread in a cupboard and take four slices out of it. I pop them in the toaster and open the butter. I go in search of the butter knives. I find them in one of the small drawers with all the other cutlery.
I put the eggs onto plates and wait for the toast to pop.
“Porter,” I hear Ryker call.
I step back out into the living room area. He points at the TV with the remote.
“Seventeen-year-old Maya Flores disappeared from Copper Cove Academy early January 3rd, witnesses say she was with two teenage boys who have also mysteriously vanished. Seventeen-year-
old Ryker Rathaway, and sixteen-year-old Porter Hollow. None of the teenagers have been seen
since, an investigation is underway to find out what happened to them and if foul play is somehow
involved,” the report speaks as pictures of us flash across the screen with descriptions of us.
“Ryker Rathaway has struggled with mental health issues since a young age, some are wondering if he finally snapped and did something,” the reporter continues.
“Enough of that,” Ezra states grabbing the remote out of Ryker’s hand and changing the channel.
I didn’t even see him. I was surprised Ryker didn’t hear him.
“Mental health issues,” he mutters as he leaves again.
Ryker watches him.
“He really seems to care about you,” I state turning back to Ryker.
“He does,” he replies quietly still looking after him. I go back to the kitchen, which is also the
direction Ezra went in after he snatched the remote and changed the channel.
“Did you know before you left yesterday?” Ezra asks turning on the kettle.
“That Ryker can hear life and death songs?” I question. “He told me the first day we met, back in
September.”
“Did you think he was crazy? At first?” he continued.
“I thought it was…weird, maybe? But who was I to judge him? Plus, I was a little distracted,” I replied embarrassed. “I was bullied at my last school, it wasn’t pleasant so, I wasn’t going to do the same to him.”
“Did you believe him?” he asked.
“That he heard souls? I’ve seen how it affects him when it’s too loud so yeah, I guess so,” I answer.
“Do you know about our mother?” he asked quietly.
“Yes, he had nightmares about her well he was at my house, he feels like maybe he could have
saved her,” I reply, buttering the toast.
“It’s not his fault,” he replied quietly.
“I said that,” I reply.
“If anything happens to me, promise me, you’ll take care of him, okay? And don’t let him blame
himself for my death, okay?” he continues quietly.
“Okay,” I reply. “I promise.”
He pours himself a cup of coffee.
“Try to keep him away from the news, he doesn’t need it right now,” he states and leaves to go back upstairs.
I bring the food into the living room, Ryker has the remote back but he’s settled on some crime
drama TV show instead of the news this time. I set his plate down in front of him. He picks through
the food, only really managing to get down one slice of toast.
“I guess they already left,” Ryker states referring to Mr. Yaw and Mr. Gerald.
“Maybe,” I replied.
Ryker shifts around so his head is resting in my lap, the TV screen reflected in his glasses. I reach up and touch Ryker’s forehead, I brush his bangs aside.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“My head hurts,” he replies quietly turning his face toward my stomach.
“Do you want me to see if they have Advil?” I ask.
“I don’t know if that’ll help,” he answers.
“No harm in trying it, right?” I reply.
“I don’t want to move though,” he replies annoyed a little.
“I think we should go for a walk, I think it would be good,” I suggest.
He doesn’t move or say anything at first.
“What if it’s not safe?” he murmurs.
“They didn’t say we couldn’t leave the house, and that can’t be good for you, especially right now,” I continue. “Come on.”
Ryker finally lifts himself up off me.
“I’m going to the bathroom then,” he replies.
I go back into the kitchen to look for Advil and he goes upstairs. I find the Advil in a cupboard, I take
two out and fill a glass with water. I bring both of them to the front door and set them on the bench
and sit down beside them to put my boots on. I lace them up as Ryker descents the stairs.
“I told Ezra,” he replies as he picks up the Advil and glass. “Just so he doesn’t worry.”
He swallows the Advil with the water and sets the cup back on the bench. I stand up so he can sit
down and put on his own boots. I hand him his boots, he sets them on the ground by his feet and
slides them on.
I pull my coat off the hanger and pull it on. I zip it up and grab Ryker’s beanie. I bend down and pull it over his head looking into his bright green eyes. I see a more intensified sadness lingering in them.
He looks down, attempting to avoid my gaze.
I stand up again. I grab his coat and gloves for him. He pulls them on, silently. He stands up and I take his hand. We don’t walk far or for long, mainly because we don’t want to get lost and because of how cold it’s become. We arrive back an hour and a half later, and Ryker retreats back to the room.
I want to help him, but I don’t know how. I can’t find Maya and bring her here and I can’t make
whoever is hunting us stop. So, I just attempt to comfort him with what little I can do, making sure he stays healthy, safe, and by being affectionate.
Ryker manages to fall asleep in the middle of the afternoon again, so I get up to see what Ezra is
doing. I step out into the hall and I hear someone playing the piano down the hall in the first room
closest to the stairs.
I walk slowly down to the room and push the door open. Ezra is inside, sitting at a black piano. One of those large ones most people can’t afford, where you can see inside and watch the strings move as you play the notes.
He pauses and turns in my direction when I open the door.
“Ryker said you stopped playing years ago, when he surpassed you,” I start.
“I did, but after our father shipped him off, I missed him, I guess and I started again. It wasn’t so hard to pick back up. Does he still play?” he replies.
“Yeah, he taught me. I was going to enter the talent show in March,” I answer.
He starts again with a different song, one I recognize. “I’m Already There” by Lonestar.
“He played that one a lot,” I reply quietly. “It reminded him of your mother’s life song.”
“I know,” he replies. “It was the first song I learned.”
“Where is he?” Ezra continues.
“Sleeping, he said he had a headache this morning and he only ate a piece of toast,” I answer.
“Were you his first?” he asks suddenly. “The fact that Maya got left behind and is missing seems to be taking a toll on him.”
“As far as I know. They only become friends after we met. He helped her get away from her ex. I
know she was bi, too, maybe he kind of misses having someone else to talk to other than me who
understands him,” I answer.
“I don’t know if I can bear to watch the guilt take over again. We might have to go after Maya, I’m
pretty sure they have her,” he replies pausing his playing.
“The scientists?” I ask.
“They’re working with the military now, they want Ryker so they can predict who is going to die so
they can know when they are likely to win a battle or lose one,” he replies. “They’re questioning your parents about where you went, too.”
“Another thing I’m worried about is them using Maya as a bargaining chip to get you to come out of hiding. Ryker would do it, too. That’s just the kind of person he is. Everyone else before himself,” he
continues.
“We have no clue where they are though. And how are we going to break into a highly secured
facility, anyway?” I question.
He stands up and shuts the piano.
“Follow me,” he says.
We leave the piano room and he leads me down the stairs to the basement door. He opens it and
goes down the stairs. There are desks littered with maps, pictures, photos, everything. There is a
map of the U.S.A tacked to the wall with red dots in twelve different spots.
“This is the main base in Nebraska,” he points to the city of Lincoln on the map. “She is most-likely
there right now. But they are likely to move her eventually. There are eleven points that are possible
places of the other six children,” he explains.
Two of the other points are still within Nebraska, the other eight are outside.
“And they’re going to all of these?” I ask.
“The more likely and close ones. Once they’ve checked them, they’ll move us to another safe house closer to the next spot,” he replies.
“When did you find out Ryker was adopted?” I ask.
He glances at me.
“I started to question it after he left for Copper Cove. Our father said a lot of strange things in
drunken stupors, I thought about the fact that the photos of Ryker only went back until he was two
and the fact that I didn’t remember having a baby brother until I was seven. Which didn’t make
sense because we’re only five years apart. I found the adoption papers in our attic at my father’s
house. It was a whole rabbit hole,” he answered. “In the end, he was still my brother even if he
wasn’t related to me, he’d also been through enough, he didn’t need any more rejection from his
families.”
“But before you knew you did, dislike him, though?” I asked.
“I think it was more so jealousy for all the attention he was getting, whether it be for being a good
piano player or for trying to understand what he was hearing, a lot of people had their eyes on him,
including my parents. I realized, just shortly before he left that he didn’t ask for any of that attention. In fact, if he could have turned invisible, I’m sure he would have,” he answers.
“I also saw how grateful he was when I accepted him for being bi. He was so nervous that day, about being rejected again. In the end, none of it was his fault, not the attention, not the experiments that
were done on him, not our mother’s death, he was just a kid, a scared, defenseless kid,” he
continues.
“But what about Mr. Yaw and Mr. Gerald? They said to stay here,” I reply.
“You can just call them Tom and Ryū, you know? Maya and your parents have nothing to do with
this, you’re all victims, they deserved to be rescued as much as these kids,” he replies.
“We don’t have weapons, those bases will be loaded,” I continue.
He turns and opens one of the draws on the desk and pulls out a handgun.
“Who says we don’t have weapons, how did you think Tom and Ryū were planning on getting out of any sticky situations they ran into?” he replies.
“Okay, even with weapons, I’ve never shot one, I’d be a terrible shot,” I reply.
“So, we take you to a range and you practice,” he replies.
“I don’t have a license,” I reason.
“No one is exactly abiding by the law here, us or the people after us,” he states.
“Losing you won’t be good for him either,” I insist. “Especially, if you die right in front of him like his mother did.”
“He’s never said my life song is short,” he replies.
“We still don’t know if life and death songs change based on your choices,” I continue.
“So, you’re going to watch him dig himself into a hole instead?” he questions. “Cause I’m not going
to, I’ll go find Maya myself if I have to.”
“Fine, if he wants to go, we’ll go,” I reply.
“We’ll ask him tomorrow, he needs the rest,” Ezra replies.
“Right,” I reply. “I’m going back upstairs.”
I leave him down in the basement to study the maps or files or whatever it is he’s doing and go back up the bedroom I and Ryker are sharing.
I find the bed empty. I listen to see if he’s in the shower again and check it, too. Nothing. I notice the window open a bit. I push it up and stick my head out. Ryker is laying back on the shingled roof of
the house with his noise-canceling headphones over his ears looking up at the sky.
The roof was at too low of an angle for him to slip off probably but I still didn’t like it. I knock on the
shingled roof hoping he’ll feel the vibrations and I’ll be able to get his attention. It works. He takes
the headphones off and looks up.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Enjoying the quiet, or I was,” he replies.
“Do you have to do it on the roof?” I question.
It was bad enough Ezra wanted us to get near the people who were hunting us.
He hangs the headphones around his neck and gets on his hands and knees and crawls back to the window. I move out of the way and he puts his legs in first and then jumps down.
“There,” he replies. “Where were you?”
“Talking with Ezra,” I reply.
He takes the headphones off and sets them on a shelf.
Was he acting weird because Maya kissed him on the cheek before she ran off? Did she have
feelings for him? Or was it a platonic kiss?
He reached up and touched my cheek, it pulled me from my thoughts. He leaned up and kissed me.
“I’m sorry for being a crappy boyfriend since we got here,” he said quietly.
“You’re not crappy,” I whispered wrapping him in a hug and kissing his temple.
I felt his arms wrap around me and his head rest on my shoulder.
“Is your head feeling better?” I ask.
“Yeah, thanks,” he replies.
“Are you hungry?” I ask.
“I ate well you were talking with Ezra,” he replies.
“Good,” I reply smiling.
He smiled shyly in reply. It was the first time since we’d left Copper Cove.
“Come lie down with me,” he replied, pulling me toward the bed.
“Okay,” I reply, following him.
We end up falling asleep in the bed for the first and last time that night.