A week before their high school graduation, Ellie's boyfriend walked her to her door and kissed her goodnight, just like any other night. But there was nothing ordinary about what followed. Austin disappeared without a trace, never to be seen again...
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"Shit!" Austin shouted and jumped out of his chair. "How did that happen?"
"What the fuck do you mean, how? Someone's here," Alex yelled back over his shoulder as he disappeared back into the livingroom, only to reappear a few seconds later with a duffel bag in his hands.
"Fuck."
Austin's eyes darted around the room like he was looking for something. And for the first time since he began to tell me about his past, I realized what it meant for him and his brother that someone was at their house.
"Ellie must've been followed," Alex responded as he ran over to the freezer and pulled what looked like steaks out of there and threw it into his book bag, but there was no time for me to question it. "I don't know how, but we got to go."
My head whipped back and forth between the brothers and their dog, who was alternating between crying and barking.
"Bear," Alex yelled. "Let's go."
I didn't know what to do or how to help. Seeing Austin and Alex rush around like their lives depended on it freaked me out more than I'd ever imagined. And realizing that it may be true, that their lives were in grave danger, made me instantly nauseous.
I liked to believe that I was good under pressure and a quick thinker in stressful situations, but in this case I failed majorly. I just sat there like a fool with mouth open.
"Ellie," Austin urged, and yanked me to my feet. His dark eyes held mine for a second to make sure I understood the significance of the situation, which I probably didn't, before he left and rushed into the other room. A few seconds later, he was back with a backpack flung over his shoulder and a duffel bag in his hand.
"Let's go," he shouted.
"Go where? What's going on?" I asked, but reached for my bag that hung on the back of the kitchen chair. I obviously recognized that something bad was happening, and that they needed to leave, but I didn't fully understand why or where we were going?
And then it occurred to me that maybe I didn't need to leave. Maybe I could help if they let me stay behind. They could leave and go to wherever they needed to go and I could explain to whoever came that... Well, I didn't really know what exactly... but I could at least give it a try with some bullshit story.
Didn't I owe Austin and Alex that if I was the reason they'd been found? Even if whoever it was following them didn't buy what I'd be attempting to sell, maybe I could at least buy Austin and Alex some time.
Austin threw Bear's leash to his brother and reached for me.
"I'll stay," I said and backed away from his hand. "You go, and I'll stay here and buy you some time and I can..." I'm not even sure what I rambled on about, but I plead for him to let me stay behind and save himself.
"Ellie," he snapped in such an unusually harsh tone he caught me off guard.
"Austin..."
"Move it," Alex hissed as he threw the door open to the backyard and in a flash, both he and Bear were gone.
