Dog Boy

42

Jackie sat at the dining room table in the Hewitt's house, feeling deeply exhausted, but at the same time, too keyed up to let herself rest. Lucas Hewitt sat on the couch nearby, examining something on his tablet, looking similarly lethargic.

All around them, Meagan Hewitt and Lucas's old Generation coworkers, including Jackie's mom, were shuffling about, talking and strategizing. The debate raged on, where one of Lucas's assistants from the lab, Clive, was angry that Lucas had not yet called the police, while another, a younger woman named Tessa, was very much in opposition to this. Lucas had similar misgivings about such a plan, trying to find out how they could do it themselves without making it "messy." This had led to Clive accusing, basically, that Lucas didn't care about his children enough to risk his own skin.

The argument had been awful, and at one point, Jackie was sure that Lucas would've thrown Clive out - if he hadn't needed Clive's expertise to have a prayer of saving Matt and Ashley.

They were gone. That thought had repeatedly drifted through her mind, and she found herself barely able to comprehend it. He was gone. She could not just call him on his tablet, and ask if he wanted to hangout. When she had come to the Hewitt's home, Matt's warm puppy dog smile had not greeted her.

He was gone.

She clenched her paws. She knew that hopefully, they were still alive, but... from the moment that Matt's parents had told her what had happened... she'd felt that wave of dread move in, the same she'd felt when her dad passed away. Separation. No knowledge of if you'd ever see them again. Fate, God, or the universe had taken her father away, and now it had done the same with Matt.

She felt numb. Her mind couldn't realize it now, but she knew that when tomorrow came, and Matt was still gone - when the day after that came, then the day after that... then the true grief would set in. The soul rending tearing of her apart. All the progress she had made in becoming a more confident, hopeful person was being torn away. Her childhood innocence had finally been destroyed when her dad died - and now her youthful optimism was snuffed out as well.

She tried so hard to rekindle that hope, but the spark just wouldn't catch. She knew that it wasn't over. Matt was likely still alive, and his captors might not want to harm him - but all the possible ways things could go wrong spun silently in her subconscious, surfacing into her conscious mind every so often.

He'll try to protect Ashley. He'll get shot.

He'll refuse to give them information. He'll get shot.

He'll try to run away. He'll get shot.

She was numb, but fuming. She couldn't understand why someone like this Seth guy would do something like this. Something so awful as this was something she'd read about in her books, that happened to people across the world who lived harsher lives than her - who were stronger than her.

And she was mad at the stubbornness of Lucas, who had apparently been willing to come clean about his illegal activities - and then had closed up again. She wished that they'd called the police. It would've felt like something was happening, that professional people were handling the situation.

Lucas and Tessa however - and Jackie's mom, seemed in agreement that Seth was too slippery for the police. They'd worked with him before, and after he'd stopped working at Generation, he had vanished off the map. They didn't want to scare him off again. Jackie didn't want them to scare him off.

She hated it, but she knew that sending the cops after Seth could lead to Matt being in greater danger. Even if the police were able to successfully rescue Matt and Ashley, it hurt Jackie further imagining Matt having to watch his dad go to jail, deprived of being with the family he'd fought so hard to protect.