One Heartbeat... Two Heartbeat...

Chapter 5

Jeff stared at the news dumbstruck…

Because that wasn’t even possible… like at all… How was that even happening now…

He was staring at the screen where the police chief announced that the case regarding Tony Chan was closed considering the fact that he had been the main convect for the abduction and abuse of several kids and adults as well as first and second-degree murder and attempted murder…

All the other implicated people had been there under Tony’s violent influence and all the names in the case shall be removed and protected against further tarnish…

“He… He is really something…”

Jeff turned to Alan surprised…

“You knew about this? Did he tell you he was going to do this?”

Alan shook his head…

It had been a couple of days already since Babe had been admitted to the hospital, a few days since Tony had been killed by Kenta…

A few days of Babe being in a coma, and all of them waiting for him to pull through…

They had managed to reach a routine of staying in the hospital because life needed to go on. After all, they needed to rebuild…

So it wasn’t always Alan and Jeff with Charlie… sometimes it was North and Sonic, other times it was just Kim, other times it was Pete - despite him being busy with other matters…

Charlie refused to leave the hospital… He just wasn’t having any of it, he could barely sleep, and he was barely eating… but he wasn’t leaving Babe again and nothing could sway him…

and While rebuilding was in session… something happened that made it impossible…

Way vanished into thin air… literally… Pete had gone to him after his talk with Charlie in the hospital to find no one in the house and only a letter there…

a farewell Letter… to Alan… and Babe…

He wasn’t brave enough to stay, wasn’t brave to remain and watch as all of them grow shielded and warry of him…

He decided to punish himself… by leaving the only family he knew, and the family he turned against in a fit of bad judgment…

Pete had left no stone unturned but he didn’t find him yet…

Kenta was helping Alan… Because he owed them a lot, and because he needed people who treated him like a human, not an extension of Pete… or Tony…

He ended up helping with the work around the garage while Alan, Jeff, and the others went back and forth from the hospital to the garage and vice versa…

Pete had offered Kim a racers’ role… for the time being unofficially… and Sonic and North almost forced Kim to agree, not that he was ever going to disagree, to begin with…

all that was needed was for Babe to wake up… to come back…

Jeff snapped Alan from his reverie when he hugged him…

“How? How did he do that?”

Alan pierced his lips…

Pete had been frustrated… angry even… Way was gone, and Babe was in a coma… winning felt like a loss with the possibility of all of their names being up and front in the media, that they would be hunted down forever…

He wasn’t having any of that… He didn’t come this far to lose to the ghost of Tony… to lose to the remaining lackeys that would hunt them down because special kids still existed and without the Chen Foundation they would be free for the pickup…