Searching for You

The Big Apple

Watching the clouds go by as our plane began to descend was one of the craziest experiences of my entire life. I hadn't ever been on a plane before and my first flight being on a private jet was insane. Adam, Bree, Chase and Leo acted like this was just another everyday occurrence, and of course they did. Their dad was a multi-millionaire. This was probably like taking the bus to school every day for them.

The plane jostled slightly as the tires made contact with the runway, making me shake in my seat a little. The flight had been peaceful for the most part. There was only a little turbulence and the biggest annoyance of the whole thing was Adam asking a bunch of random questions like a five-year-old the whole way there. To say that I wanted to shove a box of tissue paper down his gullet just to get him to stop talking was an understatement. But, then again, I couldn't do that to Adam. He was too much of a teddy bear for me to bring myself to do something that mean.

Chase was sitting across from me, his eyes trained on the window and his body tense. I wasn't sure why he was so nervous, considering the fact that I was the one with the missing father.

"Are you okay?" I asked him, nudging his knee slightly with mine. "You look like you're about to wet yourself."

He jumped and smiled sheepishly, looking down. "I'm fine," he assured me. "It's just . . . this is my first time in a big city."

I laughed. "Same here. But I'm more excited than scared."

"That's why I'm nervous."

I gave him a questioning look and watched as his face turned red. He made brief eye contact with me and then cleared his throat, signaling Bree, who was sitting with Adam and Leo. "We need to go over a game plan," he announced. "We can't go into this blind. Especially not in New York. Crime rate is super high here."

"We won't be staying in the city for that long, Chase," Bree reminded him. "We're going to Westchester, remember?"

"Right, but---"

"Chase, we're fine," Leo repeated for Bree. "You can calm down."

We exited the plane without much issue. The issue came when we walked out of the airport and both Adam and Bree lost their minds. Bree started to jump up and down excitedly and I had to physically restrain her to keep her from super speeding around. Adam almost burned down a topiary with his heat vision, but Chase managed to redirect him and keep him calm. It was like dealing with a bunch of puppies in a room full of dog treats.

While walking the sidewalks and avoiding getting jostled by people, Chase took his position next to me as a human shield from the road. I had seen enough dating shows to know what he was doing but decided not to say anything about it, despite the growing smile that was playing at my lips. I couldn't help but appreciate his cuteness.

Leo did a little skip ahead of us, almost hitting a pedestrian. "I can't believe we're in New York City!" he exclaimed. "This is insane!"

"Like Bree said, we won't be staying long," I reminded him.

"Who cares?" Adam asked. "I'm gonna enjoy my time here while it lasts!"

"Adam," Chase warned, "don't even try."

Adam's shoulders slumped like a pouting toddler and he continued to walk with his feat clopping against the ground like a horse's hooves. Our first goal was to get to Westchester. Upon finding a map, we discovered that we needed to head toward Yonkers; North. Chase flagged down a taxi and we all climbed into it, Chase in the front so he could give directions. The rest of us had to squeeze to fit into the back, and I had to sit on Adam's lap. The fact that the driver was okay with this was completely beyond me, but I decided not to question it.

But that didn't make it any less awkward.

When we finally got out of the cab, we were at the edge of New York City and just before Yonkers. We would have to continue the rest of the way on foot. That wouldn't be much of an issue if it weren't for the amount of people. Bree could just speed us there in shifts but there were too many people around. The risk was too high.

And walking wasn't much fun either.

But we did anyway.

As we walked, Chase and the others continued to ramble on, but I tuned them out as I tried to go over possibilities of what I would say to my dad when I saw him---if I saw him. That wasn't a pleasant thought, but it was a thought that needed to be had. I needed to be realistic.

The people around me began to grow more and more sparse as we continued into the smaller city, now inside Westchester County. The sun was beginning to get lower in the sky and I was beginning to worry. Where on earth would I begin to look for my dad? Would my dad even want to see me if I found him? Would he be like Douglas and just not care about me at all? Wasn't that why he left in the first place?

I refused to believe that my dad was as bad as Douglas was. Douglas abused his son and was just willing to let him die without consequence. The thought made me sick.

Especially when I saw that bruise painting his chin when he came into school, his eyes scared and sad whenever he looked at me. His perfect little brown eyes that had seen too much for a fifteen-year-old boy to handle. In that moment, I had just wanted to envelope him in a hug and let him know that it was going to be okay, that we could run away together and then we would be safe. But little did I know he wouldn't even make it to his sixteenth birthday.

And Douglas didn't care.

I felt someone nudge my shoulder and I looked up to see Chase looking at me with worried eyes. He leaned in to whisper into my ear and I felt his breath brush my neck, giving me goosebumps.

"Are you okay?"

I inhaled a shaky breath and pursed my lips to bite back the tears. What was wrong with me? There was no way I loved Marcus enough to cry over him a year after he died. I didn't even know him that long, and that wasn't my priority during this trip. My dad was.

"I miss him," I whispered in response.

Chase didn't need clarification to know who I meant. He returned his attention to what was in front of him, his jaw set as he measured his next thought carefully.

"You know," he began, "I've been thinking about Marcus a lot lately, too."

I looked at him in shock. "Really?"

He shrugged. "Yeah. I keep thinking about the potential he had as a person and what could have changed to make him live a normal life, you know? If he only had a different dad, maybe things could have turned out differently and we really could have been good friends."

I almost couldn't believe that I was hearing these words come out of Chase Davenport's mouth. After it was revealed that Marcus was evil, Adam, Bree and Chase made Marcus their sworn enemy almost immediately. But as I thought about it, it made sense. Chase and Marcus had developed a close friendship over the time we knew Marcus. I could understand why Chase was thinking about those things.

"Do you think we could fix him?" I blurted.

He gave me a look that told me I had just asked a very dumb question. "He was crushed under tons of rock, Abby," he reminded me painfully. "It would take much more advanced equipment than what we already have and possibly even a miracle to bring him back. Besides---" he looked straight ahead and sighed--- "we would have to work out how to give him a longer life."

My spirits fell. Since finding out about my dad, there was nothing I wanted more than to hear Marcus give me advice. It hurt every time I thought about him, so I pushed him aside in my mind to make room for the search for my dad. I thought it would be a good distraction, but apparently the distraction wasn't working very well.

That was fine. All I had to do was find my dad and then I could worry about Marcus later.