Whispers on a Wing

Chapter Thirty Six

My adrenaline spiked as I froze in place. Was it Jake coming back? His mum?
"Jake?"
It was a mans voice, one I didn't recognise, and I panicked as I heard the sound of two sets of boots swiftly making their way around the ground floor, opening doors and slamming them behind themselves.
I only hand seconds to think, seconds to decide what to do. I couldn't run, they would no doubt see me trying to escape through either the front or back door as they continued their sweep of the downstairs looking for Jake. I could fly out the window, but it was midday and who knew how many people were out and about and could see me.
Hide then, that was my only option.
My eyes scanned his room, looking for anywhere big enough to fit me, before deciding on going back to his wardrobe. I could hide in amongst the clothes until they realised Jake wasn't here and decided to leave.
Their footsteps thundered up the stairs and just as his bedroom door slammed open I pulled the wardrobe door closed, shutting me into complete darkness.
"Jake?" A man called as he stepped into the room.
My heartbeat was thundering in my chest and I had to breathe through the sleeve of the hoodie I was wearing to try and muffle my panicked breathes. Was it bad for a person to have this much adrenaline going through their body in one day? I felt like my body was on a mad rollercoaster, running on instinct alone, and any minute it was going to crash and burn.
The man let out a loud sigh in frustration as he grumbled "he's not here," to his companion, just as a shrill noise filled the room. I'd been listening in so intently it almost made me flinch, but I managed to stay still. The last thing I needed was to give away my position because of a damn ringtone.
"Yeah?" The guy answered, but with the door closed I couldn't hear the other end of the conversation through the phone. "No he's not here... my guess is he knows nothing... I'll talk him down don't worry."
The guy was silent for several more seconds as he listened to whatever the person on the other end of the phone was saying.
"If you're sure ma'am... and Roger confirmed the mission complete?... Good, five years late but at least it's finally finished."
I froze as I heard my dad's name, my ears straining as I desperately tried to hear what was being said on the other side of this door.
"I'll report back later when I confirm either way... the end is near with this... yes see you then," and with that he hung up.
He stayed around for several minutes, the two of them mumbling low as they planned their next move, but they were talking too low for me to hear. I was convinced it was two men, based on the weight of their footfalls and the low baritone of their voiced, but I wasn't one hundred perfect sure.
Who were these man? Was it someone Jake knew or someone who worked with my dad and had let himself in?
I also hadn't missed the bit about my dad confirming that his mission... ie me dying... had been complete. Had he really told them that whatever ritual him and my mum had tried to perform on me had been completed? And if so why?
Why after so many years did he decide to let me go?
All questions I was sure I'd never get an answer to.
I waited as I heard a sigh from Jakes room. I was tense as a bow string and not moving so much as an inch in fear I'd give myself away. The adrenaline was starting to leave my system again and I felt my body sag as pure exhaustion threatened to take over, but I refused to give in. Just a little longer, just stay awake for a little bit longer until I was confident I was alone, then I could get out of here.
Finally, minute after agonising minute, I finally heard Jake's bedroom door open and close and the intruders footsteps go down the stairs and out the door. If they found it weird the doors were unlocked with no one seemingly inside they hadn't commented.
I slumped in the confines of the wardrobe, feeling the relief of not being found overwhelm me for a second, before shuffling amongst the clothes and pushing the door open. I half expected someone to be on the other side, that it was a trick and someone was going to see me burst through the door and finished what my mum and dad couldn't finish, but the room was empty.
The house was silent, the only noise being a neighbour mowing their grass a few doors down, and I released a slow breath at the stillness. I had loved the silence for so long, sometimes craved it in a world where my senses were so much sharper than everyone else, but since meeting Jake and getting Alice back I realised how much the silence actually said.
I was alone, with no one to fill it, and I wasn't sure I was okay with it like I used to be.
I just had one more thing to do before I could get out of here, I had to make sure Jake was warned that two strangers were in his house looking for him. I wasn't sure how he was going to react to seeing me again after making it crystal clear he was done with me, but I had to make sure he was alright. I was the one that had brought this mess to his door, I had to be the one to fix it.
I turned and closed the wardrobe door, feeling weirdly mournful as I closed the door to my hiding space, and turned to leave the room. There were a few spots I could think of that Jake would go to, and I was running low on time. I had to make sure I found him and warned him before he came back home.
I walked across his carpet, but when I reached his bedroom door I froze. That hadn't been there before... had it?
It was is jacket, Jakes jacket, the one he had given me what felt like a lifetime ago when he tricked me to watch his lacrosse game. I could've sworn I left that in my house, the one that had very recently gone up in flames, yet here it was.
There was no doubt it was the same one, the fabric had no trace of Jake on it, as if he hadn't worn it in a while, and there was a slight bonfire smell to it that hadn't been there before.
How had that ended up here? And why?
There were so many questions that needed answers, mysteries about who my parents had been working for, why and how Erik was involved, and who those people had been, who'd come looking for Jake. But did I want to know the answers to them?
I'd spent so long running, so many years hiding myself away from everyone around me, was that really how I wanted to live the rest of my life?
Jake's words filtered through my mind again as I pressed my head against the fabric of the jacket. I had been surviving, but I hadn't been living.
But it was for the best right? I needed to get out of here for not just my own safety, but also for the safety of the two people who meant more to me than my own happiness.
I steeled my spine, not allowing my mind to get bogged down on so many questions and pulled the jacket off the hook and slipped my arms through it, loving the way the size of it engulfed me.
Jake had given it to me, so it wasn't steeling exactly, and I could give it to him when I finally found him.
I took one more breath, hating the smell of smoke as it overpowered the scent of Jakes room, and marched out the house, determined to find Jake.

I'd been searching for maybe half an hour, looking all over town for Jake, when I remembered the tracker Alice had put in my shoe, somewhere.
I'd debated taking it out and throwing it away, the idea that someone could know my every move unsettling in some weird way, but I couldn't seem to bring myself to undo the laces. I liked the idea of someone having that connection to me, it made me feel less alone, less like the whole world was pressing down on my shoulder's, and so I'd decided to leave it there, my feet feeling heavy as I felt the comforting weight of our friendship following me.
This was for the best I reminded myself for the tenth time as I put the tear leaving my eye down to the wind. Leaving them was for the best. But the more time passed, the more the panic in my chest build over not finding Jake yet, the more difficult it was to drown that voice out.
Leaving them was for the best, to protect them and keep them safe.
But was that the reason I was really leaving? If I was being honest with myself was that the true reason why I was leaving this town behind?
I huffed in frustration as I searched through the community library. I wasn't sure why I was even looking here, it wasn't like Jake had ever make any effort to come here during our time working on our project, but I was running out of options.
It made me reflect on my time with Jake, how little I actually knew about him when he'd been so open with me, and a small pang of guilt hit my chest. Jake had been so open since the very day I'd met him, constantly asking me questions to get to know me better, but I hadn't done the same for him. I'd pushed him away and gotten defensive whenever I felt he was getting too close to me.
I couldn't even find him in a town the size of a peanut for gods sake.
I sat in one of the seats at a desk in the far corner of the library, my mind racing as I sorted through every interaction we'd had as I tried to remember if he'd talked about a particular place he loved to go to.
As my mind raced my eyes glanced around the room, before finally falling on the desks surface in front of me, where I froze.
There, amongst all the doodles and scratched into the edge of the desk, was a little heart, with the initials J4K in the centre.
I ran my thumb over the impression as a small smile tugged at my lips and I couldn't help the eye roll that followed. It was so juvenile it was obviously something Jake had done and I chuckled as I thought about all the time we'd spent here, all the times he'd tried to start conversations with me when all I'd been interested in was getting our work finished so I could get a good grade on the paper and graduate.
It all seemed so trivial now, the idea that my life would've changed with the help of a piece of paper, that a certificate would've showed the world that I had graduated and wasn't a piece of trash.
I rolled my eyes at my ignorance and thought back again to Jake, how he'd always find a way to laugh and took the most amazing landscape photos I'd ever seen.
I froze as a thought suddenly came to me. His photos, he'd shown me a couple of his raw images in this very seat not that long ago, of a meadow. Could that be where he was?
I bolted out of my chair and all but ran out the building, ignoring the scowl from the librarian as I sprinted past their desk.
I knew where that meadow was, knew I'd flown over it a bunch of times when I made my way to my patch of beach. He had to be there, surely.