Traveling Souls

Chapter 18

I leaned up over the steering wheel to see a man waving his arms, his face flushed and sweaty. I glanced over at Killian as everyone piled into the front, grumbling and whining about the sudden stop.

"Hey, what's the big idea," Julian snapped, leaning against the wall, obviously annoyed.

Killian waved a hand behind her and leapt out from the seat, and I followed in suit, rushing out of the RV to meet the man who was panting in front of the vehicle.

He lifted up a finger, putting his hands on his knees, sucking in breaths. After a few minutes of him catching his breath, he stood up straight and took his hands in ours. "Thank you ladies for stopping, it means the world to me." he took another breath, his eyes flicked to the three boys behind us in surprise. "I wanted to ask you, all of you, to help find my son. His name is Nick! I don't know what happened, we were having a fight and then I woke up the next morning to see that he wasn't in his room anymore." he explained, obviously panicked.

I opened my mouth to reply but was cut off by Julian's scoff.

"Shouldn't have let him go then." he snorted, eyeing the sweaty man in disgust.

The man shrunk under Julian's scrutinizing gaze, and he kicked at the ground in shame, lowering his head.

Anger boiled inside of me, but I let it go and took a breath, trying to calm myself. "Sir, uh,"

"My name's Merlin." he said quickly, giving me a quick nod, relief in his eyes at my voice.

"Merlin. We'll help you, of course." I say happily, giving Julian a warning glare.

He growled and grabbed my shoulder, making me jump as his grip tightened.

Killian glanced worriedly at me, tensing up.

"We'll help, of course. How rude I was." he mocked, dropping his grip as I rolled my shoulder. "If we're payed."

Merlin's face went pale, before swallowing and nodded fretfully, patting at his pants for his wallet. "O-of course! H-how stupid I was--"

Dustin reached out a hand and put it on his shoulder, shaking his head. "We don't need to be payed, Julian was just kidding, aren't you?" He asked, gritting his teeth.

Julian opened his mouth, but quickly closed it and nodded instead when Killian elbowed his ribs, making him jerk to the right.

Merlin raised an eyebrow at his behavior, but relief was soon on his face once he saw that Julian had agreed. "T-thank you all so much!" he cried out, grabbing mine and Killian's hands again, shaking them rapidly.

I glanced to Killian, and her expression was exactly how I felt, creeped out.

"Okay, so, where have you not looked?" I asked the man once he let our hands go. I rubbed mine slightly, stepping back a few steps.

Merlin scratched at his neck, thinking for a few moments. "The only place I haven't checked yet is Oakriver, where his grandparents live." he explained to us. "I wouldn't have thought that he could have gone that far, but I may be wrong, so I started running, but, caught you guys just a few miles before Oakriver." he explained cheerfully, as if his son weren't missing and he just stopped us to ask how we were doing.

I nodded, listening to him intently. "I see, well, you're lucky you caught us, since we're on our way to Oakriver--but how did you get in front of us?" I asked him, eyeing him with slight caution.

He looked confused at first before bursting into high-pitched laughter. "There's a fork up the road, one leads to Rose Central, and the other leads to Oakriver. Didn't you guys know they changed the layouts of the roads?"