Life Lines

19: Takesie Backsies

Chapter Nineteen

We weren't allowed to go inside so instead we sat on the mostly unused patio furniture. I couldn't remember the last time my dad or I sat out here. Mario did allow Schylar to light the bug lanterns. Apparently the mosquitoes and nats were swarming him.

Within seven minutes of Mario calling it in, patrol cars swarmed my house, filling the driveway to its capacity and then some. It was like watching a cop movie or show play out in front of me. I was pretty sure everyone on duty was here including a few who weren't. But we were the Chief's family so everyone was concerned.

And all I could think about was my dad and where he was going to park.

The last car that pulled in, I recognized since it was here every Monday night for dinner. If I looked closely enough, I could see the old Barbie bumper sticker I'd slapped on as a joke when I was seven. He'd tried to scrape it off but there was still a little bit of bottle blonde hair and the beginning of the 'B' still clinging on after all these years. Taught him not to buy me anything girly.

Clayton Cole Abernathy got out of his car, looking around at the gathered police force. He was a good inch or two over six feet and wore regular street clothes. That told me one of two things, he was planning on showing up here since my father was hung up at the office or he was out having a drink at the local bar. He might've been doing both since he was here. Which meant he'd had a beer a good hour or two before hand so he'd be sober enough to show up in case my dad couldn't get home on time.

"Someone want to tell me what's going on?"

Mario jumped up to the plate, flipping open his notebook and splurging what he wrote. "Standard 459. Daughter of the house came home, felt something amiss and called her father. He called in a possible..."

My uncle listened tentatively. He was older than my father by ten years, a big age gap, but they looked similarly enough. He never married, saying the timing was just never right. I thought it was a load of horse hockey but I bit my tongue. He was handsome enough and the only reason I knew was because my mother would take me to the hair salon with her when I was younger. The hair dressers would talk about my uncle but my mother would just smile. Like she knew he'd never marry or date much. He was a bachelor through and through.

"Where is she?" my uncle asked.

"Back patio."

Of course I could see him from where I was sitting but he hadn't spotted me yet. I did mention he looked like my father, right? They were both tall, both had honey blonde hair and strange color changing eyes...

Did I mention he was Elite?

"Natty!"

I blinked, forgetting about the comparison for now, and smiled. "Hey, Uncle Clay."

I stood up as he walked over, both Chris and Schylar rising. Southern manners sometimes baffled me but the whole standing when a girl stands was the freakiest one I'd encountered. Normally my friends didn't honor it but when someone of the older generation was around, they snapped into the southern gentlemanly ways.

My uncle hugged me for a second and I half expected the cough to come up. I hadn't seen him since I was given The Sickness diagnosis and I was worried he would have the same affect on my cough as the other Elites did.

But I guess he didn't count since the cough only tickled the back of my throat and then settled.

"Are you alright, honey?" He pulled back when I nodded and looked me over. "You look real pretty."