Mythical Link ▸ Link Neal {Book One}

Twenty Nine

     Rhett's eyes flew open. "No, I thought he was with you." He heard a muffled cry and knew that it was Christy. Rhett sat up in his bed abruptly. 

     "What? What is it?" Jessie asked. 

     Rhett held a finger up. "Christy?" Christy didn't answer him. It was definitely her that was crying, and the kids had asked where their dad was. Rhett's heart beat increasingly faster in his chest. "Please answer me!"

     "I'm— I'm sorry. He was here with me last night, I—  I don't know where he could have went. I think he left in the middle of the night and I thought he was with you." 

     Rhett shook his head, as if Christy could see that. "Have you tried calling his cell?"

     "His phone is on the kitchen table." 

     Rhett pressed his forehead into his hand, Jessie's vibrant amber eyes wide with worry. Rhett tried to rack his brain on where Link could have gone. The only place he'd wandered off to without telling anyone was Terra's and if he went there again... The thought just made Rhett feel sick to his stomach. Rhett's palms started to get sweaty and his chest constricted painfully.

     "I'm gonna take a drive and see if I can see his car anywhere. Try calling the crew and see if any of them have heard from him, okay?" 

     Christy made a choking sound that sounded like an okay and Rhett sprang out of bed. He hurriedly slipped into a pair of jeans and found the nearest t-shirt, without a care whether it was clean or dirty. He didn't even care that it matched, he could have gone out with a potato sack covering himself and he wouldn't have cared. as long as he was decent enough to find his best friend. Jessie clutched the blankets and eyed Rhett with watery eyes. He stooped to give her a kiss on the forehead and looked her in the eyes. "Don't worry. I'm going to find him." 

     He snatched his keys into his hand from the nightstand and bolted for the front door. Barbara trailed at his feet and yelped because she wanted to go to the bathroom. "Not now," Rhett hissed. He opened the door and snuck outside, and he closed the door behind him as quietly as he could. He felt bad for snapping at their precious family pet, but he needed to find Link.

     Without Rhett knowing, Locke snuck out of his bedroom and perched himself at the top of the stairs and watched his dad through the banister. He heard the commotion about Link being missing, his green eyes wide with curiosity.

☮️☮️☮️☮️☮️☮️

     The temperature had dropped significantly overnight. Frost covered the crunchy ground he walked on, and the windows of his car. As he walked toward the driver side door, he stopped in his tracks and gazed at the back window, his eyes narrowed. He approached it cautiously, his head tilted to the side. Etched into the fractals of ice was cabhair liom. It was sloppily written as if the person had been in a rush, and Rhett looked to his left and right before he fished his phone out of his pocket.

     It appeared to be written in a different language, and when he punched the words into Google translate, he came up with "help me." His eyes widened and he frantically backed out of Google translate. He held his phone up to his chin with a shaky hand as he eyed the words. They jumped out at him as if to tell him that Link had written them, but how could he have? Rhett wasn't aware that Link knew any other languages, and Rhett was fairly certain that it wasn't Spanish or French, the more commonly taught languages. Based off of a hunch, he lowered his phone and opened Google once more.

     Upon typing Link's last name, he discovered that he derived from English, Scottish and Irish; making him Gaelic. He'd written 'help me' in Gaelic on the back of his car window, even though Rhett didn't understand how Link could have known to write such a thing in Gaelic since he never knew Link to know the language. The shivers that forked through his spine and radiated across his shoulders was enough to cripple him, and he had to lean against the car for a moment to steady himself. Was picking up a language related to your heritage a side effect of this 'gift?'  

     He hopped in the car and sped off in search of his friend, keeping a sharp eye out for his dented car. After he checked Terra's to make sure that Link hadn't stopped there again, he took to checking as many parking lots and alleyways that he could think of in the vicinity of Burbank. His last idea was to check the trail where he normally went mountain biking with his other friends, something Rhett wished he could do with Link but couldn't take the brunt of the bumpy ride with his bad back.

     Fortunately the spot wasn't too far from Link's house, and if it was there that Link had been, it would be at least somewhat reassuring that he didn't venture too far away from home without being aware. Because Rhett had assumed that Link was completely unaware that he was doing this, just like he had been when he went to Terra's. 

     He sped toward Link's house without paying too much attention to his surroundings other than the road in front of him when something large bolted out from the side of the road in front of the car. Rhett slammed on the breaks and it jolted the car to a stop. His tires had squealed and he winced. His chest hit the steering wheel and he gasped, all of the air forced out of his lungs. After a few seconds, he raised his head and caught the tail end of the large thing as it disappeared down the street. "What the hell was that?"

     Rhett pressed the gas pedal to the ground and spun the wheel to turn down the road in pursuit of the animal he'd almost hit.