Broadwire

5: Going Back

"He's waking up!" Cayden called from above me. I was laying on their couch with their very confused child standing beside her dad. Jasmine ran over and looked at me.

"Could you maybe not do that again?" she asked with a slight laugh in her voice. Brie ran over too, this time wearing an apron, presumably she was cooking.

"Come on Brie, giving into sexist standards that the woman has to cook?" I asked, making my first words a joke. I sat up and remembered why I passed out in the first place. It wasn't that they were dead and I hadn't talked to them which made me black out. It was that I knew that my mom didn't go crazy. It was whatever had killed those two cops and taken Dakota.

"Sorry, you can eat it though, it smells good," Brie said, returning the joke, but she was right, it did smell good. I got up and then I realized I had a second problem. I still had nowhere to sleep tonight. And it was like Cayden could read my mind.

"Hey, do you need a place to stay tonight, because if so, you got one," Cayden said, implying that I could stay there tonight.

"You really mean that, because If I'll be a problem, I can get a motel or something," I answered, not really wanting to get a motel or something.

"Yea, it's no problem, you can stay as long as you need," Brie said, and I was happy. I thanked them both and even their little girl whose name was Carli. She was nine, and about to go into the fourth grade.

"Where are you going to sleep tonight?" I asked Jasmine while we were eating.

"My family's, they know I'm in town and it would kill them if I didn't stay there," she said not using the best choice of words and not even realizing it.

"Oh, you want to meet up at the coffee shop again?" I asked, then remembered I didn't have a car.

"Well, how about I just come get you so you don't have to Uber there," she said, laughing afterwards. I checked my phone and saw it was already nine thirty. Jasmine said bye then I went to the couch and laid down after saying goodnight to Cayden and Brie. Then the nightmares started.

I hear rustling for awhile then it stops with a scream and a gunshot. Then all I see is a hand that was straight out of a horror film shoot out from behind me. I wake up drenched in sweat. I grab my phone and look at the time, it's eight thirty. I get up and walk to their kitchen, where Brie's already standing.

"I know Jasmine's about to be here, but next time you come to town, make it more frequent, we haven't seen you in so long and don't want it to be that way again," she said to me. She was still at least half a foot shorter than me, just like in school.

"I'll try, this town just brings back memories, you know what of," I said to her and she nodded, remembering Dakota and the cops.

"Cayden gonna be awake anytime soon?" I asked, wanting to say goodbye.

"If I'm being honest, probably not," she said laughing. Then the doorbell rang and Jasmine was there to pick me up. I said my goodbyes and then it was over.

"Did you have a weird dream last night?" we both asked each other simultaneously.

"I assume you did too then," I said, laughing nervously.

"Yea, mine was back to the night of the disappearance, what about your's?" she asked, not matching my dream. I explained mine to her and she thought for a while.
"What do you think it means?" she asked me, wonder in her voice. But she sounded different, just a little odd, but I couldn't figure it out.

"I don't know, maybe nothing if I'm being honest, It could just be stress from everything going on lately," I said, not quite believing that explanation myself. Then it was quiet. We didn't speak for another hour. Then we were there. Deep in the woods. The first time I had been there since Dakota had went missing.