Terrible Friend

2

Jax was mumbling under his breath. It seemed he was either still suffering the effects from the necklace or he was just really pissed off.

The pain he suffered whenever Albert touched that thing set his brain on fire. He recognized the feeling, but couldn't for the life of him place it.

He poured through his memories, watching them play like old 8mm movies. Some recent, cases that he and Albert had been on, double speed rewinding through the bad parts. He saw the aftermath of the accident that took Albert's parents lives and left Albert as a young man struggling to figure out what he was supposed to do. He saw how loving and kind they were to Albert, even when they had no idea how to handle his behavior.

Then he saw Sarah and Daphne. The aftermath of the accident that he caused that took Daphne's life, and drove Sarah away from Albert forever. He sighed. His head hung a little lower. 

Nothing he was seeing was what he was looking for.

He dug a little deeper. Back to the time that he and Albert met and became a part of each other. He couldn't find any of it.

He knew it was some time ago, but he couldn't see it. Only blank space and red letters. Blank space for a long time. The next visible memory was Rose. His sweet, lovely Rose.

He grumbled again. He didn't have time to reminisce, even though he could easily stop and remember Rose for hours on end. He needed to back track and figure out where he knew this feeling from.

He knew it was bad, his gut and his head agreed to that. He wanted to keep Albert safe and the only way he could do that was remember why this necklace was so terrible.

He focused harder and ran further and further back in his memory. Then he tried a different approach. He would just have to find "her". The problem was, he couldn't see her either. Not her face, her location, nothing. He wasn't even sure he knew she was a she. The word "SHE" was the only thing that came to mind when he thought about the necklace and who it belonged to.

It was like someone had taken the scenes in the filmstrip of his memory and placed a sheet of white paper that said "She" over certain ones.

He bellowed and shrieked in frustration. The sound reverberated through Albert's head.

Albert nearly wrecked his truck when he heard the sound pierce his ear drums from the inside. He took his hands off the wheel and placed them over his ears. The truck veered toward the curb.

Albert grabbed the wheel and turned it to the left just in time to keep from driving into the light pole.

He steered to the left hard then back to the right slightly less and regained control. He pulled into the next drive way and turned the truck off.

"What the hell Jax! You nearly killed us!!!" Albert yelled. He wiped the sweat from his brow through his hair and back down over his face.  He wiped his hand on his pant leg and back over his face again. He sucked in a few breaths and swallowed hard. An attempt to remove his stomach from his throat. 

Jax didn't respond. 

Albert has a big heart and can forgive a lot. It is probably what led him to starting a finding lost things and private detective business.  He was never good at much, but he was better than good at finding and returning lost things . It started out simple enough, but after a while, people started hearing that he had found this thing for so and so and that thing for someone else, and the next thing he knew he was being paid by people to find missing people and stolen goods.

It landed him a lucrative career, but it also landed him in a lot of hot water. When things, like people go missing, it's usually not because they were living a great life or making the best decisions.  They were mixed up in some kind of mess  that was dangerous and could get them killed.  Albert, with Jax's help, could find them, but Albert ended up in a lot of situations that could have resulted in jail time or dead. Jax never cared. Once again, this time it was nearly dead and they hadn't even gotten their first lead yet.