The Missing Boy

Chapter 3 - Blood Test

Axel was 13 and his only care in the world was beating the current level on his game. He thought it was just another car ride. That they were just going to his dad's lab because his mom had to go in for an extra shift. Axel had prepared himself to sit on his phone for hours while his dad worked. He could have never prepared himself for the day that came.

He started his journey in one car. Ended his journey in another.

•••••••••••

The sound of unmuted conversation wakes Axel from his dreamless sleep. Axel can hear more than two voices and knows immediately that there are others in the house. Strangers. But to Axel everyone is. He goes down the steps silently and is greeted by his parents and two police officers. Axel doesn't know what to think as he stares at the four adults but his mother quickly reassures him.

"Axel don't worry, we called to tell them about your arrival. They just want to take you to the station to ask you some questions."

"I don't want to answer any questions." Axel deadpans.

"Axel, you've been missing for 4 years. We had to call the police. We need answers." Axel stares at Richard as he pleads with him to talk.

"Fine." Axel goes back up to his room, pulls on his boots and stares at the packet of cigarettes in his hands before stuffing them deep into his pockets.

Axel sits in the back of the police car. He stares out the window and tries not to flinch whenever a car moves to the lane beside them.

The second they enter the police station the interrogation begins. Axel is bombarded with questions, some of which Axel doesn't even know the answers to, others Axel doesn't want to answer. Eventually they give up trying to coax information from the unresponsive Axel and instead get him to prove that he really is who he says he is; Axel Jacobson, son of scientist Richard Jacobson and nurse Grace Jacobson, the missing boy, abducted after a car crash, no sign of him for 4 years and has now suddenly returned. Axel is a mystery. And he plans on keeping it that way.

They come to the conclusion that a blood test needs to be done to validate everything. Axel is escorted by his parents to the hospital. His mother drives. At first Axel thinks it's because his dad never got over the crash but then he notices how Richard keeps squeezing his right knee and sees the silver of metal where his right ankle should be, his trousers and shoes failing to hide his prosthetic leg.

Axel watches the blood escape from his veins, filling the vial with the red liquid. Axel really needs a cigarette.

The doctor states that the results will be produced in a few days but Richard decides to take matters into his own hands and do a blood test of his own. Axel is confused at first, wonders why his father is so adamant to take a blood test, then realises that Richard needs the facts in order to entirely believe that this is all true. To really make sure that the boy on the front door step is his son.

Axel understandably goes with Richard to his lab and notices that now he takes a different route. There Richard pulls out his own syringe and slowly draws out the blood from Axel's veins for a second time. Axel really needs a cigarette.

Richard takes the vial, testing the blood immediately without the delay of other patients in the hospital. Grace squeezes Axel's hand. Grace was certain from the second she saw Axel's grey eyes that he is her son, it's a mother's instinct, one her husband seems to lack, but she knows her husband is a man of science. He doesn't believe in instincts. He believes in facts. Richard wants answers and he wants them quickly.

When the test results formulated in Richard's lab finally come in, it's what everyone expected. The boy from the front door step is Richard and Grace's son.

"We can finally be a proper family again." Grace says and Axel wants to believe his mother so badly but can't.

When they are ready to go back home, Axel stares at his mom's car but doesn't have it in him to take another ride. He tries to hide his discomfort but his parents notice how his hand freezes on the car door handle.

"I'll just walk home." He says and his parents smile with understanding before climbing into the car.

I should have gone in the fucking car. Axel thinks as he attempts to make his way home. His memories have become hazy and remembering which paths to take has become a troublesome task. But eventually he stubbles across his old middle school. And an abrupt wave of nostalgia hits him. He remembers his teachers, both good and bad; the classes that he hated and loved; his annoying classmates and Miles. The short boy with bronze curls and big glasses that always slipped off his nose. The boy with too much to say but no one to speak to. The boy who stalked him and spoke to him even though Axel was unresponsive and made a best friend out of him. Miles. Axel misses it, yearns for it. The simplicity of life especially at 13 years old. When your biggest worries were tiny in comparison with the real world.

Miles. Miles. Miles.

I really really really need a fucking cigarette.

Axel pulls one out of his pocket, a lighter in the other and takes a big long drag, holding the smoke in his lungs before blowing it out into the air, his stresses and worries carried by the breeze too.

He doesn't care about the looks he gets, not when he has a cigarette in his hands and the taste of nicotine lingering on his tongue. But there's something next to him that catches his attention. A poster pinned to a pole. Axel stares at the old, tattered missing poster. He stares at the picture of his younger self. This time it isn't nostalgia that hits him, it's this overwhelming sense of loss. Not like losing a limb like his father, but losing a less physical part of yourself. Axel lost the life he was supposed to have. The process of it. The promise of it. Axel lost his life. And while looking at that 13 year old boy on the poster, Axel cries.