Always Mine (An MCU Fanfiction)

30. Beyond Their Reach

I don't own this GIF. All credit goes to the original creator and owner. I pictured Maria Bello as Sheriff Andi Paulson, who questions the Kemps about Casey's disappearance and is an important ally.

3rd POV

The moment Brett and Gunner realized Casey was gone, they searched every corner of the house.

They checked her bedroom, the barn, the workshop, and every outbuilding on the ranch. When those came up empty, they expanded their search across the property itself, calling her name despite knowing it was unlikely she'd simply wandered off.

Casey wasn't reckless.

Living in a rural valley had taught her what areas to avoid during hunting season and when local ranchers were out practicing with their rifles. She knew the terrain better than most people who'd spent their entire lives there.

She also would never leave without telling them. The longer the search continued, the more that fact weighed on both of them.

Then Gunner remembered the black cat. 

The thought stopped him in his tracks. "Dad."

Brett turned. "What?"

"The cat."

Brett frowned. "What about it?"

Gunner hesitated. Something about the animal had bothered him ever since it vanished. "Did you ever actually see it eat?"

The question caught Brett off guard. "What?"

"The cat. Did you ever see it eat? Or hunt anything? Or sleep?"

Brett opened his mouth to answer. Then stopped. The more he thought about it, the stranger it seemed.

The cat had simply appeared one day. Casey had brought it home. It wandered wherever it pleased. Yet neither of them could remember a single ordinary thing about it. No food bowl. No dead mice. No favorite sleeping spot. Nothing.

Gunner shook his head. "I know it sounds stupid."

"No," Brett said quietly.

"It doesn't."

An uneasy silence settled between them. The cat was gone. Casey was gone. And neither disappearance made any sense.

Concerned, the Kemps headed to their nearest neighbor's ranch. They spent the next hour knocking on doors and asking around, showing a recent photograph of Casey and hoping someone had seen her.

Nobody had. The neighbors promised to keep watch and spread the word throughout the valley.

As they left one property, Gunner shook his head. "She wouldn't just take off like that, Dad."

Brett climbed into the driver's seat of the pickup and waited while Gunner secured his wheelchair. "I know, son."

His voice remained steady, but worry twisted in his stomach. After the deaths of Jack and Melissa Armstrong, Brett had made a promise. He and Gunner would look after Casey. They'd kept that promise through every challenge life had thrown at them. Even after S.H.I.E.L.D. had approached Casey, she had only agreed to work with the agency on one condition: that Brett and Gunner remain completely off the grid. She worried that any enemies she made might eventually trace their connection to her.

Family wasn't always blood. Sometimes it was a promise.

"But where the hell did Case go?" Gunner muttered.

Brett started the truck. "That, I'm not sure of." He shifted into gear. "But we'll find out." The determination in his voice left no room for argument. "We're not giving up until we do."