I fish for my keys in the baggy pockets of my sweatpants, the damn thing always seeming too big and too deep to be a pocket. It was late in the afternoon, the sun having nearly disappeared behind the oasis of apartment complexes and high-rise buildings that made the skyline, the muted yellow of the midday fading into a mulled purple, and then into a loud, dark blue that was sprinkled with a few white dots.
Yeesh, I wished I didn't have to work so late today. If I didn't, maybe I could've gone up to the roof of this place and watched the sunset. Could've even invited Ravahan, if he wasn't too busy with schoolwork.
But today has thoroughly exhausted me. Shitty customers combined with the fact that the only other employee I was on shift with was Joseph, who had a track record of being both antisocial and a massive dickead, made for a rather tiring workday.
Jackass couldn't even be bothered to help me close down the damn place, just left with a 'bye' and went out the back door!
The amount of times I considered just throwing off the damn visor and storming out of that cramped-ass store while I was cleaning it up was uncountable, but I managed persevere.
Besides, I have a brother who needs me, and right now, what we both need is some dinner. I eye the grocery bag in my free hand, filled to the brim with all the ingredients necessary to make some palov for dinner tonight. I'm pretty sure that we still had some manty in the fridge, too.
The thought makes my mouth water, and I quickly pull the keys from my pocket and insert the one for the apartment into the keyhole. The door opens with a turn and a click, and I step inside with one swift motion, shutting the door behind me.
"Rav! I'm home!" I shout, hanging up my coat and throwing my visor off to the side, half-hazardously aiming for the couch. It misses, and I let out a groan before heading to the kitchen to place the groceries onto the wooden counters.
I wait to hear the pitter-patter of socked feet against the wooden flooring while I take the groceries out of the bag, followed by the tired voice of my brother, greeting me with a smile before beginning a long-winded rant about his school day.
But after a second or two, I hear nothing. Another second passes. Still, nothing. Curious, I raise my head from the bag of groceries I'd been unloading and tilt my head to peer down the hall. The bedroom door is wide open, and the room itself looks like an abyss. Eerily empty.
"Huh…" I say absently, squinting my eyes as if it'd help me see through the darkness. Okay, that's weird. He doesn't usually fall asleep with the bedside lamp off. A pit of anxiety plants itself in my gut, but I ignore it. Just some overthinking.
I stop taking out the groceries.
"Rav?" I call out, a little louder this time, in case he really was sleeping. No response.
My brows furrow together, and soon enough I'm rounding the island, tucking a loose strand of hair out of my face as I walk down the hall.
I think that maybe, probably, that Rav has already fallen asleep. After all, it was already nearing 8… he had school tomorrow. The guilt of having gotten home so late was already eating at me, but the fact that my little brother had to go to sleep hungry, too? I grimace, gonna have to make an extra large breakfast to make it up to him.
I push open the door, the thing swinging open with a creak so loud I flinch. Okay, mental note number two; pick up some WD-40.
The room is, of course, dark, and so I flick the lights on. The place looks relatively similar to what we left it like that morning, loose clothes littered here and there, piles of documents stacked next to my bed, my brother's comics stacked up the edge of his. My eyes follow a trail around the room, going from the desk in the corner, to my bed, and then to Ravahan's and—
Ravahan is not there.
Shit.
"Shit!" I hear myself shout, and I dash over to the bed. It's empty. The sheets have been moved, but there's no sign of my brother ever being there besides when he woke up that morning. I place a hand on the empty spot on the bed, and I can feel my stomach drop at the coolness of it.
My thoughts are racing a million miles a minutes, a slideshow of scenarios playing out in my head where he's been kidnapped, or he's ran away from home, or where he got lost and—
My chest feels like it's being constricted now, it's as if my whole world has fallen apart, and it has. Ravahan is all I have left, if I lose him…
I can feel myself grow dizzy with panic. The edges of my vision are going dark, and for a second, my body feels as if it's going to collapse. My heartbeat has gotten so loud at this point that I'm sure it's beating outside my chest.
My brother isn't home, and he hasn't been home in a while. Where is he? Where did he go? Where could he have gone? It's too late for any of his friends to be out, so why would he—?
I jump at the sound of the light breaking, and I hear the gentle thud of glass landing on the carpet. The room is dark again, illuminated only by the slivers of pale moonlight sneaking in through the blinds. Suddenly, I can hear the TV again, and it just barely manages to clear my mind of the loud ringing in my ears.
My breathing feels shallow, the air I'm getting isn't enough, and my lungs feel like they're on fire. Fuck, okay, I need to calm down. I'll never find Ravahan if I can't cool my nerves. I manage to, over the course of a minute, calm myself as quickly as I can, focusing on my breathing.
By the time I feel somewhat grounded, I'm still panicking, why wouldn't I be? But, my breathing is even, the breaths I take in deeper, and the sudden weightlessness I felt is gone, replaced with the need to move.
My brother is still missing, and I need to go find him.
—
The early spring air is crisp and cold, and when I step out of the warmth of my apartment, I utter a curse at the sudden temperature change. It's good that I brought my jacket with me. I've got a bottle of pepper spray in one pocket, and my wallet, phone and keys in the other.
The sun hadn't fully set yet, but the night was encroaching on the sky quicker and quicker. I have to find my brother, and fast. I practically fall down the rusted, metal stairs that lead up to my apartment, and the second I'm on the sidewalk, I'm speed walking like my life depends on it.
Ravahan didn't mention anything about hanging out with friends after school, or going to buy snacks, or anything like that. But just to be sure, I whip out my phone and start typing in the password, my fingers moving painfully slow as the cool air nips at them.
I click on the messenger app, and check out my notifications. I'm sure Ravahan hasn't sent me anything recently… besides a text message he sent to me nearly 5 hours ago!? I stare at the notification, eyes wide in shock, before tapping on it
It was sent to me an hour after he had left school. All it read was,
"heading to Jim's w/ a couple of friends!! I'll be back at 6 :)"
I let out a shaky breath, partly in disappointment, and largely in anger. Anger targeted at myself. How the hell had I not seen that? I could've sworn I had my notifications on while I was cleaning up the store, why didn't I check my phone sooner? It's been 5 hours since he sent that text message, he was supposed to be home 2 hours ago! But now… now…
I let out a frustrated cry, and nearly bash my phone against the concrete. Doing so wouldn't have solved anything, but it sounded damn nice right about now.
I guess there was some good to come out of that message, that being that his last location was at Jim's, some old diner that sported some rubber hose hotdog as its mascot.
The cold bites at my fingers, so I shove my hand and my phone back in my pocket, and change course to head on down to that stupid restaurant.
The journey there is filled with nothing but the whistling of the wind and the loud beating of my heart. It's been two hours… two hours since he was supposed to be home. And he could've been home, if I had just seen that message he'd sent me… gah, this damn phone!
When I make it to Jim's, the place is still open, the blinding fluorescent lights from inside making the place look like a beacon in the dark.
I can't really peer through the windows, I'm not exactly the tallest person, but I can see a few people mingling here and there.
The little bit of hope I have dies when I notice that Ravahan and his friends aren't here, just some teens, a couple on a date, and some old geezer in the corner, nose deep in a newspaper.
Honestly, I'm not surprised. Should've known better than to hope he'd still be in here 2 hours after the fact. Still, it was nice to believe.
I stare despondently at the place for a second. The hotdog mascot that sits in front of the entrance is smiling tauntingly at me, and I have to storm off before I smash its stupid face onto the concrete.
I've exhausted nearly all of my options. Ravahan's location isn't on, and at this point, I've lost my appetite, which has been replaced with the gnawing feeling of panic. I could ask the people inside, but the chances of any of them having stayed long enough to see a group of teenage boys pass through are slim to none.
There is one thing I can do, but… ugh, it's been so long since I've even tried anything with my psychic powers beyond lifting the groceries and floating over spills. I'm not even sure if this is something I can do, but Ravahan needs me.
I stalk away from the glaring lights of the restaurant, and take post on a wooden fence. Mind reading, something that all psychics could do, according to those comics my brother reads.
It's the basis for any ameateur, but I'm far beneath that of even a rookie rank. I don't even know what to do to read minds, so I have to improvise.
I close my eyes, and focus on sounding out everything else around me, the whispering of the air, the rustling of the overgrown grass, and the loud buzzing of fluorescent lights coming from Jim's.
It's hard, and at first, I feel stupid. It's so hard to concentrate, with my thoughts all running wild, and I consider giving up the second my eyes start to hurt from how hard I'm clenching them.
But then suddenly, a thousand voices flood my head, and I collapse to the concrete in agony. The second I activate my powers, it feels like I'm being assaulted with sharp pebbles. Each voice I hear pierces my head like a pin, and I clutch my head in mind-shattering pain.
"Fuuuck…" I whimper under my breath, tears spilling from my eyes. Their heat burns, and the stinging on my cheeks as the cold bites at the moisture feels all too intense.
For a moment, I just about black out, darkness approaches from the edge of my vision, nearly swallowing me whole, and my heart feels like it's about to give out due to fear alone.
Is this how I die? Found dead next to a Jim's in a puddle of my own tears? Without seeing my brother again, wondering forever if he's okay, or even alive? I nearly puke when a sudden wave of pain surges over, and I bash my head into the ground as if it'd stop it somehow.
But then, I hear it, his voice, echoing out amongst a sea of others.
"Shit, they've got knives. I've gotta be careful now, or else—" I hear him think, before his voice is drowned out amongst the waves of voices.
"Ravahan…" I groan. I've almost got him! I've just gotta get through this and I'll find him!
Traversing through each person's mind is like moving through molasses, which is damn near impossible. All I have to do is focus on his voice. On his tone, his wording, and his accent, and soon enough, I find him again, his voice just as panicked and as worried as it was before, and it makes my heart clench with fear.
Somehow, my brother is about a block away from Jim's, in some abandoned motel parking lot. Based on what I'm managing to pick up from around him, he's surrounded by two… no, three grown men. The first thought I hear him think when I manage to finally pull through to him are,
"I've just got to be faster, I've just got to be faster!"
And I can feel my stomach practically drop. I stand up so quickly, I almost fall over, and when I open my eyes again, my vision is blurry with tears.
The headache caused by the initial resurgence of my power still plagues me, but the voices have quieted down now, nearly to whispers, while my brother's voice remains somewhat clear.
I look around. The streets are still empty. I stumble some, when I try to walk, but regain my footing after a step or two, and then I'm off. My brother is in danger, moments away from getting stabbed, and that's what fuels me to push my body forward, despite how sore I feel, despite how deeply the cold bites into my muscles, trapping them in an icy vice that makes them feel like stone.
Ravahan's thoughts act as a sort of beacon, providing me his location, and how to get there. I traverse through decrepit alleys and old buildings on the way, and I think to myself, "Christ, just what the hell were he and his friends up to today? They never went this far out, unless they were going to spend the night at that Ryan kid's place".
But there wasn't much time to think about that now, because I can still hear my brother's thoughts, and they're getting closer, louder, more clear.
My legs feel like they're about to give out when I hear what sounds like men speaking, and the scratching of shoes against concrete. As much as it hurts, I pick up the pace, breathing ragged, and my chest hurts like I went through a panic attack all over again. I quickly turn off the mind reading ability, which is difficult given my exhaustion, but eventually, the voices fall silent, and I can only hear the ongoing tussle.
I don't stop running, not until I make it to the parking lot, and I'm met with a sight that brings me both instant relief and extreme worry. My brother is here, scuffed up some, but with no noticeable bleeding. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding, but my relief is short lived as I assess the situation.
He was surrounded by 3 men, all bigger than him, all wielding knives, circling him like sharks to a school, trying to get a nab at him. Panic floods my senses again, and as I notice one of them getting ready to pounce from behind, I scream.
"Ravahan!"
The man stops his advance, and his buddies do too, their shock at the sudden shout making them lower their weapons as they turn to look at me. This was my chance!
I look at my brother with panicked eyes, urging him to me, and it seems to snap him out of his stupor because the next second, he's pushing past them with confused gasps and running up to me with the most relieved smile I've ever seen.
I embrace my brother in the tightest hug I could give him, and he does the same. With a shaky voice, he thanks me, and I have to fight back the tears that threaten to flow when I feel his own wet my neck.
If I could, I'd embrace him like this for as long as he needed to calm himself down and fall asleep in my arms. But as the moment stands, that would have to wait.
The men have regained themselves, their angry looks redirected towards me and my brother, and they approach me with mocking smiles. The sight pisses me off.
"Who's this, little man? You got your lil' bro to come save your sorry ass?" One of them asks, clear mockery in his tone. I grimace at the taunt.
"Dav, I'm sorry—" he begins, but I quiet him with a shush.
"Don't worry, Ravahan." I comfort him, petting his head before moving him behind me. I can feel my head begin to hurt again, but I don't care. I'm angry, pissed off. At the world, at my stupid abilities, and especially at these low lives that were standing in front of me, acting as if they were hot shit.
"These bastards will pay."