threads

6 | the painting

It was a miracle Cassie slept at all. When she woke up, the fear only crept back in. But what could she do? It's not like the police would believe a fantom airplane complaint, her parents were gone, and she had no one else to talk to. She was alone in the world.

She forced herself to go to school just to be surrounded by faces, the familiarity that she had always found comforting. Then, she went to work. Her coworkers told her she looked like shit, and there was nothing she could do but agree with them.

When she finally made it home that night, she sunk down on her couch, utterly exhausted.

Her eyes fell to the painting, and she picked it up, examining it more carefully than she had before. She found that she wasn't good at slowing things down, always in a frenzy to keep moving, but she forced her brain to slow its pace if only for these few seconds. As many seconds as she could possibly get.

Despite the panic that was setting in, she needed to focus.

She scanned the painting several times until it popped out at her. There was a rectangle set in the middle of the paint, slightly raised, and she couldn't believe she hadn't noticed it before. Cassie pried it up with nothing but her fingernails and desperation alone.

As it went, the paint was caked on the front of the card, but the back appeared to be a postcard. Grand Canyon National Park, it said. Place Stamp Here. Written on it was a set of coordinates which she quickly punched into google.

She was grateful for the internet because she was lousy with coordinates and maps, but when the results propped up she promptly stopped dead in her tracks and dropped her phone. A map wouldn't have helped her figure that out because...

She knew who she had to talk to now. She needed answers to so many questions that didn't add up, and if anyone was going to know, it was going to be him. 

She grabbed her keys and made a mad dash out to the street. Cassie didn't pause long enough to hear the airplane this time.