Second Chance

Sixteen: A Phone Call

Sixteen: A Phone Call

Jared rushed through the hospital corridors, bits of his earlier phone call with Ciara’s mom ran through his mind.

“This is Emily, Ciara’s mom. Sorry for calling. I’m just a bit worried. It’s quite late, and Ciara still hasn’t called. Is she with you?”

Jared swore in his mind. It was absolutely careless of him to let a powerless girl walk home alone. He couldn’t help it. He wasn’t thinking at the time. He frantically dialed her number and went straight to voicemail just like the last six times he tried it.

Cold wind hit his face. The chilly wind lashed at his face as he made his way downtown. He closed his eyes, trying to think of the roads she could have taken. His phone vibrated once again, and he fished it out of his pocket, grumbling. His eyes grew wide, and he almost dropped the phone when he saw the name flashing across his screen.

“Ciara!”

There was a pause on the other side of the call, and a female voice that certainly did not belong to Ciara answered him back.

“This is J-Jared, right?”

He paused, unsure what to make of this. Could it be possible that Ciara was off to a friend’s house? It still didn’t seem likely that she didn’t tell anyone though. “Yeah, who are you?”

“Mona, Ciara’s co-worker.”

So many questions bubbled in his mind. He settled for the easiest one. “Why do you have her phone?”

“That’s the thing,” the girl said. “I found her bag on the floor just a few feet away from my house. Curiosity got me, and I c-checked her phone.”

A bead of sweat rolled down the side of Jared’s face, and for a second, he found it hard to breathe. He banged his fist into the wall behind him. He would never forgive himself if something happened to Ciara. It was his fault. He left her there alone.

“And?”

Ragged breathing drifted to him. “There was… There was a picture on her phone, taken almost an hour ago.”

“What?”

“It was there the moment I flicked open her phone. In the picture, someone was following her.” Jared heard her suck in a sharp breath. “Another guy held a knife in his hand w-with blood on it.”

That was it. Jared had enough. Screw the rule that said you can’t report anyone missing unless that person has disappeared to nowhere for a certain amount of time. No, he couldn’t care less. He was going to go to the police this instant and shove that picture into their face. He would not let anyone hurt Ciara. Not ever.

“Mona, please meet me at the police station. I’m calling Emily.”

Breathe, Jared told himself.

He was normally a pretty patient guy, but faced with an imbecile as stupid as the man in front of him, it took every last ounce of patience to not just shove his fist into the man who called himself a policeman’s face. The middle aged and obese man frowned slightly as he took the phone from the brunette.

“Photoshop?” he asked, casually placing the phone onto the table. He then raised his smaller-than-a-watermelon-seed eyes to Jared. “I get prank calls from teenagers like you two a few times a week. I know when I’m dealing with -”

Jared grabbed the guy’s collar, and his jaw dropped. “I’m not a teenager, and I’m a hundred percent serious about this.”

“How dare you assault -”