Catching the Storm

2. A Name. Jackson Storm

"Have you been up all night?" She asked me.

I picked up my phone from beside me to look at the time. "I guess so," I replied as I put my phone back down.

Julie eyed the empty coffee pot and the cup in my hands. "How many of those have you had?"

I shook my head. "I wasn't keeping track."

Julie just gave me a look and took a seat on the bed next to me, looking over at my computer screen.

"Well you've made no progress," She said.

I glared at her.

"What?" She questioned as she started clicking through the various websites and searches I had up. "I take it Marrek has yet to call you back."

I nodded. "If it was anyone other than Marrek I think I'd be a little worried, but instead I'm just frustrated I haven't got a call from him yet."

"Yeah well," Julie started as she continued to click through screens. "I wouldn't know. You never told me exactly who Marrek is to you and what he does."

I knew she was expecting me to chime in. To tell her all about him, but I wasn't going to. Best friend or not, I made a promise to Marrek and I never broke a promise.

She seemed to understand that I wasn't going to say anything more about him and didn't press the matter any further.

We sat in silence for a long while as we continued to pour over the photos and documents I had printed out and searched through the internet for anything that could potentially lead to Thomas Gavin.

Problem was, I was certain Thomas Gavin was not actually his name. Which meant we were looking for a ghost. I didn't know his real name and I had no idea what he really looked like. It wasn't even like looking for a needle in a haystack, it was like looking for a particular piece of hay in a haystack. It wasn't going to happen.

The more time that passed, the more I was losing hope and the angrier I was becoming. I was practically convinced when Marrek did finally call that he'd be giving me nothing but bad news.

"Your parents don't think it's weird you've been spending all your time up in your room?" Julie asked me as she shuffled through a stack of papers.

I shook my head. "With everything going on in the media right now, they think I need time to myself to cope. Besides, my dad had a business meeting to go to and my mom was supposed to go see about some new role in a new TV show. Neither one of them are home."

Immediately after I said there was a crash from downstairs.

Julie jumped and dropped the papers she'd been holding. I jumped up and moved to the doorway of my room, holding up my hand to Julie to stay where she was.

I had barely cracked open the door to peek into the hall when the door was thrown open into me and I landed on my back on the floor with a large furry dog on top of me.

"Oh my God," Julie said and her eyes got wide as she stared at the dog.

I, however, was trying to fend off his slobbery licks as he licked my face.

"Hunter!" A booming voice shouted. The dog immediately got off me and sat in front of me, head tilted to the side and his tongue hanging out of his mouth, tail wagging furiously.

Julie was still staring wide-eyed at the dog and I knew why, because this dog looked a lot more like a wolf than a dog.

I reached my hand out and started to scratch him behind his ears. "I thought you were going to call," I said as I turned to the man leaning in my doorway, looking down at me and his dog, arms crossed over his chest, and his expression unreadable.