Cutie ⇔ Muke ✓

[24] Oh, grow a pair

( dedication to @hisguitar bc i promised them i would update but then i couldn't sorry x enjoy the chapter love )

Warning: mentions sensitive words/topics that may be triggering to particular readers. Not many, but just a heads up.

LUKE

Life has thrown enough battles for me to realize that I shouldn't hope for miracles. It has tortured me enough for me to know that things don't always go my way, like the ocean washes up dead fish and cracked shells after a storm. I had accepted that and grew to fit its uneven form without question, without complaint. I never bothered to ask for any special treatment. Given I don't deserve one, but still. I've stayed away from all the coins in the fountains and identical numbers on the clocks.

However, I can't help but find myself sitting in the passenger seat of my mother's car, my teeth biting down on my bottom lip and fiddling with the sharp piercing there, my eyes squeezed shut as I fight the thoughts in my head. I can't help but to hope that Michael isn't hurt. I can't help but wish on the invisible stars in the sky that he's okay. Silent prayers swarm around in my mind that he's unharmed, his perfect cream colored ears sitting upright on his head.

And to be honest, it makes me feel really fucking weak. The whole aspect of wishing for something you have no control over. I'm not used to it, and it makes my chest hurt. It makes me want to throw myself out of the car and lay in the middle of the street until my blood goes cold.

My mum claims we're almost there, and we all politely ignore the uneasiness in her voice. I remain stoic in the passenger seat, my hands clasped together, knuckles white. Ashton drums on his leather seat, the beats slightly uneven from nerves. Calum stays completely still in the seat behind me, confusion radiating off him. None of us bother to explain everything that has happened, and Calum doesn't bother to ask.

The car is silent, other than Ashton's irritating drumming and the tires scraping against the asphalt. I feel like I'm drowning in it.

"Uh," Calum says, piping up his voice from the backseat. We all turn to look at him. "Do you think we lost our jobs?"

I stare at him.

"Because I kind of needed the money, and I was sort of getting the hang of being a waiter, you know?"

I turn back around. The car falls back into silence. I don't feel the need to answer him, given that the answer is clearly obvious.

We start to notice a few trucks around where we are driving, either passing us on the road or parked on the side. I glance at them nervously. They remind me of the cars that followed us near Ashton's house, and the ones that they forced Michael into. Perhaps they are the same ones.

"We should almost be there." My mum says half-heartedly, her eyes nervously raking the road in front of us. "It's supposed to be right up here, at this turn."

"Do you really trust that bartender or whoever?" I mumble.

"It's better than nothing, Luke." she says softly. Her hands clench tighter over the steering wheel as we near the turn that supposedly takes us to the facility. In a hot, white flash moment, I suddenly wish that isn't there. That is stays hidden far back away from wherever it is supposed to be. I don't want to see it. I don't want to see what kind of place Michael has been trapped in for the past couple of months. I don't want to see it.

Then the car turns to the right and my muscles clench in fright, stilling my body into a rock statue as the new scenery rolls into view. My breath stills in my lungs as I look up, my eyes widening at the low, grey, horrible building in front of me.

It's easy to tell that it isn't meant to be found, due to the trees cowering around the facility, carving menacing shadows across the metal structure. My throat closes up, and Ashton stops drumming as our car rolls closer to the building.