The door opens, and Hope nearly jumps off the barstool in surprise. Erik left her hours ago, and it is now the middle of the night. Her delicate fingers shut her notebook, as she walks over to the entryway.
Hope pauses at the front door. Her Dad drops his briefcase in his arm when he sees her. His tie is screwed to the side, his normally manicured hair sticks up at all ends, and his eyes are bloodshot.
Quickly, Hope jumps into his arms. She buries her face into his soft suit. His cologne is strong, but she can still smell the sweat on him. Her father's hands wrap tightly around her, one clinging to her waist and the other wrapped in her hair.
"I'm sorry," he musters, gripping her tightly. "I came back to town as soon as the trial was over, when I heard the news. I have to leave again to help the police."
Hope pulls back to look at him. She studies his confused face. Despite her inquires (though rare) Hope knows very little about her Dad's job. However, she knows that he normally helps the police over the phone rather than waltzing into the police station.
"What happened?" her voice is higher than she had hoped it would be. If she had any doubt in her mind that she would play the cute, innocent girl in a romance novel, it has evaporated. Even the crazy events of the last 24 hours haven't changed her.
"You know I'm not at liberty to discuss, sweetheart," her Dad sighs, moving into the kitchen. He takes two glasses out of the cabinet, filling each with filtered water. He reaches in a drawer, pulling out Hope's medication. He pauses, frowning. "You didn't take it this morning."
"I forgot," she manages, guilt climbing up her throat. She waits for it to spill on the ground and for her Dad to notice the mess, but he continues to stare down.
"It's really important that you don't forget it," he tells her, passing her the "Just, make sure to take tonight's."
She nods, opening up the Wednesday evening slot. With the glass of water from her Dad, she plays with them in her hand. "I'm sorry. I'm just nervous."
Her Dad's face tightens. He leans across the island to kiss her on the forehead. "I know."
"Do I need to worry about you, tonight?" She asks, the guilt once again strangling her. Hope asks herself why she thought it was a good idea to ever sneak out in the first place. Worrying her Dad is the last thing she wants since he already has so much on his plate. However, she decides that having already dug this whole, the damage is done. What's a little deeper?
"No, love," he walks around to her side of the kitchen. With one hand placed lightly on her arm, he leans his head against hers. "There was an accident last night, in the park."
Hope pulls herself away, staring at him. Maybe she should have taken up acting instead of writing. "Was it Mom's bench?"
"No," he is quick to cut himself off. He pauses, finally looking at her. "They found a girl in there. Did you go to high school with a girl named Thea?"
~~~~~
Wesley is frustrated that since his mothers' truck stop is just outside of town, the power never went out. Which means that some of the morning staff from out of town came in and opened. Resultingly, he and his mothers are in as well.
In the employee bathroom, he wipes his face with water. A massive power outage that cuts out the phone lines and the batteries in cars isn't enough to keep the store shut, apparently. Wesley's face is weighed down by heavy bags under his eyes. He feels bad about it, but he wishes that he had been sick like Jamie the night before or concussed like Eden. Perhaps then, he would be at home in the comfort of his bed.
He hopes that he'll be able to sneak out tonight and grab a new skateboard. There goes more money from his savings.
When he leaves the bathroom, he spots three men in suits at the door. He forces his feet forward, skating to the door.
"Hey there, folks," Wesley hates imitating that stupid friendly mid-western speech, but he forces himself to in case one of his Moms is behind him. "What can I do for y'all today?"
"That booth," the man points behind him to one in the furthest corner of the restaurant.
When Wesley leans down to pick up the menus, he rolls his eyes. Rich men always think you owe them something.
He brings them over to the booth, dropping the menus down before the sit-down.
"Do you live in town?" One of He puts one of his grubby hands in his jacket's pocket, pulling out a tiny leather wallet. The man casually flips it open, revealing the ID badge to Wesley.
The boy nods slowly. Having grown up in foster care, he is rather familiar with the police. Way too familiar with the pigs to be intimidated. However, the FBI are out of depth even for him.
"Are you here about the power outage?" Wesley asks, casting a glance over his shoulder. With no other tables beckoning him, he feels trapped. Then again, he doubts these men would let him go even for some angry Karen.
The man grins. Wesley tries to swallow, but his throat has gone dry. The man reaches forward with a business card. "If you hear anything, give us a call."
Tentatively, Wesley reaches his hand forward.
~~~
"You've just got to ignore Arch," April rolls her eyes up at June. Normally, June doesn't expect her sister to take her side. Everything has changed in the last two years. "There's a reason that August was the emotional one. Archie has no tact."
June clips her carabiner higher, clipping it into a metal loop sticking out of the rock above her. During her summer job, June didn't have much chance to go rock-climbing. Her hands aren't as steady as they used to be. The calluses she had built up were gone, so she keeps having to reach down for more chalk.
"He's kind of hard to ignore," June calls down to April. "Are you going to climb up, or what?"
April shrugs her shoulders. June watches her sister inspect her nails. Growing up, people had always asked June if she wanted more sisters. Now, more than ever, June wishes she had fewer sisters and more brothers.
"I'm no stunt double," April notices, scanning her hands. "Hey, do you remember Thea?"
June pauses, trying to keep her cool. She spent enough time with actors to get away with lying, especially when her face is much higher off the ground. "Was she the girl that you kissed at that party? During that, what was it you called it, a phase?"
"You're such a jerk," April shouts back up. "And that was someone completely different, and I was drunk. And it was to impress a boy. That's not the point. Thea went to high school with us. She was my age. Ring any bells?"
"I barely remember the name of our high school," June jokes, trying to keep the conversation light.
"Well, she died," April scrunches her face up.
June finally pulls back from the wall, looking down at her. April's face is tight. Though Hamilton is small, all the kids from the county are bused into their high school and so Hamilton Collegiate Institute houses 1000 kids. It shouldn't surprise April that June never met Thea, which was true until last night.
"Did you know her well?" June asks, trying to get a read on her sister. Presently, her sister seems both freaked out and gossipy, which is all too normal. A couple of months after August died, after the initial shock had disappeared, June remembers April whispering to her in the middle of the night, asking if she had ever considered her own mortality. June imagines this moment is the same for her sister now.
"Her older sister came into the salon a lot," April shrugs. "Keisha. Her stylist told me that the FBI found Thea in a park."
"They called the FBI in?" June asks, beginning to climb down. She surmises that their "sister-time" is expired.
"Well, they were already in town for the power outages," April shrugs. "Apparently, they found her body suspended in a tree. Like, forty feet in the air or something. How crazy is that?"
June drops to the ground, her shoes raising a cloud of dust. Like April, she inspects her hands. Her skin isn't peeling, which is at least a good sign. Maybe June isn't as out of practice as she had assumed. Normally, they would be shredded by now.
"Craziest thing I've heard in a long time."
~~~
Erik is finally alone.
After helping Hope get home and then running to the station to meet his Dad and ensure the chaos has calmed down, Erik finally unlocks his house. He slams the door behind him and collapses on the couch. Damn, he wants to shower and wash the dirt and bloodstains off his clothes.
While he lies on his bed, Erik delicately touches his nose. It seems much more solid than before. None of the officers patted him on the back today for getting into another fight, so either he doesn't have black eyes, or they assume that the wounds are from his last fight.
Now, he can't stand the ceiling. It is white and uneven, and it's driving him up the wall, ironically. To make it all worse, his MP3 remains broken despite the power being fixed. Finally, he forces himself to lean over and grab his phone. He sends out a text to his group chat.
I'll be at the field in half an hour.
Erik quickly throws on track pants and changes into a plain green t-shirt. After grabbing his cleats and a soccer ball, he makes his way to his high school. On the way, he walks by the park, not pausing to look at the caution tape the police have put up.
A few of his friends have arrived at the school, as he walks on the field, he drops a ball and the group seamlessly begin a round of soccer. Wordlessly, they play for hours. Well, wordlessly is an exaggeration which Erik prefers to the truth. While he remains silent, the other boys pat each other on the back and congratulate one another whenever they score.
When the goalie leaves, Erik volunteers for the net. The more space he can put between him and the others, the better. Ball after ball comes flying after him, and he leaps for each save. First, he uses his arms or legs to catch the ball. After an hour of boredom, after a day of steaming in his bedroom while his father runs around playing good-cop for once, Erik can't take it anymore.
Next time the ball flies forward, he goes to save it face first. The ball collides with his cheek, sending him on to the ground. A rush of adrenaline reaches his head. Though a tiny voice in the back of his mind asks him to stop, Erik ignores it.
The ball flies again, and again, each time Erik jumping higher into the air so that there is more space for him to land. Though he is getting dizzy he doesn't mind.
As the sun begins to set, and the boys call the last play, Erik leaps in front of the ball, hoping it hits his face.
Stop.
~~~
"What are you doing here?" Percy asks from down the hallway.
Eden looks up from his door handle. Once the police had come and asked to speak to Keisha alone, he had finally left. Though he doesn't doubt that they will be along to find him later, he desperately craves the softness of his sheets pressed against him.
"I live here," Eden shrugs, looking her up and down.
Percy's shoulders tighten. She had nothing against Eden until she discovered that it was his loud apartment which upset her dog only yesterday. Oh man, it was only yesterday? Percy didn't know that time could crawl this slowly. Perhaps, she considers, whatever event happened yesterday actually slowed the movement of the planet. It would be impossible, but everything impossible seems to be happening.
Percy swallows her pride and steps towards Eden. "We need to go find somebody."
"What?" He asks, crossing his arms over his chest. Eden notices her hands shaking. "What happened?" He tries to make himself seem more confident than he is. However, if something is wrong right now, it must be terribly and horrifically wrong.
"That fucking guitar player and I were walking through the park," Percy hesitates, trying to find something to grip onto without letting Eden know she is struggling. God, she wonders if she has ever looked more pathetic in her life, in front of Eden no less.
Eden doesn't need to know the rest of her sentence to know the answer, but he desperately craves her to finish it. The police wanted to talk to Keisha, and Percy found something in the park, and the police wanted to talk to Keisha, and they found something, and Keisha and Thea are sisters, and the police wanted to tell Keisha something, and Eden knows something terrible has happened.
"We need to find Cara."
~~~
Though her fathers were not as upset that she took the car as she had assumed they might be, they've now sent Cara to walk down to it and bring it home. Finally reaching the street with her favourite café, Cara strolls up to the car. With the fob in her hand, she unlocks it.
"Excuse me!" A voice calls out across the street.
Cara glances over at the voice to see a middle-aged man in a police vest strutting across the road. He is leaving the park, having just ducked under the police tape. It strikes Thea how much he looks like Erik. His eyes are the same piercing blue, his jaw set as wide, and his skin as pale. The only difference being the man's dark brown hair, which is cropped tightly against his head.
"Sorry, ma'am, is this your car?" The man asks, approaching her.
Cara feels a sense of dread setting in her stomach. "Why?"
"When did you park it here?"
His abrupt response surprises her. Cara tries not to bite her lip or show any signs of being perturbed. "Last night. I'm not sure what time. I wanted to see if the café was open."
"Why did you leave it here?" The officer asks, placing his hand on his hips. Cara notices how dangerously close it sits to the gun.
"Am I in trouble, officer?" Cara knows better than to lie. After all, she is no actor, and this man is a police officer. What if the security cameras filmed everything in the park? She tries not to look over his shoulder at the scene behind her. Either the police know about the explosion, which is unlikely, or they've found Thea.
And if they are asking around, Thea must not be able to answer questions.
"I'm just asking you a few questions," the man says.
Cara opens her car door, moving inside. The officer places his hand in the door frame, preventing Cara from shutting it unless she wants to break his hand and get charged with assault and Yahweh knows what else.
"What's your name?" He asks.
Cara swallows. "Cara Nightly."
"We will be in touch soon, Cara," the man says, stepping away from her door.
Cara shuts it, fumbling with her keys.
~~~
Apparently, now is not the day to rest. Despite the ongoing power issue and her discovery of a fucking body, Lee's mother highly suggested that Lee hand out some resumes to other bars. Money is tight after all. Once the bars begin to open, Lee is forced to walk downtown and talk to the owners about up and coming acts.
The first one she walks in to is more her style than most others. Calling it a bar is more of an exaggeration; it is a pub. The walls smell of Murphy's oil, undoubtedly from constantly scrubbing the wood tables. There are booths along the wall, complete with cracking red leather seats from the weight of their patrons over the past, probably thirty years. The lights along the walls are cheap, but Lee can tell from her spot at the door that no expense was spared on the massive liquor collection behind the bar.
Lee begins to walk towards the man tending it. She could get used to this place. When the man turns around, she realizes it's Jamie. Not wanting to face anything that happened last night, she turns around and leaves.
"Hey," Jamie calls after her. He fumbles with the glass he was shining, and it falls to the ground. Bending over before his manager notices another mistake of his, Jamie picks up the pieces and drops them into the broken glass bin. One cuts his hand.
He grips his hand tightly, standing up. He moves over to the sink behind the bar, running his hand under it. The water turns a light pink from the blood. Jamie leans over to the paper towel dispenser, grabbing one and placing it over his hand. He peels it back to see how bad the cut is, adrenaline rushing through him.
There is no cut.
~~~~~
Hey! This is so exciting with the ball finally rolling. What plot is the most exciting for you right now? Overarching plots so far include the FBI and the healing thing, but trust me, there are going to be many more sprouting up.
Also, tell me if there is anyone your character wants to interact with specifically. I just finished plotting out the story, and if there is a specific character that you think yours might not talk to that you want to see, please let me know!
I'll see you soon! Also, happy birthday @astrovibess !