Two years later
It was one thing for Bro to be gone for a long time and not contact Dave.
It was another thing for Bro to be gone for a long time and not have left a message saying he could be heading into danger on Dave's phone.
It was a third thing entirely for him to be mysteriously gone when there was absolutely no reason for it.
They weren't on a hunt. They weren't going anywhere. They were just resting up in a motel in a quiet town in Ohio. Nothing big, nothing busy, nothing interesting. There was literally no reason for him to be gone.
Especially not for four days.
Dave had now been here for six, four of them without Bro. The lady running the desk most of the time was starting to look at him weirdly every time he paid for another night, now that Bro was gone. He was- what, nineteen? Nineteen. For God's sake.
He had tried calling him. He had tried contacting him mentally- something which had recently cropped up in his bag of psychic tricks, which had grown even more in the last few years. Now, not only could he pick locks and talk to people, he could move large objects, start cars, shuffle cards, pickpocket people, disable alarms... The possibilities were endless.
Bro usually answered when he called him mentally, and if he didn't, Dave could tell that he just wasn't listening. But this was different. It was like he wasn't there.
Hours of sitting in the motel room waiting for something to happen finally tried Dave's patience to the limit, and he opened his computer up and tried tracking Bro's GPS.
To his utter befuddlement, the GPS was already on, and it was showing somewhere in the forest quite nearby. It wasn't moving around, however, which was even more confusing. Why...?
Dave stared at it, then copied the URL into his phone and saved the page so he could track it with his mobile. Now he could go find his brother.
The Camaro was still missing, so Dave had to walk to his destination. Good thing it wasn't far.
Bro hadn't even left word, he mused. Nothing. He had just vanished in the middle of the night, and was apparently taking a nap in the forest somewhere.
Or he could be dead.
But that was unlikely.
Dave crossed the treeline and felt the sun fade from his skin as the shadows took over. Being late afternoon, there were birds actively flitting about in the underbrush, fanning their feathers in the warm summer air. Dappled shadows covered the forest floor. Dave fought his way through honeysuckle underbrush and spat out spiderwebs, heading to the signal in the most direct route.
When he reached it, he found he could have simply followed the road up, taken a dirt roadway, and bypassed a locked gate to hit a dead end circle of pavement, because the Camaro was parked neatly under the trees. The phone was lying on the driver's seat.
Dave stared at it.
Okay. So... Bro had to be somewhere nearby, right?
He turned away from the car, but as he did, he noticed something glint. He peered closer, but couldn't see what it was behind the window tint.
Okay. Fine.
Dave placed his hand over the car lock and prepared to pick it... but the car was unlocked.
Even weirder. Bro liked this car too much to leave it in danger of being stolen. Dave yanked the door open and stared in, searching for the source of the glint. It turned out to be, frighteningly enough, the car keys, neatly set inside one of the cupholders just behind the gearshift. Dave stared at them for a second, attempting to form a reasonable coherent hypothesis.
Nothing came to mind. The only thing he could come up with was that Bro had deliberately abandoned his car in a place where he knew Dave would find it by tracking his phone. But... why...?
Dave picked up the keys and put them in his pocket, then closed the car door and turned around. The cheerful, placid forest hummed with life and the trees swayed gently in the breeze.
No sign of his brother.
There was a path leading from the circle, off into the trees. Dave went out on a limb and followed it.
It led to another clearing some distance away. This yielded absolutely nothing, because it was surrounded by trees and the ground was covered in leaves over soft dirt.
Dave stood in the middle and looked around. There- how- where-?
Nothing revealed itself. He paced in a circle, then left the clearing. The car was exactly where he had left it. There was no sign of the older Strider.
Bro was an accomplished hunter. He could fight anything. So... something must have abducted him, but he... knew it was coming? So he left Dave the car? To find him?
This was the only logical thing Dave could come up with at the moment, although he was nearly certain that in a few hours he would have a dozen more theories about where his brother was and why. He could speculate on them in due time. As for now, he might as well take the Camaro back to the motel and perhaps check out. He had no way of gaining money, and was swiftly running out- he had to get some somewhere. Maybe go find a tiny-town cafe somewhere he could cook or wait for for a while. He didn't need much, especially if he wasn't actively hunting. Weapons and ammo were expensive, but if he didn't use them, he didn't have to pay for them.
Dave took one last look around the area, glanced down the path, then opened the Camaro's door and slid in. He slammed it shut and popped the key into the ignition, pondering the meaning of the situation. If Bro got free- or- whatever, he could find Dave. Dave would leave word with several friends. Bro would find him.
He pulled the Camaro into reverse and backed up, cutting widely, then headed back down the path. He had to get out to open up the gate again, then close it after the car was through, and even relocked the pathetic padlock chain.
Bro would find him.
With a dead expression, he pushed the car into gear and swung out of the side road, back onto the main one, where he headed back for the motel in a cloud of noise and exhaust.
Bro would find him.