March 4th 2020
Chapter 64
Their Fear For the Sound
It was 2:57 in the morning. Lucas had barely managed to register this as he got his hand on the phone ringing on his nightstand. The caller ID said it was Asher calling him, in the middle of the night… No matter who it would have been, the hour would have injected some amount of apprehension in him, but then he'd seen his friend's name, and his sleepy brain had one immediate hypothesis… He didn't want it to be correct.
"Ash?" he mumbled, willing himself to sit up even as Maya started to stir at his side. "What's going on?"
"So sorry to do this to you guys right now, I know… I know it's late, but you gotta get up here, okay? If you can, you gotta…" Asher's voice sounded so strange, just… collected but also distant, distressed.
"What happened?" Lucas asked, reaching to wake Maya all the way.
"Who's that?" she spoke, still half asleep.
"We don't know… We barely know… They didn't tell her much, except…" Asher paused, and Lucas could just hear the background noise, telling him that his friend was in a car. They didn't tell her much. Her…
"It's Sophie, isn't it?" Lucas asked, his dread rising, and now Maya's as well, as she sat next to him, staring at him with those eyes wide awake all of a sudden.
"It's bad, Lucas. All we got out of Chiara is that she was involved in an incident on the job, and she's being rushed off to surgery. She's a mess right now, we can barely get any English out of her, and we can't keep up with her Italian right now."
"We'll get there as soon as we can, what hospital?"
Maya was out of bed and moving to action even as he was getting the information. Her head felt too small to contain the bursts in her brain as she thought about what they'd just been told. Sophie… Sophie was hurt, critical… in Houston… Their friend's bright face kept flashing through her mind, and she'd do her best to keep hold of that image when she was smiling. She wasn't about to give one inch to the other image trying to burrow its way in, the one where her wild imagination could come up with all kinds of injuries for her friend to suffer.
"Sam… Sam, wake up," Maya shook her brother's shoulder, standing over his sleeping form. There was the puppy sleeping at the foot of his bed, and little Archer woke now, yapping, even as Sam startled and opened his eyes.
"Maya? What…"
"We have to go to Houston. Are you okay to stay here with the dogs until morning?"
"I… Why are you…"
"Something happened to Sophie, we don't… we don't know much, just…"
"No, I get it, I-I'll be fine," Sam told her, his face a burst of shock. Maya doubted he'd be getting back to sleep for the rest of the night.
"You go to school, you call me, keep me updated, got it?"
"I promise. You, too, okay?" She was just on automatic, moving forward, not letting herself stop, and think too much, but in that moment she felt her shield weakening, her face trembling. Sam grasped her hand, gave it a squeeze, and she took a breath.
"Will do," she promised back, hugging her brother and kissing the side of his face, maybe more than she needed to, but right then it felt like the whole world had been tipped sideways, and someone she loved was in danger, so all she could do was hold to those others she loved so they might be reminded, just in case.
Back in their room, she found Lucas had already gotten dressed while she was out talking to Sam. As she went about doing the same, she listened in to his side of what she realized was a new call. He was talking to Dylan.
"Right. No, we'll come and get you guys. Yeah… Yeah… She's, uh…" he trailed off, and even with her back turned, as she yanked on the same shirt she'd worn earlier that day, Maya knew he was talking about her. The question had probably been 'how's Maya handling it?' She'd just paused and realized she'd gotten her shirt on backwards and inside out, and she'd let out a grunt that suggested she could have ripped the damned thing off, so Lucas could have painted quite the picture in response to Dylan's question. He decided instead to go with: "No better than the rest of us." Maya let out a breath. "Okay, be there soon."
When he hung up, she turned around, shirt still inside out, and moved toward him. His arms were open and ready to receive her and she folded herself right in to be held even as she held him. Neither of them said a word, or did anything except to hold the other, for a few seconds, and then they had to go. Maya finished getting dressed, Lucas checked in on Sam, and then they were out the door and climbing into the minivan on their way to pick up their friends.
The first few minutes went by in silence. Lucas was focused on the road, and Maya was looking out the window, trying to make herself focus on something, anything that would prevent her from thinking about Sophie and the possibility that she might lose her. The other thing she kept thinking about was a short-lived debate in her head. Finally she'd just shaken her head and grabbed her phone, putting in a call. It was coming on three thirty in the morning, and if it hadn't been a pleasant wake-up call for Lucas and her, it wouldn't be any better for her parents either.
"What's wrong?" her father answered, and Maya let out a breath. Of course he'd know.
"Lucas and I are on our way to pick up the others to go to Houston," she told him, finding she was gripping her phone a bit tight, as though it would permit her to feel like her father was here, holding her. "It's Sophie, she's… I-I don't know what happened, but she's hurt bad…" She could hear her mother's voice in the background and, after Shawn repeated what he'd just been told, the phone must have been passed on, because Katy's voice came on the line.
"Maya…"
"We left Sam back home with the dogs, can one of you just go and check on him, maybe stay with him until he goes to school?" she cut in. Her mother only had to say her name and she'd felt like she might cry… She couldn't do that, not now.
"Absolutely, yeah. We'll figure something out, don't worry about it, alright?"
"Yeah… Yeah, thanks, Mom," Maya ran a hand through her hair, feeling that hand shake as it raked through. She squeezed it shut in her lap, trying to will it to grow still again.
"Has her mother been told?" Katy asked.
"Uh… I-I don't know, I guess so. She's… Oh, she's not even in the country right now, she'll have to fly back… I'll write when I know more, okay?"
"Please do. I love you, baby girl."
"Love you, too, Mom," Maya nodded to herself before hanging up. As soon as she'd done so, she'd just felt so stifled… She opened the window to let air in. The roads were almost empty, enough so that Lucas allowed himself to reach over and touch her hand for a moment. "I'm…" she started to say, only to come to the realization that this was really not one of those times where she could just say 'I'm fine' when she wasn't fine. "I'm scared…" she admitted instead.
"Me, too," he replied, and if nothing else, it kept them both going as they made their way to the apartment.
When Lucas had spoken to Dylan, he'd learned that Asher had called him already, and that he'd seen to calling Zay. He and Nadine would already be waiting with him and Riley and Rosa, so they could all get into the minivan and leave for Houston as soon as possible. There they all stood, as they approached. Five figures huddled together on the sidewalk, the sun still waiting to rise. As they pulled up to the curb, Zay was up front to open the door, and then they were all climbing in, each with a face full of fear and confusion. As soon as they were all settled in, Lucas pulled them back on to the road and they were off. He wasn't looking to go over the speed limit, but he would be keeping as close to that limit as possible, to get them to where they had to be.
It was the most quiet ride they'd ever had on that long road from Austin to Houston. It was silent, save for the ambient car sounds, nearly the whole way. They were all too lost in their own heads. Everyone was on edge, their bodies feeling like they should have been exhausted, attempting to sleep, but never getting anywhere close to where they might have believed themselves able to fall asleep.
"Oh…" a voice emerged from the back, small, and it took Maya and Lucas a moment to find it had been Rosa.
"What is it?" Riley asked her.
"I-I tried to see if I could… if there was any mention of…" Rosa replied, holding up her phone.
"Did you find something?" Nadine asked.
"Nothing official, so I don't know if this is her…" Rosa explained, and oh how she had never sounded as small as she was. "But there's something on here about some people who… who heard gunshots, a-and sirens, and then something about a chase…"
The car fell silent once more, as they were left to imagine that this was exactly the situation having led to their friend's life being put in peril. It forced them to remember, once more, how Sophie existed in this part of the world where danger was just much more of a possibility. She never shied away from it though, did she? From the very beginning, she had plunged headlong into this career because it was what she felt she was made for, where she belonged. She'd told them once how she'd wanted this, ever since she was very little, since the cops had come up to her house to tell her mother about the accident that took her father's life. She had already done so much good in the short time she'd been out there, as an officer. This couldn't be the end, they refused to think that it might be.
Katy: Picked up Sam, brought him and the dogs back to the house. Any news?
Maya looked to the screen, feeling just the slightest sense of relief. It was small, but it was something. She'd just hated having to leave him like this, but it simply had made no sense to bring him, and they couldn't leave the dogs, the little one especially, and Max… Max, who was due to be picked up in a couple of days…
Maya: Nothing yet. We're nearly there.
Maya: Thanks, Mom.
After a moment, she went to her messages with her brother and wrote again.
Maya: Hey, Sammy, hope you're alright out there. I didn't want to leave you on your own.
Sam: I know. I'll be fine. Do you think you'll be coming back tomorrow? Your dad said I could stay as long as you're in Houston.
It was an odd sort of reality check, but it made sense. They knew nothing of what was happening with Sophie, and one look around the minivan made it plain to see no one here was looking to be anywhere but near their friends for… who knew how long. This long, sleepless night might be the beginning of several uneasy days.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
