"Back here."
The voice was unmistakably Joey's, but it was barely a croak.
Serenity's heart sped up even further, and she immediately dropped her shoes and bag and took off running down the hallway.
Had someone attacked him? Had they been robbed? But everything looked so normal!
When she finally stood in the doorway of the bathroom, she got a better idea of what was going on:
Joey was slumped in front of the toilet, his head rested on an arm he had slung over the bowl. Though Serenity's mind immediately went to drinking or food poisoning, she began to realize that whatever was happening was much more serious. Her brother's hair and shirt were soaked with sweat, and his face looked about the same color as the porcelain beneath him.
"Joey, what's the matter?!" Serenity exclaimed, not bothering to hide the alarm in her voice.
She started to bend down beside him, but he gestured her away.
"Stay back sis - whatever this is, you don't want it."
He cleared his throat, and the sound was raspy.
"And yeah… I don't know. I was about an hour away from leaving the worksite when I got super, super sick. One of the guys agreed to drive me home so I wouldn't have to stop and puke at stoplights. It's been going on for hours."
"Why didn't - "
Serenity had been about to say 'why didn't you text me,' but before the words could all come out, she realized with a pang of guilt that he had - multiple times.
"Never mind," she sighed. "Maybe you got the flu or something. You need to drink some fluids."
"I tried," Joey said. "Nothing stays down long enough to do any good."
Serenity paused and ran her fingers through her hair. She felt a terrible combination of anxiety for her brother and guilt brought on by her own actions - or lack thereof.
There she had been, languishing in self-pity and playing the starring role in her own self-made soap opera, all while her brother literally languished on the floor of their shared bathroom, throwing up his guts.
Nothing to do now but try to atone for her mistakes by regaining some control over the situation.
"You can't spend the night on the floor, you need to get to bed," she announced.
"But - "
"No buts. I'll bring you one of those big metal mixing bowls like Mom used to."
Joey started to protest again, but he finally nodded feebly. Ignoring his earlier attempts to keep her at a distance, Serenity crouched down beside him and hoisted his arm over her shoulders to help him stand up.
As they slowly rose up from the floor, Serenity was immediately overcome with shock at just how hot he felt.
There was no way this was just the flu. Something was very wrong.
Even so - she paused to plant her feet, her knees buckling under her brother's limp weight - there was no reason to get Joey all worried. That would only make the situation worse.
The most important thing was to get him to bed.
One step at a time.
"Oof, is this place spinning or is it just me?" Joey mumbled.
"Shh, you don't need to talk."
Though progress was slow, a few minutes later, Joey was settled beneath his own covers with a cool rag on his forehead, a big metal mixing bowl set beside him on the double bed.
"We need to take your temperature," Serenity said.
"Aw no, sis, just let me sleep it off for a while."
"I'm serious. I don't like how hot you feel. I need a temperature so I can start googling and figure out if I should be worried or not."
"Just don't worry," Joey insisted. "I'm gonna be fine. When have I ever been that sick before? It'll pass by tomorrow."
Knowing better than to stand around and attempt to argue with him, Serenity turned and walked back to the bathroom to dig around in the medicine cabinet for their thermometer. It didn't seem like he would have the strength to fight her if she were to come back in and shove it in his mouth by force.
The task ended up being more challenging than she had initially anticipated, mainly because the thermometer seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Lost items weren't an usual occurrence around their house - if either of their parents had had an organization gene, it hadn't been passed on to her or Joey - but that didn't make it any less of a pain. By the time she had moved all the medicine bottles off the shelves one by one - without any success - she began to wonder if it might possibly be in her own room, maybe buried on her dresser somewhere.
As Serenity stepped out in the hallway, she was relieved to hear a snore come from Joey's room.
Well, whatever was wrong, rest probably wouldn't hurt. If he was sleeping he wasn't barfing.
However, her moment of peace was short-lived, because the moment she stepped into her bedroom to continue her search, a pair of headlights on the street below her window caught her eye.
She glanced over at the clock:
12:47 AM.
Weekend or not, they didn't exactly live in a "happening" part of town - hardly anyone in their building came or went after midnight.
All the same, Serenity quickly reminded herself that a strange car - even at midnight - didn't necessarily mean it anything was amiss. It could be that one of her neighbors had caught a late flight home from somewhere.
However, for some reason - perhaps her adrenaline was running high from worrying about Joey or she was just rattled by the weirdness of the night in general - Serenity couldn't help but feel uneasy, and she paused and stood in front of the window for a moment.
As the headlights turned off and the glare subsided, Serenity squinted and looked closer to see if she could see any police or fire station logos on the side of the car.
A moment or two of scrutiny reassured her that neither of those were visible, but her stomach still plummeted at the sight of another very familiar logo:
A silver three-pointed star on the hood of a black Mercedes.
