AN: Remember how I told you few chapters ago, how I procrastinated my university work? Yeah, well...it came back to bite me in my ass. Deadlines, deadlines everywhere. I was so swamped. Still am actually, but I got an free hour today and I use it to finally edit this chapter and post it.
Sorry about the wait. Hope you enjoy it :)
Stef POV
It turned out that neither one of us knew how to call the taxi thing so we ended up walking to Amy's man's place. It was a very long walk and very slow walk, because Amy's was limping, not walking. In about an hour, we finally reached our first destination.
"That's not how that thing works, Amy! I already told you," I tell her as I stand by the apartment doors, leaned at the wall. Amy was trying to see inside the apartment through the peep-hole on the doors.
She leaned away from the doors, looks to me and replies in a fast manner "Then what is that thing for, huh?" She taps one peep-hole "It's so people can see who is on the other side. To see if the person is home. Everyone knows that Stef, everyone!"
"It work the other way around Amy" I point it out
"Not how it's suppose to work" Amy mutters black in a mocking manner after a brief moment. I could see on her face that she doesn't like the fact that I am probably right about this one. I was about 85% sure that I was right.
"Mocking is not nice!" I lean off the wall and press my hand to my hip as I didn't like the way how she mocked me "You just don't like that you are wrong!"
"You always have to be right! It's Stef's way or no way!" Amy pouted back and banged one last time on the doors. But just like the last 10 times, there was no answer.
"Na-ha! Not true!" I reply and pull her with me so we can finally head to search for my woman. As she starts to walk, I bend down and pick up the canvas I have been carrying around ever since leaving her house.
"Yes, true! Stef's way is always the right way! Whenever I do something wrong you always tell me that I should have listened to you, that your way would have been the right way!" Amy stated as we started to walk back down the stairs
"Name one occurrence!" I challenge her as we walk down the stairs
"Just now! With the doors" She gestured back up the stairs "Not how it works. I told you so!" Amy impersonates me
"That doesn't count. Name another. And stop mocking me...I don't sound like that"
"Last week -when you said I shouldn't order the spicy sauce with the rice, when we ordered Chinese! It was so spicy my mouth burned. You told me – told you it would be to spicy– many times that day!"
Well, she proved the point. I hate to admit, but she might be right. It was a blow to my self-esteem. I had nothing else to mutter back to her than "Shut up"
"Sucks to be told your wrong, doesn't it" Amy poked the wound even deeper, enjoying her small victory
When we walk out to the street I need a moment to orient in the city. I haven't been to this part of the city too often.
"Which way now?" Amy asks me as I spin around my axle, looking around the street we were on
"No idea" I mutter back as I scratch my head
"Let's go there!" Amy points down the street and without any further questions we start walking
"I'm hungry. Are you hungry? I want food so badly!" Without even giving me the chance to reply Amy continued to mumble fast "I am craving some fast food. Some burger. Or two. Oh, maybe the Big Mac. Most certainly a big Coca-cola! Definitely some fries to go with that. For dessert chicken nuggets. I can taste them right now. Mmm, so yummy..."
"I don't think chicken nuggets count as dressert" I interject when she took a small moment to dream about the food
"Seriously? Again, Stef?" Amy gives me unimpressed look and gestures back to the apartment building "What did we talk about a minute ago?"
My head dips down "Sorry"
"So...fast food place sounds good to you?"
"But what about my woman?" I ask her when i lift my head back up
"She can wait!" Amy replied quickly stopping at a crossroad. She looked both ways some 10 times (even though no four wheelie honky things were driving down the street) before allowing us both to cross the street.
"That's not fair! We went to see your man! It's not my fault he wasn't where he is suppose to be!" I whine back as we keep on walking down the street "We need to go see my woman now!"
"We will stop there quickly" She looks down to my arms "I would have suggest we take the food with, but you won't be able to carry anything. I promise, we will head to see your woman, right after a quick stop to get some food. It is called fast food restaurant for a reason, you know. We will quickly go in, we will get our food real fast, eat it real fast and we will be out in less than 5 minutes" she said with certainty
"5 minutes? You really expect us to eat that fast?" I doubt her last statement for a moment
"It is fast food restaurant!" Amy repeats again accenting the word and that was all she had to do to convince me. I believed her that we will be out of the restaurant in 5 minutes and then we will go see my woman. 5 minutes is not that long. We can take 5 minutes pause.
Callie POV
"I will call Lena. Inform her. You can start driving around and looking for then. We will join you" Cooper tells me, taking a charge in this whole situation
"Okay. Where do you think I should start looking for them?" I ask back as I pace back and forth next to the spot where Mackenzie and I had dropped our stuff and settled down
"No clue. Maybe you could start with the station. Ask around if they have heard from them"
"Yeah, I can do that" I nod back, even though he doesn't see this motion
"Call or text if you find out anything. I will do the same"
With that I end the call and go back to my backpack. I pick it up and toss it over my shoulder.
"Mackenzie, we need to go! Now!" I call out to her. She was in this clearing few meters further, flying the kite.
"Why? I just got a hang of this thing! It's now starting to get fun!" She calls me back and continues to fly the kite, not even thinking about packing up and leaving. The wind was good and it was keeping up in the kite in the air nicely.
"My mom and Stef are missing!" I grab her backpack and head over to her
"What!?" Mackenzie calls back shocked. She starts to reel in the kite "How!?"
I look down guilty, avoiding her look. There was only one explanation in my mind - they must have eaten the pot-brownies.
"She ate the pot-brownies, didn't she? I thought you said you put them away, where she wouldn't find them"
"I may have forgotten to to put them away" I say warily and take the plastic bag out of the backpack where the kite was in
"H-how can you forget to put away pot-brownies!?"
"You called me and distracted me, I completely forgot about them after your call" I admit to her
"You said your mom and Stef are missing. Are you saying you drugged both of them?" Mackenzie laughs at me
"I—They drugged themselves" I tried to reason back, but it was a weak attempt. Mackenzie just laughed at that.
"So, by missing you mean, that they are not at home?"
"Yeah, Cooper said when he got to the house, Stef's car was parked there, doors were open, phones on the bed, no sign of either of them in the house...plus a canvas from mom's bedroom is now missing"
"I just want to conclude this" She says with a chuckle as we head back to my car that was parked next to the park, on the street "You bough weed, made pot-brownies in your moms -a cops – home, left them at a wide open space for everyone to see, your mom or Stef found them, both of them ate some and now both of them are missing and probably walking around city high"
"Sounds about right" I mutter quietly back to her. It sounded worse when she said it out loud.
"Jeez, you are in some deep trouble. You can say bye-bye to your license again. Does Cooper know they are high?"
"Nop. And I would appreciate if it stayed that way!"
"Do you really think that neither your mom, nor Stef will figure out they were 'drugged'. They are cops after all." Mackenzie says when we have gotten back to the car
"They didn't realize they were pot-brownies before they took them, so I'm still hopeful" I say tossing my bag in the backseat. Mackenzie does the same.
"Why did you decided to make pot-brownies?" She asks when we are both in the car.
I start the car and pull the seat belt over me "Mom is like...super stressed and sad, and tensed all time. She barely smiles anymore."
"She was smiling at the marathon event" Amy tries to cheer me up
"That's just a front. She's not like that now. She pretended for everyone's sake, for her parents. I see her everyday and I see how she really is doing after the shooting. I just wanted her to relax for few hours and just forget all the troubles, all that happened to her. I didn't want this to happen. I would have just given her one and stayed with her, watched her so she doesn't do something stupid."
"Like walk out of the house without even leaving a note" Mackenzie says quietly with sadness in her voice. I nod my head back slowly.
Mackenzie reaches over to me, takes my hand and squeezes it gently "Where do we start the search?"
Amy POV
The chicken nuggets that we took, but didn't eat on the spot, because Stef started to whine that we have been there longer than 5 minutes, were in the small Burger king paper bag, along with one big Coca-Cola drink. I was holding the fries and a Burger King paper bag in my left.
"French fry!" Stef says as we continue walk down the street
I take one fry and hand feed it to Stef. She couldn't eat herself, because her left was still in sling, but with her right she was holding the canvas.
I take 3 more fries myself and stuff them in my mouth. Not 5 seconds go by when Stef says again "Fry!" Once again, without any hesitation I feed her more more fry.
"Why are people staring at us?" I ask her while chewing the next 3 fries and eying the people who walk towards us, staring at us
"People are weird" Stef replies with a shrug "And judgmental. And they don't like anything that's different. And this is America. Plus we are both injured, my hand is in sling and you are limping. Maybe we both look like crazy people!"
"Why? I'm not crazy, your not crazy...well, okay you are little bit crazy" I tried to go for a joke, but Stef didn't see that as a joke
"That's not funny," Stef pouts back, she was hurt by my words "I'm not crazy! My woman says I'm not -so I'm not!"
"Jeez, I was joking! Sorry" I said apologetically and try to get eye contact with her. When we establish it, I smile up to her. When Stef smiles weakly back to me, I know we are cool and all is forgiven.
"So, why do you think we look crazy?" I ask trying get back to previous topic
"Because neither one of us have shoes on and we are both walking around the city in our socks"
I look down to my feet. Hmm, if Stef hadn't told me, I would have never known that. I really was walking around the city in socks. It clearly didn't felt that I didn't have my shoes on. I had my white socks on. Clearly, the sole of them are no longer white. Most likely they are 3 shades away from being completely black. When I glance to Stef's feet, I notice she was walking around in white socks with pink dots on them. I smile at her choice of socks.
"In addition, you are hand feeding me French fries and I am carrying a huge ass canvas around with me," Stef adds and then smirks at me "Fry!" I take another fry and hand it to her, while I myself take 5.
"Shoes are overrated anyway" I brush it off as we walk across the street at the green light
"Totes!" Stef agrees very casually and repeats "Fry!"
I look down to the paper-bag where the fries are in. There are only 4 left. I take 3 for myself and feed the last one to Stef
"Oh, look! The school!" Stef calls out excited. If she could, she would probably be pointing to the school and the beach that was behind it.
When we are at the school, Stef leads me to the side of the school where apparently her woman's office is located. She sets down the canvas against the wall, under the window, and takes one step closer to it.
Next moment, Stef is standing by the window, her face pressed up to it. Her nose and lips were squashed up to the window glass. Her right hand was up to the window as well. The window glass dimmed up with her every exhale.
"Well? Is she there?" I ask with full mouth as I had just stuffed a chicken nugget in my mouth
"Very dark! I don't see her," Stef replies and moves her right hand closer to her face, to shield her eyes from the light
"How long are you going to do that?" I question her few seconds later as I started to get bored by just standing there
"You were banging on those doors for 10 minutes. Now I get my 10 minutes to try and see if my other half is there!" Stef states in a more confident tone as she turned to face me
"Fine," I mutter back not liking her tone "Don't have to get mean about it. I was just asking."
"I wasn't mean," Stef replies as she presses her face back to the window "You are really bossy! And I don't like it!"
"Gosh, you are so grumpy when haven't had sex" I say before taking another bite out of the chicken nugget
Stef suddenly banged on the window glass and yelled out "Leeeee-naaaaaaaaaaa!"
The bangs were loud and it sounded like she was 3 bangs away from shattering the glass. Her voice was incredibly loud as well. I think my right ear fell close. It was ringing now.
After 3 more yells Stef decided to walk around the school to see if any of the doors are open. Because my walking speed was really slow, she told me to stay put and guard the canvas. When she left, I lowered myself to the grass. I sit down, with my back pressed at the school wall and my legs stretched out.
In some 3 minutes she got back. Her walk had slowed down significantly. Shoulders were slumped down, she was dragging her feet, head was down as well. Stef sat down next to me and pulled the Burger king bag out of my hands. While she was gone, I had managed to eat more than half of the chicken nuggets.
"All closed. Not one single door or window was open. What kind of school is this? Do the kids again have a holidays? Didn't they already have one, extra long?" Stef took one of the chicken nuggets and took an angry bite out of it "So not fair! We have to work out butt's off and barely get 2 weeks off, but they get holidays every 4 weeks or something..."
Neither one of us had realized that it was weekend and that kids simply didn't have school today.
"Totes" I reply staring at one tree that grows on the other side of the school yard
Blindly I reach in the Burger king bag to get another chicken nugget. It smelled so good, I couldn't just sit and watch how Stef was eating them. But my hand get's slapped away.
"Why did you do that!?" I turn to Stef and look at her in disbelief
"Mine!" She says and shields the bag with her right shoulder, turning her back to me
"I get to have some as well!" I argue back, reaching for the bag again
"No, go away! You already got some!" She pushes my hand away again and keeps shielding it from me
"So? I want more!"
"No! These are mine! Go get your own!" Stef replied taking a chicken nugget herself
I tried to get some again, but Stef shoved all of the chicken nugget in her mouth and slapped my hand away again. In return I messed up her hair. Stef looked to me furious "Don't do that!"
"Why?" I ask and ruffle her hair up some more, then start to poke her right arm, just to irritate her more.
"Stop!" Stef shoved my left hand away, this time more roughly.
I poke her face and that's when our fight broke out. Stef retaliates by jumping on me and taking me do ground.