Adam

I put all that from my mind, concentrate on nothing but this burning anger I have for the sheriff, my piece of shit brother who's dragging me into this, my asshole father who can't ever do jack shit right.

I'm driving too fast, and I know the sheriff might pick me up any moment for speeding, hold me that way, but surprisingly enough my luck holds. It always holds when I’m risking my life, even with snipers shooting at me, trucks exploding all around me, killing everyone else. But with my family, this town, I have no luck. Hopefully, it'll hold with Taylor too. But I'm seeing that one slipping away, so I'd rather not look.

The dog's barking like mad when I pull into the yard, probably scared of the noise and the dust. It's a strangled sort of sound, and he's almost blind. I hope he doesn't have a heart attack tonight. Then I remember the dog hates me, and that I don’t care whether he lives or dies.

"Glad you could make it, Adam," my uncle sneers at me, holding the front door open.

I push him out of the way and barge into the house. "Bradley, where the fuck are you?"

"Keep it down. Mom's sleeping," Julie says, blocking my way into the kitchen. Behind her, Brad's on his feet by the table, his gaze shooting between me and the back door.

"Get out of my way, Julie," I warn. I don't want to, but I'm very close to physically moving her.

"When'd you get so strong?" my uncle asks in mock surprise, rubbing his bicep where it hit the doorframe as I pushed him aside.

I ignore him and glare warningly at Julie. This time she steps back into the kitchen. She's trained to react to the threat of violence, we all are. But today, it's going beyond threats.

I close the distance between me and Brad in less than a second, grab his neck and push him against the wall hard, knocking one of the bowls off the shelf.

"What are you accusing me of, Brad?" I ask. His face is turning a dark red, and he's clawing at my hand, but I'm not about to let go.

"Adam, stop this shit," Pat warns and advances on me.

"Back the fuck off, Pat. I can take ten of you," I warn, pointing my free index finger at him. It's only a slight exaggeration, and he seems to get that.

Brad is spluttering something, trying to speak. I push him up against the wall even harder.

"Let him go, you'll kill him," Julie whines.

"Right, like I killed Dad," I counter. "That's what you all think."

"We don't…" Julie says. "I don't."

"Let him go and we'll talk about this," Pat says, his voice steady, but his hands are shaking. Brad's face is turning purple.

"Adam," Mom says very quietly somewhere behind me.

She doesn't say anything else, but it's enough. I release Brad, watch him wearily for retaliation, but he just stumbles over to the table, rubbing his throat and coughing.

A lot of my anger dissipated with the sound of my mother's voice. It was so surreal, like she was speaking to me in a dream, but she's standing right here, wearing her ratty nightgown and wringing her hands. She's seen enough violence, I don't want to show her any more.

Julie's visibly shaking as she walks over to her, grabs her arm and leads her from the room, saying something I can't hear.

Pat is glaring at me, but Brad is still massaging his neck, looking at the table.

"You about done throwing your weight around?" Pat asks and takes a step towards me.

I tense up again in a split second, expecting him to come at me, but he walks over to the cupboard and rummages around until he finds some whiskey.

He points the bottle at me, and I shake my head, so he just brings two glasses, one for Brad, and one for himself.

"Why the hell would you tell Wade I had something to do with Dad going missing?" I ask, folding my hands over my chest, and glaring down at them.

Brad clears his throat again softly. "I just told him what happened…in the parking lot. Didn't accuse you of anything."

"That's not what he told me," I counter.

"So you're saying you had nothing to do with this?" Pat asks, slamming his glass down on the table and eying at me like he still wants to start something. "Because the way I heard it, you almost shot him last time you were here."

"Bullshit! That was self-defense. He almost shot me!" I can't believe he's even going there, pushing my buttons like this. The last thing I need is to be accused of a crime I didn't commit again. "He's my father. I wouldn't just murder him in the night."

"Maybe before," Pat says. "But I've seen all them soldiers with their minds messed up from the war."

"I'm not one of those," I counter and right now, standing in this kitchen, is the first time in a long time I'm sure of it. There's no nausea and even my heartbeat's already back to normal.

"You would say that," Brad puts in, but a glare from me has him staring at the tabletop again.

"I believe him," Julie says from behind me.

"No one wants to hear your opinion," Brad barks at her.

"Don't I know it," she says and walks over to the fridge, gets herself a beer.

Brad rounds on me, his cheeks still mostly burgundy. "What were we supposed to think, Adam? You threaten Dad, disappear God knows where for a week, then threaten Dad some more. And now he's gone. This is just like with Davy."

I can't breathe, my hands needing to grab his throat again. The only reason I don't is the paralysis. It wasn't like that with Davy. He fell, broke his neck, a bone sticking from his throat, blood gushing out. He was dead, I checked. It was an accident and I panicked, completely lost all sense of awareness of where I was, what I was supposed to do. I just wanted it to never have happened. Hell, I still want to pretend it never happened. I'm shaking now, like I was then, for days, before I finally wandered back into town.

"No sense arguing amongst ourselves. If Adam says he didn't do it, that's good enough for me," Pat says in an uncharacteristically calm voice. "Brad?"

My brother nods not making eye contact with either of us.

"So now we gotta figure out what to do," Pat concludes.

My anger’s all twisted around the memories of Davy, and I’m not even sure what I’m feeling.

"Why do we have to do anything?" I ask. "He's done this before, just disappeared. He probably went somewhere until whatever shit he's in blows over."

It was always a thing with my father. Sometimes, he was gone for months at a time. I loved those times.

"No," Pat says. "Besides, he always told me if he was leaving. And this time we had plans."

"So he fucked you over," I say. "He does that too."

"God damn it, something happened. And we gotta find him," Pat says, his voice back to its normal angry tone.

"Seems to me the cops got it covered. They sure started looking for him fast enough," I say. "Doesn't it have to be like twenty four hours or something before they start looking for missing persons. Who reported him missing anyway?"

I look from Brad to Julie. I'm pretty sure neither of them did, and Mom wouldn't either.

"The Sheriff came looking for him on his own this afternoon," Brad says. "We didn't even realize he was gone."

That makes no sense. Why would the sheriff care?

"Point is, we gotta go find him. Ask around, see if the family knows something," Pat says.

"Well, you can go looking for him all you want," I say and finally relax my stance. "I'm fine just waiting for him."

"No!" Pat says and slams his fist against the table. "Don't you care what happens to your dad?"

I shrug. This question doesn't deserve an answer. Sure, he fathered me, and I might owe him something for that, but I'm pretty sure I paid that back by not beating him into a coma last time I was here.

"Or your mom? How she gonna live without him to support her?" Pat won't let up. And that's a bigger question. But I'm sure Jesse would part with some of his money to help her out. And I'll do the best I can.

"My opinion is that she's better off without him," I tell him, glancing at Julie and Brad. I know they agree, but neither of them is meeting my eyes.

"If that's all, I'm leaving now," I say and turn.

"That's right, go," Julie says sounding like a petulant, hurt teenager. "It's what you do. But we're still all right here, dealing with all this shit. So I hope you're happy where ever you're shacking up now. 'Cause I sure as hell ain't."

It's true, all of it. I run away, always have done, whenever the going gets rough. I know it, have for a long time, but it doesn’t make me want to stay now.

It's getting dark outside. Taylor's waiting for me. Or maybe she's already packed up and left. I want to go back to her so bad, my whole chest constricts at the thought of not doing it. But the only way she'll ever believe me I didn't hurt my father is if I find him, bring him back alive.

I pull out a chair and sit down, my body finally relaxing after what feels like days. Family, it's the worst kind of battle.

"So where you wanna start looking for him?" I ask.

"We can go see cousin Joey, maybe he knows something," Pat says and gets up.

"What, now?" I ask and he nods curtly, so I get up too. Even though I could go sleep right now, and not wake up until all this shit is over. But I won't sleep, not until I'm back at the cabin, my arms around Taylor's soft body.

I don't really get Pat's urgency in this. It's probably just over whatever plans they had, so I don't ask. Because the less I know about that, the better.

"Do we have any guns?" I ask, and both Brad and Pat turn to me sharply.

"What?" I ask. "I'm just saying…if we're gonna be visiting family, we should be prepared."

"I have a Beretta in the truck," Pat says, striding out the door. "Should be enough."

* * *

Taylor

I so want to pretend none of that happened. That the sheriff didn't come banging on my door looking for Adam, accusing him of having a part in his father’s disappearance. That Adam's angry outburst afterwards didn't scare me senseless.

But I can't.

I spent the first few hours after he left in a sort of fugue state, finding myself doing things I didn't even realize I'd started to do. And it's not getting better. I feel like everything is crashing down, and I can hardly find myself beneath all the rubble, can't find the woman I was before I came here, met Adam, let myself go with him. I was so close to telling him I loved him yesterday, and today he might be a murderer.

Last night, I didn’t wake once until the sheriff woke me. Adam could’ve gone out and come back without me knowing. I want to believe he didn’t, that he’d never hurt anyone. But I don’t know him, not really, and his anger when he told me about his father was frightening. I can’t deny that.

He might have done something to him.

And as much as I want to not believe that, I can’t.

I need to speak to someone.

But who? Claire, no way. She'll just judge. Amanda maybe? We used to be best friends, but she's more Claire's friend now. Has been since I started seeing Henry, and spending all my time with him.

Henry?

I have about fifty missed calls from him, and twice as many messages. If nothing else, it means he wants to talk to me.

He's also the only person I trust to set me straight. And the only one I can't tell about any of this.

We're broken up. I ended it with him. But what if he was telling the truth? What if there is no other woman? And even if there was, me being with Adam makes us even. Doesn't it?

I listen to the last voicemail he left, his voice cracking up as he tells me how much he misses me. That he doesn't understand how I could just leave him like that.

And suddenly, I don't understand it either. Not at all. My fingers dial his number on their own.

"Taylor, where have you been?" he more breathes than says into the phone.

"I've…I've…" my voice is too shaky to say anything more.

"I've been looking for you, but no one from your family has been very forthcoming with the information," Henry says, and there's his whiny anger riding the words, but I'm content to ignore it. Why wouldn't anyone tell him where I was? I guess Claire spilled the beans on us being broken up. She probably couldn't wait to do that. And I'm sure Mom and Dad couldn't be happier. They were never supportive of Henry and me.

"I needed some time," I say.

"And now you're ready to listen to reason?" he says curtly, adding, "Because I'm not ready to let you go, Taylor. I need you," in a softer tone.

A flood of something very sad erupts in my chest, feels a lot like homesickness. But I'm still scanning the driveway every few seconds for Adam's return. So I don't even know what I'm feeling for whom.

"I'm at my mom’s, Taylor. I miss you a lot," he says, his tone kind of sad, desperate even. "I even went to see a few places we could rent. When are you coming back?"

He sounds so much like he did when we first met. This boy stuck in a grown up's body. I owe him more than just running away. I was gonna start a future with him, have his children. Has that really changed? My heart is cramping, but the answer has to be "No".

Because Adam really makes no sense for me. Not outside this cabin. We've created a void in time in these last few days, but now we both have to get back to our real lives. Yet, the mere thought of leaving Adam makes me feel rotten to the core. But he might be a murderer.

"I'll come home tomorrow," I say, speaking right over my doubt and hurt. Henry makes sense. Adam does not.

"Come now," Henry insists. "Or I can come to you?"

"Tomorrow," I say. I have to at least say goodbye. If Adam ever comes back.

It's almost ten at night now, and I no longer think he will, even though I still keep checking the driveway for the sight of his headlights.