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“B.” Eden grabs my hand. “He’s just doing his job.”

I want to say he’s doing it poorly, but my mouth snaps shut with one look at her face. The past resurfaces in my mind. The absolute chaos she went through. Her brother. Oh, my fucking…

“Ed, fuck.” I crush her to my chest as she starts weeping, her body shaking.

Life isn’t fair. Not that I ever dreamed it was, but she’s overcome things no one should ever have to. Now we’re parents of a missing child-a child who was taken from us.

Apeshit, batshit, chickenshit, ratshit…shiiiiiiit.

If the drugs I picked up at school weren’t still locked in the compartment in my car, I’d be popping a few. How the ever-fucking fuck am I supposed to do this sober? Weather this loss…Jesus fuck…we’re not losing him. I can’t think that way. I can’t do it. I can’t do this without pills.

I can’t do life without my son.

Picturing him at breakfast sends a pang of pain through my heart.Squirming in the chair next to me, humming, he looks up at me with a mouthful of Cheerios. “Wanna hear a joke?”

I chuckle at him, since he’ll tell it either way. “Sure, buddy.” His giggles when he tells it are funnier than what he’s saying

“How do you get a squirrel to like you?” Zach starts to laugh too, knocking into his bowl of cereal. “Act like a nut.”

I can’t do this.

Matt herds us all into the kitchen, away from everyone else. Clearly none of us are handling this well. Caleb blows his nose amid a cry of distress, Keir looks like he’s in shock, Matt is getting angrier by the second, and Hutton looks like he’ll commit murder without much provocation. Then Eden…my queen, my Ed. Her face and neck are red and splotchy, and the tears track through her makeup, smearing her mascara. She’s trying to get words out. “I, I.-just we…we have to.” I keep rubbing her back, but it’s not helping.

Right now, we’re doing nothing to help this situation. Not one of us.

“Does anyone remember anything strange about this morning? Do you remember seeing anything?” Matt asks his voice stern. What the fuck? Does he think he can talk to us like he’s a king-shit FBI agent? It’s not like our family-his fucking family isn’t being fucked with.

Caleb answers, “What do you mean?”

“We’ve all answered these questions already,” I say with irritation. “Agent Scholl,” I add sharply.

Hutton glares at him. “There seems to be little doubt about what happened. Let’s cut the bullshit and figure out how to proceed.”

I look down the hallway and out the front window seeing someone from the police department speaking to a man wearing a windbreaker with a news station logo on it. The fucking media. On our property. “Can we get them out of here?”

No one answers me; they’re busy arguing about what we need to do.

“...waiting to get more information on the registered owners of those four cars.”

“We can’t wait. We don’t have time to sit and wait,” Keir responds to Matt.

“How do we make contact? With them…with the Realists?” Eden asks, wiping the tears away. “We need to establish contact, right?”

My mind shuts it all out. I’m trying to pick through the mess of my thoughts. I promised Wes when he was a baby, I’d always put him first. That, as his dad, I’d fight for him against everything and everyone. It was no accident we found him.I’m keeping my promise, buddy. I’ll keep it.

Right now, that means keeping those pills I want locked up. Right now, that means fighting for him.

Matt’s voice shakes me from my thoughts. “...now. Hey, Blaine. Blaine, are you ignoring me?”

I answer angrily, “If I want to, I will. I will ignore you so fucking hard, you’ll doubt your own existence. The two dumbasses you assigned here managed to fumble this one. Our son is the casualty of their ineptitude. So, don’t talk down to me. Don’t pick fights with me. And don’t fucking act like you’re suddenly in charge here.”

Matt’s phone starts ringing. After glancing at it, he pauses before closing his eyes. He answers, “This better be important.” I keep watching him as he turns away from us, his voice lowering.

Then I look over at Keir, who is busy discussing a press conference with Caleb and Eden. He meets my eye, his pain clear to see. The past he’s suffered is playing in his head, I’m sure. I want to give him comfort, but I’m held back. We’re on uneven footing.

“That’s…I understand. I’ll bring the family.” What in God’s name is he fucking discussing, and with whom? We’re in the middle of the biggest emergency imaginable and he’s shooting the breeze with some jackass on the phone?

He ends the call, placing his phone in his pocket. He looks at Keir, holding his wrist up and tapping it twice.