Page 19 of Letters to the Lost

“This doesn’t feel right,” Atlas says, our feet still glued to the sidewalk outside of the hospital where Autumn climbed into the car and drove away.

“She needs this,” I reply, refusing to think about six weeks without my girl. After being around her nearly every day for months, the thought of being away from her makes me feel uneasy like it’s wrong. But I know this is what she needs, we can be there for her but not one of us has the skills she needs to help her healthily process this.

“Still doesn’t feel right,” he grumbles while stomping across the parking lot to the waiting cars.

“Come on man, let's just go back to the house and chill for the night,” Brenn suggests, his hand clamping on my shoulder as he leads me to the awaiting car, giving me no other option.

“Fine,” I grumble, letting him push me along, the others following behind.

“Sebastian, do you still have Autumn’s phone?” Kelvin's voice booms from his study. Heavy footsteps alert us to his incoming arrival.

“Yeah, I have it right here,” Sebastian replies as Kelvin enters the room, pulling Autumn's phone from his front pocket.

“Can you track the number that has been sending her those messages?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” He responds, before he pulls out his laptop from his backpack and sets it up on the coffee table.

“What happens if we track it?” Atlas asks.

“We go hunting,” Dominic gleefully says from his perch on the end of the sofa “Don’t we Dad?”

“I am not your father!” Kelvin splutters.

“You will be when we marry your daughter.”

Kelvin splutters the veins in his neck bulging, his neck turning an angry shade of red.

“NEVER going to happen. Even if you do marry her, you will not be calling me dad,” Kelvin states like it’s a fact, but I’d like to see him try to stop us. Atlas practically claimed legally marrying her from childhood and the rest of us love her enough to let that happen but fuck, if I’m being left out of marrying our girl. If that is what she wants, she could easily say no.

“What about daddy?”

“Anyway… the number?” Brenn drags out changing the subject before Kelvin shouts at me more, lounging in his chair by the TV, a controller in his hands.

“Tracking now. There have been like a hundred more messages since the hospital. I just want to know how she knew Autumn tried to take her own life,” Sebastian says, making us all wonder the same.

Suddenly Tobias is shooting out of his chair and racing from the room, his footsteps thundering against the tiled floor. Intrigued by his sudden departure I follow, Atlas and Brenn following behind too.

Crashing and the sound of things being thrown around has our pace quickening.

“MOTHERFUCKER!” Tobias bellows followed by the sound of his fist hitting the wall.

“What’s wrong?” Brenn asks, eyeing him warily.

“This. This is what’s wrong! How the fuck did this happen?!” Tobias shouts, holding up what looks like it once was a camera. The key word being, was, because now it’s just smashed-up pieces of plastic.

“How did that even get in here?” Atlas asks his face just pure rage as he stares at the junk in Tobias’s hand.

“No clue, but we’ll have to get Dad to do a sweep of the whole house. That should have never been able to happen,” Brenn replies, walking out of the room and back towards the others. Kelvin paces in front of the TV, his eyes flicking to Sebastian every other second, like he’s terrified that he’ll miss something.

“Well?” Kelvin asks, his eyes flicking over us all before they stall on Tobias’s hand “What is that?”

“A camera. We found it in Autumn’s room, concealed between some of her books amongst the leaves of her fern,” Tobias informs us all through gritted teeth, his jaw clenching so hard I’m sure he’s about to break a tooth.

Kelvin has his phone to his ear barking out orders to his men, ordering them to do a full sweep of the house, to check surveillance from when Autumn first arrived to find out how this happened.

Kelvin's house is a fortress, the fact that someone managed to get in and plant a camera in our girls' room, means death.

The promise of violence has blood rushing through my veins, the part of me that I suppressed for so long from being around Autumn comes rushing to the surface, demanding blood, and payment for everything she has been through.

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