Note: I have been waiting to post the video linked with this song for like a week now which probably doesn't seem long but it's been killing me because it reminds me so much of Melkin now ahh. I recommend watching it. I spent at least 20-30 mins debating if I was going to put it as the chapter song for ch. 2 because I was so excited. But I usually spend that long on deciding chapter music in general lol. It's also the song that Lacey was first dancing to in the last chapter (but that was a slower version of it).
Okay, back to the story. Strap in. Here we go.
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There were about ten of us that headed down to Melkin, at least for the moment. Dylan had advised that if we need to get a bigger team together, they would request it. We carpooled down there in various pairs, considering the drive was about eight or so hours, not counting stops.
If we needed any rental cars when we got there, it was advised that the company would cover the cost. However, Owen made sure to stress before we left that it was important to stay with others.
The drive back to Melkin was nothing short of painful. I looked out the window mostly, suggesting to Elle and Josh that my quietness was due to lack of sleep. They didn't seem to mind. Trees passed by and flashes of Finn playing I-Spy ran through my head. Back then, I was filled with fear and confusion. I preferred that, as I recalled Travis livid on the phone with Finn on our way there, angry and proclaiming that he was on his way to get me.
It was late when we arrived. Dark. I preferred it. I couldn't see buildings or the landscape to bring back any old feelings. Dylan and Owen passed out hotel keys to everyone upon checking in and told everyone to meet in Dylan's room in the morning. I had my own room, working for them had their perks. Or, temporarily working for them I guess depending on how well this went. Immediately after getting to my room, I dropped my bags at the end of the bed and crawled under the comforter. I didn't want to give myself time to think about where I was and who I was missing. Instead, I managed to get some must-needed sleep.
The morning was slow. I was in bed for about thirty minutes, just contemplating if I really wanted to continue this. I wanted to come back to help Travis but now that wasn't an option.
With a groan, I got up and into the shower to start getting ready for the day. Like the day before, I woke up way too early. Looking for things to do, I unpacked, did my make-up, and eager for something to really take up my time, I curled my hair lightly. I was still early by the time I had finished that and dressed. My outfit was similar to yesterday. Black jeans, a t-shirt, and the leather jacket. Thankfully, it was a bit chilly today so I doubted anyone would question my attire. I sighed and fell back onto the bed where I put my headphones in and played my music.
Not too long after, my phone buzzed with a text message from Elle.
Hey, are you ready? I'm about to go down.
She was a few rooms over from me. I told her yes and waited outside of my room for her to exit hers.
"Are you nervous?" she asked, coming out with an anxious smile on her face.
"Definitely."
She laughed in agreement, but she didn't know just how nervous I was. She was dressed in blue jeans with a sweater on. They had advised us to dress casual to not draw attention to ourselves.
I pushed the elevator button and stuck my hands in the jacket pockets.
"Carson, yo! Wait up, you guys," Josh yelled from down the hall as he sped walked to us. We stepped onto the elevator and Elle pressed the button to hold the doors open until Josh slinked in.
"First day of work," Josh said excitedly. "I can't wait to get started."
Josh and Elle made small talk as we excited the elevator on Dylan's floor. I led the way to the correct room and knocked quietly.
It seems we were the last ones there and everyone was sitting or standing around the room. The three of us situated ourselves in an open corner of the room. We were the only rookies on the team. The rest were a bit more seasoned.
Owen and Dylan stood in the middle of the room, passing out files to everyone. I grabbed mine and started to flip through it. It was various locations that members of the different gangs had been seen at and general information on the town.
"Today is the start of something great!" Owen said, pushing his glasses up further on his nose. He had a Star Wars shirt on as he flipped through the pages in the file excitedly. "We are going to change this town, I can feel it."
Some laughed and shared his enthusiasm.
"In your hands is a map and some key places. Dylan and I were talking last night and we think it's best if you guys familiarize yourselves with the town first. Hence, the casual clothes. There's a lot of streets without signs whether a sign was never there or stolen. Either way, it can be a bit of a maze at first. All of the buildings look the same and if we're in a pinch, I want you guys to know where you are," Owen advised.
"Or if you need to tell us your location, we need to be able to find you," Dylan added.
"Take notes if you need to. Don't do anything drastic. We don't want to tip off anyone that we're here and what our plans are so don't take any action unless you absolutely have solid proof. Otherwise, it'll go into our big pile of leads we can't pin them with," Owen said and then happily added. "A bit of recon, if you will."
Dylan nodded. "That's the key. We don't want them sniffing around what we're doing and fast forward the process of new leaders. That's what we're trying to prevent."
A few of them started taking notes and writing on the maps that were given to them.
Josh kept playing with his hoodie strings and I wasn't sure if he was focusing or not but didn't correct him.
"Split up into pairs. It's safer that way. I'll start a group chat and I want you guys to text in now and then with updates to make sure everyone's okay," Dylan said.
Owen had a piece of paper in his hand and started writing down people that were pairing up.
"Lacey!" I heard my name called from next to me. I looked to Josh casually who was raising his hand. "Carson and I will go together."
I gave Elle a shrug but she didn't seem to mind as she paired up with George, who had been on a few of these types of things.
Once everything was sorted, Josh tugged on the sleeve of my jacket to pull me towards the door.
"Don't forget," Dylan said to everyone, "The Casey organization is a little bit more--"
"Observant," Owen answered as Dylan struggled to find the right word.
I pressed my lips together to stop myself from smiling knowingly as Josh and I left the room.
"Where do you think we should go?" he asked, looking at the map as we stepped through the automatic doors of the hotel. As soon as I stepped outside, it was obvious we weren't in the center of Melkin and that was probably for the best. It looked nicer. There were trees here and a lack of overwhelming gray, dilapidated buildings. I looked at the map he was holding to find we were in the town right on the edge of Melkin, where Travis' dad and Joy lived.
Everyone headed to their cars but I stood at the entrance with Josh, peering down at the map. It showed where we were and unfolded to show some of Melkin. It wasn't a full map but we had multiple pages with different areas mapped out on it.
I studied the map before pointing to a single road. "There."
"You want to go there?"
"Yes," I said and looked at how to get there. I headed toward the car Josh had, seeing as Elle went in George's car.
Josh followed me, staring at the map still. Everyone had already left as Josh put his file folder and map down on the hood. "There's not anything there. That's not even in Melkin."
"I think you should listen to me."
Josh scoffed and got in the car. "Fine but when this turns up to be a dead end, pun intended, then we can do things my way. But we'll go ahead and get your idea out of the way now."
I rolled my eyes as we drove off and I directed him which streets to turn down. He kept looking in my direction but didn't say anything as I stared out the windshield. I didn't make any attempt to start a conversation as I was too busy mentally prepping myself for being back.
"Stop here." I said, looking down at the map to see we were about one block away from where I'd pointed.
"Here?" he questioned in an accusatory voice that said he obviously thought my idea was dumb.
"Yes," I said and unbuckled.
Listening to me, which I figured was because he assumed my idea was still stupid, he parked the car in a shopping center off to the side of the road. I quickly got out.
"Aren't you going to take your notes?" Josh asked as he stepped out of the car.
"No," I scrunched my face up. "That's just going to look obvious."
He looked unsure but decided to let it go, shoving his files in the backpack he had so it wasn't out in the open. We started walking the rest of the way to where we had to go.
Next to me, Josh looked around and occasionally shot glances my way. I stuck my hands back in my pockets as the wind blew.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
I nodded.
"I mean, really. Are you? I wanted to be your partner because I figured you'd maybe know more than any of the other people and we'd look even better. We'd bring home the gold."
I shook my head, "This isn't a competition."
"It kind of is. But still. If you're going to be a sucky partner now I need to know so I can trade you out," he said with a smile.
"I promise I'm fine. It's just weird," I admitted quietly.
He walked a bit ahead of me and turned around to face me as he walked backwards, "But they're dead now so you don't have to worry about them hurting you."
"Only Sterling hurt me," I was quick to correct.
Surprised, as I never really talked about my life here with anyone, he turned around and fell back into step next to me.
We walked in silence the rest of the way until we reached my destination. I stared as I walked closer.
"A wall," Josh said flatly. "You literally led us to a brick wall. I knew it, I knew this was stupid. Can we do my idea now? I think we should go to uh, there was some restaurant on the list. Let me see if I can remember it. Some of the Caseys were seen there. Maybe they'll be there again," he said, more to himself at the end.
I walked over to the wall that was built to keep the riff raff of Melkin out of the somewhat nicer town. "No offense but I'm not doing that. You can. Just give me a boost first," I said. I stood on my toes and grabbed as far up on the brick wall that I could. Flashes of arguing with Travis about whether or not I was going to die if I fell off this when we came the opposite way years ago flew around my head. I shut my eyes tightly for a second before opening them to focus again.
"Excuse me?" Josh said but nevertheless, gave me his hand to put my foot on and start climbing up the wall. We went through climbing exercises in training and this time, I didn't think that I was going to fall to my immediate death. There was still a bit of fear in my stomach but I blamed the memories and where I was about to be.
Josh huffed and puffed annoyances as he climbed up after me. I turned around once I got to the top and stared down at our destination. Turning, I climbed slowly down.
"Fuck," Josh said from above me. I held onto the bricks and looked up as he sat on the ledge of the wall and observed his finger bleeding. "I think there's some glass up here," he said and examined his finger.
"You're hurt?" I asked as I stepped down successfully onto the other side of the wall.
Josh climbed down some of it before jumping the rest of the way. He looked at me like I was crazy. "I'm a little tougher than a piece of glass."
"You should still wash it out," I argued and walked forward down the alley. I turned back towards him for a second. "Welcome to Melkin."
Josh ran to catch up with me, wadding his hoodie sleeve around his finger. His eyes glanced all over the small alley. "This looks more like what I had in mind."
When we exited the alley, we stopped. "This is worse than it used to be," I said.
The walls were full of graffiti and most of the buildings looked like they were on the brink of falling down. Weeds that had once just been a small nuisance when I was here before were now claiming the sidewalks. Trash littered the streets. A few people were still ambling about in cars or on foot but I just wanted to yell at them to leave. It looked like what should have been a ghost town.
"Damn," Josh said as his eyes fell upon a car with some of the tires missing. "Glad we didn't take my car here."
I nodded. "Which way do you want to go?"
"Wait so this was your great idea? Just hop the wall and walk?"
"Well, yeah..." I said quietly.
Josh rubbed his face. "How are we going to look better than everyone else in the group when we're trotting around like we're on some fucked up tourist trip?"
I deflated slightly but held my ground. "That's just making it obvious we're watching them. Cameron's guys will only be seen if they want to be seen."
"Not really Casey's guys anymore," Josh mumbled under his breath and my heart stung. I ran a hand through my hair, trying not to get upset.
Josh pointed in a direction and we started walking that way. "I guess we're just going to aimlessly walk around and tomorrow I'll get a new partner," he groaned.
I ignored him, taking in the buildings and small stores we passed. It was hard to make out what some of the small stores that were still open were, with enough graffiti covering the actual name. Others had wood boards where a window used to be once upon a time. A few people passed us, looking our way but they didn't seem familiar to me.
"Hey," Josh said, pulling my attention from a building getting eaten by rust. His eyes cautiously watched everyone we passed. "How'd you know that alley way was there?"
I sank into myself and pulled the jacket closer around me again. I didn't want to tell him that Travis took me over it on our way to get ice cream. That didn't exactly paint the picture of "I know nothing about the Casey gang" that I'd been preaching this whole time.
"They took me with them sometimes when no one was going to be home to make sure I didn't run away," I said which technically wasn't a lie at all.
Josh's eyebrows perked up in surprise. "I didn't know that."
I shrugged. "I figured if I mentioned that, they wouldn't pick me to come on this mission. And I don't really know anything helpful to the case besides what I already told them," I said, trying to be as casual as possible.
"Do you know where they live?" he whispered, lowering his head closer to my level.
"No," I confessed. There was no telling if they still lived in the same house as before. "It's not around here, though. It was somewhere else. I don't know where, some place where they didn't think it was going to get shot to bits in two seconds again."
Josh looked at me curiously. "Again?"
When I didn't answer, he rubbed his hands together excitedly. "Oh man, ow fuck," he yelped, forgetting that his finger was cut. It started bleeding again and he wrapped it in his hoodie sleeve again, where it was already starting to bleed through the light green cotton.
"You really should do something about your finger."
"Gee, thanks for the insight, Carson."
I narrowed my eyes at his snappiness and went back to looking at the scenery. A few people would go by but no one that I recognized.
I squinted around at the surrounding buildings, starting to feel like maybe my idea was stupid after all. Members of Cameron or Sterling's gangs weren't just going to line up, ready to be spotted or interrogated. We should have stuck to that restaurant Josh wanted to go to. That's what people did in this field. They found a place the target frequented and basically had a stake out for as long as it took until they saw the person again. I didn't know why I thought this was a better idea.
"A convenience store up ahead," Josh said, pointing with his good hand after about five minutes of silent walking. "I can get a water bottle or something for it."
We walked up to the store and Josh was about to pull the door handle right as it swung open and we both stepped back to get out of the man's way as he barged out. He was out of the clearance of the door when he stopped and quickly doubled back.
"Fucking-," he started as he grabbed onto the door before it slammed on me. My eyes snapped to his face. "Sorry about that."
Tom stood there, holding the door open for Josh and myself with a very small but still polite smile on his face.
I stood there, stunned as he diverted his eyes to everywhere but on me. From behind me, Josh reached forward and grabbed the door. Tom gave him a nod and headed off down the sidewalk.
"That was unexpectedly nice for this town," Josh said, impressed as he nudged my back with one of his hands to move forward.
I shook my head, still confused as I took baby steps into the store. Once we were both inside, I looked out the door to see Tom still standing on the sidewalk, only now he was on his phone.
"He's not nice. I'm pretty sure he hated my guts," I said quietly.
This got Josh's attention and he leaned in to my side to look at what I was looking at. "Are you sure? This is someone you knew?" he asked in an excited whisper.
"I didn't really know him. But I've shared a few words with him."
At this point Tom kept pointing back at the store while he talked. He turned in the direction of us and I quickly darted away.
"Maybe he's about to commit a crime," Josh said in an almost hopeful tone.
I didn't listen to him. Instead, I made my way towards the water in the back of the store, glancing around erratically in case there was anyone else I knew in here. Anyone like Travis.
It was safe to say that I was disappointed when I found out it was just me, Josh, and the cashier left in here.
"How did you know him? Which side was he on? What did you say to him?" Josh asked as he opened the notepad app on his phone.
I grabbed a water from the cooler and made my way over to the Band-Aids, picking one of those up off the shelf as well. "Cameron's."
"Lacey," Josh said, grabbing my arm to stop me. "You barely talking throughout this is going to get us nowhere," he said sternly.
I stomped my foot slightly as I tried to hold in my feelings. My shoulders slouched and my head fell back before I looked back at him. "This is just...I'm trying very hard to process the fact that I'm back in Melkin, okay?"
He rocked back from foot to foot, "If this is too much..."
"It's not," I shook my head sternly. "I can handle it. I want to be here. It's just a lot to process all at once. I didn't expect three people to have already died the first time I came back," I said offhandedly. Technically, it was more than three but it was three very important people. Two that I cared about. One that wouldn't leave my mind. I tugged on my jacket.
Josh didn't say anything but seemed to be deep in thought as he grabbed the items in my hands and paid for them at the counter.
When we walked outside, Tom was gone and Josh started addressing his cut. I watched silently.
"Travis punched him, that's how I met that guy," I said softly.
"The one you used to date right? Travis Miller? Well, until he kidnapped you and took you to this shit of a vacation."
I nodded as he took one of the Band-Aids out and handed me the box to hold onto.
"Sounds like a stand-up guy," Josh commented sarcastically.
I bit my lip to stop myself from getting upset. Now wasn't the time or place.
"He wouldn't be putting a Band-Aid on a scratch," I teased, smiling a bit.
Josh glared up at me. "I'm only putting it on so you stop nagging me. I can guarantee you that I'm tougher than any of these half pints here."
He was rather tall and training all day, every day had definitely given him muscle mass. But that didn't mean he knew what any of the guys here looked like who fought for their lives or what they were capable of.
I laughed lightly and started walking down the sidewalk with him tailing me after me. "Yeah. Okay."
For a while after that, we walked down other random streets with no direction in mind. I had given him the rest of the Band-Aids to put in his backpack. Additionally, he had a few weapons if we needed them but we were heavily advised to only use them in an emergency. Our phones were still charged so we could use the map program on that to get back to our car if we had to. Josh had texted the group about fifteen minutes ago telling them we were okay.
"So, Carson," Josh said, putting his arm around my shoulders and pulling me close. We had been walking for about three and a half hours now, stopping and resting here and there or popping into corner stores for snacks and water which were also thrown into his bag. I was thankful I had comfortable shoes on.
I looked up at him expectantly, trying to figure out if this was going to be an insult or not.
"I have to confess something. This actually wasn't too bad of an idea."
I stood up a bit straighter after that, enjoying the unexpected compliment. "And you haven't been too much of a narcissist."
"Thank you," he said, touching his bandaged hand to his chest. "Do you know them?" he asked, pointing to a random car that was passing us by.
"I don't know."
There was an old man who looked homeless on the other side of the street at the opening of an alley. "What about him?"
I laughed. "No."
"Damn," he cursed like he was really hoping I did.
We continued, turning the corner. I saw some other people walking around but I was looking up at some of the graffiti. Random names claimed the concrete walls but again, none that I recognized.
"What about them?" Josh asked, but his tone was a bit darker and he removed his arm from my shoulders. I followed his gaze and was surprised to find two familiar faces. One of them was leaning to his side, holding onto the broken light pole to stop himself from falling completely sideways.
They were calmly looking at us, making no moves to divert their eyes when we spotted them. Almost like they wanted to be seen.
"Yes," I answered, staring at them to make sure that I wasn't imagining it. I bit my lip to stop from sounding too anxious with my stomach suddenly flipping like crazy. My hands started to shake out of anticipation. I was actually seeing them with my own eyes.
"Wait, really?" Josh asked, bending closer to me and keeping his voice low.
Before I could say anything else, a loud, high pitched noise was made to replicate police sirens. "Whoop, whoop," Finn yelled, putting his hand that wasn't holding onto the light pole up to his mouth to make his voice louder. I could see his grin from here. Ben stood silently next to him.
"So much for a cover," Josh hissed nervously.
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I HOPE YOU LIKED THIS CHAPTER. Let me know your thoughts! I always love love hearing them, they make my day while I'm sitting at work.
Also, I'm ahead of schedule today so I'm anticipating/hoping to have another chapter very soon!
Thank you for reading! Have a great day and don't forget to smile <3