Chase shoved his fingers through his hair, aware of the fact
that it was sticking up everywhere, but at the moment, he didn’t give a shit.
His heart was still hammering wildly, and he needed to calm his breathing before
he passed out. It was stupid, so damned, stupid to think he could return to
work without any residual effects from the bombing. One single car backfiring
had turned him into a white-knuckled mess behind the wheel and it had taken all
of his nerve and concentration to keep his eyes on the road and his hands on
the wheel when his instincts had screamed at him to lurch sidewise into the
passenger's seat, arms over his head to await the blast.
By the time he’d safely delivered his client he’d been a
mess, eyes closed and resting his head on the wheel as soon as the man had
departed. He wasn’t sure how long he’d stayed that way before pulling into the
parking lot and turning the engine off. The door had felt like lead safe when
he’d tried to shove it open with spaghetti arms, and it had taken several tries
to get the seatbelt to disengage. He’d half fallen, half slid from the vehicle
onto the pavement, legs too weak to hold him so he’d just sat there on the asphalt,
cheek pressed to the metal as he’d fumbled around for his phone.
Numbers had eluded him, and he’d stared, shaking as he
struggled to make his fingers move. Flint’s name had been right at the top, one
touch and the phone was ringing. He’d needed a voice, it hadn’t even mattered
that it was recorded, just the sound of it was enough to relax him a little. He
hated to think how he sounded, rambling that he needed to talk, for Flint to
just call him back, whenever, please, desperate. He hardly sounded like
himself, he knew that, but there was little he could do but wait until his
client paged him to bring the car back around.
He should quit. He knew he needed to, but he couldn’t seem to
make the call, admit defeat, not without knowing he wouldn’t have to spend his
days in the silence of his apartment, a place where nightmares seemed to lurk,
waiting to claw at him any time he closed his eyes.
The phone lay beside his leg, nearly forgotten, so much so,
that when he rang, it startled him a little and he opened his eyes, blinking in
confusion before his mind caught up with the fact that he was still sitting in
the parking lot pressed against the car. He’d gotten the door closed at least,
that dinging had been driving him crazy, like a timer moments before going off.
Bobbling it, he watched the phone hit the ground and
skitter, forcing him to crawl to retrieve it and nearly drop it again before he
was able to hit the button to answer.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Flint, just heard your message, what’s going
on, you sounded like shit man.”
“That’s ‘cause I feel like shit right now and everything’s a
bit sideways at the moment.”
“How so?”
“I just, I can’t do this job man, it’s not, I’m, my heart is
about to leap out of my throat over a fuckin’ backfire from a car. I’m sitting
in the parking lot, literally on my hands and knees clutching this phone like a lifeline, which it kind of is. I need to get outta here.”
“Okay. Calm down and breathe for a minute Chase, when you
say you’re sitting in the parking lot, where exactly are you sitting?”
“On the ground, outside of the car, in the lot outside my
client's building.”
“How long has he been inside?”
“I-I don’t know man, I don’t, I, hell if I know what time it
is.”
“Yeah, you’re in no shape to take care of anyone else at the
moment, let alone yourself, so I need you to listen very closely okay.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“I’m gonna call Dave and have him send a replacement for
you, I’m also going to have him send someone who can take you home.”
“Don’t wanna go.”
“Why not?”
“Just…I don’t want to go there.”
“Why, Chase?”
“Because I can’t stop seeing it man, the debris, the blood,
just everything, I don’t, I try to spend as little time there as I can. I’ve
slept in my truck in the yard a couple times just ‘cause having that space was
better than four walls.”
“Understandable. You ready to come up here?”
“Ready, no. Do I need to, yeah.”
“Good enough. I’ll have Dave send someone to pick you up so
you can go home and pack. I’m in Billings, I need to swing back and pick up
T but we can be out there to get you in two days.”
“Fuck that noise, I can drive myself.”
“No, you can’t. I can hear how erratic you’re breathing, you
don’t need to get in an accident. We’ll come for you. Okay, you just stay put
and you call if you need to talk, anytime, day or night, okay, just hang on for
48 hours and we’ll be there.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay Flint, I can do that.”
“Good. Now I’m gonna hang up. You sit tight, okay, and just
focus on breathing. Everything’s gonna be okay.”
“Okay. Yeah. Thanks Flint.”
“Anytime.”
The line went dead, and Chase shuddered, exhaling and trying
to get his breathing under control. His skin felt cold and itchy, prickled with
sweat and the wind that had picked up a bit. He lay the phone back beside him
and focused on breathing for a bit, in and out, slow and steady, waiting for
his ride to come.
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