Little Drummer Boy

Chapter 13: Reckless

Chapter 13: Reckless

I’d like to tell you that I had remained composed all throughout them taking Jace, that I knew what to do, and that I wasn’t reduced to spouting gibberish anytime I tried to say something.

But that really couldn’t have been any further from the truth.

I mean, Mom was on the ground, I’d gotten the phone, but I couldn’t compose myself enough to press the buttons to call 911. For all my talk of being the calm logical person when something bad happens, I was useless. My hands were shaking, the room was spinning, and I felt like I was about to pass out.

Dad ended up calling an ambulance, sometime after I handed him a phone. I couldn’t tell you how long it was. Probably just seconds, but for all I know it could have been minutes, an hour, or even a month. But Jace…that was my focus; that was what my mind kept racing around. I wanted to know where he was, where they were taking him, and why. I wanted to know why.

No…wanted wasn’t a strong enough word. I needed to find him. I needed to get answers like I needed to breathe.

Was this what he was afraid would happen? That we’d get too close to him and end up being hurt? He’d finally started to get used to life with us, embracing us through his quiet acceptance. Why’d they have to steal him from us just as things were going so well? What had he done? We were his family, the ones that he was supposed to be with. Not Ren, not people who would shoot and kill, seeing him as only an object, not as a person. That wasn’t family

“Caleb, calm down,” Julia said once I had somehow made it to the couch and was just starring off into the distance.

I looked up at her like she’d grown a second head and had just asked me to fit the moon into a straw. Sure, I’d wanted to do something, say something, but back then, I don’t know, I can’t describe it. I should have been helping Dad with Mom, or trying to figure out where Jace went, or something, but I was in shock, unable to do anything despite the hundreds of things I wanted and needed to do. I wanted to punch Ren in the face, I wanted to perform some magic spell and save Mom. I wanted the ambulance to get here faster. I wanted to wake up, and realize that this was all some type of twisted dream of my worst fears manifesting themselves as a nightmare.

But I didn’t.

Instead I just did nothing.

“But he and Mom and Jace and Ren and…”

She put her hands on my shoulders and said firmly, “Everything is going to be all right.”

How could she say something like this? Mom could die, Jace was gone. No, what part of this was all right, what part of this would all turn out all fine and dandy and perfect? How could she even dare think something like this when all I could hear was the sound of that gun and then Mom’s screams repeating over and over and over in my ear only to be drowned out by Jace agreeing to leave us

At least, that’s what I thought back then.

You wouldn’t know it from looking at her, but Julia was much stronger than me, much stronger than any of us really. Sure, she could be a bit goofy at times, but she was able to keep calm when the situation called for it. When it truly mattered, there was no one I’d rather have by my side than Julia. “But how…” I said weakly

She smiled a bit as I asked that. “Mom’s injuries aren’t that bad, the doctors will be here soon, and after some time in the hospital, she’ll be okay.”

“But Jace, where did he go!?” I screamed those last few words.

“I’m not sure, but we can find him.” It amazed me how Julia could say that with such a blend of serenity and strength.

“Huh?”

Julia reached over to her bag and brought out a small tablet. “You remember that gps thing you gave me to put on stuff so I wouldn’t lose it.”

“Yeah what did….” It was then that the pieces started to come together. Back when she went to college, I fashioned a gps tracker out of one of those old car ones. I ended up then building an app for her tablet that was able to connect to it. She could put the sensor on her backpack or something so when she’d leave it somewhere, she’d be able to track it. The sensor was really small just a clip you could slip on anything no one would think anything of it. So long as the sensor was within a few miles of the tablet that had the app, it would track it perfectly.

“I put it on the back of his shirt collar. We’ll be able to track him wherever they take him now.”

I’m sure my pupils grew wide at the revelation. I jumped up from the couch, and glanced around, thinking about my next move as all the thoughts raced through my head. I yanked the tablet out of Julia’s hand just as she brought up the program.

“Hold on Caleb,” she said.

“I have to go find him.”

She nodded, and I knew that she wanted the same thing as me, to run after him and save him ourselves. But that would be crazy to do, the best thing we could hope for was to give this information to the police, and let them handle it. That would make the most sense, even if it just meant waiting around doing nothing.

But when your brother has just been kidnapped and your mother has been shot, you don’t exactly think logically.

“All right,” she said, knowing that she couldn’t argue with me. Before I went, she clipped another tracker on me. “Be careful, and don’t do anything stupid.”

So there I went, dressed in my pajamas, I raced out to my car, jumped in and threw it in drive as quickly as I could, and checked Julia’s tablet for the direction they went. I never claimed to be the hero of the movies that would burst onto the scene all heroically and stop the bad guys with some insane fighting moves, but that didn’t matter. No, I was just someone on a mission, someone who had a goal and would go to any means necessary to achieve that goal.

However, right as I was about to pull away, I heard a guy call out to me. “Caleb!”

I looked behind me and saw Tristen running up to my car. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“I wanted to ask you that. I was just getting home and I heard some gunshots. I was going to call the police, but then I saw you out here and wondered if you knew about them.”

“They kidnapped Jace,” I said. “I’m going to go get him back.”

“Whoa, take me with you.”

“Huh?”

“You’re going alone after some crooks to save your brother. No offense, but you’re not exactly the most physically intimating guy out there. So you’re plan’s pretty stupid. Might be less so if you have someone with you.”

I never said Tristen was a close friend, we saw each other from time to time and got along, but I never would have thought he’d be the one joining me for something like this. But he was right, 2 people stood a better chance than one. Maybe I should have said it wasn’t his problem to worry about, or that I could handle it myself. “Hop in quickly.”

As soon as the passenger door was shut, I slammed on the gas. Tristen scrambled to get his belt buckled in time as I took the corners of our neighborhood about twice as fast as I should. “We snuck a tracker on Jace before we left, the tablet should tell us his location. Tell me what turns to make.”

It was probably a good thing that Tristen was with me. I was driving like a maniac ignoring any and all speed limits, stop signs and red lights that I could, so it was probably best that I didn’t have to also be reading off a screen while driving like this.

I really didn’t have a plan once I did catch up to Jace. But back at the time, that didn’t bother me. I had one mission, one goal, and that was to find my brother. Anything beyond that simple objective was too far away to think about.

I just hoped I could catch up to Jace before it was too late.