Best Friend's Brother But It's My Brother's Best Friend

13: If you could learn one truth from a crystal ball, what would it be?

I wanna know where my dad is. So I won't have to deal with this anymore.

If that answer isn't foreshadowing then I don't know what is. Nick's birthday was about a week ago, and while Suit was warning us that my dad was on the move, we didn't think it would happen this fast. At least, it could be happening. I'm not sure. One minute, I'm debating between two packages of ground beef because Clay said he wants meatloaf for dinner, and the next I'm looking at my worst nightmare. And he's looking right back at me. Although at this point, I barely trust anyone, including my own eyes.

Still, I know that face. I can't forget that face.

Clay is the one who drags me away from it.

"What are you looking at?" He says, and I turn to him and answer and my voice doesn't work. "Baby?"

I can't breathe. I can't talk. I can't. I look back over to where he was, where I saw him, and he's not there. Like he never was. But the face. It's hanging there, haunting me, eyes dark and brow furrowed and a sick, sadistic smile curled in the same way I've seen it before, standing over-

"Are you okay?" No. I am not okay. I need to go, my body tensed to move, to run, to put as much distance as I can between the two of us and I can't. I'm rooted to the spot, stuck staring at where I swear he was. And then the face is Clay's, soft and worried, bent to be level with mine. "What's wrong?"

"He's here." Is all I can say, and I watch a million things go through his brain at once before he steels, grabs my hand from the package of meat in the freezer, leaving our cart and the things we've accumulated in our trip pulled off to the side of the aisle. His grip is solid, pulling me behind him as we walk out of the store and to my car. I'm not able to speak, to make myself move, and so Clay just packs me in the car, takes the keys from the pocket of his sweatshirt that I'm wearing and goes to get in the driver's side.

"Wait." I say, grabbing his hand. Right now, he's the only thing that's grounding me, keeping me from jumping out of the car and booking it, where to I don't know. He knows it, too, with the way he's looking at me.

"I gotta go get in the other side, baby. I'll be quick, I promise, and I'll be right next to you for the whole ride home." I open my mouth to respond but my voice fails me again, so I just nod. Clay takes a moment, makes sure I'm okay, or at least as okay as I can be before carefully shutting the door and jogging over to the other side of the car. He's scooping one of my hands up before he's even fully seated, pulling through the parking space in front of us with ease.

Before I notice, we're pulling into the garage, Clay's hand still held within mine like it's a lifeline, because right now, it is. He turns the key out of the ignition and turns back to me, face still sewn together with worry, to an extent where I think he's hiding most of it.

"Do you want me to go get Nick?" I shake my head, slackening the death grip I had on his hand and letting go of him. Nick can't help once it gets to this point. It's not common now, but the fear paralysis I'd get from nightmares is really only something you can wait out. This feels like that. "What do you need right now, baby?"

"Can we-" I test, voice shaky and breaking easily. I swallow and try again. "Can we just go upstairs? Me and you?" I still sounds seconds away from crying, probably because I am, tears welling in my eyes and threatening to fall.

"Yeah, I-" Clay cuts himself off, undoes his seatbelt and comes over to my door. I trust myself more now, get out and meet him where he was on his way over to pull me out. "Do you need help?" I shake my head, but he wraps an arm around my waist anyways, endlessly gentle in the way he moves me with it.

I feel bad, because I'm not really present at the moment to thank him for helping, but it hasn't yet registered in my brain that I'm okay yet. But I am present enough to be glad that we don't run into George or Nick on the way up, they don't need to see me like this.

Clay ushers me into his bed, gently climbing up into the bed with me. I'm wrapped up in a hug before he pulls a blanket up over the both of us. I am really grateful for the way he's handling this, especially cause I know it's probably pretty hard for him to sit by and not go do something about it. He's the type of guy who prefers action over words, even if he has quite the way with both. I appreciate it.

It takes a while for me to calm down. I don't sleep, too on edge. I just sit there while Clay brushes his fingers through the tangles at the end of my hair, trying to think about anything other than what I saw in the store. An essay I have due friday, the survivor episode we watched all four of us last night, the text my mom sent me asking if we had easter plans. Anything to keep my mind from wandering back to him. 

"I need to call my guy." I feel Clay stiffen from where he lays half on top of me. 

"Do you need me to go?" I hum a no, and then start digging around for my phone, eventually catching sight of it on Clay's bedside table, and I grab it. When I go back to lay down, I catch the worried look in his eyes.

"I want you to be here. It helps." He softens, both in the face and in the tensing of his muscles around me. 

"Glad I can help you with this." 

"I'm happy you can, too, bubs." And with that I dial the number, no need to look it up. It's engrained in my memory.

It doesn't take long for him to pick up, and Suit knows before I speak.

"He's there, isn't he?"

I nod while I say "He's here."

"And if you saw him then he's got a way to track you." That thought makes my skin crawl, and I physically shiver. Clay hugs me a little tighter with that.

"Apparently." I pause. "What-" My voice breaks, but I press on. "What do we do?"  

"Normally we'd move you to a safe house, but with his history and what he did after-" 

"Makes sense." I don't let him say it, don't want to hear the fact that my mom's dead all over again, don't want to be reminded of the hell that came after that, the months of torture that got me shipped off to Texas in the first place.

"We know he has connections in the system and possibly in the investigation itself. Stay put, lie low, we'll have the plainclothes bring you burner phones and you call me using that. You, all of you, use those and nothing else in the house that's got anything to do with the internet or phone lines. No netflix on the tv, no video game consoles that use the internet, nothing."

"It feels like I'm being grounded." Suit chuckles. As much as this is serious, he knows I need it, that that's the only way I can cope with this bullshit.

"Case, I'm grounding your whole house. Nothing but board games and baking till we find him." I huff out a laugh. "We will find him. Promise. We'll get him, Case, and I'd die trying before he laid a hand on you." As many times as he's told me that, it's reassuring. I hope it's true.

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1375 today i KNOW it's short but hush i've written and rewritten and rewritten this chapter and i'm finally happy with it so HERE have it before i change my mind