Missing [ST]

Forty Two

A/N:

Guys!! I got my coursework back today and I actually did well! 😭😭 Oml, I'm so happy which is why I'm updating!!! (Sorry for boring you with my real life lmaoo)

Translation at the end is 'see you soon.'

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Everyone froze.

The temperature dropped, and what should have been a continuation of their luck, felt like their mission had been ramped up by a simple confirmation that Steven really was in trouble, and that this was all very, very real.

"I suggest you all get in before I make you," Will said, trudging back to his car.

He stripped off his jacket and chucked it on the back seats, revealing a black long sleeve with an empty, leather gun holster strapped over his shoulders.

"Joe, in the front," Will instructed, snapping his fingers. He glanced at the remaining four, hovering on the step up to the driver's seat. "The rest of you can choose where you want to sit."

When his door slammed shut, Joe, surprisingly, did exactly as he was told with no further questions.

"Yes sir..." Tom muttered, with a weak salute, and he was next to break the line.

Joey and Brad followed just as obediently, and it left Leah standing alone and not quite sure how to process any of the information.

"That includes you, Leah," Will said, poking his head out the window. The engine was running and she knew they were waiting, but she couldn't move.

She stared down at one of the muddy front tyres with her trembling fingertips touching the hairs of her right eyebrow. She was breathing regularly and there were no dots blinding her vision to suggest she was in a state of panic, but she felt so weightless on her own two feet that she didn't feel real.

"Hey, come on." Tom had got out again, gently urging her to move with a hand on her back. "You can think in the car."

With his encouragement, Leah was climbing into the back with Tom following close behind. She sat behind Will, moving his jacket to the middle, and was aware that Joey and Brad were on the bench seat conversion behind her.

With the missing man running circles on her mind, the car was moving before she had clipped her seatbelt properly.

"Why is there such a rush?" Joe asked, over the sudden lurch of the engine.

"Because it went dark sixteen hours ago, which means they know we're onto them," Will responded, a sharp turn of the wheel and a clunk from reverse into first gear to send them down the tracks.

"So you don't even know if Steven's alive?!" Joe ridiculed, etching his voice up a notch in the space of a single question. "Or in the same place? Sixteen hours is a long fuckin' time!"

"You think I don't know that?" Will snapped back. "And shouting at me isn't going to help us in the slightest, so do me a favour, and keep it down."

From the slump of his figure, Joe muttered something incoherently, and proceeded to look out of his window in defeat.

"How do you know where he is?" Tom asked, more civilly.

"He has a tracker in his shoe," Will responded, and then he pushed something on the dash into the centre. "Here, you see?"

Following the tilt of heads around her, Leah flicked her eyes through the gap to the small screen with a red blip some miles away. Judging by the speed they were going though, they would get there a lot quicker than if they were paying attention to national speed limits.