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Chapter 3 - "I'm going to break your nose, because I don't like your face."

Donovan slammed his fist into the punching bag one more time before stepping away. Sweat slid down his temples and back, his knuckles throbbing. On the coffee table, his phone buzzed, vibrating against the polished wood. He picked it up as he crossed to the kitchen.

"What's up?" he asked, setting the phone down on the counter and unwrapping his hands.

"I got those files you asked for," Brock said.

Donovan tossed the length of fabric onto the granite surface and reached for the remains of his power shake.

"Thanks. Same security measures?" he asked, leaning against the edge, the counter chilly against his bare skin.

"Yup. It's over eight hundred files so you should have some fun light reading to distract for a day or two."

"Anything to break up the boredom," Donovan said, downing the rest of the green-tinted smoothie.

Brock snorted. "Sifting through all the information on those files seems like a death sentence to me."

"That's only cause you haven't endured high school."

Brock grunted in response, the sound followed by a long pause. Donovan stilled, reading into the silence, already knowing what was coming.

"Mom called after we met up last night," he said.

Shaking his head, Donovan snatched the phone and walked to his room.

"You told her what I said last night, didn't you?"

Another weighted pause was confirmation.

"Dude, you know mom," Brock said. "I don't speak and she knows what I'm not saying. There was no way to keep it from her. Besides, she's worried about you."

"For no reason."

"Really? Cause after what I saw last night I would have to agree with her."

Annoyed, Donovan threw his phone on his bed and ran a hand over his face.

"I'm fine, just...penned in is all."

"I get it. Call her and tell her that, then she can stop bugging me about you."

Donovan dropped to the floor and fell into a rhythm of push-ups, the movement helping banish a bit of his pent up frustration.

"You're only annoyed," he said, between breaths. "Because she's worried about your failure to commit to Jaya."

"This is not about me," Brock said.

"Whatever you say."

There was a beat of quiet. "Look, I have to go. I need to get a report written up."

"A fairly believable excuse to not deal with your issues."

"I'm telling mom to call you," Brock said.

Sighing, Donovan flopped to the ground, laying on his back.

"I guess I deserve that."

"You do. I'll talk to you later."

Donovan nodded. "Okay."

The line went dead and Donovan remained on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. The silence that took over the room was unnerving like he was trapped outside of time where no one could reach him.

After a minute of sitting in the numbing exhaustion of a day already not ended, he hauled himself up and grabbed his phone. He found the email from Brock and went through three different forms of identification before the attachment was unlocked. He scanned briefly the contents, pausing on the name Carter Owens.