The Search

Chapter 28 of Love from Above

I pace back and forth in the living room, the same way I have been for hours now. It is nearly 10 o’clock at night. Jeremy never showed up after school as planned, and I am starting to get worried.

 

“He would have called if the circumstances were normal. He would be replying to my texts if the circumstances were normal,” I mutter to nobody in particular for what feels like the millionth time.

 

“Kelsey, relax. I’m sure Jeremy is fine,” Janie replies, her eyes following me back and forth from her seat on the couch.

 

“And what if he isn’t?” I snap, halting my pacing to face her. “I should have ridden home with him. What if something happened to him? Am I supposed to just sit here and wait?”

 

“Well then why have you been pacing around here instead of out investigating?” Libby asks as she steps out of the kitchen, a flashlight held out to me as well as one for her.

 

I reach for it and turn to Janie, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry for snapping at you. Would you stay here in case he turns up?”

 

“Of course, I know you’re just worried,” she says with a sympathetic smile. Libby and I walk out the front door and turn on our lights.

 

“Let’s check the garage. See if his car is there. It’ll give us a place to start,” I say, walking in the direction of his house. I pop out my wings and peer in his garage window. Empty.

 

We take to the sky, flying as low as is safe for our secret. Libby and I circle our house, Jeremy’s house, the school, and the road in between.

 

Not long after starting our search of the road, I spot something in the trees. We drop down into the forest and flip on our flashlights.

 

What I see makes my throat close with dread. The front of Jeremy’s car is curled around a thick, unforgiving pine tree. The front windshield is nearly shattered and the airbag has been deployed. On quaking legs, I rush around to the driver’s side door. With some effort, I finally yank it open. The car is empty aside from Jeremy’s school backpack. I spot his cell phone lodged up by the gas pedal, screen shattered.

 

“Kelsey,” I barely hear Libby over the roaring in my ears as she gestures to where she is shining her flashlight. There is a large spatter of blood on the fabric of the airbag. My own flashlight tumbles to the ground. I fall to my knees, my vision swimming, trying to keep from completely breaking down.

 

What I hear then makes me stop, my brain snapping back into focus. Confused I scoot back to have a look under the car. What I thought I’d heard were rocks tumbling off some precipice, and I was right.

 

“Libby, check this out,” I say. She crouches by me and shines her flashlight down the deep hole, the smell of sulfur wafting up from below.

 

“You know what this means, don’t you?” she asks me nervously.

 

“Yes,” I reply numbly. “It means Jeremy has been taken by demons to the underworld.”