Here’s a new scene for early on in Lost and Found. Based on feedback from test reads, a few things will be happening in the midst of the second draft, including adding Tim as a POV character and bulking up the major throughlines for the book. This scene helps set one of those up. Enjoy!
Adam picked up the phone on the third ring, which was two rings too many for my liking at this time of day. “Hello, Alisa.”
“Hey, Adam.” I grimaced, leaning forward for a better look at the road before I changed lanes. I-80 was as awful as I’d expected, even though it was almost past the worst of the rush hour—or maybe that was why it was getting bad. “I’m going to need someone to proctor my exam tomorrow. I already made copies of the questions, I just need someone to give the test for me.”
“Something wrong?”
“Uhm.” I drew the syllable out for a few seconds longer than was strictly necessary, trying to martial my thoughts. Of course he’d ask if something was wrong—and of course, I didn’t have a good answer already in my back pocket.
I should have thought this through before I called. Real smart, Alisa. Really damn smart. It took an extra second for me to come up with an appropriate response. “Not precisely wrong, no.”
There was silence on the other end of the line for a beat. “Are you driving?”
“Yes.”
“Heading home from downtown? You’re not usually there so late.”
“No, not heading home.” I exhaled, just barely managing to suppress the urge to sigh. “I’m on 80 heading toward the Ohio line.”
“Wait, why are you in Indiana? Why are you going to Ohio? Alisa, what’s going on?”
“I’m not actually going to Ohio. I just have to drive through it.” A car nearly merged into me. It was all I could do not to lay on my horn, instead glaring out my passenger window as I sped up. “I’m going to Virginia.”
“Virginia? Why the hell are you going to Virginia?”
“Because that’s where my brother is.”
For a second time on the call, my statement was met with silence. This time, Adam was quiet for so long that I double-checked the dash to make sure that we hadn’t gotten disconnected—that the call hadn’t hung up and that my phone was still connected to the hands-free on the car. Finally, Adam found his voice again. “So he’s alive.”
“We knew he was alive,” I said. “We just didn’t know where he was.”
“And apparently, he’s back on Earth. In Virginia, no less. Why Virginia?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, stomach twisting. “That’s part of why I’m going—there are a lot of questions I need answered.”
“Why not tell him to come home?”
“Pretty sure that’s what I’m going to do after I talk to him face-to-face, Adam. But first I have to figure out how long he’s been back and why he hasn’t come home yet.” My throat tightened for a moment and I swallowed, trying to get it to loosen, to prevent a lump from climbing up again. Yeah, it was a mystery, but one I’d solve in the next thirty-six hours, with any luck. Driving all night alone probably wasn’t the smartest move I’d ever made, but that was my choice. I wanted to see him as soon as I could without the corporate charter—driving twelve hours to Virginia from Illinois was my only option.
Besides, if I was planning on dragging him home, it would be harder to do that without a car.
“You need to bring him to see me, Alisa.”
I startled, blinking rapidly at the display on my dashboard, as if somehow I could look through it to see Adam. I couldn’t, of course, but if I had, maybe it would have given me some insight into his absurd request—and he would have realized exactly how insane I thought the request actually was. “Excuse me?”
“I said you need to bring him to me when you get him here. I need to talk to him, Alisa. You need me to talk to him.”
“I do, do I?” I don’t like where this is going. I’m not sure where it’s going but I think I know and I really, really don’t like it. “What, do you think he’s some kind of threat to the Order?”
“There is a distinct possibility, but no, that’s not why.”
“Oh, good. Because I’d hate to think you were going to make this a more traumatic thing for him than it already is.”
He made a sound that I could only quantify as disgusted—disgusted and openly dismissive. “Traumatic! Alisa, why in the name of heaven and earth would any of it be traumatic?”
I glared at the call timer on the dashboard for a split second before I had to turn my eyes back to the road. “I don’t know, Adam. Let me break it down. He was kidnapped to other planets by some really bad people and I don’t know how or when he escaped or how or when he got back to Earth. I know that they had brainwashed him into working for them, but I don’t know exactly what was done or what he was feeling during the whole experience. Now you’re asking me to drag him to some authority figure of mine to talk about god knows what almost as soon as I’ve seen him again. Yeah, that’s—that sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it? Let’s do that. Let’s add insult to whatever injury’s lingering there.” My jaw tightened, teeth grinding, and I had to count to three so I could force myself to relax at least a fraction. “I’m not doing that to him, Adam. If he talks to you, it’s his choice. I am not about to force the issue.”
“If he’s anything like you—”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Alisa!” his quiet cry of protest was more exasperated than anything. “If he is as talentedas you are with magic, then someone needs to see to his training—at leastto give him guidance. You know how difficult muddling through it all alone can be. You’ve seen it.”
“I have seen it,” I said. I tried to keep my tone level, to not let my suspicion and worry—and anger—creep into my voice. None of that emotion was going to do any good, not yet, not in the face of his stubborn exasperation. “And I also know my brother. He’s not going to be ready for that, not for any of it, not yet. I can only force so much and making him come see you isn’t one of the things I’m going to waste leverage on, Adam.” I didn’t tell him that I wasn’t going to do it because I wasn’t sure it was the right thing, regardless. I knew that Tim had gotten some training somewhere beyond the Portals—probably from his Cabal masters, which was a terrifying thought in and of itself—and at least that would be enough for him to understand the basics of the talent that he had and what he might be able to do with it. In the short term—maybe even in the long term—that would be enough.
He didn’t need to get sucked into Order politics and plots. Not now and maybe not ever. I was still trying to figure it all out myself and while I knew and trusted Adam, there were things that I knew he hadn’t been entirely forthright with me about. While I was willing to accept that temporarily, that same sort of behavior and secret-keeping probably wasn’t going to go over very well with Tim.
This was just another problem I was trying to prevent from blooming for the sake of my own sanity and everyone else’s.
“I hardly think you’d end up categorizing it as a waste,” Adam said. “This is an unprecedented—”
“Which part?” I interrupted. “Which part of this is unprecedented, Adam, and in what context? Because there’s a lot to unpack here. There is more to unpack here than you have everbothered to lay out of me in the past two years since I joined the Corps andthe Order. So why don’t you start? Start explaining it to me and then I can judge this once all the cards are out on the table.”
“Alisa—”
“No,” I said a second before I laid on my horn at someone who’d cut me off crossing three lanes of traffic so they wouldn’t miss an exit. “No, Adam, if you are going to push this, then dammit, you owe me answers first. This is my brother we’re talking about. I love him and he deserves every fucking ounce of my caution and protection. So either I have a full understanding of why you’re on about this and why you’ve been so fucking upset about what I’ve been doing beyond the Portals or this conversation is over.”
There was a long pause before Adam’s voice came quietly. “Then I suppose this conversation is over.”
“Dammit, Adam.”
“No,” he said. “You don’t understand, Alisa. There is so much at stake with all of this.”
“I would probably understand if you told me something.”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
“Both.” The word hit like a physical blow and yet somehow, he sounded exhausted. “It’s both. There—you understand, there are things that we don’t talk about, even within the Order—there are secrets that simply aren’t given voice to. Not by people like me.”
“But other people would.”
“Alisa.”
“Adam, you know where I’m coming from, right? I understand secrets. What I don’t understand is keeping them from the people who might actually need to know them. If these secrets are tied to the Portals, maybe they’re secrets that I deserve to know. Hell, if not me, then maybe Bryn. Does Bryn know?”
“No, Ms. Knight-McCullough doesn’t know.”
“Well, then,” I said, my voice dropping to match the quiet cadence of his—though my tone was much more stern. “Then that’s even more concerning, since I thought that she was the one from the Order that was actually monitoring all of that. If she doesn’t know—”
“Alisa, please.”
“Please what? Please what, Adam? What, exactly, am I supposed to be thinking right now? Is this your way of punishing me for not listening to you? You know why I didn’t walk away—why I couldn’t walk away.”
“Yes,” he said softly. “I understood why you couldn’t and didn’t walk away. I can only hope that you will now, with him being safely back.”
Cold shot through me. “Excuse me? He was not the only reason I was doing this.”
“If he knows where Matthias is—”
“If he knows where Mat is, I will be involved in that. Just because Tim’s back and safe doesn’t mean that I’m giving this up. There are too many people counting on me, Adam. Maybe a year, year and a half ago, maybe I would’ve given it up. But not now. Give up on that hope, Adam. You’ll be better off letting it go, I promise you that.” I swallowed the bile that curdled at the back of my throat. The vile taste didn’t go away, though, nor did the churning, roiling feeling in my stomach. “What the hell do you know, Adam? What the hell do you know that you’re not telling me?” My voice was cracking, quavering, and I hated it but I couldn’t help it, either.
What the hell does he know about all of this that he’s never told me? And why did he keep secrets that could’ve helped?
“Please, Alisa,” he whispered. “I can’t.”
“Then the least you can do is make sure my class takes their exam,” I said, forcing my voice to steady, to be firm. “Can you do that? Please.”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I can do that.”
“Good. I’ll let you know if I won’t be back in time for classes after spring break.”
“Alisa—”
“Thank you, Adam.”
“Alisa, please don’t hang up. I’m sorry, but I need you to understand—”
“I’ll call you later,” I said. “G’night, Adam.”
I hung up the phone before he could say anything else. My hands tightened around the steering wheel.
It was already almost dark. The highway was starting to clear out more and more the further I got from the interchanges. The Ohio line wasn’t far, now.
A sign by the side of the road reflected in my headlights. Five miles to a Starbucks. Tonight was going to be a long drive, but at least now I had some anger for fuel before my next coffee stop—and probably well beyond that.
At least I knew for sure that were secrets tied to the Portals, though—and likely more of them than I ever suspected. He could keep them for now.
I was growing increasingly sure that I’d stumble across them on my own.
