My mind races back to my father.
Arthur Charles.
Three syllables that have suddenly grown weight and shape. A real name attached to a real man who once drove a real car down real roads. A man who might have held me, or at least known my name. A man who shares strands of my DNA and may once have carried pieces of my story in his head.
Or may still.
I curl my fingers into my palm and press until the nails bite crescent moons into the skin. The sharp sting is grounding. Pain has always been a reliable anchor. It yanks me back when my thoughts start to spiral outward into panic.
I turn my face toward the window, letting the cold glass kiss my temple, and try to summon him.
A face.
A voice.
A gesture. Anything.
My mind offers only blankness. Nothing but a gray screen, flickering faintly like a television left on after the broadcast ends. No features rise to fill it. No memory of cologne or cigarette smoke or the low timbre of laughter. Just absence, vast and polite, waiting for me to stop asking.
I have spent my whole life with an empty space labeled FATHER, and now someone has drawn a circle around it and written MISSING in red ink.
I swallow and taste acid.
Ozzy glances at me for half a second. “You okay?”
I want to laugh. I want to cry. I want to throw something. Instead I say, “Sure.”
Ozzy doesn’t believe me, but he doesn’t push. His jaw tightens, and his eyes flick to the mirrors again. Road. Mirror. Road. Like he is counting threats.
I force a breath in through my nose. Hold it. Let it out slowly. I can do this. I can handle information. I can handle fear. I’ve handled worse.
My mind tries to be practical. If his car was there, he was close to Goldenbell. If Goldenbell has him, then he is leverage. If he hired Maddox Security to save me, maybe he tried to do the right thing and got punished for it. Or maybe he hired them for a selfish reason and now someone wants to shut him up.
I hate that my brain goes to the worst-case scenario first. I hate that it is usually correct.
Ozzy takes a turn, and the gas gauge catches my eye. It’s sitting on empty. “We need to stop.”
I keep my voice calm. “Okay.”
Ozzy pulls into a gas station off the highway, the kind with two faded flags and a convenience store that smells like hot dogs no one should eat. The lot is mostly empty. A pickup truck on the far side. A sedan at the pump. The fluorescent lights make everything look sickly.
Ozzy parks by a pump but does not get out right away. He scans. Left. Right. Mirrors. Then he looks at me. “Stay close.”
I nod, but my skin prickles anyway.
Ozzy steps out and starts pumping gas. He keeps his shoulders angled so he can see both the road and the store. His whole body is alert.
I force myself to move like a normal person. I open the passenger door and step out, the cold air snapping at my face. The smell of gasoline hits my nose. It mixes with old asphalt and burnt coffee. My bladder chooses now to remind me I am human. I hug my hoodie tighter. “I’m going to use the restroom.”
Ozzy’s head snaps toward me. “I’ll go with you.”
My cheeks heat. “I can go by myself.”
His eyes narrow like he hates that sentence.
I try to soften it. “You’ll be right there. I’ll be quick.”
Ozzy hesitates, then nods once. “Door stays in sight. If anything feels off, you yell.”