𝑊𝑒𝑎𝑝𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑂𝑟𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑟
❝ 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑙𝑢𝑑𝑒 𝑑𝑟𝑢𝑔 𝑢𝑠𝑒, 𝑑𝑟𝑢𝑔 𝑎𝑑𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛, 𝑠𝑢𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑑𝑎𝑙 𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛, 𝑠𝑢𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑡𝑠, 𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑛. ❞
𝐩𝐭. 𝐢, 𝐩𝐭. 𝐢𝐢, 𝐩𝐭. 𝐢𝐢𝐢, 𝐩𝐭. 𝐢𝐯, 𝐩𝐭. 𝐯, 𝐩𝐭. 𝐯𝐢𝐢
Sonya woke to muffled voices and scratching furniture from downstairs—sharp, frantic, overlapping. She groaned, dragging a pillow over her head. The last thing she needed was another lecture, another fight. Her father’s words from the night before still sat in her chest like lead.
The voices grew louder, hurried footsteps thudding against the hardwood. Then her bedroom door flew open, the crash of the door against the wall enough to cause her shelves to shake.
“Are you kidding me?” she snapped, sitting up, heart already racing. “James wasn’t here, okay? I don’t get why you can't fucking knock!”
Archer’s face was pale, hard in a way she hadn’t seen before, his voice clipped and sharp. “I know he wasn’t here.” He stepped into the room, searching her face, almost desperate. “Is Matthew?”
The words knocked the air out of her. “What?”
Her dad’s eyes darted around her room like Matthew might somehow be hiding in a corner. “He’s not in his bed. He’s not anywhere. Did he come to you? Did you see him?”
Sonya’s throat went dry. She shoved her blankets off, bare feet hitting the floor.
“What are you talking about? No, he was fine last night.” She faltered, her mind replaying the way he’d left her room, the Sour Patch Kids, the soft don’t leave.
Her dad swore under his breath, dragging a hand down his face, and for a second the cracks in his anger showed—raw fear leaking through.
“Wait!” Sonya said quickly, panic rising in her chest. “You’re just trying to fuck with me, right? Like… you're not actually serious.”
Her mom’s voice echoed faintly from downstairs, calling Matthew’s name again and again, each time sounding thinner.
Sonya’s hands shook as she grabbed the edge of her nightstand for balance. “No. No, you're lying. He literally told me last night to stay with him…”
But the silence in her father’s eyes said it all…
And in the pit of her stomach, dread bloomed cold and fast, drowning out everything else.
The house buzzed with panic. Archer tore through rooms with heavy steps, opening closets, yanking open doors, shouting Matthew’s name like it might pull him out of hiding. Sonya’s mom paced the kitchen, phone already in her hand, voice trembling as she tried to decide whether to call the police.
Sonya’s own chest felt hollow, every sound muffled under the thudding of her heartbeat. She stumbled down the front steps barefoot, arms wrapped tight around herself, eyes sweeping the yard, the street, anywhere he might be.
That’s when she saw it: the small, glowing ring of blue around the doorbell camera.
“Wait,” she said, slowly approaching the front door again as her eyes stayed locked on the mounted metal doorbell camera.
“Hey!” Sonya called out, leaning inside the house. “Hey, the Ring camera. Can we check to see if we see him leaving? Or if someone came in to take him?”
Her mom froze, then darted toward Archer, grabbing his arm. “Check it. Now.”
Archer muttered something sharp under his breath but pulled out his phone, thumb fumbling against the screen. Sonya hovered over his shoulder, the tension unbearable as he scrolled back through the timeline.
The grainy footage showed him stepping out the front door in the middle of the night, barefoot, camouflage pajamas crooked from sleep, his movements… wrong.
Matthew's arms were stiff, almost puppet-like. He didn’t glance around, didn’t hesitate, didn’t look scared. He just ran. Fast. Straight into the darkness of the woods.
Sonya’s breath hitched, eyebrows knitted together with confusion. “What the fuck..?”
Her mom made a strangled sound, covering her lips with shaking fingers. “No… no, that’s not… that’s not right, that’s not him—”
Archer replayed the clip, his expression hardening with every second. “What the hell…” His voice broke low and furious. “What the hell is this?”
The three of them stood frozen in the doorway, watching again and again as Matthew’s small figure vanished into the darkness.
Sonya didn’t wait, slipping on a pair of sandals near the front door, she was already heading towards where Matthew had run off to.
“Where the hell do you think you're going?” Archer shouted after Sonya, her pace faltering before she turned around.
“Just… let me fucking look!” She shouted back, turning and walking away from her house in the direction Matthew went.
Part of her hoped Matthew went to James’s tent. She knew it was unlikely, but goddamn, she hoped…
The woods loomed, damp earth swallowing her footsteps. She knew the path by heart—how many nights had she taken this exact trail? Her lungs burned, tears stinging her eyes, but she didn’t stop until the faint shape of the tent came into view.
Smoke curled from inside, acrid and familiar. She could hear the faint clink of glass, James humming low to himself, completely unaware.
“James!” Her voice cracked as she stumbled toward the tent, yanking the flap open.
He looked up, startled, a pipe still in his hand. His eyes lit up instantly. “Sonya—hey, baby.” His face softened, almost boyish with relief, but the smile dropped the moment he saw her face.
“Is… is Matthew here?” She asked, her voice cracking as she spoke. She already knew the answer…
“What?” James chuckled, a bit caught off guard before Sonya collapsed into him.
“He… I thought… he… and the Ring… and oh fuck…”
James froze, arms hovering awkwardly for a second before he wrapped them tight around her, rocking her gently. “What? Hey, hey—slow down.” His voice wavered with panic, but he tried to keep it steady for her. “What are you on about? Start from the beginning…”
She pressed her face into his shoulder, words tumbling out between gasps. “He—he wasn’t in his room, or anywhere, and when we checked the camera—he just… he ran out in the middle of the night, like… like something was wrong with him. He just left, and now we can’t find him.”
James’s hand threaded through her hair, holding her tighter. His pipe lay forgotten on the floor of the tent. “Shit,” he breathed, blue eyes wide and stricken. “Sonya…”
“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered, shaking against him. “What if he’s hurt? What if he’s… what if I never see him again?”
James kissed the side of her head, jaw tight. “Hey, don’t say that. We’ll find him. He’s tough, right? Just like his sister.”
Sonya clung to him harder, burying herself in his warmth, his smell, his steadiness. He was the only thing keeping her from falling apart completely.
And James—despite the ache in his chest, despite knowing he was no savior—held her like she was the only thing that mattered, whispering promises he wasn’t sure he could keep.
Sonya sat with her knees tucked under her chin, the rumpled blanket twisted under her weight, her eyes red and wet, her whole body trembling like a live wire. James had been quiet after she broke down, just sitting with her, knees drawn up, fiddling with a lighter but not lighting anything. The silence pressed heavy between them.
She didn’t even think about it—it was instinct, muscle memory. Her hand reached toward the little pile of scattered things in the corner: a bent spoon, a rubber belt, a capped needle gleaming faintly in the dim light.
Her fingers brushed the belt, and that’s when James’s hand shot out, closing around her wrist. “Whoa! Hey, Sonya—no… No.” His voice was sharp, urgent.
She froze, her breath catching. For a moment, she almost yanked her arm back, almost cursed at him for stopping her. But the look on his face stopped her cold. His eyes weren’t angry, just terrified.
“You're not throwing away being clean,” he whispered, his grip trembling but firm. “Not over this. Not because you’re hurting. Matthew needs you, and you can't help if you're drugged up.”
Tears spilled faster down her cheeks. “What else am I supposed to do, James?” she choked out. “He’s gone—he’s just gone. And I don’t even know why. I don’t know where he is. I can’t—” Her voice cracked, and she folded forward, pressing her forehead to her knees.
James let go of her wrist only to wrap his arms around her, pulling her in tight against his chest. She could smell the smoke and sweat and faint chemical tang on him, but underneath it, there was just James. Warm, alive, holding her together while she fell apart.
“You can’t lose yourself too,” he murmured into her hair. “I won’t let you.”
For once, James wasn’t pulling her toward the edge. He was the one anchoring her back.
James held her until her sobs muted, his chin resting against the crown of her head. When she finally pulled back, her eyes were swollen, her cheeks blotchy, but she looked at him like she didn’t know whether to hate him for stopping her or thank him.
He sighed, running his palm over the top of his backwards baseball cap before taking it off. “Look, Sonya… I’m not good at much. But I know what it’s like when somebody disappears on you.” His jaw flexed, words coming slower, heavier. “And I don’t wanna just sit here with you falling apart. If Matthew’s missing… let me help. We’ll find him.”
Sonya blinked, startled. “You’d do that?” Her voice was hoarse, incredulous.
“Come on, babe…” He leaned back, giving a dry laugh that didn’t quite land. “What else am I good for? I know the streets better than anybody. If he’s out there, I’ll know where to look.”
Sonya pressed her hands to her face, wiping at tears, then looked at him again. “James… he’s just a kid. He doesn’t belong out there.”
“So were we…” He said, gently taking Sonya's chin between his index finger and thumb before smiling.
“We'll go find him before the streets chew him up.” James’s voice hardened with something close to resolve. He wasn’t used to caring this much, but the sight of Sonya breaking had put a dull knife in his gut. He’d do whatever it took to stop her from looking at that needle again.
Sonya hesitated, then reached out, lacing her fingers through his like she was grounding herself. “Okay…”
James squeezed her hand, a crooked, almost reckless smile flickering across his face.
The tent’s stale air still clung to Sonya's clothes as James pulled the flap open, letting in the sharp bite of morning.
The town felt different now. The same cracked sidewalks and dingy storefronts looked hostile, too open, too easy for someone to vanish into. Sonya hugged her hoodie tighter, eyes sweeping every alley, every figure passing by.
James walked at her side, one hand jammed in his pocket, fidgeting with a lighter while the other stayed present on Sonya's back. Every so often, he glanced at her, like he was making sure she wasn’t about to break. “Kids don’t just disappear into thin air,” he muttered. “If he’s on foot, somebody saw him. We just gotta start asking.”
Sonya swallowed hard. “What if nobody did?”
“Then we keep walking till we find where he went.” His tone was sharper than he meant, but the edge came from fear, not anger. He slowed a bit, brushing her shoulder with his as if to steady her. “We’ll find him, Sonya.”
They crossed through the heart of town, where the neon open signs flickered against greasy windows, and the smell of fried food mixed with exhaust. James nodded toward a pair of guys slouched outside a liquor store. “I’ll ask.”
Sonya hung back, nervous, while James went over. His voice was low, his posture rough-edged but familiar with their world. A brief exchange, a shrug from the men, then James came back shaking his head. “Nothing.”
Sonya’s stomach dropped. She tried to picture Matthew’s face, his messy hair, the way he’d looked when he’d handed her the Sour Patch Kids last night. Her chest ached.
James noticed. “Hey. We just started. He’s out there. Don’t quit on me now.”
Sonya blinked up at him, tears pricking her eyes again, but she nodded. She couldn’t quit. Not on Matthew.
They kept walking, street by street, James guiding her into the corners of town she’d never dared to look at before.
They wove through back alleys that reeked of old grease and trash, James leading with the kind of instinct only someone who’d lived on the streets had. He pushed aside a chain-link gate, ducked under a half-fallen no trespassing sign, checking places Sonya would have never thought to look.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, sharp and jarring against the silence of their search. She hesitated, then pulled it out. Mom.
Her throat tightened. She almost didn’t want to answer, didn’t want to hear the disappointment, the suspicion in her mom’s voice. But she swiped anyway.
“Sonya?” Her mom’s voice cracked with panic. “Where are you?”
“I’m—” Sonya faltered, glancing at James. He slowed, watching her with wary eyes. “I’m looking for Matthew.”
A shaky breath rattled through the speaker. “Sonya, it’s not just Matthew. It's his whole class…”
“What?” The word tumbled out of her in a gasp.
“His whole class is missing. They left at the same time, that same weird run…” Her mom’s voice broke, muffled like she’d pressed the phone against her chest. Sonya could hear Archer in the background, barking questions, demanding answers no one had. Then her mom came back, frantic. “Please just come home. I don’t want you out in those streets.”
Sonya froze in the middle of the alley, the world tilting under her feet. Her stomach knotted so hard she thought she’d be sick. Disconnecting the call, Sonya stood there with the phone to her chest.
“It’s not just him,” she muttered.
James frowned, moving closer. “What?”
Sonya slipped her phone back into her pocket, staring at him wide-eyed, pale as a ghost. “It’s all of them, James. Not just Matthew. His whole class is gone.”
For once, James didn’t have a quick answer, no half-baked reassurance. His face went slack, the lighter slipping from his fingers into the gravel.
“I need to go home,” she blurted, voice ragged. “My parents—”
“I’ll come with you,” James said immediately, stepping in, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Sonya’s head whipped toward him, eyes wide. “No! I mean… no, you can’t. You know that’ll just make everything worse.”
The words snapped out sharper than she meant, cutting clean through the air. And the second she saw the flicker in his eyes—hurt, familiar, like he’d been expecting it—guilt slammed into her chest. “Wait, fuck… No, I didn’t mean that… I meant—”
“It’s okay.” He forced a crooked smile. “You’re right.”
“No, I—” She swallowed hard, then stepped forward, wrapping her arms around him. He was warm, grounding, the smell of smoke and sweat clinging to him. “I just… I can’t have another fight right now. With them. With you. I can’t.”
His arms tightened around her like he could fuse her bones to his. She could feel his lips brush the top of her head. And then, just as she tried to pull away, he stopped her.
His hand shook when he pulled something out—a thin silver chain, tangled but unmistakable.
Sonya’s mouth dropped open. “James—”
“I know this isn’t a good time,” he rushed, words tripping over each other, “but I… I took this. Don’t be mad, please. I couldn’t—” He broke off, jaw working, eyes flickering anywhere but her face. “I felt guilty. I had to give it back.”
The necklace dangled between them, catching what little light slipped through the alley.
Her chest ached at the sight—at him. He looked so small, so desperate, like a boy holding out a peace offering instead of a man caught in the middle of her wrecked world.
Sonya stared at the necklace in his hand as it swung slightly through his fingers.
She’d worn that necklace almost every day until recently. She knew what he could’ve done with it—what he usually would’ve done with it. It would’ve been gone, traded for a quick high, a crumpled bill in someone else’s palm. But here it was, in his shaking fingers, waiting for her.
Slowly, she reached out and took the chain from him. “James…” Her voice cracked, softer than she wanted.
He looked at her then, eyes glassy, shoulders hunched like he was bracing for a blow. “I’m sorry. I'm sorry. I just— I don’t know why I did it. But I couldn’t keep it.”
Sonya’s heart squeezed. She slipped the necklace into her pocket instead of putting it on, and then leaned in, pressing a shaky kiss to his cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered against his skin.
For a second, his whole body stilled. Then his hand cupped the back of her head, almost desperate, as if he could keep her there. “Fuck… I don’t deserve you.” he murmured.
Sonya forced herself to step back, even though it felt like tearing something inside her. She wrapped her arms around herself, staring at him like she could memorize every line of his face. “I have to go.”
James nodded, but his eyes followed her like a shadow. “Come back to me, okay?”
She bit her lip, guilt gnawing at her even as she turned toward the street. “I always do…”
𝓢𝐓𝐀𝐘 𝓣𝐔𝐍𝐄𝐃 𝓕𝐎𝐑 𝓤𝐏𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐒 | 𝓜𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓