"If we have to do anything like that, I'll go down," Chase promised, a little more confidently than he probably should have felt with his ankle being as much of a jerk as it was. "And if somebody needs to get pulled out of somewhere, at least we know everybody's in town, right? All we have to do is call for help and like....thirty people will show up." He tried to smile a little reassuringly, but he was mostly thinking that he hoped only the responsible people would come to the rescue.
He paused to roll his ankle again, then stretched his arm out to take her hand in his, briefly considering removing his glove. He didn't, perhaps a little too aware of the fact that Oliver was in town with them, even if they weren't really near one another. After pressing into everyone how important dressing appropriately for the weather was, Chase didn't really want to chance the guy popping out of nowhere to berate him, not that he actually thought that was likely to happen. Oliver had certainly driven the point home, but he'd seemed a lot more intently focused about the search. Still, part of Chase wished he'd studied everyone else's itinerary a little more closely. Maybe he'd check in a bit.
He wasn't sure what it said about him, but Chase was starting to work out that if there was going to be someone missing in town like this, he preferred hide-and-seek to a scavenger hunt. The note and the phones had been obvious, and anyone who knew the drill knew what it meant, and they'd all been able to coordinate quickly. There were no riddles to translate, no guessing that needed to be done. It wasn't personal, everyone just went to town and looked until they found something. Sure, hints probably would have helped, but the kinds of hints they got always seemed terrifying. If anyone was panicking right now, at least on this end of the search, it was because they were worried about the "usual" things. Making sure they got people before they got sick, or hurt, or too cold. Not "my girlfriend might have been buried alive" or "my boyfriend might be dead in a morgue". Just "find your people, they're in town". Straightforward.
Maybe he'd feel a little differently if he was the one waiting to be found, or if it were one of his people that were hidden somewhere. No, that didn't really seem fair. He didn't really want this to happen to anyone if it could be helped. Dylan always seemed really nice, so he hoped they found her quickly and fine. And Marco was....Marco. Even if they weren't exactly friends they'd still kind of had each other's back for a while now. And Marco was Lennon's friend, which definitely counted for something. And Vanessa? He didn't really want to think that he'd be fine with her being scared and alone somewhere for too long, but as long as she wasn't in any real danger from anything but her own stupidity she could stew. It was probably too much to hope for that she might learn something, but who knew. Maybe if they waited long enough all they'd have to do was wait for her to start with the harpy shrieking to zero in on her, if she wasn't already.
"Oh god, what if They put them all together?" he asked, suddenly a little horrified all over again. "Poor Marco and Dylan."