Who: Jared & Rylee Where: Seaview When: Early Thursday evening, 1/25 Status: Complete
Jared had been on break for long enough so now he found himself working a double shift out of necessity. They were drowning at the station, reports and calls about assaults and vandalism piled on top of the already busy schedule of searching the woods surrounding the mystery cars. More deputies had come in and they had volunteers helping with the woods but it honestly felt like a pile of never ending tasks. Jared tried calling Ty a few times and then Carson but had no luck with either of them. After a while he headed home, stopping by Ty's house to get some things and check if he was there before driving to his own place in Seaview. He knew he wouldn't be able to sleep in that apartment as long as he didn't know where Ty was or what was up with him.
He was closing in on his house when he saw a vehicle he recognized and had the first rush of relief he'd felt since he woke up. It was Carson's car backing out from his place and he quickly tapped the car horn to get his attention before joining him on the driveway. His relief was short lived and quickly replaced with a new wave of apprehension when he saw it wasn't Carson driving at all but his cousin Rylee. She had no reason to be there if something wasn't wrong and Jared's smile turned a little pained, only staying up in some polite effort as he parked and killed the engine.
Rylee had continued to try Carson's phone throughout the day, but always with the same result. It wasn't that she didn't believe Nic, but she kept hoping that Carson would pick up and tell her where he was... maybe how to help him. Deep down she knew that was wishful thinking but the alternative was to just accept that he was gone and Rylee didn't think she could handle that. The town itself seemed to be operating normally again. People were out and about, cleaning debris off the roads and in their yards. Did anyone really know what had happened? Were they all going to ignore the last few days like they ignored everything else that happened in Point Pleasant?
Finally, at some point, Rylee remembered Jared, Carson's friend. He was a cop, so maybe he knew something. He didn't know Carson was a werewolf and had likely killed his ex-wife but... maybe the police department had some information that she didn't. Maybe they had found something. Maybe someone had spoken to them. She refused to believe he didn't know about the weird shit in this town. No one could be a police officer here for very long and not be exposed to it.
So she drove to his house in Seaview and knocked. There was no answer and Rylee finally realized that he was probably busy today, considering everything that had happened. Despondent, she got back into Carson's car to leave but then Jared was pulling in beside her and Rylee exhaled, trying not to jump back out of the car to begin interrogating him. Instead, Rylee took a deep breath to try and ease her trembling hands, and she climbed out of the car again, offering Jared a small, forced smile of her own. "Hi," she said, once he was getting out of his own car. "Uh, do you have a minute?"
She wasn't the only one clamping down on the need to start interrogating. Jared knew this wasn't good, she wasn't there to tell him Carson was fine, if Carson was fine she wouldn't be there at all. Still, it was better to talk inside, it was a beautiful day but it was still cold and he had a feeling there might be some nosy neighbors around. "Let's go inside," he said politely and he didn't have a lot of time to himself but things were weird right now so he could make time. "Do you want some coffee? Tea? Beer?" he asked as he fished out his house keys and led the way to the front door. She looked to be in a similar state of mind as he was, not crying or anything, more shell shocked, possibly. Jared didn't want to jump to conclusions but the already tight knot in his stomach was doing a miraculous job of somehow getting tighter.
Rylee figured that inside was the best place to have this conversation. She didn't really see anyone around but that didn't mean anything in a town like this. So Rylee followed Jared, keeping her hands tucked in her jacket pockets. "Nothing to drink for me, thanks." She wasn't hungry, or thirsty and her hands felt like they were going to tremble forever so it was best not to hold anything at the moment. Being inside the home, Rylee couldn't help but instinctively look around, like being in a cop's residence somehow meant all the answers she would ever want would be laying out for her to see. "I need to talk to you about Carson. I imagine you already know people went missing last night..."
Carson hadn't been reported missing the last time Jared checked the list and he suspected Rylee would have gone to the station instead of his house if she was worried about him. That didn't feel reassuring though and he grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge before taking a seat at the kitchen table and offering her to do the same. "We've had some calls," he replied and watched her with a growing apprehension. She knew something, he didn't need to press her to tell him what it was, she was there to tell him. She looked like she was bracing for it, he knew that look all too well from all the times he or a partner had broken bad news to family members on the job.
Rylee hadn't reported Carson missing yet because she kept hoping something would change. She kept hoping Nic would call and tell her there had been some miracle and he was back. She kept hoping Carson would pick up his phone. Rylee hadn't even called his family yet. It was too hard to accept any of this. Curling her fingers against her palms, Rylee tried to figure out how much he knew. How much she could tell him. "Carson's gone," she said finally, the words feeling foreign on her lips. "I guess... I just wanted to know how much you knew. I don't want you to think I'm crazy."
Jared felt impatient to the point of anger that she couldn't just blurt out what she knew and be done with it. The fear he was feeling was going to be the death of him and it took all that he had not to snap at her and use some bad cop posturing to make her speak. He drew a deep breath, licked his lips and struggled to find the right words, it was like looking for a key, if it was the wrong one it could jam the lock, if he said the wrong thing she might leave. "I've seen a lot of crazy things," he told her. "My partner is missing and we have a whole lot of empty vehicles out of Witcham Road. I need to know everything you know. What do you mean gone?" It hurt to say that out loud, that Ty was missing because he was still clinging to the faint hope that he had just turned off his phone, but even then Jared wasn't sure he wanted to see him right now. If he was okay and came back, would he make Jared sick again? Would he still be okay with him dying? "Is he alive?"
"I don't know much," Rylee admitted. But then again, maybe she knew everything. Nic had told her everything he could and she knew if there had been more, he would have said so. She just hadn't wanted to hear it, after knowing Carson was gone. Jared's questions as to whether or not Carson was alive had Rylee's chest tightening, because she didn't know. He had been alive when he disappeared... a werewolf. But was he alive now? Over there? Rylee felt like throwing up, but she swallowed hard and tried to remain focused on Jared. "I hope he's alive, but I don't know. There was... the people who had gotten injured in the fog, they had been hurting people. I don't know how. Carson and some others... they were trying to help them but something went wrong. The fog came back somehow. But..." This was the part that was going to make her sound crazy, but Rylee forged ahead. "He disappeared into some other... world. Somewhere. Along with the others... the people who had been infected. They're just gone."
Jared leaned back in his seat and went still and expressionless as he processed what she was saying. He knew how they'd been hurting people because Ty had hurt him in that way and for a moment he felt like that exhaustion was coming back, making his limbs feel heavy and hard to move, his head swimming. But no, he recognized this weight all too well, it wasn't some supernatural fog bullshit, it was 'just' grief, a familiar sorrow tinged with denial yet completely bereft of hope. "A lot of people got hurt in the fog," he said, trying to keep focused on the whole picture even as his brain was hyperfocusing on his part in it, on his loss. "Carson wasn't hurt," he pointed out then because that seemed like a thing he could focus on without going insane, a small reasonable thing, not like another world or a strange fog full of dangers.
Rylee shook her head. "No, he wasn't. But he thought he knew how to help them. He just... he got unlucky and got caught over there, with the others. Things went wrong. If your partner had been hurt in the fog, he was probably there too." It was a vague sort of realization, one that she hadn't fully thought of when she got into her car to find Jared. Jared and Carson had been friends, and Jared was a cop. Rylee had been focused on trying to find information, if he had any. Now it seemed obvious that Jared had lost someone too. "I'm sorry," she said. "I guess I was hoping you might know something... now I'm realizing I have no idea what you could have been told that would be any different from what I know. I guess I was hoping this was all a lie, that it was a mistake somehow."
Jared had felt this dread all day and now it was coming to fruition, fermenting into something darker and heavier and too real. His face felt numb and as much as he'd thrown himself into work this morning just to avoid the fear, now he wasn't so sure he could go back. How was he supposed to do his job when he wasn't even sure he could get off this chair? "Carson and some other people were trying to... what exactly?" he asked quietly because he really wasn't getting a full picture from what Rylee was saying. There was another world, was there a doorway? Had they just disappeared? Had they gone through the tunnel? He shuddered inwardly at the thought of that but his imagination was too limited to think of other ways. He could barely understand what she meant in the first place.
"I don't know." She sounded like a broken record, and she hated it. "They were hoping that bringing the fog back would somehow... cure the others, I guess. It sounded dangerous to me, but Carson felt like it was the only option they had and they were running out of time. I felt it too. I had been exhausted lately but this morning... I felt perfectly fine again. So... something worked. But they couldn't help the others." Her voice broke and Rylee swallowed hard, feeling a burning sensation behind her eyes. "I wish I had more answers for you, Jared, but I don't. I barely understand it myself. But those people... with the missing cars... they're gone."
Jared knew she was telling the truth, he'd been surprised when he woke up because he was so sure he was dying those last hours Ty spent with him. It was terrifying in hindsight to think of the man he loved doing that to him but it hadn't really been Ty, it had been something infecting him and Jared had seen it coming. He should have done more to find him help, though he didn't know the first thing about how or where to do that. Hospitals, isolation, brain scans, something. He drew a deep shaky breath after not breathing for a little too long, his eyes watering. He wasn't really imagining Ty in any sort of danger but that was only because he had no idea what even to imagine. He had no idea where he was, if he was alive. If the fog had come from there it couldn't be good, but that was all there was in Jared's mind when he tried to think about other worlds and rifts between realities: fog. "Who was with Carson in all of this?" he asked and maybe he hoped for more thorough answers if he could talk to those people, someone who had been there and seen it, maybe someone less emotionally involved who could give him a dry and clear cut version of what had really happened.
Rylee hesitated, because she wasn't sure she wanted to give Jared the names of the others. He was a police officer and what if he thought they had done something to his partner? What if he blamed them... the way she found herself blaming Nic. But... maybe Nic could give Jared answers that she couldn't. "Nic Castell." It was easy enough to say Nic's name. But she didn't feel right mentioning Neil or Jules. The girl was only a teenager. Jared deserved something. Not knowing would have been torture and he already looked upset. "You can talk to him. Maybe he can tell you more than I can. I just... thought you should know." And she had hoped he would know more, but it was obvious the police were as oblivious as everyone else.
Jared knew the name but only because of gossip from one of the other deputies when they were giving him the lowdown of who was possible trouble in town. Castell had never been trouble during all the years Jared lived there so he almost didn't remember his name at first but it was there, filed away in some part of his brain of 'not terribly important but maybe one day might matter' things. "I don't understand any of this," he said quietly and it wasn't so much an admission to Rylee as it was a defeated sigh. Carson and Ty were gone, so was everyone who'd gotten hurt in the fog. How many people were they talking about? He was trying hard to hold onto his cop brain because Grady needed him on the job right now but it was hard to care when it was all so massive and personal. It was personal for Rylee too and he tried to shove his own issues aside for now, at least enough to focus on her for a minute. "Are you okay?" It was a stupid question and he knew it before he even asked but he just didn't know what else to say to her.
She didn't really understand it either, so they had that in common. But she knew Carson had been caught up in something big, something she couldn't help him with. And now he was gone. Her throat burned and Rylee shook her head simply at Jared's question. "No," she murmured. "I'm not okay. Are... will there be a search? I mean I know... I know what I was told, but I just want to look. Maybe they disappeared and... showed up somewhere else? Maybe they're in the woods somewhere." She didn't sound convinced, but probably a little desperate for someone to tell her there could be another answer. Jared looked as lost as she did though, so she doubted she would get any reassurance here. The bad news had been delivered by her, after all. It was just difficult to accept any of this and Rylee was still struggling with it.
"We've got volunteers canvassing the woods," Jared said and god, what was he going to tell Grady? This wasn't exactly the kind of information that was helpful to a police investigation but at least he knew his boss had seen his share of weird things by now. "Around where we found the vehicles, I don't know how far we'll go. If they show up elsewhere we can only hope they find their way to safety." He had a feeling they both knew they weren't just going to show up, not if they'd been swept into another place, whatever the hell that meant. His head hurt just thinking about it and he reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose, inhaling slowly. It was all too much, far too much, far too strange and evil. He had nobody he could really talk to about it either, so many acquaintances but not enough friends. His one good friend and his boyfriend were both gone and his ex wife was dead. Jared had never felt so alone in his life. He sat there in silence for a while, incapable of finding words to say and not really wanting to but before it got too awkward he looked at Rylee again. "Thank you for telling me, I'll keep your name out of it."
What would be worse? Knowing Carson was in another dimension, or finding his body in the woods? Both were terrible but at least there was the possibility of Carson still being alive, even if he wasn't here. He could still come home. Swallowing hard, Rylee nodded, wishing she had more optimism, more hope. Nic had looked so defeated. He was a witch! If he couldn't protect Carson, what chance did he have in some other world? God, it still felt so strange thinking of a different place. His life had been spiraling and Rylee had been helpless. Feeling like the conversation was over - Jared needed time to grieve on his own - Rylee nodded and gestured weakly towards the door. "I should go. Um... if you need anything, you know where I live."
"I don't know what to tell the other families," Jared said before thinking it through. That wasn't her problem, she was just relaying information but Jared was a cop, he was going to be meeting a lot of scared and worried people in the coming days and the mere thought of it made him want to curl up in bed with the curtains closed, pretending to be dead to the world. "I'll talk to Nic Castell," he added, hoping she understood he wasn't asking for anything more from her. He still needed more, he didn't understand what was going on, he didn't know how to process what she'd told him and he didn't know what to do with this scarce information but these were not problems for her to solve. "What are you telling your family?" he asked anyway, giving her a somewhat helpless look.
Rylee had taken a step toward the door when Jared asked what she was going to tell her family. Pausing, Rylee looked back at him with a pained expression. "I don't know," she admitted. "I guess I keep hoping this is a nightmare that I'll wake up from. What am I supposed to say...? They wouldn't believe the truth." Carson was just missing. That was the bottom line. He was missing and may never come back. Rylee felt the tears start to burn behind her eyes. "I have to go," she whispered. "I'm really sorry."
Jared got to his feet and he wasn't exactly sure how he found the energy to do that but it was like he was on autopilot and somehow he found himself standing. It was muscle memory, he supposed, manners instilled in him not to let someone leave without walking them out. Weird how that stuff stuck even when he could barely think. "I'm sorry too," he said as he moved to the door and stopped there, at a loss for how to react to Rylee. He half-wanted to hug her, to comfort her or show solidarity but it felt all wrong. They weren't close, he only knew her through Carson. "I'll make sure we search the woods thoroughly," he muttered. "Just in case. You know." He nodded to himself, not meeting her eye anymore as if he knew - as if they both knew - they weren't going to find anyone out there.
Just in case. Her gut feeling told her that Carson wasn't in the woods anymore. That Nic was right and he was elsewhere. But she didn't think she could function again without knowing for sure that he wasn't coming back. And if she knew for sure... would she be able to function then? Feeling cold and unsure, Rylee nodded because she didn't trust herself to speak. She didn't want a hug, or reassurance. She just wanted Carson back. Rylee managed a faint smile that faded quickly before she reached for the door to leave.
Jared took hold of the door once it was open and then completely failed to tell her goodbye. He didn't worry about it, she didn't look like she cared about niceties in her current state either. They were both hurting and scared and she was probably equally relieved to be away from him as he was to see her leave. He took an unsteady breath and closed the door once she had reached her car, leaning against the solid wood as he tried to gather his thoughts. None of this made sense, he wasn't ready to believe Ty was just gone, there had to be some misunderstanding or maybe he was still out of it and this was just a terrible, sad dream. He knew it wasn't when his face tensed up and a dry sob was wrenched from his throat but he didn't actually start crying, managing to swallow it down and breathe through it. It was only thanks to denial and he knew it but he wasn't going to just sit down and accept this. He needed answers, he needed to be out in those woods searching.