A/n: Just a short little thingy-thing. Jake x MC. Nothing special. After posting about it days earlier I wanted to address the topic... well, in a drabble lol.
Jake had been back for three days now. Three days in which he had been staring at the new file on his laptop without opening it.
He hadnโt allowed himself to.
Attached to itโlogs, names, locations, fragments, messages. Secrets.
Your name appeared too often to be ignored.
Maybe he should have ignored it. Focused on everything else that required his attention. There was enough. More than enough.
But at 02:13, in the dark of a rented hotel room, the screen the only source of light, restraint became inefficient.
His jaw tightened as unfamiliar names populated the screen. Profiles. Connections. Movement patterns. All organized. Clean. Efficient.
Ordered alphabetically by NYMOS.
Cross-references. Message logs. Calls. Already a lot of them.
And pinned at the top of the folder, two missing persons: Adam Dover. Sophia Holland.
He stilled, eyes moving a bit slower as he read the information. Both disappeared on the same night. Both in... the woods of Redlog Pines.
He exhaled, measured, controlled, while patterns were getting clearer in his mind.
Your name surfaced again. Threaded through conversations. Attached to timestamps that stretched deep into the night. Too late to be healthy for your sleep schedule.
He leaned back slightly, his eyes narrowing when he shortly looked away from the screen out the window into the dark night.
The realization came fast, uncomplicated. Unpleasant.
You were doing it again. Investigating. Barely a gap between this one and Duskwood. And once again... no hesitation from you.
He became aware of the pressure in his jaw only when the metallic taste registered on his tongue from where his teeth had dug into his cheek. But he didnโt loosen it.
The pain brought him back from his thoughts, his eyes snapping back to the screen, the cursor flickering.
He scrolled back to the top. Read everything again. Faster this time. As if his mind had decided there was no time to waste. As if his mind was trying to distract him from a spiral of worry.
But it only made everything clearer. Realer.
You were repeating it. Different names. Different place. But the same structure.
His gaze shifted back to your name, highlighted in the system as if it belonged there. As if it had always belonged there.
His fingers moved before the thought fully formed. The secured channel he had opened three days ago when he came back. When he finally reached out again.
For a moment, the cursor blinked in an empty input field.
But he did not fill it yet. Didn't type the words in his mind.
Instead, he pulled up another log. Ran a quick trace on one of the numbers linked to you.
His expression darkened, almost imperceptibly, the more he read.
A girl named Ash you already befriended. Just like you did with Jessy without even doing anything. A guy named Charlie. Too personal. Too... aligned. Too... open with all of them. Worrying for each of them.
And the most bitter realization so farโ
He leaned back in his chair, this time fully. His screen showing your story: โWho knows what happened at the Greenside Motel?โ
Your beautiful face looking right at him from your profile pictures.
He stared right back as his chest began to tighten up. Second by second. His thoughts started to race. Worry, hurt, jealousy mixing together into a complicated mix that took over his rational thoughts.
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