*Crash* Goes something inside of Sam’s room, followed by screams of pain. Chester goes running down the hall to Sam’s room in the dead of night to find Sam convulsing in his sleep.
“Dude! You were screaming in your sleep!” Chester shouts as he pins Sam’s arms to his bed.
Sam sits up, acknowledging the broken frame on the floor next to his bed while fighting back tears. He focuses on the shards of glass that scatter across a black and white photo of Melody and him.
“What is he doing to her?” he asks, his voice low and angry as he speaks.
Chester slams his hand against the light switch, turning it on. “Who is doing what to her?”
Sam swallows back his tears, clinching his fists around the soft army green sheets of his bed, his knuckles going white. “Adam. The guy that took Melody... I want to know what he’s doing with her!” He springs from the bed, letting his tears fall out of his eyes as he throws on his jacket, snatching his keys form the dresser and shoving them into his pocket.
Chester chases him down the hall. “Sam! Calm down!” Chester shouts.
Sam ignores him as he throws the front door open, stomping down the hallway before he makes his way down the stairs to the parking garage.
Rain drips onto the concrete floor from the crack on the level above this one, making a steady drip, drip noise throughout the garage. He thrusts the key into the lock of his car, throwing himself into the driver’s seat, locking the doors right as Chester reaches the passenger door.
“Sam! Nothing good ever happens when you’re upset like this! You know that!” Chester shouts as he bangs on the passenger window and jiggles the door handle.
Sam starts up his car, which surprisingly starts on the first try considering it’s a rusted orange bucket on wheels to most people. His tires squeal as he speeds out of the garage and on to the main road. He drives down to his office at the newspaper. The sky is a moody grey and blue, the blackened clouds bleed with the clear rain drops that tap against Sam’s windshield. The wheels of his car squeak as he makes a sharp turn into the parking lot, flashing his employ ID when he gets to the gate, before pulling into his rarely used parking space. He doesn’t bother to lock his car as he stomps into the building, deciding the elevator is too slow, and jogs up the back stairs.
Sam takes a deep, long breath, jiggling the lock of his infrequently used office before dropping himself down in front of the desktop computer, looking for information on Adam. Something urges him to look at the obituaries from a few years ago.
“I know I’ve seen his face before,” Sam says as he scrolls through the pictures of happy dead people.
Then he sees it: a black and white photo of a little, tan, teenage boy and his dad looking down at a casket. Sam zooms up on the picture, gasping at the depressed face that looks back at him.
“Jet!” he shouts at the computer screen.
Sam reads the article below the picture, memories flooding back, one after the other like someone had opened a box of nostalgia and is randomly show him familiar objects. “We were best friends… but what happened?” Sam says aloud to himself.
He rubs the skin below his neck; his callused finger tips running across the little silver scars that are etched across his skin like someone had clawed at him. Goosebumps make themselves known across his arms, a lump grows in his throat. His eyes begin to tear as he remembers the reason these scars are there:
“You killed my mom!” Jet shouted, his face red.
“I didn’t!” a fifteen year old Sam yelped as he struggled to push Jet off of his chest.
Jet’s bright blue eyes are a sad grey color as his fists pound away at Sam’s jaw. “I thought you were my brother! I trusted you! How could you do this to me?” Jet cried, holding his fist back, assessing the blood that was dripping from Sam’s nose and lips.
Sam stared up at him, the nerves in his face screamed and his mouth tasted of copper as his tongue moved reluctantly. “Jet, please. Please stop.”
Jet sat back and shook his head. “No, I hate you. Burn in hell for all I care.”
Sam struggled to get up as Jet shoved him back down, wrapping his hand around his neck.
“No, no please!” Sam squeaked as Jet dug his nails in to the skin around Sam’s collar. Sam gasped for breath, swinging his weak arms around, trying to throw Jet off before he pressed down on his neck. The next thing Sam knew, everything was black.
Sam runs his fingers across his neck. How had he not remembered something like that? He hardly remembers waking up in the hospital, only vaguely remembers his parents’ telling him that they were pressing charges on Jet, but he couldn’t remember who Jet was. Sam runs his fingers through his hair. “I must have repressed him, something so horrible.”
He remembers how they have recently fought, the surprised look on Jet’s face when he noticed that he can no longer beat Sam up. His heart swells and contracts as he worries for Melody now that he knows what Jet is capable of. He runs his fingers across his keys, getting ready to hunt Jet down, but holds himself back. How is he going to stop him if he didn't even know where he is? Sam types in both his name and Jet’s, after deciding that his address wouldn't come up. An article of the near death fight opens up across Sam’s screen:
Revengeful fight almost kills fifteen year old boy
Late Tuesday night Samuel Winters and Jet Kits got in a fight at Ripple Park. We are told that fifteen year old Samuel was involved in the death of young Jet’s mother, though he did not kill Mrs. Kits in the pedestrian, car accident. She was already dying before the crash, but it was enough trauma to kill her faint heart. When Samuel came to his friend to confess that he was involved, young Jet became over whelmed with rage, giving Samuel numerous blows to the head and burses all over his body. Samuel passed out from the pain and lack of oxygen due to Jet almost strangling him to death. Jet left Samuel at the top of Ripple Hill until a grounds keeper found him and took him to Trinity Hospital.
“If he had been left up there a little longer we would have completely lost him,” Doctor Jackson said.
He says that Samuel will live a normal teenage boy’s life, just with a few extra scars. No one knows were Jet is; a search is currently undergoing for him. Samuel remembers nothing of the fight.
Sam lets out a low whisper as he leans back against the grey office chair, “That was over eight years ago.” He searches for information on whether or not they ever found him; nothing comes up.