Good morning and Happy Hump Day! If it's Wednesday, then it must be time for more flash fiction from the Wednesday Briefers! We're a group of authors who bring you our finest flash fiction every week, 500 to 1000 words, inspired by one of our prompts.
After Vinnie punches the baby daddy in the nose and Uncle Benny throws him out of the house, Ethan receives an unexpected call from his and Vinnie's boss. At this hour? What now? See what's going on in this week's chapter of Rose and Thorne. Don't forget to visit the other Briefers and see what's up with them. Their links follow my tale! Enjoy!
“Hello?” Ethan listened intensely, but I couldn’t
make out what Anderson was saying, try though I might. I just knew it couldn’t
be good all things considered. Our boss wasn’t one for calling us in the middle
of the night just to chitchat, especially when he knew we were on the job. The expression
on Ethan’s face when he hung up only served to reinforce my suspicions.
“Looks like we aren’t flying out tomorrow after
all,” he said.
“Then when?” I asked in as calm, cool, collected
voice as I could muster. No sense in upsetting the subject of our protection,
aka Uncle Benny. And no reason to panic. At least, none that I knew of… yet.
“We’re not,” was Ethan’s surprising reply. “Apparently
some kind of threat was received. He didn’t go into too much detail, other than
to say it’s not safe for us to go to the airport at our intended time. Or any
other.”
I frowned at that, even as Benny said, “I guess
someone really doesn’t want me to testify.”
Ethan nodded. “Looks that way.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Benny shook his head.
“But if we can’t go to the airport…” I left the
obvious question hanging in the air, even though I suspected I knew the answer.
“Looks like we’re going on a road trip,” Ethan
replied.
Driving from Roanoke to Atlanta? That was a new one
for us. The farthest we’d ever had to drive for work was up to Richmond and
that was only three hours. Atlanta was a lot farther than that. I remember the
flight taking about three hours.
“Good thing we have a company car,” I quipped. My
mind began to race. We’d already made arrangements for Benny with Brendan,
since we were going to be away from home for a few days, just until Uncle Benny
was set to testify. Brendan and Troy both adored our pup and insisted on
watching him for us every chance they got. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure if
Troy was in town. I thought he might be off on some shoot or something, being
the famous Hollywood actor that he was, leaving Brendan to keep the home fires
burning. So at least we were covered there. Driving could be nice. We’d get a chance
to see more of Virginia and Georgia, and all points in between. Spend time with
Ethan’s uncle…
Sarah’s voice cut into my thoughts. “That’s just
perfect!”
Say
what?
I glanced at Ethan. He seemed every bit as confused
as I was.
“What’s perfect?” he asked his twin.
“You guys driving to Atlanta, of course. You’ll be
going right by Imperial, you can drop me and Alex off at Mercy’s house on your
way, and in the meantime, we’ll get to visit with Uncle Benny and he can get to
know his great-nephew.”
“What do you mean, right by Imperial?” Ethan sputtered. “Not hardly. That would add a
good hour to our time, if not more. Not to mention, in case you’ve forgotten,
Vinnie and I are working. This isn’t
exactly a family reunion, this is serious business.”
Sarah’s warm smile turned into a fierce scowl in
less time than it took to tell it. These two surely knew how to set each other
off. Made me even happier at that moment that I never had a sibling.
“Maybe we should all take a deep breath and sleep on
the idea,” I suggested. Maybe what we needed at the moment was a little
distance between us. Just then a ding could be heard and we each checked out
phone to see who’d received a message.
It was Sarah.
“Damn!” she exclaimed, her scowl now aimed at her
phone.
That didn’t sound good.
“What’s wrong?” Ethan asked in concern.
“James says he’ll meet us at the airport and we can
talk on the flight back.” Alex was squirming in her arms, and she let him down.
He decided to pet Benny, to the pup’s delight
“Over my dead body,” Ethan said ominously.
Guess we were taking a family road trip after all.
to be continued
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