"Well, this trip is gonna suck."

John sat in his car, waiting for the light to change. The whir of the wiper blades drowned out the pitter patter of the rain splashing onto his windshield. His fingers impatiently tapped against the steering wheel. The light switched to green. For the life of him, he could not remember what gate his flight was at. He put his foot on the gas and passed through the intersection. Man, he really needed to learn to make lists. Nah, he was always the fly by the seat of your pants type. It never sat well with him to be contained to a schedule. That was always more his brother Jason's thing. He couldn't afford to miss that plane though. His sister would kill him. She only needed to lose one brother at a time. The headline from the newspaper that morning kept scrolling through his head.

"Divine Family Scrambles in Search of Youngest Son."

“How did they find out about it so fast?” he muttered as he tried to connect the dots of his brother's disappearance.

The speed at which those press and paparazzi vultures captured and exploited whatever bits of other people's lives they could would always baffle him. When he lived back home, it wasn't uncommon to find them lurking in bushes or crowding around restaurants they frequented. There were very few places he could go that they wouldn't find him. The few safe havens he did find, you needed a 4-Wheeler and a prayer to get to. His current residence was pretty far away from anyone that would care about some rag magazine and their "scoop" so he would have to readjust while he was back home. He grumbled at the concept.

Three days had passed since Jason had talked to anyone. Their sister Jayne had grown worried and had gone down to his house to check on him. Upon her arrival, she saw the front door wide open, with assorted leaves gathering and dancing around the foyer. Unfortunately, there was no sign of her brother anywhere. Usually being the one of the three to over react, she immediately called John. Being a mother of twins, she didn't have the luxury of tracking down their brother herself. John did. At first he wasn't surprised that Jason wasn't home. It was when she mentioned the door was ajar that John got concerned. Jason kept his house in a very specific order. He never would have left the door open. As annoying as his meticulous nature could be, that kid sure had a brain. He had enough books at home to give the local library a run for its money. He was constantly learning. From a very young age, you knew just by looking at him, he was working on something. It was little things at first, like desktop catapults to launch cheese puffs, but as he got older, he started making more complex creations. Their company currently held multiple patents for outdoor recreational equipment. All because of Jason. They were all just toys to him. He was always trying to see how things worked, breaking them down and improving them. 

Now for some reason, he was nowhere to be found…..

John, being the black sheep of  the family, got in fights at school, stole his mom's credit cards, and on numerous occasions took off for hours on end during the school week. At least that is how his mom phrased it when she would update her book club about the current state of her family. It didn't matter if he got in fights defending his siblings against bullies or aggressive boyfriends, it didn't matter if he stole the cards to pay the bills their mother would ignore,  and it didn't matter if he took off in the car because he was working 2 jobs at age 16 to make sure there was emergency money in the house. With a narcissistic alcoholic master manipulator for a mother, they needed a lot of emergency money. She would throw extravagant parties and purchase lavish clothing that she never wore just so she could keep up the facade that the family wasn't hurting. It didn't mean that they didn't feel the blow of fathers illness.

 John groaned in dismay as the airport came into view. He prayed nobody would make a scene when he showed up, especially his mom. She never let a moment pass where she didn’t have some kind of scathing remark or double sided complement.Lord help her if she did. Ever since their died, she made sure to let him know just how much she did not approve of his “wheeling and dealing”. Little did she know, it was precisely that "wheeling and dealing" that had kept the family afloat. If it hadn't been for him, they all would be bankrupt. His siblings knew about what he had done for them. They always did. It made no difference. In Mothers eyes, they were angels and he was next to nothing. Then there was the matter of the paparazzi. Every time he came home, somehow they found him and spun some story about what they perceived to be his latest fumble. What could he say, drama sells magazines, and the Divine family was choc full of it. Without fail, he always received an irate phone call from his mother a day or so after coming to town, with her screeching about how he was ruining the family's reputation. He had grown tired of her overbearing hand constantly being entwined in his life. He could handle the media getting bent out of shape. He could tolerate the keyboard activists deciding from one article whether or not to boycott or cancel Divine Inc. He could not however, handle his mother calling and spewing her contempt for him while she lived in a house he owned, rode in cars he paid for, and constantly manipulated his siblings until they relinquished what they had to further her lifestyle, their own lives irrelevant.

He clicked on his turn signal and drove into the airport parking lot. He reached forward and picked up the ticket from the dashboard browsing it, looking for a gate number. Sylvia, his assistant, was kind enough to make all the necessary preparations. She would have gotten him a driver too, but John insisted he take himself. He had to remember to get her a coffee cup on his way back. That woman could run her own Coffee House. Jayne swore she was the best thing that ever happened to John and had on multiple occasions tried to hook them up. Sylvia was a beautiful woman. Her wife thought so too. 

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Gate B-07”.

John swerved into a curb as he put the ticket down. Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud..."Shit, must have gotten a flat."He carefully drove his car into the nearest space and parked. After a few moments of contemplation and preparation, he picked up his phone and dialed Sylvia.

"Hey, it's me. I'm parked at the Airport but I have a problem."

"What did you do now, and how long do I have to fix it?"

"I sliced a tire on the curb and I don't know how long I'll be home for, so whenever you can."

"Your wish is my command” she responded sarcastically before ending the call.

John put his phone back in his back pocket. He walked to the side with the bad tire. It was shredded. 

He patted the hood of the car and sighed."Sorry girl, I'll get you fixed up really nice when I get home."

He clicked the button on his key fob to pop his trunk, observing its contents. One big green duffel bag and a laptop case. Yep, he was all set. A smile crept onto his face. One positive thing would come from this. He couldn't wait to see his sister. She would have a field day with his so-called “luggage”. One of many things Jayne intensely wished he would change was how he traveled. He chuckled at the memory of the last time he came through town, however brief.

"All of your clothes are going to be wrinkly."

"Well you will just have to iron them."

"You won't be able to fit everything in twice, you always go home with more than you left with."

"Well stop giving me things, I have everything I need."

"You came here without a single matching sock."

"That's why I packed flip flops, The socks are there from last time."

Bless her heart. That woman always worried about him. He had to make sure he packed something for the twins, but he would always forget some of the "bare essentials" for himself. He did it on purpose. He loved watching Jayne twitch. He had the money to have someone pack for him. But why? This was so much more fun. It was the same reason he always got the boys something that would give his sister a heart attack. He visited for his brother's birthday about 6 months or so ago and gave them each one of those three wheel scooter things. The twins were ecstatic! Jay Jay (his nickname for her), not so much. She lined the lower half of all her walls with foam pads in the event of a crash. Of course their mother accused him of being cheap. Those bikes were the only things that the boys played with for the rest of the day. She had gotten them each some $200 pairs of sandals a few weeks prior. They went to school in them for one day and came home crying because everyone else in their class had shoes that lit up with superheroes on the side. Even though he lived hundreds of miles away, it was John's fault. She claimed he “encouraged the boys to be low-brow”. Like at 6 years old, a pair of sandals was going to define them for the rest of their lives. 

That was another huge problem his mother had. He didn't flaunt their wealth. You could not tell by looking at him that he was well off. Fairly well worn shoes, faded jeans and a black T shirt were the base form of his everyday wardrobe. That was a huge contrast to the rest of the family in their sports coats and fancy three piece suits. He could hear her now. 

"If you keep dressing yourself like some barfly, that's all anyone will treat you as. Take some pride in yourself. You are a Divine. It's far past time you acted like it." 

Jason always just said he was a basic bitch.  A smile crossed John's face as he recalled the memory.

His mother and her family had spent the last few years pissing away the fortune his father had spent decades building. He wasn't given much time to write up a will or record his wishes so that upon his passing, they would at least know what direction to go in. Once they finally tapped out everything he gave them, they turned their eyes to his siblings. Jayne was easy enough to manipulate. She was caught up in her new marriage. Too much in love to notice that Mom was milking her dry. Dad had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer not long after so when Jayne did wise up (credit due to her Husband) she decided not to burden him. Six months later, Dad died. Jason signed his inheritance over to Mom to prevent them from losing the house so John started Divine Inc. with his money to offset the families expenses. It was his idea to market Jason's inventions to turn things around. Jayne, having the only level head out of the three of them, volunteered to make sure things  would run smoothly when John moved away. Once the company started to make some real money, he insisted on splitting everything in thirds among them, but Jason would hear none of it.

 "If we did that, mom would find a way to take our shares, and push you out completely. You worked too hard for this, for all of us."

For someone Jason's age to already be aware of how terrible a person their mother could be, always broke John's heart. He was usually the first one to play Devil's Advocate for her though. Whenever John or Jayne would start ranting, Jason would pipe in with some possible explanation of why she might have reacted the way she did to whatever it was that set her off. Jayne was the complete opposite of their mom. She was patient with her boys, she was kind and just, and they always knew she loved them. When Blake passed, she was 5 months pregnant with the boys so she knew early on she would be doing this on her own. And she had been thriving. Dad would have been proud. 

John slung the green monster of a bag over his shoulder, picked up his laptop bag and shut the trunk with a thud. After tugging on it to make sure it latched properly, he double clicked his key to  make   sure the car was locked and headed toward the airport. As he neared the cold metal sliding doors, he started to mentally prepare himself for the trip ahead. Enough was enough, something had to change. He couldn't prove it, but he had a gut feeling that something his mother did had gotten his brother abducted. Something she said, or someone she introduced him to had put him in harm's way. He decided before coming here that he was tired of it for once and for all.There would be no more handouts.He was done with the manipulation, the elaborate excuses, and the constant deprecating remarks. Somebody screwed up. John was going to go home, find his brother, and do what he always did. Fix his mothers mess.