Call Out by L.B. Clark Page B

behind
me, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but...fuck you.”
    I felt Brian’s chest heave with a little,
soundless laugh. “You want me to cuddle you, too? You can have the
other side.”
    “No, really, Brian...fuck you.”
    I turned and groped in the dark, searching
for London’s hand. I found his face first, and he chuckled. I
traced a line down to his shoulder and along his arm to take hold
of his hand. Bringing it with me, I turned back over and curled up
against Brian, pulling London into our circle. I didn’t feel
claustrophobic at all, and if London had a problem with the
contact, he didn’t say a word about it.
    Curled up between two guys I barely knew, I
felt safer than I had in a long, long time. We’d managed to forge a
bond of trust in the past day that surpassed most of the others in
my life. It was crazy, but it didn’t feel crazy.
    Lulled by the beat of Brian’s heart and the
warmth – physical and emotional – surrounding me, I began to slip
toward sleep. My thoughts drifted, as they do, flitting from topic
to topic without any conscience guidance or acknowledgement. Then a
thought crossed my mind that made me sit up in bed, startling cries
of protest out of both of the boys. Ignoring them, I scrambled out
from under the duvet and scooted down the bed to slide off the
end.
    “Elizabeth?” Brian sounded concerned.
    “I think I know,” I said, flopping down in
the chair and inching up to the desk.
    “Think you know what?” London asked.
    “Where to start.” I grabbed my laptop, sat it
on top of London’s, snapped up the lid, and hit the power button. I
squinted against the sudden light and tapped in my password.
    “What the hell are you on about?” Brian
asked.
    “Logic,” I replied. “It just...came to me.
Just now.”
    “I hate when that happens – you get a
brilliant idea just when you’re falling asleep.”
    I nodded in agreement with London as I fired
up my web browser. “I’m glad it happened this time, though. Well,
no – I wish I had thought of it earlier. But I’m just glad I
thought of it.”
    “Are you going to actually explain what it is
you thought of?” London asked, leaning on the back of my chair.
    “Okay, so. I worked at a summer camp a few
years ago – one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done, but at least
I didn’t try to be a camp counselor. Anyway, we all had training at
the start of the summer on what to do in emergency situations –
like missing campers.” I had pulled up a map of Orlando, and now I
zoomed in. “One of the basic ways to search for a person is what
they call an expanding circle.”
    “Start in the middle and work your way out,”
London said, catching on.
    “Usually, you start your search wherever the
person was last seen. But in this case, yeah, the middle, I think,
since we’re assuming they moved her away from the airport.”
    “So where does that put us?” London
asked.
    I zoomed out and in again, trying to figure
out a good midpoint. “Um. The mall I think.”
    “Cool,” London said. He reached around me to
push the lid down on the laptop. “One less thing to worry
about.”
    I took that as my cue, and we both went back
to bed. I felt more hopeful now that we had a plan. Armed with that
hope, sleep was a lot easier to find.

Chapter Ten
     
    The incessant chirping of someone’s cell
phone alarm dragged me out of sleep. Brian fumbled on the bedside
table until he came up with the phone and shut off the alarm. The
room was still dark, the sun not yet up. I was beginning to suspect
Brian of being a morning person. As I drifted back to sleep, I
wondered how Dylan would deal with that. Both of us tended to stay
up late and sleep in when work and school weren’t getting in the
way.
    The next time I woke, I was alone in the bed.
The sun was up now, the first thin light of dawn creeping in around
the thick curtains. Brian and London were huddled around the
laptop, talking in low voices. I listened to them long enough