Vs Reality by Blake Northcott Page A

reception.”
    “No worries.”
    “So is this like our trip to Atlantic City last summer…” Cole glances up at Paige, who is twirling her finger in a sideways circle – the universal signal for ‘hurry the hell along because I’m losing my patience’. “Um, you know, that crazy road trip when we got a flat and didn’t have a spare?”
    After a flickering pause Jens says, “Yeah, sure. It’s pretty much just like that. So you can come here and help me out?”
    “See you in ten,” Cole promises. And before Jens can reply, Paige lunges forward again, tapping his phone and terminating the call.
    “What the hell was that about?” Cole shouts, pocketing his phone. “And why would Jens go along with that whole road trip bit?”
    A clanging rings out from a small cabinet at the side of the room. Brodie is digging through the cupboards, noisily searching for something. “This doesn’t sound good,” he calls out without turning around.
    Cole’s eyes dart around the room. “Why can’t someone tell me what’s going on?”
    Dia presses the heels of her palms into her lumbar, stretching left first, and then to the right. “The Collectors,” she says impassively. “They have him.”
    “That British guy with the scarf and the giant Hawaiian?” It didn’t make any sense. What would they want with Jens? If they’re only after people who can manifest, why take a civilian hostage?
    Brodie returns to his seat with a long glass tube, the length of his arm. He brings a lighter to the small opening of the watery globe at the base of the tube, filling the shaft with a pillar of swirling vapor. “Goto and Heinreich, yeah. And I’m pretty sure the big one is German, not Hawaiian. He’s just into those flowery shirts.”
    “ Why ?” Cole asks, though the reason is quickly becoming apparent. He’s just not sure he’s ready to believe it – or cope with it.
    “Why?” Brodie repeats with a raspy chuckle, coughing up a puff of watery mist. “You escaped , bro. And you helped Dia escape. And she’s the only one who’s been able to do that more than once, as far as we know. They’re not going to take that shit lightly.”
    “So they captured Jens?” Cole is just stating the obvious at this point but he can’t help himself; he’s trying to come to grips with the fact that is best friend could soon be dead. He might be already.
    “They probably have a gun to his head,” Paige says, not looking overly concerned. “Forcing him to call you so you’ll run to his rescue. They’re trying to get you to show up at the warehouse alone. Catch you off guard.”
    Cole leaps from his recliner. “This is insane! What do we do?”
    “What do ‘we’ do?” Dia says. “ We are going to continue doing exactly what we are doing at this very moment: nothing. You can feel free to go try and save him. Or not. It’s your call.”
    “Save him from what ?”
    Dia claps Cole on the shoulder. “Probably nothing. Jens isn’t one of us, so if  I had to guess they’re probably not going to kill him.” She’s trying to be supportive, Cole thinks, but is failing miserably.
    “You guess?” Cole says, his voice cracking. “ Probably ?”
    “Yeah,” Dia says with a smile that’s meant to be warm and reassuring. “They’ll probably just interrogate him for a while, perform some tests, and then let him go once they realize he has no more value.”
    “This is a nightmare,” Cole says, holding his head with both hands. The room is contracting and expanding, his vision narrowing. He feels like he might pass out, or vomit. Or vomit and then pass out, falling into the mess, which would be both disgusting and embarrassing.
    “Oh, don’t be such a drama queen,” Paige says as she taps away at her phone, as if this is the appropriate time to be updating her Facebook status. “He’ll be fine, I’m sure. They almost never kills Muggles. He’ll lose a couple fingers or toes at the very worst.”
    “So this is the plan,”