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"Oh god, Marcus... what did you do?"

Barbara Lewis paced around the living room, her short legs rapidly carrying her in straight lines from one spot to another. Three hours ago her son had left the house to go back to school. He had promised her he was heading straight there and, per their arrangement, was sharing the location from his phone so she could watch him all the way to Greenwood, even seeing his little icon pull into his dorm parking lot. Everything was back to normal. She could breathe.

Then, an hour later, having a light breakfast and a cup of coffee while dreading her upcoming session with a particularly difficult client, her phone began to vibrate.

Normally Barbara would have let it go to voice mail, but the name on her phone's screen caught her attention. She quickly put on her small headset and answered, putting on the professional voice. "Can I help you, Mr. McGee?"

The voice on the other end harumphed quietly, not expecting to hear his own name right off the bat. "Ah, yes, Mrs. Lewis. Um... Marcus was supposed to return to his classes today, was he not?"

Barbara's throat went dry. "Yes... yes he was. I saw him arrive."

There was a pause on the other end, with what sounded like some quiet talking. "You saw him?"

She took a slow breath. "I mean, I didn't see him directly. His phone tracks his location, and I saw that he was at Greenwood at around eight o' clock."

"I see. Could you... take a look and see where it says he is right now?"

Barbara snatched her phone from the desk to her right, tapping at the screen. She pulled up the map, still zoomed in on the Greenwood campus. She dragged the map in every direction. She zoomed out further, and further, and further, each time wincing that she might find that Marcus had decided on another vacation. That he'd be off at one of his designer stores spending his father's money like he always did when he was upset. But she didn't find that. She didn't find anything.

Marcus was nowhere to be found.

The small bird's eyes flicked from one spot of the room to another, as if she might find an answer pinned to the wall or ceiling. Her son had gone missing for the second time in less than a week.

She stood up, needing to move around while her brain raced. "Mr. McGee? So... no one has seen Marcus?"

The beaver clicked his big teeth in that way he often did when agitated, the sound much sharper in Barbara's ear than she liked. "No. When he didn't arrive for his first class, we thought maybe he was just playing hooky. Morning staff at his dorm said he checked in, but his car isn't there now and no one's seen him at all."

Barbara could feel her heart rate increasing. She'd done her part, hadn't she? She made sure he went! "So... so you just didn't keep an eye on him? To make sure he'd get to class?"

"Mrs. Lewis..." the heavyset rodent began. "We have over six hundred students in Greenwood. As much as we would love to be able to have eyes on Marcus at all times, it's simply unfair to expect us to dedicate resources to one of our residents."

The bird's feathers ruffled. "I understand that, but... in this particular instance, I don't think it's out of the question to suggest that extra measures could be taken to assure that one of your students has not gone missing!"

Another pause, with a few muffled words being passed that she couldn't quite make out. "Mrs. Lewis, please forgive me for being so blunt, but it's not like we can stick an ankle bracelet on him. This is a school, not a prison. There's only so much we can do."

He was right, and that was the part that clamped around Barbara's chest the most fiercely. "Um... do you think I could call you back?"

"Please do. We're all a little concerned over here. We just want to make sure he's all right."

Barbara nodded frantically. "Yes, of course! He's not... he's still going to be enrolled, yes?"

She could hear a small groan in the beaver's throat, that worrying sound he always made when he was about to say something he didn't want to. "While truancy is not, in and of itself, worthy of expulsion, these are somewhat extenuating circumstances. Yes, Marcus is still considered a student at Greenwood Academy, but we are going to need to have a long, and very serious, meeting about what we expect of him in order to keep it that way."

The avian closed her eyes tightly. She wasn't one for prayer, but in that moment, she made an exception. Just find Marcus, get him back, help make him understand why he needs to get his shit together. "Of course," she replied, keeping her voice as level as she could. "Thank you."

For the next half hour, Barbara Lewis repeatedly called Marcus's phone. Each time it went to voice mail, she'd just dial again. There was no point in leaving a message, she knew he wouldn't listen. She tapped out text messages, hoping he'd see at least one of the notifications.

Marcus's dramatic exit last week came after a long argument, it made sense that he would run off. As worried as she'd been, she knew he was just upset and would come back once he'd cooled off. Even when he was little, Marcus would lock himself in his room and refuse to answer them, but as long as he got a bit of space, he'd always come back.

This was different. They hadn't fought. Marcus hadn't seemed angry, there hadn't been yelling. He hadn't just gone tearing away from the house in the wrong direction. That morning seemed like everything was getting better. Yes, he'd been his normally sulky self, but he wasn't fighting, he wasn't being defiant.

Barbara's mind was racing. He drove all the way to Weston, with his location shared, and even pulled into his dormitory, then he vanished? Was it a plan to get her off his tail? Did something happen when he arrived? What was happening?

"Yes, dear, what is it?" Charles Lewis answered, sounding a bit distracted.

Silence.

"Honey? You there?"

Barbara had dialed the number, but realized she had no idea what to say when he answered. She hadn't had any plan of attack, just that her husband was the only one she could think to reach out to.

"Charles... um, Marcus didn't show up at school today."

As was the pattern of the day, a beat passed before he replied.

"...excuse me? What do you mean he didn't show up at school?"

Barbara flapped her hands. "I mean he didn't show up at school! The principal just called, no one's seen him. He turned the GPS off on his phone, he won't answer my calls!"

Charles made sounds of beginning to speak, only for the words to evaporate before they made it the whole way out of his mouth. "Well... where did he go?"

"How the fuck would I know that, Charles??" she spat.

Barbara's husband immediately backed off, rubbing at the space between his eyes. "I'm sorry, I wasn't accusing you of anything. I just mean... maybe he's off letting us know how angry he is with another shopping spree. Keep an eye on his credit cards."

She sighed. "But what if he's not? What if he did something.... I don't know, something drastic?"

"Honey... this is Marcus. You know how he gets. He yells, he cries, he stamps his feet, but it's not like he ever actually does anything past making a big fuss."

Barbara didn't want to bring it up. She didn't want to say anything. She wanted to brush it all under the rug and pretend everything was business as usual, but she couldn't. She couldn't stop herself. "...he punched a boy in the face at school last week."

"He WHAT?"

Barbara Lewis told the whole story, as far as she was aware of it, speaking all in run-on sentences with hardly a breath in between them. The fight, the suspension, running off for a day, seeing that dog's big truck in the driveway when they got back. She laid the entire thing out, dumping it all on her husband's lap. She didn't want to, but she didn't know how else to get him to understand the severity of the situation.

"And... you just thought I shouldn't know about any of this?" Charles replied, his voice sounding like the irritation at being left out of the loop was weighing him down too much for him to even raise his voice.

"Don't even start that, Charles," Barbara seethed. "I wanted to do what's best for Marcus, and the last thing he needed was for both of us to be hounding him and making him even more upset. I thought if I talked with him in private, I could calm him down and get him back to school and we wouldn't need to make a bigger deal out of it."

"Well, that's not what happened, is it?"

Barbara's eyes nearly went white with anger. "Do you want to help, or do you just want to bitch at me?" she squawked.

Charles sighed. "Honey, what do you want me to do? I'm sitting in a hotel in Austin. I'm two thousand miles away. If he's not answering your phone calls, he sure won't answer mine. Even if I booked a flight right now I wouldn't be there until tonight, and then what?"

"Well... what am I supposed to do? Should I call the police?"

"I don't know, dear. I'm sorry, but I need to go, this is a big one and I'm already five minutes late. I'm sure Marcus is fine, he probably didn't even really go anywhere, he's just making a point. I love you, goodbye."

Barbara went into her office and sat at her desk. She looked at the time. In less than an hour she'd have to take all of this stress, lock it in a box, and stick it under her desk while she dealt with a musician telling her about the futility of existence and guided him on how to find meaning through artistic expression, the same way she did every month.

At least he seemed appreciative, even if he was exhausting at times. The rather... severe looking rat even sent her a copy of his album, which Barbara listened to for all of ten seconds before deciding that filling the washing machine with silverware would be less painful to the ear.

With Marcus, though, she was at a loss. When she'd threatened to call the police last week, it had just been a hollow threat. Something to scare him into at least answering her. Now, she thought she might need to.

Barbara opened her laptop and began typing.

"How long... to wait... before calling the police... if someone goes missing."

A whole list of results came up, with conflicting answers. Some said to call immediately if the circumstances seemed dire, which to her they were. Some said to wait 24 hours because the police won't take it seriously if it's too early. She drilled down into the ones talking about missing children. Marcus was seventeen, would they think of him like a child, or an adult? Did the police here have a policy? Was it a 911 call or just to the department?

Behind Barbara Lewis were a hundred books representing over a decade of work in how the mind worked, and none of it was helping.

"Mrs. Lewis?"

The bird's head spun, seeing Marcella uneasily poking her head through the doorway. She sighed, rubbing at her face.

"Oh, Marcella. I'm sorry, I just... sometimes I forget you're here."

The old squirrel nodded, stepping in. "That phone call sounded bad. Are you okay?"

Barbara looked at the screen in front of her, but wasn't reading the words on it. She was looking through her laptop, through the wall behind it, out into nothing.

"...I don't know, Marcie. I don't know."

Marcella carefully walked over and put a hand on Barbara's shoulder. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

The bird took off her glasses and leaned forward, elbows on her desk and her face in her feathered hands. None of this made sense. She'd spent Marcus's entire life guiding him on how to process his emotions, how to talk about his feelings, thought exercises and coping mechanisms. It was like he'd taken everything she'd done for him and thrown it in the trash.

Barbara looked over at the old housekeeper. Marcella, the first one who'd come in to apply for the job and didn't wrinkle her nose at the sight of a hybrid child. The first one who cooed over him and got the boy giggling and hugging at her big tail.

"Marcie... Marcus talks to you, right?" Barbara asked, her voice soft.

Marcella was caught off-guard by the question. "I mean... he does, yes. I would imagine he talks to you much more than me, though."

Barbara shook her head. "No I mean he really talks to you. As in, he'll just talk to you about anything, not just what you're asking about?"

The squirrel shrugged, still unsure. "I suppose? I've always tried to make him comfortable talking to me. I don't have a lot of answers like you do, but sometimes the boy just wanted someone to listen to him, and I could give him that at least."

Barbara swallowed. She knew that was the answer, she just hadn't wanted to hear it. "Did... he ever give you any indication he'd want to run away?"

Marcella started to catch on. She took a breath and leaned her butt against Barbara's desk. For a moment, they weren't employer and employee, but two friends. The squirrel shook her head, being as diplomatic as she could. "No... no he didn't. Mostly we talked about little things. A girl he had a crush on, track meets, that stuff."

The short bird wanted to interrupt right then. Marcus had never mentioned liking a girl at school to her. Why had he kept that from her? From his mother? Barbara Lewis rubbed at her face. "I've done so much for him, I don't understand why he'd just up and run off like this."

Marcella reached out and took Barbara's hand in her own, feather on fur, softly squeezing it. "I'm sure he's fine. He's been going through a lot," she said, her tone calm, comforting. Barbara realized just why Marcus was so at ease in chatting to Marcie about topics he never brought up during their own talks.

Barbara nodded. "Of course. No need to panic. Thank you, Marcie."

The squirrel smiled, even if the situation didn't really warrant it. "Any time, dear. Did you want a coffee before the appointment?"

"Hm? Oh, yes. Please. Same as always."

While Marcella scuttled out to the kitchen, Barbara breathed deeply, slowly, forcing calm upon herself. Marcus was fine. Charles was right. Just keep an eye on the credit card statements, he'd buy something somewhere and they could find him from there. He'd answer his phone eventually. No matter how upset he got, Marcus never went silent for long. All she had to do was stay calm.

Don't panic.

---

"Aw fuck, Marcus, what did you do??"

The jackalope drummed heavily on the steering wheel of his Land Rover as he tore along the interstate. Everything from his dorm room that he could carry out in one trip was piled up in the backseat, a random heap of clothing and whatever else he grabbed that jostled and bounced every time he swerved from one lane to another.

Marcus's heart was in his throat. What was he doing? He'd been on the road for nearly an hour. He knew that at any moment his phone was going to start getting calls and text messages, if it hadn't already. As soon as he'd gotten back in the driver's seat, Marcus put his phone on silent. He wasn't answering anything, or anyone, until he got where he was going.

All he had to do was figure out where that was.

As before, there was no music in the car. There was no static. There was no suffocating wall of noise to drown out his thoughts. All Marcus could hear was his heartbeat, pounding loudly enough that his vision pulsed with each one, and the rapid breaths he was desperately trying to get under control. His chest hurt, his legs struggling to hold still. Even with his car speeding at well above the limit, Marcus wanted to throw the door open and run alongside it.

Where are you going?

When are you going home?

What will you tell your parents?

Will they let you back into school?

What if they call the police?

All at once, a mass of questions invaded Marcus's head. They stabbed at him like angry hornets, and he couldn't swat them away. He opened the window, feeling his whole body flushing hot and his hands sweating. Even with the wind roaring and pulling his ears back, the swarm remained, swirling around him, threatening to send him off the road. Amongst them, one rose out, thundering above the din.

What are you looking for?

The other questions were easy to answer, or at least easy to push off to the side until later. No matter how hard he thought, Marcus couldn't answer that last one. The truth was, he didn't know what he was looking for, nor would he even know if he found it. The jackalope teen was adrift, driving as fast as he could towards nowhere in particular.

He wasn't literally driving to nowhere, of course. Marcus's pearl white Land Rover was flying at a hundred miles per hour due east, so at the very least he was going to arrive at the ocean if he didn't decide to stop at some point.

In fact, when he'd thrown his belongings in his car and hauled ass away from Greenwood Academy, he only had one place he could think to go: Boston. The city where Heaven Hearts Hybrids called home. The city where he'd spent the first years of his life, where hybrids like him were bought from their parents and sold off to the highest bidder. He wondered how many were there now. How many had been through their system over the years. He wondered if anyone would recognize him.

As Weston became a distant memory behind him, the questions grew louder, as if they were upset he wasn't answer them.

"What are you looking for?" the question repeated, booming like a god reaching through the sky.

Unlike the questions, answers were coming in half-formed clouds. Vague images floated about in his head, trying to offer them up to the voices. They were similar to his old fantasies of life with his real parents, but the ache of having lost them made it impossible for any new ones to solidify. He could almost see himself with a family. With friends.

"What are you looking for?" it said once more.

A place to belong, he thought.

"Fuck!!"

A truck's horn blaring grabbed Marcus's attention, showing that he'd drifted into another lane while his vision was blurred by the invading cloud, nearly colliding with an eighteen wheeler. He swerved back into his own, scattering everything in the back seat while he fought to get his car steady.

The young hybrid pulled off to the side of the road, parking with the air conditioning on at fully blast. He sat for a minute, his breathing rapid and shallow, feeling a familiar cold rush go over his body. Quickly, Marcus spun around, digging in his back seat for his duffel bag. It had been thrown down to the floor, contents strewn about, but he located the pill bottle he was searching for, popping the top and taking on a single small tablet.

Marcus placed it under his tongue, letting it dissolve. He closed his eyes, reflexively going into the breathing techniques his adoptive mother had taught him.

In through the nose. Hold.

"One... two... three... four..."

Out through the mouth. Hold.

"One... two... three... four..."

Square breaths. At first, it felt like he was suffocating himself. His adrenaline was surging, his panicked mind telling him he needed to gulp in as much air as he could get, but he forced himself to stay composed. The teen thought back to his first panic attack, not knowing why his chest was so tight, thinking he was going to pass out. Barbara put her hands on his shoulders and told him just to keep going. It would be okay. He was safe. He was in control.

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, the storm calmed. The hornets flew away, and the electricity in Marcus's hands faded. His shoulders relaxed, and he slumped forward, his head against the steering wheel, basking in the feeling of being able to breath.

Marcus let out a small snort, keeping his eyes closing while the world stopped spinning.

Say thank you, Marcus.

"Thanks, mom," he said aloud. "Thanks to you, I got real good at how to cope with everything being fucked instead of fixing it. The magic of therapy."

Once he felt steady enough to get back on the road, Marcus was suddenly aware of the passage of time. A glance at the dash showed it was nearly noon. He'd been driving for almost three hours. The teen's brain was fried and his stomach was as empty as his gas tank. He needed to stop, refuel, and regroup.

The first thing the jackalope did was, reluctantly, unlock his phone and look at its front screen. There was already a list of missed calls and unread texts. He saw names he recognized, both of his adoptive parents, as well as several he didn't. He stared at the alerts, before swiping them all away. Whatever any of them wanted to say, he wasn't interested.

Mercifully, there was a service plaza less than a mile up the road. He pulled in, filled up his tank, and grabbed a few supplies from the store inside. A big vegetable wrap to eat now and a boxed salad for later, a few energy drinks, he was good to go. Or as good as he could be, anyway.

Marcus sat in his car, the air on a lower setting but still going just to keep it circulating, and put on one of his less noisy driving playlists. Some rock, some hip-hop, just radio friendly music that could melt into the background. It might have just been that he was on the far side of a panic attack, plus the benzo in his bloodstream, but the young hybrid was feeling almost relaxed, more contemplative than before.

He looked out at the road stretched before him, cars whizzing past in both directions. Half were heading to where he'd come from, half to where he was going. To his right was Boston. To his left, home. Marcus breathed deeply, looking between the two.

"Just go back, dude," he said aloud. "Call Mr. McGee, tell him you got really sick and had to get to a doctor and that's why you've been gone all day. Tell your mom you're at school and everything is fine you just couldn't pick up the phone because the battery died. Go back."

He saw himself taking that road to his left and heading to Weston. He'd put everything back in his room before Corey got back and it would be like he'd never left. Okay, he'd miss a few of the day's classes, but with everything going on, it wouldn't be too hard to explain himself. If he went to the faculty building and dropped off all of his assignments they'd know he was taking it seriously. Then he could grab his shoes and get to track practice.

He'd be a model student. Do everything right. Even if Eli or someone else hassled him, he'd just smile back and ignore them. No one would be able to get a rise out of him for the rest of that year or the next. Against all odds, Marcus Lewis would graduate near the top of his class, with grades good enough to get him into one of those elite universities his parents had been namedropping since they first enrolled him at Greenwood Academy.

Then he'd go to college. He'd get pushed into taking a major he wasn't interested in, but his parents and his student advisor told him would set him up for a good career. Business analysis, accounting, economics. Something with numbers that CEOs pay a lot to have someone do for them.

College would be just like high school. Professors would look at him suspiciously, the students wouldn't want to hang out with him. He'd be just as much of an outcast there as he'd been at Greenwood. If he complained, the Lewises would just talk about how much they're spending to put him there, and all he has to do is put up with it for a few years and then he'd be set for life.

And he would put up with it. Every sideways look, every slur, every time someone gave him shit. Marcus would swallow it all down and be a good boy like he was supposed to. He'd get that degree, maybe even doing an internship between semesters at a big corporate firm after his dad pulled some strings with the promise of hiring him once he graduated.

That was the plan. Marcus would be a shining example of what a hybrid can achieve if they're raised by good, caring parents, and that company could show off to the world how progressive they are because they picked up this kid whose real parents abandoned him and no one thought had a chance in the world.

He'd get put into some position that had a fancy title but didn't actually involve doing anything important, because they didn't actually trust him not to fuck up. They'd pay him just enough for him to stick around even while treating him like dirt. Enough to get his own place where he'd be too scared to quit or he wouldn't be able to pay rent. He'd be what he always was, a trophy. Decoration. Not a valued member of the family.

"Lewis! I said two sugars and one cream!" he grunted, acting the part of his imaginary boss.

"Lewis! I'm gonna need you to come in early and work on those reports so I don't have to!"

"Lewis!! We have a news crew coming by, I need you to be here and tell them how great this company is!"

He'd do it, too. He'd be on the news that night saying that Motherfuckers, Inc., was just the best place, that he was grateful every day for them. He'd say his lines perfectly, because he'd know that if he didn't put on the happy mask that he'd be out on his ass and trying to find a job as the hybrid who couldn't integrate with normal society.

He'd be that guy at the office that a few of his coworkers are friendly with, but none of them want to hang out with outside of work. They'd walk by his desk and make small talk and smile politely at him, but they'd always be too busy if he talked about meeting up for drinks later.

On weekends, Marcus would go out by himself to the bars, trying to work up the courage to talk to a girl he was hoping was in his league. Maybe once he'd do it, and he'd take her back to his place. They'd have an awkward fuck and in the morning she'd tell him that was great and all but she just wanted to have fun with a guy who couldn't get her pregnant, she couldn't actually be in a relationship with someone who could never give her a family. Eventually he'd be that old guy at the bar that everyone knows but no one really wants to talk to, just drinking his problems away.

He'd work at that bullshit job for fifty years and at his retirement they'd give him a watch and talk about how much they loved having him there but there'd be someone else at his desk even before he got home to his empty house. Marcus would live out his remaining years watching late night talk shows from his recliner until he died in his sleep, and no one would even realize he was dead until the neighbors started wondering about all the flies.

They probably wouldn't even bury him in a cemetery with everyone else. They'd burn his body, throw his ashes away because no one came to collect them, and he'd be forgotten entirely.

The film ended, and Marcus sat, mulling over the life that awaited him if he went back west. The perfect life everyone had planned for him.

...no.

No, he said to himself. Boston had to have something there that would give him a reason to exist. Someone to tell him he mattered.

Marcus finished off his wrap, pulled out of the plaza parking lot, and resumed his journey east. Whatever he would find there, it had to be better than what he was leaving behind.