After pulling his own phone from his pocket, Tristan tried Mateo. When he didn’t answer, he tried his mom.

“Hello?” she answered.

“Have you spoken to Mateo today?”

“This morning. We were going to have lunch and talk, but he called to say he couldn’t make it. Why?”

“Fuck.” The bottom of his stomach dropped out. In that moment, he knew something was going on, something that Mateo had known about this morning, which was why he’d orchestrated the day as he had. “Nothing, it’s—”

“Don’t. Don’t you do that to me, Tristan. I love that boy like a son. If there is something going on with him, I deserve to know.”

She was right, but the thought of worrying her still left a bitter taste in his mouth. “It could be fine. He’s only a few minutes late, but we can’t get ahold of him. And this morning...Christ, we should have known something was up.”

His mom’s voice shook when she asked, “Are you worried about Javier? He told me what’s been going on, but he didn’t think Javier would come out here.”

He told you? Tristan almost asked but he didn’t. It meant the world to him that they spoke, that his mom now had the kind of son who could confide in her the way he never could. Yes, she has Josiah, but Josiah didn’t need her the way Mateo did.

“I don’t know.” Tristan looked up to see Josiah pacing the kitchen, on his phone, no doubt calling Mateo again. “I have go to, Mom. I’ll let you know what’s going on.”

What the hell would they do if something happened to Mateo? How would he live with himself if it were his fault, because of the things he’d set into motion? How could he ever look Josiah in the eye again if he lost his first love because of Tristan’s pride?

“I’m going to look and see if any of his things are gone.” Tristan faintly heard Josiah say in the background, but he couldn’t seem to make himself move, couldn’t make himself think.

He flinched when he felt warm flesh on his face. Josiah’s hand. “It’ll be okay. He’ll be okay. We’ve been through too much for anything else to be an option.”

As nice as Josiah’s words sounded, Tristan knew better. He knew how the world worked. Knew that sometimes you dug your own grave, and maybe he had helped dig Mateo’s.

“Do you hear me, Tris? He’s going to be okay. We’re going to be okay.”

Those words, Josiah’s voice, began to lure him off the edge. His whole life, he never felt like he fought for those he loved, and maybe this was his way to do it. He needed to fight for them now...and like Elliot said, fight for himself as well.

“We will,” he said, clinging to Josiah’s belief.

They made their way down the hall. Josiah still called Mateo, though they both knew he probably wouldn’t answer.

Everything in the room looked intact. Nothing obvious of his was missing, though he guessed Mateo wouldn’t be stupid enough to do that. He would have known they would realize it sooner.

The urge to count didn’t even have the opportunity to set in. Not in something this important. “You know him better than I do. Would he have gone without saying goodbye?” Tristan looked at Josiah, who automatically shook his head.

“This morning would have been part of it, but he wouldn’t have left without saying more. Not in something like this...unless...unless he thought he would protect us by not saying anything. Unless he thought it hurt us by knowing what he was doing.”

Which was the answer right there. “Nuestro angel guardian. I asked him how to say ‘our guardian angel’ in Spanish, and told him that’s who he was to us.”

And that’s what he was trying to be right now.

“Let me see your phone.”

Josiah handed it to Tristan, who looked through the calls. Last night there had been a call from an unknown number.

“Get your stuff. We’re going to New York.” It didn’t matter that he’d said he would never set foot in the state again. They were worth it.

“And I need you to think, Josiah... Any stories he’s told you, or places where he might be? You know more about those things than I do.” To do this, they would both have to fight together. They’d both have to be Mateo’s angel this time.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Mateo

After so long, holding a gun in his hand felt foreign. Mateo had always wanted that. He’d never wanted the steel of a gun to feel comfortable in his hand, but the truth was, it always had. He’d been holding them all his life. But now? Now it felt different. Awkward. Like it didn’t fit. It was like his hands didn’t know how to wrap around one despite it being ingrained into him from a young age.