How could all of his illusions be shattered in such a short moment?

When the numbers had finally forced the awareness of Bree’s drawing presence into his conscious mind Ethan had stood petrified, like a deer in the headlights. Every muscle had become frozen and he prayed, vacant eyed, that their being drawn into the same area once again was nothing more than a coincidence. The United States wasn’t such a large area that it was impossible for two people who traveled frequently to find each other once every couple of months.

Right?

That was, at least, until he felt a presence by his right shoulder, something warm and electric and so frustratingly familiar. This was no coincidence. Or perhaps it was a coincidence, just the next one in the line of impossible coincidences that surrounded the two of them.

Ethan didn’t even look over at her and asked him not to run. He was frozen, and that probably was the only thing that kept him from disappearing right now. He was waiting for his beautiful belief that he had any control over his own life to come back, to remind him that he was not just some absurd toy for the universe.

Did he look calm? He hoped he looked calm. He hoped he didn’t look as though the floor had faded away from underneath him like it never was, and he was now falling into an infinite blackness.

But, after the faintest moment of hesitation, his hand took the photograph with an almost unnoticeable tremor. He was here and she was here, he might as well listen to what she had to say. But he only looked at the photograph for a split second, just enough to catch a glimpse of a childlike face, a hint of a smile, before he looked away, casting his gaze out to the ocean once more.

But it didn’t matter if he didn’t look at the photograph close enough to connect a person to the poor missing boy, because there was no way he was going to be able to unhear the quiet desperation in Bree’s voice. In that moment it finally occurred to him exactly how dire the situation must be for Bree to turn away from the police work that had guided her whole adult life, and request aid from something that must to her seem so supernatural. What would any of her colleagues say if they knew she was here?

The numbers turned slowly to focus on the boy... Jacob. The least he could do was give her the answers to her questions, for the sake of this boy, and the sake of his family. A family that undoubtedly loved him.

“He’s alive,” Ethan said, a faint trace of relief entering his voice. “And whoever has him isn’t intending to kill him yet. The chances he’ll be dead within the next couple of days are so small as to be insignificant.” He didn’t add that, in just over a week’s time, the probability rose suddenly to just under 50. For whatever reason they had taken this boy and kept him alive, it would all come to a head in eight days.

Concealing a shudder, Ethan turned his attention to location. Alabama, Alaska, Arizona... He went through the list almost as quickly as he could think, needing nothing more than a brief flash to see that the child wasn’t in the state. Finally, though, one rang true.

“Massachusetts.” He told Bree, fully turning to look at her for the first time. “He’s in Massachusetts. Not in Boston proper, at least not right now, but near it.” He glanced down at the picture one last time before trying to hand it back to Bree.

“I should go now,” he said. “And you’ve got a boy to find.”