He'd been gone a lot longer than Sam or anyone else was comfortable with. Sam's eyes flickered to Avery; the poor boy had cried himself to sleep after his brother walked out of the doors. He was feeling a little guilty - okay really guilty that Jeff had gone out there and Sam had been all for it. Jeff and Avery had Ruth, their late cousin's wife. She had come to the diner with them and their parents and at the moment she was all the boys had left. 

Ruth was too busy sleeping with her head pressed against the table. Her late husband had been one of Sam's co-workers at the small burger shop at the end of the road and later the two had worked together as fifth grade teachers. It had hit the community hard when he died a few years back. After the death of her husband, Ruth took a downward spiral and developed this intricate story that she was a model who worked out of Rosswood, Ruth had also developed a drinking problem; she still smelled of alcohol hours after Sam had found her sneaking a drink or two in. 

Sam was sitting next to his sister. She was focused on looking out of the window trying to look for Jeff or anyone. "None of this feels natural." She whispered. Sam nodded in agreement. 

"What would it be then?"

"I don't know but you know that feeling when you watch a horror movie and you know something is off but you can't place it?" Rowena smoothed down Avery's hair before moving him into the small bench across from them. 

"Yeah." Sam didn't know where she was going with this. "What about it?" 

"This feels a lot like that, you know? I hope nothing's happened." Rowena got up to use the  bathroom and on her way back to the booth that Sam and Avery were at, she managed to sneak into the kitchen to take a ladle. It wasn't much of a weapon but she'd be damned if she didn't help in the slightest. 

"Keep an eye on Avery." She said to her brother before heading over to the front windows. She would help look for the boy; Rowena remembered when she used to babysit Jeff on the occasional date night and she couldn't separate the image of the teen from her past experience with him.

---

He could hear things fumbling around in the dark. He hadn't even heard a dog bark in hours so it was a little unsettling to him. Even though the gun couldn't do much to protect him at the moment, Jeff still felt better knowing that it was in his hand. Gone was all of his confidence and cocky attitude, in its place was fear - pure, unadulterated fear. 

The urge to run was strong and he counted to ten, giving ten reasons why he needed to run, before taking off through the darkness.