Free Web NovelChapter 28: Somewhere In The Middle Of Nowhere
The bus stink is stuck in my hair, stale coffee, damp coats and hopelessness. Perfect for me then.
I’ve been staring out of the same scratched window for so long the landscape has stopped feeling real. Fields blur into houses, houses blur into miles of tarmac. Grey sky, green fields, grey sky, green fields. Repeat until death.
The baseball cap I found in a public toilet is pulled low enough that nobody can get a good look at me, which is fine by me because I’m fairly certain my current expression is somewhere between traumatised fugitive and woman one minor inconvenience away from biting.
Every now and then, the driver catches my reflection in his mirror. I look away before he can decide whether I need help. I don’t need help, I need fucking answers. There’s a difference.
Unfortunately, my brain keeps trying to circle back to the same completely insane conclusion.
Hot men turn into giant, terrifying, growling wolves. Every time I think it, I expect to laugh and realise I’ve finally snapped. Instead, all I get is the memory of Jax not being Jax anymore, blood dripping from his wolfy fucking jaw.
I should’ve left sooner.
Hours and hours the same thought has plagued me, bounced around my skull. I should have run harder the first time, kept going, not let Leo carry me back to their house covered in puke. Even then, as soon as I was lucid I should’ve grabbed my bag and disappeared. GAH.
Yeah, yeah, I had a horrific fever, was confused, emotional, wrapped up in blankets that smelled like them. Who god damn cares.
My face burns beneath the cap. Jesus Christ, I made some kind of rudimentary nest. Stole their clothes and constructed a giant fabric fortress. I sobbed, clung to them, let them care for me, let myself believe that I was safe. I begged them, hand on heart, begged five men to fuck me.
Every memory makes me want to launch myself through the bus window. My fingers tighten around the strap of my backpack. Maybe they hadn’t hurt me, they still lied about everything. Most likely drugged me.
None of that changes the fact that I’d walked into a house full of monsters and somehow ended up worrying about hurting their feelings.
The escape itself had been less dramatic than I’d imagined and significantly more painful. Turns out climbing down from a second-floor balcony in the middle of the night isn’t nearly as graceful as movies make it look. I’d scraped half the skin off my palms, nearly fallen twice and landed badly enough to jar every bone in my body.
I’d crouched in the shadows afterwards, chest heaving, staring back at the house through the trees. One light had been on upstairs, everything else had been dark and peaceful. I bet it wasn’t peaceful when five enormous men realised I’d ran.
For the first ten minutes away from the house, I’d felt amazing. Terrified, but amazing. Pure adrenaline and dizzying freedom. Every step put distance between me and answers I wasn’t ready to hear.
The further I got from the house, the worse I felt.
At first I blamed exhaustion, dehydration and fatigue from the lingering fever.
By the time I reached the road I could barely stand and knew it was something else. Nausea rolled through me in waves, my chest ached and my hands shook. Worst of all was the strange sensation buried somewhere deep inside, impossible to describe without sounding completely insane. It felt like forgetting an important thing, walking away from a conversation before it finished. A rubber band stretched until it was one pull away from snapping.
Even now, with hundreds of miles between me and them, I can still feel it. A faint ache sitting behind my ribs. A pressure that comes and goes. Every time it appears, I sit up straighter and remind myself turning around would be stupid.
I didn’t leave because I hated them. Fucked up as that is. I left because everything I thought I knew about my life exploded in the space of a few days. My childhood memories are still coming back in jagged pieces. My family was slaughtered in front of me and I no longer know how much of what I remember is real. Maybe the answers really are waiting back there, hidden in those forests with the five of them.
But if I go back now, I’ve not chosen it freely.
The bus rattles over another pothole and I pull my cap lower, watching another unfamiliar town slide past the window. I know they’ll probably find me. Not today, but eventually. Before that happens, I need the truth even if it breaks me.
For the first time running isn’t about escaping, it’s about finding out what I’ve been running from my entire life.
Ancient brakes hiss us to a stop beneath a sky the colour of dirty dishwater. We’re parked between a petrol station and a row of fast-food places glowing with bright signs and artificial cheerfulness. This is a place only ever visited by people trapped between somewhere they’ve left, and somewhere they might never reach.
Greasy food smell drifts into the bus and my stomach revolts. I’ve barely eaten since I left. Every time I’ve tried, my body has immediately rejected it, launched whatever I’d managed to swallow back into the nearest toilet or flower bed. It’s getting to the point that I’m genuinely worried, I’m weak, shaky. My jeans hang looser than they did a week ago. Even sitting takes more effort than it should.
Around me people stand, stretch, collect bags from overhead compartments. The driver announces we’ve got twenty minutes. Twenty minutes to use the toilets, buy food. Twenty minutes to pretend I’m a normal person travelling somewhere normal for normal reasons.
I follow the crowd inside because the smell of hot food is making me dizzy. Grease, coffee, sugar, stale bread, every scent is amplified, crashing into me all at once until I feel even more sick from the sheer volume of it.
The service station is packed with truck drivers and tired parents trying to wrangle screaming children. Normal people living normal lives while I continue to quietly experience a supernatural nervous breakdown. My stomach growls loudly enough that I glance around to make sure nobody heard it.
Desperation is driving me forward, and I really am willing to try eating again. The problem is money. What little cash I’d taken when I ran is gone. A bottle of water yesterday, a sandwich the day before, bus tickets, public toilets. Everything adds up. Which means I’m standing in front of the ATM, staring at the screen while my pulse climbs higher with every second.
Because using the card means Ezra will know.
Out of all of them, that man scares me the most. It’s him who will find me, I’m sure of it. Ezra smiles at you while dismantling your entire plan three weeks before you even came up with it.
The black card sits in my hand, heavier than I remember. A ridiculous piece of metal. I stare at it. Put it away. Take it back out. Stare some more. freeωebnovēl.c૦m
People withdraw cash next to me without a crisis. freёwebnoѵel.com
The driver’s voice cuts through the hum. "Use it or get back on the bus."
I jump so hard I nearly drop the card.
He’s standing near the entrance, arms folded, looking thoroughly unimpressed with my existence. Fair enough. I’ve been loitering here for the full twenty minutes and I’m looking increasingly suspicious.
My face burns and I mumble an apology. I shove the card into the machine before I can lose my nerve. I punch in the pin and select the maximum amount I can withdraw. Processing. Processing. Processing. Every second is an hour.
Cash appears, I grab every note, stuff them into my bag, snatch the card back and drop it into the bin beside me.
The bus is already filled when I climb back aboard, breathless. I make my way down the aisle, still mentally calculating how long it will take Ezra to realise I’ve used the card, when I pass a man sitting alone near the middle.
Something about him catches my attention. Not enough to stop, but enough to snag briefly on my awareness. Mid-thirties maybe, dark jacket, looking out the window. He’s familiar, journey familiar. My brain flicks through memories and eventually lands on a vague recollection of seeing him on another bus. The first leg of the trip maybe? Or the second. I can’t quite place it.
Unease curls low in my stomach.
Shake that shit off. Of course I’ve seen him before. Most people here are on the same route.
Not everybody is secretly following me. Not everybody is a wolf. Not everybody is part of the nightmare shit show my life has become.
I slide back into my seat and pull my cap over my eyes as the engine rumbles to life beneath us.
Outside, the service station disappears behind sheets of rain. Ahead, the road stretches endlessly towards another town, another stop, another piece of a journey.
My fingers find the cash hidden inside my bag and squeeze it tightly. Ezra will know, the clock’s ticking.
But for the first time since I left, I have enough money to keep moving.
Right now, moving is all I’ve got.
