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Misha? and ?Rei? both nod, and my gaze darts between them as my mouth dries.
“I need to find her,“ I say. “Do you know where she went?“
“Maybe you should stay here,“ Rei says. “She said she needed some space.“
“She's had years of space,“ I say, my voice trembling. It's hard for me to stop myself from screaming. “And she doesn't get to run away again. I can't believe I came here and she immediately left.“
“She's trying to protect you,“ ?Luke? says. I glare at him. He holds his hands up. “I mean, I think. I don't know.“
I can't be here. I can't have this conversation with them. I take my phone out of my bag and try to call her, but she immediately sends me to voicemail. I think that's her current phone number, but there's no way for me to know without talking to her.
If she just left, she can't be that far, and I'm going to find her.
And if I don't—well, maybe a drive is just what I need to clear my head.
TRINE?
Idon't know what's come over me, but I know I can't be here anymore.
I grab my mom's keys from the key bowl on the accent table in the foyer. That's where she's always kept her car keys and I suppose some things never change.
The car sitting in the driveway is new, and when I click the doors open, I hesitate. But only for a second. This is impulsive, but I can't stay here. If she hasn't left the neighborhood, I still have a decent chance of catching her.
As long as she's still around.
I can explain the car later, when I find her. At the end of the day, my mom owes me an explanation, and I intend to get that from her, at the very least. I didn't drive all the way up here, dragging the exorcists with me, to have her bail on me again.
I'm not letting her do that.
Particularly not after what happened with Luke. I know that was a big deal to him. We need to talk about it, but there are more urgent things to worry about right now.
Like answers.
Fuck, she’s been running away from me all my life, and I’m not letting her do that anymore.
I'm not familiar with her car, I'm not familiar with this neighborhood. I barely spend some time adjusting the mirrors before I speed off her driveway. This is a residential street. I think the speed limit is thirty miles per hour, but as soon as I peel out off the driveway, I start to speed.
The drive to the main road is only two minutes long. There's a gap in traffic, and I'm about to turn left, plenty of space in front of me. I press down on the gas and turn my steering wheel when the radio in the car comes on loud enough to make the windows vibrate. I hold the steering wheel tight, swearing under my breath as I try to make the turn. I can handle the radio coming on later. That isn't important right now.
Then my phone–which is always on silent–starts to ring, and that's disturbing. The device vibrates on the console, hard enough to fall off the black plastic, and the volume goes up, up, up, a song I don't recognize blaring on the radio. I'm trying to control my breathing, my knuckles going white as I hold on to the steering wheel. I take my foot off the gas when I get used to the sound, and then something loud and sharp starts to beep, and I don't know what it is. I can't exactly look around, and someone's in the right lane so I can't just pull over to deal with this. The AC starts to blow as cold as it goes suddenly, and the edge of the seat belt cuts into my neck, hot against my skin.
“Calm down,“ I tell myself. As if that's going to work. I sound fucking terrified.
Something is happening, I don't know what it is, and I'm getting closer and closer to losing control. The leather of the seat feels hotter than it did before; the sun shining so bright it burns.
And then someone pulls out in front of me from the left lane without looking.
Time slows down.
I'm vaguely aware that the van is familiar when I yank the steering wheel to the right lane while I silently pray that the person next to me speeds up so I don't drive right into them.
No such luck.
I feel the scrape of metal on metal before I can hear it, the sound of someone laying hard on their horn enough to scare me. The person in the van ahead of me swerves wildly back and forth, so I yank the steering wheel to the left and slow down, hoping that they'll leave me behind and I'll be able to sort this out with the driver of the black sedan next to my mom's car. Which, I don't know, I might have just totaled.
Fuck.
People are swearing at me, the radio is so loud I can't even hear my thoughts, and my neck hurts. The place where the seatbelt touches my skin has an open wound—this isn't just rugburn, it's a serious cut. When I press my fingertips against my throat, they come back covered in viscous red blood.
