Page 86 of Before the Bond
"This can't keep up," he warned. "And it's not just Olivia who's at stake here. Everyone is."
Donovan left the room. Perhaps to follow Stella, perhaps to make his own rounds.
Maureen left to get me refreshments, ignoring the nearly untouched bowl of soup next to me.
Only Jake stayed.
Jake moved the chair nearest the sofa closer and sat down. He didn't speak, but he did thumb through a book. I noticed it was the one from the night I told Olivia about my story.
I leaned back and looked out the window.
I wondered where Olivia was now. The bond was thin. I could barely make out where she was headed. I could only imagine what she was going through.
As much torment as I was in, she was probably in more.
Misery I brought upon her, no less.
The fog crept in. It settled into place, just like the cold evening air. The firs outside blurred together as my sensations dwindled further. Color drained to gray.
I had stood at this window in every version of what this estate had been. My father's house. The pack's house. My own. The tree line had always been something I could read and answer. Tonight it just looked like the edge of something I was going to have to let come.
Chapter 18
Olivia
Ididn’t know where I was when I stopped driving. I didn’t look at the signs. I just drove.
I watched as the evening went from a dark blue to a pitch black. Headlights glared at me. I didn’t blink. I watched trucks slide past me, hauling lumber and crates.
The fog seemed to follow from Greyhollow, but even that started to fade away in the mirror. As I made a turn to the next highway, the last of it clung to the rearview. I pressed harder on the gas.
It was almost morning. Bizarrely, I didn’t feel tired.
My body was rigid, locked at the shoulders and wrists. Like it knew I was going to crash the moment I gave myself any respite. It kept me from thinking about anything that happened the night before. I cried most of it out two hours in.
After that, my eyes just dried up. I don’t think I could have handled crying anymore, anyway. My chest was sore and I had little to no voice left in my throat.
My mind was done. It had no more energy to spend recounting the exchange Caleb and I had, or the truth Elias had revealed before that.
The more clinical part of me would want to run calculations about money or my job, but it didn’t matter right now.
It didn’t matter anyway. Nothing mattered.
I kept driving.
When the sun finally started rising, I was further down south. The fuel light blinked. It was only then that I noticed just how heavy my eyes felt. Not from exhaustion, but from the puffiness of my eyelids.
I forced myself to slow down my driving as I reached a patch of stores and arcades.
In the corner, there was a two-pump gas station with a convenience store. Red lights flashed close by.
A tall pole extended into the murky sky. On the end of it, a sign screamed: MOTEL ROOMS 24/7.
I turned into the driveway.
The motel room reminded me of the cottage I stayed at more than a month ago.
The main difference was the peeling wallpaper with floral patterns. The blue blooms seemed to stare at me. I ignored them.
