Paranormals

Chapter 12: Hospital Gowns Really Don't Make Me Look Good

Casey's POV

I was in a very bad mood. Traffic sucked, I was starting to feel lightheaded, and my arm still hurt, hours later.

The LA traffic was expected, but my arm's refusal to heal wasn't. Usually, I healed quickly, one of the many paranormal perks I possessed, and my arm shouldn't have taken longer than 2 hours to heal. It had been almost 4 hours since my escape, and last I looked, my arm was still bleeding. The scrap of fabric that I had tied around it was all that was keeping me from bleeding out, and I didn't like how long it was taking to heal.

This, along with my lightheadedness, was just another sign that I was mentally and physically exhausted. I had been running on pure adrenaline since my escape, and now that it was wearing off, the events of the last several days were quickly catching up to me. If I was at Ben's apartment, this wouldn't be an issue, but since I was stuck in traffic, I couldn't just lie down and sleep.

Fucking traffic.

Just as I slammed on the horn with my fist, traffic began to move. Huh. Maybe my raging was effective.

Driving slowly behind the Mazda in front of me, the interstate sloped downhill ahead. Because of this, it took me a moment to realize that my engine had died.

I'm going to censor out what I said for the sake of posterity, but let's just say that I would never repeat it in front of my mother.

I inched to the side of the road. Putting the Lamborghini in park, I tried to start the car. It sputtered and then coughed out. As it did, the gas light flashed at me. I was out of gas. I was out of gas, stuck in traffic, injured, with not a cent to my name, with a mate that was a vampire.

Well, this fucking sucked.

I pulled out the prepaid cell phone that I had successfully stolen from a travel center a little over an hour ago. It was the cheapest one they had, and came with 20 minutes of prepaid talk time on it. It was piece of crap, and it was my ticket out of this shitty situation.

I called Ben.

"Hello?"

"Hey. It's me."

"Casey?! What the actual fuck? Aren't you with the vampire dude? I need to call Mom and Dad. Hang on. I'm going to borrow my friend's phone so I can call Mom and Dad. STAY ON THE PHONE."

"Ben, wait. Don't call Mom and Dad yet. You can call them when I get to your apartment."

"What do you mean? You're coming to my apartment. Explain."

"Yes, I'm coming to your apartment. I'll explain later. What you need to know right now is that I'm stuck on I-5, near the Washington Boulevard exit. I'm in a Lamborghini. I ran out of gas, and I have no money, and I need you to pick me up."

"You're in a Lamborghini?!"

"Yes. I'm in Nate's Lamborghini."

"Let me get this straight. You're in vampire dude's Lamborghini, stuck in traffic on I-5, on the side of the road because you ran out of gas, and you need me to pick you up?"

"Yes."

And then I burst into tears. I'm not sure why, it was just the depressing nature of it all. Here I was, sitting in this fancy car, with nothing at all to my name, just trying to get back to my family, and I couldn't even do it successfully. It was very overwhelming, and as much as I hated to admit it, I missed Nate.

"Ok. Um, calm down. I'm going to be there in a few minutes, okay? Just stay on the phone with me."

"I'm so sorry Ben! But he tried to keep me there and I knew I couldn't so I escaped and tried to drive here and now I'm a disaster. And my arm is bleeding and it won't heal because I think I'm too drained to allow it to heal, and now the car is out of gas and I feel so alone Ben," I sob.