Eternal Temptation

❥ 25| mistakes

"How do you know all this?" Zayaan glanced at me.

"Secondary school geography comes in handy sometimes. I didn't like it back then, but I guess it's turning out to be pretty useful now that we've survived a plane wreck in the middle of nowhere."

"Trying to make me regret choosing history, I see," Zak commented and I laughed.

"Trust me, I wanted to do history. But my mum made me choose geography, telling me that learning about dead people would be useless."

"It kind of is," my husband deadpanned. "But, at least it teaches us not to repeat mistakes from the past."

I nodded along, rolling down the car window, letting the wind whip at my face and hair. It felt freeing, allowing the fresh air to cleanse out all the car oxygen we'd been breathing in.

We came to a stop at what looked like a local café and Zayaan jogged inside quickly, telling us he'd be back after asking for some directions and whatnot and came back a few minutes later with a pleased smile.

"They spoke English, thank God," he sighed in relief. "So, we're on the outskirts of Sofia right now. If we drive for around two hours, we'll make it to Plovdiv, one city closer to Ankara. And we can stay at a hotel there overnight since it's already getting dark, and it will be around midnight when we get there," he explained the plan, and not finding anything to question, we all agreed.

I typed in the city Zayaan had mentioned into the old GPS, and we set off the in route that would take us one step closer to solving the problem that had started this entire chaos in the first place. That is, if we weren't too late.

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"YOU GUYS GO inside. I'll be there in a few minutes."

Zayaan hesitated. "Are you sure? It's extremely dark out here."

I gave my husband a wide smile. "Zayaan, I'll be out here for all of five minutes. I'm not going to wander out very far. I'll be fine; you guys go ahead and check us all in. I'll be there in a few."

He nodded, giving me a curious stare before the three siblings walked away from where he'd parked the car. The car park wasn't very full, and since finding a spot wasn't too difficult, we'd parked near the front, close to the hotel.

I breathed a sigh of relief once the three of their shadows disappeared from sight and I rushed to the payphone I'd spotted, hoping that the little change I'd found in the dash would be enough to make my call.

Thankfully it was, and I quickly dialled my brother's phone number, wincing when I noticed on the poster beside the phone that foreign calls were a bit more expensive than local ones.

However, as usual, my brother didn't pick up the phone and after trying two times, I gave up. I wasn't going to waste my already limited money on a brother who never picked up. I wasn't even sure why I thought calling him would be a good idea — it seemed that he always placed his phone God knows where and was prone to miss calls. I could be dying, and my dearest brother wouldn't pick up.

After sighing in frustration for the second time from hearing his voicemail, I hung up and pondered on what to do. Instead of calling one of my parents, I made the decision that I still regret to this day and called him.

Logan Anderson.

I still had a few unopened messages from him, spanning the entirety of the last week, and holding the contents that I didn't have the guts to open. I hesitantly keyed in his number, hating that I knew it off by heart and waited, my heart in my throat when the familiar ringing sound filled the earpiece.