Rage of Vendetta (The Vendetta Series #2)

Chapter 9

I shake my head furiously. It won't come to that. Right now, I need to concentrate.

The keyboard clicks loudly, echoing in the near empty gate lounges. I log into the email Sasha had created for me back in the House, and it takes a while to remember what exactly she had set as the password. The breath leaves me in one whoosh when I see the little, blinking (1) in my inbox.

Please don't be spam, I plead, biting on the inside of my cheek.

My eyes go to the sender immediately: talking.crab321@gmail.com.

I choke back a sob, having to stuff the back of my hand into my mouth.

A tear rolls down my cheek, and I swipe it away hurriedly, practically breaking the mousepad clicking into the email with no subject heading. The body of the message is only one sentence.

Home is where the heart is.

P.S. How lame does Son of Eve sound? Can't I get a better title?

So Sebastian knows. I'm torn between laughing and sobbing. Between wanting to scream one incoherent noise or put voice to all my frustrations. I do none, and keep my face completely neutral after allowing myself a dire snort.

Digging my nails into the side of my thigh, I slam the laptop shut and place it on my seat as I stand. My family is alive, and I know exactly how to begin tracking them down. But we have more important matters at the moment.

I flick my wrist, obscuring the laptop from public eye with telepathy. I'm still kind of hating this ability at the moment, but you've got to admit its useful.

I set off for the back of the airport, beginning my search for an aggravating boy.

***

Two hours later, I've still had no luck. I run from end to end, searching corner and crook and crevice.

The more empty spaces I come across, the smaller the airport gets in perception, and it lessens the options of places Jesse could have been dragged off to.

Another hour later, my legs are aching despite my Nephilum abilities to never tire, and I've run into Courtney and Vee twice, who are smartly chanting his name so they don't forget. I take a path farther away from them so we cover more ground, and yet the place is as quiet and Jesse-less as ever.

Four hours have passed since I started searching, and I am beginning to doubt if Jesse even ever existed.

Of course he does, I chide myself. He's become one of your best friends over the course of a few weeks. What kind of an idiot forgets their own best friend?

Out of nowhere, I wonder how Lily back home is doing. She had been my only best friend for so long. Then I just left with no explanation. Well, I was taken, but she didn't know that.

And now the same might be happening to Jesse.

Somehow, I find myself by the boarding counters at the front of the airport, and I've gone beyond the passenger-only zone despite my own warnings to the others. It doesn't matter anyway. No one notices me once I decide I don't want them to see me. I gaze up at the giant arches at the top of the airport, like backward triangles jutting out from marble. There's only silence, occasionally a low murmur from the workers stuck with the 5AM shift. The automatic doors that lead to the outside of San Francisco, California are right there. Strangely, they open, even though there's no one there. It's like they're trying to tell me I can walk out. I can walk out into the cold and run and run and run and run.

What I used to think was freedom is right in my clutch. But it's not freedom anymore. Being unconfined doesn't mean being free. Being unconfined on my own would only mean loneliness. Without any of my friends and without my family, it will be surviving, but it won't be living.