Angelic (Book 2)

Twenty-Six

There was only me to draw comfort from for my nightmares. No August to run to in the middle of the night. No Blake to watch TV with.

Just me.

I breathed hard, wiping the sweat from my eyes as I looked around the bus. Miles and miles we had been traveling, and the entire time I sat huddled and bundled in the very back seat. People came and went. I remained. Surely the bus driver was curious as to where I could possibly be going, but she never asked. Just kept driving, and I kept riding.

Thoughts of August hammered away at my mind, beating out the nightmares. Would he be at the airport by now? Was he gone? Did I cross his mind at all? I would never know. And I hated the dreadful stone in my stomach that mocked me. The snide voice that jeered, "He's not coming back to you."

Because he had to come back.

He had to.

Something happened during our night together. Something monumental. It wasn't the metaphoric binding of souls and hearts. What I experienced was frighteningly real and I didn't understand.

The minute he sank into me, filling my very being with all of him, the change occurred. My inner workings shifted. He no longer became a want; he was a necessity.

Without him next to me, there was a deep hole carved inside my body. Deep. Stretching all the way to the center of me. And I cried-screamed-for him. Hollered until I felt as if I needed to put my hands over my own ears to ignore it, but of course, I couldn't. The screaming was inside me.

The screaming was me.

And how could you escape what was inside of you?

The bus jostled and jerked, and I braced myself as my body crashed inelegantly against the side. There was nothing around but trees and flat land, and I had no idea where I was. Hopefully near Missouri. I wanted to find anything that reminded me of August and bury myself in it.

There were still a million questions to be answered, though. What would I do once I got to Blue Springs, Missouri? What would I do once I was inside his old house? How did I go about stopping Angel alone?

These unsolvable problems caused my head to hurt, so I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against the cool window. Thoughts of August pervaded my mind, of course, because they did every time I closed my eyes. But I allowed them, because they were comfort. I thought of his smile, and his kind blue eyes. I thought of how it felt when we stood in the shower together; when he encased me in his arms beneath the pounding spray of water, and kissed me like the world would end if he stopped.

Heat spread through every inch of my body.

Remembering can be good.

Just as these thoughts and more swarmed my brain, a screeching noise that set my teeth on edge rumbled from the bottom of the bus. I wondered what on earth it could be, but then a couple things happened simultaneously after that.

The tires lost traction, causing the bus to veer off the road, and everybody was then thrown out of their seats. It was a decently full bus this go around, too. With everything in me I held onto the cushion, but it didn't stop a woman in the seat across the aisle from sailing into me, conking my head painfully. I groaned, stars twinkling in my vision.

That was when the bus crashed.

~*~

The silence got you first. The lack of moaning and screaming and crying. Blood pooled in my mouth, from some wound I couldn't locate. It tasted irony and warm, and the same substance obscured my vision.