Angelic (Book 2)

Twenty-Six

What?

In the back of my mind I remembered the bus crashing, and winking out for a couple seconds before surfacing back to consciousness. I expected the passengers to be shrieking in panic and pain, but there was just nothing.

Trying to move proved futile. There was something pinning me against the side of the bus, which was flipped over, and I was pretty sure the cut along my forehead was from broken glass. Taking stock of my injuries was impossible without moving, though.

I wriggled my shoulders, trying to squirm to freedom. It wasn't until I felt the soft sensation of hair fall across my skin that I realized what really pinned me down. A person. A passenger.

A dead passenger.

Heart racing and head pounding, I struggled to shove the dead weight off, and only managed to move the woman a few inches. A scream lodged in my throat, causing my breaths to come in quick gasps as I pushed open the emergency exit on the top of the bus and tumbled out.

The sight that spread before me was sickening.

There was the bus, toppled over, windows broken and the thick stench of blood permeating everywhere. I searched desperately for some sort of feeling from the passengers, but there was none. Dead. How could they all be dead?

My hands visibly trembled. I forced myself to forget about the bus and take stock of my own injuries, because there wasn't anything else I could do about the other riders. This I needed to accept, no matter how much it tore at my heart. To be unable to help, unable to do anything, was maddening.

A cut across my forehead, my lower lip was split, and my ankle was twisted from being crushed under the other woman. That was it, and I considered myself lucky. Very lucky. Obviously, my fate could have been much worse. But how did this happen? And why? I stopped believing in coincidences long ago. Anything bad that happened around me I chalked up to just plain running out of time to erase the immediate threat.

My fingers curled in the grass, digging into the cracked dirt still moist from all the previous snow. Instinct demanded I find some way to contact August, but that was impossible. He was probably already on his way to wherever he was going. Jessica and Blake were equally unattainable. There was just me right now. Only me.

And this was a change, actually. Usually there was always somebody. Now they were either dead or gone. I had myself, and myself was it.

Something in the bus clicked and sparked, sending a stream of black smoke billowing into the air from a flickering flame. I scrambled to my feet and hobbled away, grateful the pain in my ankle wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. But this posed a sticky question: how did I escape? I had no idea where I was, and there was also the potential of enemies hiding out nearby. This was most likely a fact. My heart pounded a little faster.

You'll be okay. Just stay cool. Stay calm.

If only.

The cold bit through my clothes, straight to my skin, but I steeled my mind and ignored it. I had to get to August's house. I had to get there, and establish myself, and then figure things out. Doing so out in the open, completely vulnerable, was not the best option.

"Ellie Armstrong."

Shoot.

The voice seemed to come from all places, all around me, all at once. I did my best to locate them; seeking their heart beat and pumping blood and body heat, but they were well-hidden. That either meant too many of them were around me to wheedle out just the one, or I was losing my touch. I sincerely hoped it wasn't the latter, but the former wasn't so great, either.