Bitten

The Bigger Picture

Chapter 14

I drove in the empty streets at neck braking speeds. A new hope had been born in me. All I had to do was get Emma...

Ping! Ping! Ping!

Go away, Noah!

I ignored his non stop calling.

I raced around a corner picking up speed until eventually the car started to slow down and then stop. That mother fucker turned off my car!

Ping! Ping! Ping!

I had reached my boiling point and punched to the button above me to answer Noah call,"What!?"

"Come back to house now", he stressed.

"It doesn't look like I'm going anywhere until you turn the car back on", I yelled.

"Haley you have to come back to the house! In a moment of grief Robert lost his mind. You living is the bigger picture. We've been through this---"

"I know you've been through this! I just want to go home", I said losing all of my patiences.

"And you will just as soon as we find---" I had heard enough. I got out of the car slamming the door behind me not wanting to hear anymore of Noah's speech. So I guess I wasn't going home anytime soon. Robert was just like all the other blood suckers. That's what I get for making deals with vampires they were liars. If I was going to get home I had to do it by myself on my own terms. And now was the only opportunity I was going to get.

The crescendoing sound of planes filled the sky as four triangle like plane flew overhead. I bet they're heading over the wall. I didn't have a real plan other than get out. I followed the planes running down the empty street pumping my legs as hard as they would take me. My feet pounded against the tarmac with all the grace of a sack of wet concrete. My rasping throat was as parched as a dead lizard in the desert sun. My head bobbed loosely from side to side with each footfall and my eyes felt heavy in their sockets. I would not stop. I couldn't stop because every step I took was a step closer to Evian, to my family.

My mind went blank as my ears puckered up and heard a high pitch, long reverberating whistle that only one man on planet Earth could do.

FFWWWEEETT! FWEET!

I stopped running as I desperately tried catch my breath. With my hands on my knees I tried to stand up and get enough breath in me to whistle back.

FWEET! FWEET! FWEET!

I was running around in a concrete jungle there was no way for me to pinpoint---

"Hey Haley-Belle!"

I turned around and my heart jumped. Every emotion I could have in this moment was hitting me at once,"Jesse!?"

Had I gone crazy and imagined him up here.

"You see another son of a bitch in this godforsaken place?" No. He was here. I couldn't imagine his deep draw. His curls were midnight black and his eyes were dark brown, framed by graceful brows. He skin was tanned. He had prominent cheekbones and a well-defined chin and nose. Unlike Noah, his was always obscured by his fuzzy, thin beard. His brown eyes were almost black but they were always as warm as sunlight.

We had grown up together. We went on supply runs together. There wasn't another person in this world that knew me better than Jesse. And he was only a hundred meters away from me and without even thinking my feet took off as tears rolled down my face. Jesse was here. In seconds flat I was bulldozing my way into his arms blubbering like a baby against his brown leather jacket. His embrace was warm, and the world around me melted away as I squeezed him back, not wanting the moment to end. "Please tell me you're not here for the Census?"