Chapter 153: Avalanche
\[Osiris’ POV\]
“Where is she?”
I repeat the question as I climb into the car that Adeline has hijacked successfully.
“Fucking tell me.”
Of course, I already knew where my stepmother took my flame, but I needed to keep this act up if I wanted to complete it successfully.
“And what do you intend to give me if I answer you honestly?”
For a moment, I don’t speak as I consider what she is saying.
What to give her?
I already knew exactly what it was that she wanted, and I needed to play along to trick her successfully, but even then I don’t want to offer it.
“We will discuss things when we meet,” I say slowly. “So, pick a place.”
Growing quiet, I wait while my stepmother considers what I have suggested, and when the silence between us starts to grow more and more, I wonder if she is actually going to agree to it.
“Alright,” she purrs as Adeline slams the gas. “There’s a small diner in town that I think will be perfect. I will send you the address. I expect you to show within the next half hour; if you don’t, well, I’m sure you know what could happen.”
I don’t get the chance to respond before she is hanging up and leaving me and Adeline rushing in the direction that is on my phone screen.
“I should have just killed her in the past.” I sigh, leaning back in my seat while Adeline peeks toward me. “It would have made life so much easier.”
“But then would you be able to be where you are right now?”
As she speaks, the phone in my hand pings, and when I look down, the address for the cafe my stepmother spoke of appears.
“Where to go?” Adeline asks me. “Do we continue to play along and go meet her, or do we go straight to where she is holding Raelyn and Jean?”
“Obviously the latter.” I tell her, exiting out of the message. “There is no point in going to her when we already know where we should be going.”
But what if she tries something in the meantime? The small voice in the back of my head asks me. What if she has something set up to go off if I don’t appear at the meeting spot?
Fuck.
Why did I even let my flame leave without me?
Had I gone with her or refused to let her go, then none of this would be happening.
Maybe I should just lock her up once I’ve saved her. I think, though I know that there is no way that she would allow me to do such a thing.
“Where to?” Adeline repeats, snapping me out of my reverie. “Where the hell should I be driving?”
“Go straight to Raelyn and Jean.”
I could only hope my stepmother didn’t have something else set in place. I could only hope that she was cocky enough to believe that there was absolutely no way I would try anything.
Hope.
What a dangerous fucking word.
It was the word that got you hurt and made you feel like a fool. One that I stopped using long ago, and yet here I was using it again.
“It’s going to be alright.” Adeline tells me as though she can read my thoughts. “Jean is with Raelyn, and I know that there is no way that she would allow anything to happen.”
“Something has already happened,” I point out. “I trusted Jean to keep her safe when I agreed to let her leave, and this is what happened.”
“That…” Adeline begins but stops as the car begins to feel as though it is shaking. “What?”
I immediately go on alert as Adeline slams the brake and the car comes to a screeching stop. However, even when we aren’t moving, the car continues to shake violently, and when I jump out of it, I quickly pinpoint the reason for the shaking.
“An avalanche,” I hiss, staring up at the mountain just to the right of me.
“This timing,” Adeline hisses as we begin to move, looking for somewhere to hide from the snow that is quickly plummeting toward us. “What are the chances?”
“What are the chances indeed?”
I didn’t know why, but I was almost certain that my stepmother had something to do with this, but then how would she know that we would be in this place at this time?
Something wasn’t adding up, from Jean and my flame’s kidnapping to this.
I knew that my stepmother wasn’t all-seeing, and she certainly wasn’t smart enough to come up with such things, so how…
Someone has to be working with her.
This thought hits just as the first bits of ice and snow start hitting.
“We’re out of time.” Adeline yells as a horrible rumbling starts to erupt around us. “What the hell should we do now?”
There was only one option, and that was surviving a wall of fucking snow that would certainly try to take us down the side of the fucking mountain.
“Hang on and don’t let yourself get buried.”
As the words leave my lips, the snow hits us, and I feel my body being pulled in the direction of the side of the mountain, but before it can actually take me, I shift into my wolf form, and then I’m fighting.
Instantly, the world around me turns into white chaos filled with snow, rocks, and bits of trees that have been pulled along by the avalanche.
Everything works to try to take me, but even then I continue to fight until I manage to burst through the snow, and then I am looking for Adeline.
At first, I don’t see her, and I can’t help but wonder if she wasn’t able to escape like I told her, but then I see her running on top of the damned snow like it is nothing.
Alright, I think, unwilling to let her survive without me. Since it seemed like her method was working, that meant that it would work for me too. And when I manage to claw my body free of the snow, I’m doing the exact same thing.
It isn't as easy as Adeline makes it look, running on snow that is rushing by like a wave that rushes the shore. and then receeds, but I still manage to do it. I have to do it because I would be damned if I went out like this.
There was no way.
I was going to survive this fucking avalanche, and then I was going to find my flame. Once I did, I would have enough to damn my stepmother so that she would no longer be in the way.
Just wait for me. I call out silently to the blackness as though it will somehow reach my flame. Just wait a bit longer, and I swear that I will come find you and save you from whatever that woman is doing.