Chapter 178: Running away
I watched as Elena's feet flew over the sidewalk but I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. I was feeling ice in my blood and a stone where my heart had been seconds ago.
My wolf thrashed inside my chest, sensing her slipping away, howling at the distance growing between us.
The gentle night time breeze ruffled my hair, and it drew my eyes to the crushed flowers on the sidewalk, petals skittering away in the wind.
Their scent mixed with hers fading already and it clawed painfully at the Alpha instincts that wanted to protect, shelter, keep her close.
At the sound of a slamming car door, my head jerked up and saw Elena getting in the back of a cab.
My feet moved under me on their own, something like madness driving me to race after her.
I jumped into the street despite the honking horns, my leather shoes smacking over the street as I ran after the back of that yellow cab.
"ELENA AAA......", I screamed after her but she couldn't hear me. The cab turned around the block and I lost them in a sea of cars and skyscrappers.
I was too late. Elena was gone.
And I couldn’t just shift into my wolf form like that in the human world.
ELENA'S POV…
The glimmer of hope I had begun to feel was now shattered at my feet in a million fucking tiny little pieces. Reflecting back to me the tortured face of despair when I looked down at the broken remnants of my hope.
That lonely ride to the hospital was miserable. The entire time my heart didn't stop racing while sinking lower in my chest with each minute that passed. I wanted the doctor who called me to be wrong with every fiber of my body and soul.
My grandfather, the last of my family, couldn't be gone. It was simply impossible. And that thought screamed in my head repeatedly until I walked through the doors in that frigid room and saw him there, unmoving and lifeless. I broke again at the sight.
Again they told he was gone, and I screamed loudly. Wailing, crying and screaming. I cried loudly and as long as I could. When I reached at the hospital, I clutched grandpa's lifeless form, praying and hoping that maybe he heard me screaming on his way to heaven that he would turn around and come back to me.
It took three nurses to drag me out of the room, and half an hour before they consoled me enough to articulate the words thick on my tongue.
"But he was doing so good, I just saw him in the morning", I had told the doctor once my sobs ceased wracking my body and my tremors were under some semblance of control. "How could this have happened?",
They told me it was nothing more than the surge before death. An unexpected return of clarity that can occur in the time shortly before passing. A fluke of nature. A cruel happenstance.
My last day with grandpa had been false hope.
I couldn't stand it any longer when the doctor looked at me with such pity, as if I were a fool for believing papa could get better. It made me feel like a child being told, there was dog simply sleeping after watching a truck run into it on the road.
As I talked to them about the funeral home and my grand father's body, I felt sick to my stomach. Writhing snakes of unease came to life in my gut and squirmed madly until it forced me to my knees in the bathroom, where I promptly vomited.
I needed, more than anything to turn my emotions off. To keep myself sane, I needed to become void. My movements felt stiff, and my face was a mask under the dried tears, but I got it done. Like a puppet on autopilot.
It was well after midnight when I was preparing to leave the hospital. A few nurses helped me gather papa's belongings to take home with me, and only their presence kept me from crumbling into the ground.
"What is it", I looked down at the paper, realizing that it looked like a poem.
"Something he wanted to read at his funeral. I will give you a few minutes to finish up here", She squeezed my arm reassuringly before walking out of the room.
My eyes skimmed the page. Each word hit me like a needle digging into my heart until they merged, forming an unpleasant knife of emotions while drops of water hit the bottom of the page. I realized I was sobbing again, falling onto my knees on the frigid tile of the hospital floor and clutching the page to my chest as if it were my lifetime.
As if it were the last thing my grand father wanted to say to me.
The night was dark as sin when I finally stepped out under the stars and waning moon. A box of my grand father's belongings under my arm felt impossibly heavy under the exhaustion weighing me down.
I stood near the street for a long time with no thoughts on my mind as I waited for a cab. In these lonely moments, I felt like a ghost in the night, waiting for the wind to blow me away, and wishing it would.
"Where to, miss?", The driver asked, pulling me out of my stupor, drowning my mind.
I looked up and for a split second; I had to pause. The first place that came in my mind was Andrey Volkov's house. My first instinct at that moment was to go back at this home. To him.
"21 West End Avenue", I instead changed my mind. It had been a while since I stepped foot in my apartment. One excruciating cab ride later, and I was opening up the door to that lonesome studio apartment.
Two months ago, this had been my sanctuary. My first apartment and place I had to myself after having to sell my grandparent's House. Now it was dark and unwelcoming. The air was stale and it felt unfriendly, stepping my foot in there.
There was no food in the fridge, and half of my clothes were in another closet. I didn't care. I left my bag and box of my grand father's stuff on the couch before dragging myself to the bed. I wanted to sleep.
The debilitating fatigue of loss consumed me. Every drop of my energy was depleted, and I sank into a restless sleep. Tossing and turning wildly through the remaining hours of night.