Chapter 870 Chapter 870
By the time Ena got her aunt’s things moved and the stove going, she realized she wasn’t going to have time to sleep before she had to be at the diner.
She looked at her aunt, where she’d fallen asleep in the big chair by the stove. Going over, she picked up the quilt on the top of the basket she’d brought and placed it on her carefully.
“Such a good girl.” Aunt Heidi whispered, her eyes still closed. “Orson has a cellular phone in his car.” She opened her aged eyes and looked at her. “You call that Alliance and tell them to go get him and bring him home.”
Ena nodded. “I will.” She leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll try to come back in a few days with some groceries.”
Her aunt closed her eyes and nodded.
Going to the door, she went out without looking back. She hated her having to live this way. If the Alliance showed up, maybe they could help her Aunt. She was all Ena had left. Orson too. He wasn’t blood, but he’d been better to her than her own family.
Her mother had hated living here and left with some others when Ena was little. She liked to think she left her behind because her father loved her too much to allow her to take her, but the truth was much different. Her father didn’t leave but wasn’t much of a parent. It had been Heidi and Orson keeping Ena safe and out of trouble her whole life.
A year later, her father was killed in a hunting accident. Ena didn’t remember feeling sad about that.
She looked around at the houses that were still mostly standing. She remembered that this place had been so pretty when she was a small girl—almost fairy tale-like. Now, it had fallen buildings, no gardens, and no happiness.
Getting in Orson’s car, she looked in the back seat. There were a few bags and a pair of boots. Had Orson been taken while he was out for a run? She hoped he managed to bite a few chunks off whoever had done it.
Opening the glovebox, she dug around in the papers until she found the cell phone. It wasn’t a new one like the ones she saw customers use. Theirs were thin and sleek looking. This one folded in half. It took her a second to figure out how to turn it on. Also, something she’d by watching and listening at work. Just hold down the button.
When the screen lit up, she smiled, feeling like she’d mastered something great. She was probably the only twenty-eight-year-old on the planet that didn’t have a phone.
She sat there staring at it. It didn’t have bars like people talked about. There was a symbol at the top with one dash beside it. She was going to have to drive until she had more dashes, she decided.
Carefully setting the phone on the seat, she buckled in and tried starting the car. It started without issue this time. She backed up slowly, afraid if she rubbed against something, the car might fall apart.
When she was out on the real road, she checked the phone and saw it had three dashes now. Pulling over, she put the car in park and picked up the phone. The achievement of turning it on felt less like a win when she realized she was going to have to figure out how to make a call on it.
Getting Orson’s letter out of her pocket, she set the paper on the seat so she could see the number. She tried tapping the screen like customers did. Nothing happened, so she started pushing buttons that just scrolled through a menu she didn’t understand.
Finally, she decided to just push the number buttons and input the phone number. After she did that, she pressed the green button, and the screen changed.
Putting the phone to her ear, she heard it was ringing. She sucked in a breath. What was she going to say to whoever was on the other end?
Someone answered. “Hi…” She paused. It wasn’t a person, but an answering machine.
“...press one to leave a message, and we will return your call or look into your complaint as soon as possible.”
She lowered it long enough to press the number one key.
It beeped.
“Hi, um–I’m calling because Orson has disappeared. He was waiting for you to come, and you didn’t. I think Waylon Kamble has taken him.” She bit her lip. What else should she say? She quickly rhymed off Waylon’s address. “Please come.” She closed the phone and looked at it. There, she’d done it and she hadn’t given her name, like her aunt had said.
She figured out how to turn off the phone and then put it back in the glove box. Gripping the steering wheel, she looked out the dirty windshield. Hopefully, someone would show up this time. She got that her area wasn’t popular with her kind, but Orson had been taken, so surely, they’d understand how important it was.
Putting the car into gear, she started driving. Even if she drove fast, she still wasn’t going to have enough time to nap before going to the diner. She was only scheduled until lunch today, which was good in one way but bad because then she wouldn’t be able to watch for someone from the Alliance.
The car engine made a weird sound, and she stared at the dash. “You just behave and get me back there.” There was lots of fuel, so she didn’t know what the problem was. It lurched and then slowed, so she pressed the gas pedal harder. It drove normally for about a minute before it did it again.
She wondered how upset Orson was going to be that she broke his car. When it stalled completely, she had to use most of her weight to get it to steer onto the shoulder. Putting it into park, she turned the key off, took two deep breaths, blew them out, and then tried the key. It didn’t start. Tapping on the gas pedal, she tried again. It sounded like it might want to go, but it didn’t have enough to finish the task. Turning the key off. She sat there in silence and looked out at the sky. She was going to have to run back to the station, change, and get to the diner. Once there, she was going to have to call Savan And persuade him to pick up Orson’s car and get it back to his house. She hated that she was going to have to call him. Just seeing him gave her the chills, they had never gotten along, but he was clan, and he would understand that leaving a clan member’s car sitting out in public was a bad thing. She hoped.