73

73
Ella
I thought about everything he had said and considered the distance we had covered before getting to this point.
He must’ve been really motivated to come all this way to achieve his goal—granted, he came in his wolf form, which was faster than all the bus hopping we had been doing for the last few days.
Still, it was quite the distance. Exerting vengeance on the pack must’ve been the ultimate inspiration, and I wondered if there was more to this story than what he was telling me.
I didn’t want to push for any more explanations—probing meant that I had to indulge him in a conversation, and I wasn’t interested in doing any of that right now.
He had come all this way for a noble cause and hadn’t achieved it. Would his pack receive him with joy knowing he hadn’t done what he set out to do but came home with a stranger instead?
“That would be a sight to see,” I mumbled and sighed.
For once, I would like a day where I wasn’t thinking about a number of things and was just existing—but that was a far cry from whatever was happening to me right now, and I knew it wouldn’t happen anytime soon.
“Did you say something?” Quincy asked, and I shook my head in response.
The driver had finished his announcement. I caught the last part, which involved a call for the passengers to check their tickets and luggage to ensure nothing was missing.
Then he made one last call for any passengers in the station who were supposed to get on the bus but were running late.
I leaned against the window and looked outside as one more passenger got on the bus, and the driver started the ignition. When I started hatching a plan to leave town, I didn’t think it would turn out this way.
I hadn’t thought it all the way through, but I was slowly making peace with how things were going. What other choice did I have, anyway?
I closed my eyes a bit and tried to will myself to sleep. That wasn’t forthcoming, but I wasn’t interested in keeping my eyes open for any reason.
There was nothing to see that I hadn’t passed on the way here, and whatever I really wanted to see was waiting on the other side of the station where the bus would be stopping.
Soon, we’d be there, and I could finally catch some sleep and maybe get an explanation regarding the things happening around me.
“Hey,” Quincy whispered and gently shook my arm. I didn’t respond, hoping he would think I was in a deep sleep and let me be. “Ella? Are you alright?”
A little more silence and he would give up on whatever this was. If I answered, he might bring up the first question he asked when we got here, and I didn’t want to answer that.
I focused my attention on the humming of the engine as the bus moved from one place to another and made a mental note: the next time I had to move from one place to another, I would use a faster means of transportation and have better plans than what I currently had.
A few hours later, the bus came to a stop at the last station, and we got off in a single file, as instructed by the station attendant who had arrived at the door right on cue.
Our bags were searched, and we went on our way when nothing incriminating was found.
“Why were the bags searched?” I asked Quincy after we had left the area assigned for the search party.
“I think that’s the longest sentence you’ve said to me in the last few days,” he replied, trying to make a joke, but my expression remained void of any inkling that I had gotten the humor.
“Are you going to answer the question or not?” I asked after a short silence.
He cleared his throat and started speaking. “See that office over there?” he asked, pointing to a small secluded area in the station. I nodded, and he continued, “That area is assigned for traffickers. People who come through this route have a knack for taking items—and sometimes people—to the city illegally, and the authorities decided to put measures in place to ensure that the act is curbed.”
“If they find illegal substances, they take them to prison?”
“Yes, but what they have in this town is a mere holding cell. After completing the appropriate processing, they extradite the suspects to the city for proper investigations. If found guilty, they go on to the maximum prison to serve their sentence. For those who’ve been trafficked, they try to get them back to their families and get the offenders to prison.”
I nodded and followed him as we moved out of the station. I had asked out of curiosity because the other stations we had stopped at didn’t have a search party or a cubicle for crimes like these.
When he fully explained the entire process, I was stuck on the part that had to do with people being trafficked. It seemed rather unfair to the victims—being taken out of their homes and forced to go somewhere they didn’t want to, or do something they’d rather not.
I had been so focused on how big my problems were and hadn’t thought about the world around me and how the vices that didn’t necessarily affect me could still affect others.
I decided to put the thought out of my mind; there wasn’t much I could do about it anyway, and worrying about something I couldn’t change would only do more harm than good.
When we got to the hotel, I took a bath and went straight to bed. I was exhausted from sitting in one spot the whole ride and needed to stretch my body.
A walk would’ve been a better option, but I hadn’t slept a wink throughout the journey, and this seemed like the perfect time to remedy that. I could walk later, maybe even see the town before we left tomorrow.
Maybe I wouldn’t leave. I wasn’t sure why I was suddenly getting cold feet about going to the place Quincy called home, but the urge to stay where I was became stronger by the second, and it was taking every ounce of self-will I had not to give in to it.
As my head touched the pillow, I closed my eyes and started drifting off. While caught between being half-awake and slowly slipping into sleep mode, I realized something else was happening.
I was slipping into a different dimension. This wasn’t anything like the trance I had a few hours ago—it was a lot different. When I realized what had happened, it was too late, and it filled me with shock.
It wasn’t a full moon, and I wasn’t trying to use my ability, but I had slipped into someone’s mind once more.
I couldn’t tell whose mind this was, and I wasn’t willing to find out if it was Kade, so I tried to wake myself up, but that proved futile.