I barely pay attention to the actual road, speeding along and heading to where my phone tells me to go. The tires screech to a stop in front of a brownstone building with only two bus stops in front of it. Bella isn’t in front of either one of them.
Running inside, I stop in front of a graying lady who looks like she’s never stepped out of the building in her life. She peers up over her glasses at me as I approach the counter.
“Tell me what buses left this morning.”
She scowls and opens her mouth like she’s about to protest.
“Tell me!” I roar.
She jolts in her chair, but raises her chin. “Manners.”
My lips peel back in a snarl. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
The old woman looks at me defiantly in an almost grand-motherly way. “Boys who don’t mind their manners don’t get what they want.”
“Fucking tell me!” I snarl, slamming my hand on the counter.
She blinks at me, bored and waiting.
For fuck’s sake.
“Tell me what buses left this morning,” I grit out. “Please.”
She scoffs. Without another word, she drops a pamphlet onto the counter and returns to reading her book. I snatch it up, running my finger and eyes over the information, matching times and dates with the route.
Only two buses have left this morning; one is heading to Chicago, and the other directly to Denver.
“A girl, pigtails, yay high. Which bus did she take?” I leave no room for negotiations with my question.
The lady stares at me for a moment. Just as I’m about to bark at her, she raises her hand to silence me. “Who’s she to you?”
I narrow my eyes. “Everything.” What is this girls stick together bullshit?
Sighing, she shakes her head. “She could only afford to go to Cheyenne.”
Where the fuck is Cheyenne?
I grunt and run back to my car, hearing the lady mutter, “No wonder she left you.”
Punching the place into my phone, I refer back to the pamphlet. Doing the math, I figure she’s got at least twenty-five minutes on me. Jesus fuck.
I can barely breathe as I speed onto the highway surrounded by nothing but greenery, a cold sweat covering my skin. Irritated and desperate, I tap my fingers on the wheel, trying to contain my scattered breaths and rapid pulse.
The silence in the car makes the voices louder, question upon question piling on top of each other. What if she catches another bus before I get there? What if Vargas somehow knows where she’s headed? What if she never went on the bus and hid in the city? What if that lady lied and Bella is on a bus to Chicago?
God, Bella, Bella, Bella. Please.
I can’t lose her. I can’t live without her. Fuck, what if I can’t find her once I’m there? I’ll spend the rest of my life looking for her if I don’t get to her in time. There’s no version that ends without Bella by my side.
I’m going at least ten miles over the speed limit. I’m not sure; I’m not paying attention to it, focusing on the arrival time dropping on my phone and the traffic. The minutes seem to drag on like hours, the drive going by in a blur. By the time I reach the exit for Cheyenne, I think I’m going to have a heart attack with how tight my body is.
I’m not sure how I make it in front of the Cheyenne station, but I do, parking illegally on the side of the road as I run inside. I don’t feel the chilly air on my bare arms or the drizzle slowly soaking my t-shirt. Bella would have arrived five to ten minutes ago, and who knows where she might have disappeared to in that time.
The sound of my thundering footsteps echoes through the station, but I can’t spot her anywhere. She isn’t lined up for another ticket or waiting for another bus.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I run back outside, searching left and right for even a glimpse of her. She couldn’t afford to go farther than Cheyenne. Did she even take enough money for a motel? Food? Fucking hell. I throw the car door open and slip inside, starting the truck without buckling my seatbelt. I’m on the road again, driving up and down street after street as the piercing pain in my chest amplifies to the point that I can barely breathe.
Twenty minutes later, pigtails catch the corner of my eye. I pull into one of the quieter streets and park in front of a driveway. A lump builds in my throat as I run in the direction I saw it as the rain falls harder, turning the air frigid.
Then I see her. Bella.
My Bella.
Walking along the street, staring straight at the ground, not noticing the boutiques and offices she passes. She looks so sad. Broken. I caused it.
I narrow the distance, pulling her into my arms and beneath the awning of a cafe, nuzzling my head against hers to inhale her scent. At once, all the voices quieten. I found her. She yelps and tries to fight me, but I ignore all of it because I can breathe again. My heart no longer feels like it will be ripped out of my chest.
“Fuck, I thought I lost you.” I wrap my arms around her tighter, ignoring the people running past who are trying to get out of the rain. “Don’t you ever do that again.” I’m meant to sound stern, maybe scold her a bit. But all I sound is desperate.
She can’t leave me.
She’s never allowed to run away from me.
“Get off of me!” the princess hisses, pushing against my chest.
I don’t listen, squeezing her against me. “I was so worried.” I should be angry at her for sneaking out when I was asleep, but I can’t bring myself to care beyond the fact that I have her back. “I almost lost you twice this week. I won’t let there be a third time.”
She shakes her head against my chest. “Let go of me, Roman!”
Bile lurches in my stomach from the sight of her red-rimmed eyes and the fading bruises when I let her pull away.
“I’m not going back with you,” she says, choking back a sob as a tear falls down her cheek.
“Either I follow you, or you follow me. There’s no version of this where we go our separate ways.”
Bella tries to squirm out of my hold, while also gripping onto my shirt like it might kill her if she lets go.
“Miss, are you alright?” We both snap our attention to the cop standing a couple of feet away, who has his hand conveniently close to the weapons at his hips.
It kills me to step away from her, but I do it, keeping one hand on the small of her back. I’m not going back to jail, but I can’t tell him that she’s fine when she very clearly looks like she’s not fine. In fact, my ruined knuckles probably make it look like I’m the one who caused her bruises.
“Sir, I’m going to ask you to step away from her,” the cop says slowly, wrapping his fingers around the taser.
I grit my teeth, but do as I’m told, staring at Bella, pleading with her not to send me away like this when we haven’t talked about what happened. The only thing I can imagine that’s worse than being put in a box, is if Bella is the one who sends me there.
“Miss, I ask again, are you okay?” The cop slowly inches forward, muscles tense like he’s gearing up for a fight.
“I…” A shiver rips through her and she hugs herself tighter, glancing from me to the police officer as her bottom lip trembles.