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Camryn
“Are we almost there yet?” Blair asked in her whiney tone from her place next to me in the backseat. It was the first time she had said anything since we had gotten into the car. That was odd, considering Blair had never been the quiet type. Even when talking was completely inappropriate, you could leave it to Blair to be jabbering away. So, that’s why it’s so strange that she hadn’t been talking for the past forty minutes.
“Actually, we’re not too far away now,” Elias said, exchanging a glance with her in the rearview mirror. As his eyes caught on hers, I saw a look in his gaze that I had never seen before. I was pretty sure it was admiration.
I watched out of the corner of my eye as a smile crept onto Blair’s lips.
I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on between the two of them. I had been held captive in Natalia Farrow’s house for so long that I had probably missed something. The last thing I knew, they had kissed, and Mila had told Blair that Elias had never dated anyone before. My best friend had seemed very determined to win him over, but it hadn’t seemed like Elias wanted any part of her. I wasn’t sure what might have changed, but now it seemed like their relationship may have been blossoming. At least, I thought it might. I had never really seen Blair smile like that at anyone before.
As curious as I was, I knew that now wasn’t the time and place to ask, in this car full of people. Though it would have been a nice distraction from the Jax situation.
Closing my eyes, I tried to focus all of my energy on Jax. When I tried hard enough, I could usually feel him, sense what was going on with him. That had ended at Natalia Farrow’s house. I hadn’t really tried hard enough to connect with him since we had left, so I wondered if I could get any sort of feelings on him now.
It probably shouldn’t have surprised me, but I didn’t feel anything. I felt no connection to Jax; I didn’t feel whether or not he was okay. I felt, literally, nothing.
Although there was something I did feel then; it was a feeling that took me by surprise, but a feeling that I couldn’t just ignore.
I felt... strange. Slightly emptier than I had felt just moments before, almost. I knew how strange it sounded, but it almost felt like a piece of me was missing – a piece of me that I needed.
I shook the thought away. It probably had something to do with my bond to Jax. Maybe the further we drove, the further we may have been getting away from him.
I hoped that wasn’t the case, though. I hoped that the reason Mila’s premonition was leading us in this direction was because it was trying to lead us closer to Jax.
Except, I tried not to get my hopes up. The one thing that I had learned since Jax Sherwood had entered my life was that things very rarely worked out in the way I hoped they would.
“You guys, I just realized something,” Mila announced loudly.
“What is it?” Elias glanced over his shoulder at her.
“We forgot Stephanie back at the hotel,” she explained.
“We didn’t forget her,” Bash said pointedly from the passenger’s seat. “She just happened to be M.I.A. when we left town. That’s not our fault.”
“Stephanie? Stephanie was with you?” I questioned. I knew that I probably sounded jealous, but that was because I was jealous. I just couldn’t help it. There was just something about Jax’s best friend who I was convinced was in love with him that made me feel completely uncomfortable. Knowing that she had traveled to Massachusetts with them... Well, it made me wonder why Jax had kept it a secret from me when we had been with each other in Natalia Farrow’s house.
The logical side of me, of course, knew that it had probably been the last thing on his mind. We had been worried about our survival, but... still.
“She’s a part of our pack now,” Elias said, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. “We had to bring her along. And you’re right, Mila, we did forget her, but is that really the worst possible thing?”
“Well... no,” she replied quietly. “I’m perfectly okay with that.”
“Are you sure? I thought you might have wanted to turn around to look for her,” Bash joked.
“Even if I did – and, trust me, I don’t – we don’t even know that we’d find her,” Mila said. “Like you said, it’s not our fault that she went M.I.A.”
“Wait. This doesn’t make sense, though,” I said with a frown. “She just... disappeared?”
“Yeah, she just vanished,” Mila replied with a shrug.
“Do you think it’s possible that something may have happened to her?” Blair questioned.
“If something did, then good riddance,” Elias said.
“Isn’t that a little harsh?” I asked. I may not have liked Stephanie because I thought she had a thing for my mate and she didn’t seem that trustworthy, but that didn’t mean that I wanted anything bad to happen to her. I just wanted her out of our lives.
His eyes met mine in the rearview mirror again. “I’m pretty sure that Stephanie has been trying to kill Jax for years now. It would be in everyone’s best interest if she died.”
“Why do you think that?” I asked with raised eyebrows.
“She was just always in the wrong place at the wrong time, if you know what I mean,” he explained.
Wow. The truth was that it wouldn’t have surprised me if he was right. There was something about Stephanie that just felt off to me. I couldn’t seem to put my finger on what it was, exactly, but she didn’t give me good vibes.
A thought crossed my mind then.
“Do you think it’s possible that Stephanie could somehow be involved in this?” I asked aloud.
“No. No way,” Elias said, shaking his head. “Stephanie may want to kill my brother, but it was like child’s play compared to this. There’s no way that Natalia Farrow – or Hans Graham – would want any part of her. They’re powerful wolves, and she’s a nobody.”
Even though Elias seemed convinced that there was no way that Stephanie had any role in this, I wasn’t so sure. I just couldn’t seem to shake the uneasy feeling that had taken over me, the feeling that something was even more wrong than I had already believed.