Page 8 of Tied in Knots
A few minutes later, the bus driver stops at a red light and turns to face me. “You can get off here, hun. The station is just to the left.”
I stand up immediately and say, “Thank you so much.”
She gives me a knowing smile and opens the doors for me. I slip off and hastily make my way down the cobbled road, hunching my shoulders and keeping my head down. Entering the train station, I pull out the money I stole from Pete and buy a one-way ticket to London. The next train leaves in ten minutes and stops a million times, but I don’t care. I will sit on it and wait until it gets to London. Deciding to wait until we are in the arse end of nowhere to switch my phone back on to text Derek the time I’ll be coming in, I sit in a corner where I can see the entrance to the station, counting the seconds methodically until the train pulls up. I rise on shaking legs, not believing that I’m about to get on this train and escape my life. Surely Pete will be lurking, ready to snatch me before I can board.
But I make it onto the train. I sit down, placing my backpack on the blue seat next to me, so that hopefully no one will want to sit in that seat. Tapping my foot impatiently, staring between the doors and the window, I breathe out in relief when the door slams shut and the train rattles along the tracks, slower than the direct train, but I don’t care. It will get me where I’m going and that’s all I’m bothered about.
I chew my lip nervously, my hands clutched in front of me, I wait three stops down the line before I pull out my phone and turn it on. There are a dozen messages, all from Pete threatening me, calling me names and promising me he will find me. I delete them all, disappointed that Derek hasn’t replied to my message yet. I fire off another one with my arrival time and then switch the phone off again. I really hope he gets it before I turn up with no place to go. I don’t even know if he will take me in. He callously threw me back on the train three months ago without a thought to me or my safety that late at night. Not to mention he left me there with Pete the prick in the first place. I don’t blame him for leaving, but the least he could’ve done was take me with him.
“Arsehole,” I mutter, and then go back to tapping my foot and chewing my lip.
* * *
After about an hour, I start to relax enough to sit back in my seat and unclench my fists. Pete isn’t on this train, and I doubt very much now that he will be waiting for me at the next station. He has no way to get there and no way to know where I would be. I sincerely hope, anyway. He isn’t a tech whizz by any stretch, so him tracking my phone is a long shot. But better safe than sorry. Now that I’m out, I’m not going back.
I spare a fleeting thought to my mum and the abuse she will endure with me gone, but I shake my head. I can’t let that force me to go back.
I am theworst.
The worst daughter.
The worst person in the world to put myself above my own mother, but I just can’t go back and be sold to a horrible pack who will do fuck knows what with me.
We pull up into the last station before London and I sit up again, glancing cautiously out of the window, pulling my hood up even higher in case Pete is lurking, but nothing. Just a bunch of rowdy teens heading into the big city.
I sit back again and lower my eyes, tucking my chin into my neck as they pass me, hoping and praying they don’t stop to talk to me or harass me.
They don’t.
They don’t even see me.
* * *
My stomach twists into a knot when we finally pull up to my destination. I wait for everyone else to get off the train and then I stand up and grab my backpack. Slinging it onto my back, I step carefully down from the carriage and scan the platform for Derek, feeling the ache in my ankle.
“Dammit,” I mutter when I don’t see him. “Where are you?”
I risk switching my phone on and checking my messages. More from Pete. None from Derek.
“Fuck.” What am I going to do now? Somehow, I’m going to have to make my way to his small flat in East London by myself, with no idea where I’m going and hardly enough money to catch a bus, let alone a taxi.
Glancing from side to side, begging for Derek to suddenly show up, I know I have to move. I can’t hang around waiting in case Pete arrives. He isn’t the stupidest man on the planet. He will know there’s only one place I’ll go. It’s just me outrunning him until I can get to my brother. The weather is colder here, the sky darker. Almost foreboding. It’s going to rain. If I don’t get inside soon, I’m going to get soaked.
Moving forward, but looking back over my shoulder, I bump into someone. It makes me jump. My heart hammers in my chest.
I swing my head to face front and see that it’s not Pete.
“Sorry,” I murmur and lower my eyes, sensing an alpha.
My breath coming rapidly from my fear, I shiver.
His scent.
It’s all woodsy and like fresh rain.
I look up at him.
He is staring down at me with bright blue eyes.
