the sleepless elite

xviii

Notes 1: (watches snippets of House to write that one waiting room scene and then it's suddenly eight AM and I'm tired but I want to edit this chapter) But it's okay because I know only Reade reads this so who cares about spelling errors and grammar mistakes?

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the sleepless elite

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chapter eighteen

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"How did this happen?" Chase asks, blue eyes trained on the floor and dark eyebrows furrowed together.

They're huddled in a corner, sitting side-by-side in a waiting room in a general hospital. His leg is bouncing up and down widely like a jackhammer while she has a slip of paper with a number on it between her fingers. They had gotten to the hospital via Uber after Darling had forced Chase to put her down in the hotel lobby, and Chase had doubletracked and made a trip back upstairs to their rooms to get necessities like identification, extra cash and phone chargers because the trip to the hospital could take awhile.

"Remember how I said I was meeting 'some people'?" Darling starts off slow and careful, bringing Chase back to her earlier words.

Chase laces and unlaces his claps hands. He doesn't like the sound of this explanation. "Yes?"

"Well ... these guys ... they weren't exactly friends ... like I said." She replies, feeling guilty, looking guilty.

"Are you saying they were sketchy strangers?" Because he's told her a hundred and ten times about stranger danger. She's nineteen for goodness sake! This kinda stuff should be drilled into her head by now!

Darling swallows, not meeting his gaze. It's not that she can't but she won't so she looks at the numbering screen instead, counting on how many other patients' there's left to weed through before it's her turn. The hospital is so packed and busy, she's got a long way to go.

"... Kinda." She finally answers.

"Darling," He warns, tone hardening. He knows they shouldn't have such a private conversation in the public eye but he had spent the whole taxi ride to the hospital in a panic and he needs to know all these details if shit hits the fan.

Ignoring the shooting pain in her ankle and Chase's burning gaze, Darling starts explaining herself, "Well, not complete strangers. I had met these people earlier ... a few days ago. We were at the New Mexico borders."

And suddenly, Chase is transported to the memory of stopping by a dodgy, run down looking gas station. It was before they reached Cuba. They had to refill their latest tester motorbikes and Chase had left Darling alone for ten minutes. Just ten minutes to go to into the gas station's convenience store, pay for the fuel and grab some snacks for the rest of the journey. Darling had stayed by their bikes to pump fuel into them.

I can't leave you alone for a second. I can't leave you alone at all Chase begins thinking to himself, a sort of distressed feeling behind his thoughts.

"What did you do?" Chase whispers, feeling dread. Deep down to his toes, he's glad the people in the waiting room are minding their business; on their phones and reading magazines and having their own private little conversations.

Twisting her fingers together, Darling begins explaining herself some more. But not after biting her lower lip, she just felt so stupidly guilty. The first part of Darling's story was her deciding to strike up a conversation with a group of beefy looking guys and their leader. She had made the first move and inquired them about the weird thing on the roof of their vehicle.