Centre of the Storm

Chapter Eleven: I Need You

A/N: I literally LOVE the "lovers run away together" trope, and felt I needed to have it in my book. If you just kinda ignore that they committed multiple crimes before leaving, this is now a romance book, as least for a few chapters

The wind rushed through my hair, and I leaned backwards as it whipped my face. The sun was actually shining for the first time in a while, and even though the heat was subtle, I wasn't shivering as usual.

I turned to Beatrix, who was sitting beside me. She grinned at me. "That was exciting."

I laughed. "It was terrifying!"

We had walked on a train track until a freight train had appeared. I had jumped on when it had slowed down while going around a corner. Beatrix had thrown her backpack up beside me, and had run after the train. I had helped her up, but a few more seconds and she would have been left behind.

"So where does this train even go?" I asked Beatrix.

She shrugged. "Far away."

"How far are we going?" 

She shrugged again, swinging her legs.

"We probably should have thought this through better," I said dryly.

"Come on, when was the last time you went on an adventure?"

"Not in this life."

"You believe in reincarnation?"

"Yeah, I guess. I read too much fantasy."

She laughed and ran a hand through her hair, pushing it away from her face as the wind whipped it around. "Who do you think we were to each other in our past lives?"

"I don't think we've met before," I replied. "But I think we were meant to meet, here and now in this life. It feels like everything has been building up to it."

I guess I had impressed her. She reached towards me, her fingers trailing my chin and neck. Her touch sent shivers down my spine, as I looked into her eyes. Her pupils were dilated. Then she pulled me towards her.

And it started to rain.

We broke apart, looking up towards the sky. Clouds had appeared over the sun, and gentle rain drops had started to land on us. "Seriously?" I groaned.

"We should get off the train if we don't want to be soaked. The rain will get heavier soon and there isn't any shelter here," Beatrix said, hoisting her backpack over her shoulder.

I looked at our surroundings. We had left the town and gone through a long stretch where there were only trees, and now we were in the middle of nowhere, stretches of nothing but grass and train tracks and foothills for miles ahead. We'd passed a bunch of abandoned places, but most of them were pretty ruined. There were houses that had obviously been evacuated by the storms. At one point a few hours ago, I was pretty sure we had passed through a small radiation zone, though it could just have been a regular old ghost town.

I noticed an empty highway starting to appear away from the train track. It seemed to lead towards the city. Further down the highway, there was a building that looked like it could have been someone's house, in the middle of nowhere with nothing around it. I couldn't imagine living so isolated. "We can get off here and follow the highway to the city. If we hurry we can go to that abandoned building and wait out the rain," I told Beatrix, who nodded.