Witness

50| Leaving

"How did you get a car so fast?" I asked Jax as he loaded my suitcase into the trunk.

He shrugged, picking up his own bag before settling it next to mine. "I'm awesome."

I rolled my eyes, getting into the passenger side of the small white Ford. I wasn't sure how far away we were going or even where, but some time in the last hour, Jax had figured out where he wanted to go and procured a car, all while I packed up my stuff and filled Hannah in on our situation; well, our partial situation I should say.

She was rightfully upset after what happened yesterday, as she had been out on campus and had to hurry back to the dorms when she got the lockdown notice. I tried to ask her more about it, but it seemed that nobody had any information yet about the casualties, if there were any.

She wanted me to stay with her, but she also understood my reasoning for leaving the campus. Besides, I knew Blake would take care of her while Jax and I were away. Hopefully, we wouldn't need to stay away for too long anyway; I just wanted to try and return to some sense of normalcy.

I settled into the car, the material of my sweatsuit keeping me warm and comfortable as the wind whipped around us. With any luck, we'd be able to out-drive this storm.

Once Jax was settled and we started into the drive, I relaxed a little; it felt nice to put some distance between us and the campus after everything that happened.

Jax and I chatted for a while, neither one of us bringing up our newly defined relationship or the horrifying events of yesterday.

I hoped he wasn't having any regrets about us. I didn't want to bring it up incase he was, but in my head, I had zero regrets. In fact, I wanted to do it again. Nay, needed to do it again. Sex with Jax was the only thing that could distract me from thinking about yesterday.

I had asked Jax this morning if he knew any details, and he said he didn't. But, part of me felt like he was holding something back; like he was keeping me in the dark for some reason.

Still, I didn't feel like pressing him; not when I still had growing anxiety about the weather on top of everything else. I had been staring out the window, and the dark clouds from earlier looked even darker. I could see rain coming down not too far off in the distance, though, it wasn't raining on us quite yet.

I pulled my sleeves of my sweatshirt down and crossed my arms over my chest.

"Are you alright?" Jax asked, perceptive as always.

"Yeah..." I hesitated.

"What are you thinking?"

"That if it starts raining, I'm gonna turn into a basket case," I blurted, keeping my eyes trained on the dark clouds ahead.

"I never think you're a basket case," he said, his tone light.

I forced a smile in his direction. "Well, thank you, but I'm being serious. If it starts raining, I can't be in a car... it's too much."

"Well, then it's a good thing you have an overly prepared bodyguard," he smiled, casually reaching behind him to grab a small bag.

I cocked an eyebrow at him while I grabbed the bag from his palm. "What is it?"

"It's your storm survival kit," he said.

I looked inside the bag, pulling out a sleeping eye mask, AirPods, and Benadryl.

"You're so cute," I giggled. "But I don't know if I want to take the Benadryl... won't that make me super tired?"

"Yeah," he chuckled, "that's kind of the point. It's going to rain, Em. We're going to be driving right through it at some point, and we still have a couple hours until we get to where we need to be. Get some sleep. I need you to sleep through the storm so that you don't get scared."