Orphic (#1 in the Hajar series)

twenty

chapter twenty - balance

song of the chapter ; lovely - billie eilish ft khalid

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PAPERWORK WAS SPREAD across Israfil's desk, but he couldn't concentrate. He couldn't bring himself to sit there and work at it when his eyes couldn't focus on the individual letters when the house felt so empty and vacant. He peered through the reading glasses perched on his nose, exhaling sharply when he read over the material again, and still couldn't understand. He couldn't make sense of it, no matter how many times he analyzed it.

Is this what loneliness felt like?

In a way, he felt as if he was betraying Farah by assigning his trackers to look for her instead of him. But he was an alpha- he had a pack of over three-hundred people to think about, he had to get things done and he wouldn't be able to do that if he spent every minute searching. Worry was clouding his work ethic and preventing him from completing the tasks that he needed to complete.

Request form; pack member from East territory requests to gain citizenship.

East.

East, east, east.

How could he have missed it? The realization clicked in him instantly, and he fumbled for his phone that was tucked in the folds of his pockets. Hands shaking from anticipation, he clicked on a contact on his screen and called it, pressing the device to his ear. "Alexander, she headed east." Israfil's voice wavered.

"Where east?" Alexander asked.

Israfil thought for a moment. "Uh, she mentioned somewhere in Nevada once."

"Do you have Nevada's alpha's number?"

Israfil placed the phone between his ear and shoulder so he could use both hands to search through countless documents. Finally finding the desired one, he would've smiled if it weren't for his uncertainty. He flipped through the papers, eyes narrowing at the phone number typed into the document. "Yeah, I do. If I get permission, can I use some of your trackers?"

A sigh rang his ear, "Fine." Alexander muttered, "I hope you find her, man."

Israfil let out a small chuckle, "Alexander being nice to me? The world really is about to end."

"Don't get used to it," Alexander snapped before the sound of dial tone resonated.

Israfil sighed in relief before he typed in the phone number to Alpha Marcus in Nevada.

--

"The next flight to Nevada flies out to Las Vegas in about ten minutes." The woman stated.

Farah nodded, pulling out her wallet. "Okay, I'll take that." Relief flooded her. She knew she had a distant family member in Vegas, so she figured she could maybe stay there until things sorted themselves out and she could manage on her own. Other than family, there wasn't anything there for her. Without Israfil there to ground her, she would end up making stupid decisions. As she paid and collected her ticket and went through the airport, she began to think about the instances in which she had met Israfil.

It had been a rainy day in Los Angeles, the downpour unusually harsh for the sunny state. She had sat by a ledge of a cliff, navy waves crashing underneath, sky dark and gloomy. She had been engulfed by suicidal thoughts, prepared to end it all then and there. Pacing her apartment, running from Noah, separation from her family and her friends had taken a toll on her. The loneliness was strangling, she couldn't handle it anymore.

And then, just as her body left the earth, hands clamped around her wrists, holding onto her hand, her life. She hated him then, she wondered what the man was doing at a cliff in the middle of heavy rain. Now, that she looked back at it, she supposed that he had been on a run to free his wolf, to let his Wild escape the confinements of his territory.

Do I still want to die? She asked herself as she saw the opening to her gate.

Farah thought about it for a moment, and the answer was final. No, she didn't. She had nothing left to run from except for her own problems and mind. As a Catholic Christian, she believed in an afterlife, and she wasn't absolutely certain she would go to heaven. Not that she wasn't a good person, but she wasn't sure she was good enough in her creator's eyes. Surely, if she were to face everlasting solitary nothingness, stuck in a dark place between eternal damnation and paradise, she wouldn't want to be stuck with the brain that she had, and a part of her hypothesized that her time on earth was the only chance she had to change the way she thought.

Shaking her mind of religious matters, she handed the stewardess her ticket and passport before she entered the walkway to the plane. Within a few minutes she was boarding and she maneuvered through the aisles, her suitcase checked in at luggage, so she remained with only her phone, passport and wallet.

After about an hour and a half, she was checking out her suitcase from the luggage belt and rolling it through the airport, towards a small quaint café in the corner. The airport was fairly empty, for it was about one in the morning. Other travelers looked sleep deprived and cranky, many of them had a neck pillow on or headphones, but otherwise, they were silent.

Once she had ate a sugary donut and drank an iced coffee to keep her awake and bring up her blood sugar, Farah left the airport, getting into a cab which took her straight to her aunt's house in a remote town just outside of urban Las Vegas.

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THIS WAS SO SHORT AND BORING BUT HEY THE NEXT UPDATE WILL BE LONGER