Soul Lines (Completed)

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen
Elle's POV

I couldn't breathe.

The air around me was heavy, sticking in my airway like a thick fog.

Nanna gave me a disapproving glare as I climbed silently into the car, and Mckenzie made a crass joke about my hair, but the silence that followed managed to scare them. Their lighthearted teasing morphed into concern, and they watched me through the rearview mirror.

I couldn't find the words to tell them. I didn't know how to say what was on my mind. I wasn't sure I understood myself, all that kept looping through my thoughts was that someone was hurt. Someone I knew.

Staring out the window was easier than addressing the pain, and I tucked my legs up against the door, ignoring the willful gaze of my family.

The sun caught the window, and suddenly, I was staring back at myself with tears in my eyes. I tried to look past my reflection, but it was hard, and I was pulled down into the rabbit hole, my thoughts spiralling quickly.

It could have been Jacobi.

Or my sweet wolf.

It could have even been Mckenzie or Brent.

Anyone I loved could have been walking through the forest and faced the same attack Arlo had.

I couldn't shake the haunting thought from my mind, and soon, Pop was pulling up in front of the airport just as the shadows started to latch onto my memories.

Brent and Mckenzie half-skipped, half-ran towards the doors, but I stayed on the curb, watching the back of their Toyota shrink on the horizon as Pop and Nanna drove away. They were searching for a car park, but it felt like they were leaving for good, and my heart tore from my chest.

I turned when they were no longer a dot in the distance and watched as the airport doors slid shut behind my siblings, bouncing back open even before they had met in the middle, providing a window into the airport.

They were across the room, queued at the metal detectors. Brent fumbled with his shoes while Mckenzie peered over the small crowd on tiptoes. She gave a choked squeal and caught the attention of a security guard, who waved her through, disregarding her as a gleeful teen.

He watched her, though, as she gathered her things from the tray and careened across the tiled floor into our mother's arms. Brent was hardly a heartbeat behind her, locking his arms around Mum like he could hold her there forever.

I hung back, slipping my shoes on and watching them from afar. Mum had gotten older, and she held the trauma of her job in the lines of her face. The stress from being a missionary aged her ten years more than she was meant to be. Her hair was no longer coifed and dark brown. Instead, grey crested her head, spilling over her shoulders.

Mum tucked Mckenzie's head into the crook of her neck and wrapped her arms just as tightly around Brent as she searched the room with watery eyes.

She was dressed the same. She'd owned the same scuffed, worn, bare-thread jeans since the beginning of time. The same brown leather boots that had faded into a tannish suede, usually coated in thick mud, but she must have cleaned them recently. And the same dumb bangles that Brent, Mckenzie and I had made for her ten years ago in an after-school art class.

Dad wasn't with her, and I turned my eyes frantically, searching from one side of the airport to the other, sighing quietly when I saw a flash of his army-green jacket as he slid through the travellers, his only trajectory; my siblings.

He bundled them up into his arms, but he was distracted, and I knew he was looking for me before he found me. His eyes wrinkled with a smile, and he held a hand out as he pressed a soft kiss to the crown of Brent's head, beckoning me to join them.