Trained One ✓

Chapter 45

There.

Right?

No. Maybe not.

I shielded my eyes from the sliver of sun hitting me at the most inconvenient angle as I tried to see through the people running around. I thought I saw Travis but at this point I wouldn't put it past me to be hallucinating. The tip of the chain from the handcuffs tapped against my forehead as I stood on my tiptoes to try to see better or give him a better view of me. But with each tap from the chain, I switched between expecting to see Travis and it being a huge coincidence my handcuffs broke.

I ducked back down by the car I'd been standing on moments before and tried to wiggle my hands out of the restraints. They were separated and I could move my hands freely but that didn't mean I wanted the metal on my wrists still.

A trail of smoke flew over my head at an arc through the air, landing far away from me but I could see where the smoke bomb landed with the amount of congestion quickly filling the air. People were still fighting all around me and I needed to find my friends but someone, Travis, shot my handcuffs off so that had to mean he knew where I was. Unless it was just a random coincidence but my gut told me no. Right? I was in my red leather jacket in a sea of grey, black, and white from the smoke bomb. He had to have seen me. As much as I wanted to run to find the others, I told myself to stay put and stay where whoever helped me last saw me.

I grabbed the knives that I had stashed on me and stood, ready to take on whoever came near me. I wasn't going to be a sitting duck. My eyes continuously darted around me to make sure no one was about to hurt me before they centered back on the area in front of me where I was pretty sure Travis might be. There was smoke in the air from the Casey house still on fire and at my feet, white haze started pooling around my feet from the wind carrying the smoke bomb.

I covered my eyes again, but this time from the debris in the air and not the sun, which was currently covered by a large, black cloud.

There.

Someone was shouldered roughly out of the way in the distance by a hooded figure, causing my heart to start beating in overdrive. Travis marched in my direction, shoving another person that wasn't even fighting with him but was just in his way. His hood fell off and it was like my body started going numb with anticipation when I saw his face. He was there, it was really him and he was coming to get me. I wasn't alone.

I wanted to say that it was like the sea of bodies separating us parted magically for him but a more accurate description was that Travis forcefully created his break in the bodies, pushing, shoving, and shooting. All the while, he had a glare on his face that looked like he wanted to condemn every single thing in his sights straight to hell.

I stayed put because the car was giving me good cover and I didn't want to get in his way.

Travis's brow and lips were in a straight and tight line and his eyes were on fire. When he was only a few feet away from me and no one else was in his way, he kept his stare on me, never softening.

It was like my body shut down upon seeing him and the adrenaline I'd been running on suddenly said peace out.

My body sagged when he got closer and his arms instantly latched onto my upper arms, keeping me up. There was a clang as my knives fell out of my hands. I regained my footing but he kept his arms on me, ducking down to my eye level but he wasn't looking at me. Well, not my eyes at least. His molten gaze was stuck on my forehead.

I reached up to touch his face because I needed to just make sure that I really wasn't imagining him here. My hand cupped his warm cheek which got him to drag his attention away from my forehead but his eyes just trailed over the rest of my body. When I pulled my hand away, there was a bloody hand print left from me and I suddenly felt like I was going to puke again. The acts of the last hour caught up to me and this time, I didn't have the adrenaline to keep me going.