Chapter 169 Partially Over
_Rowena’s POV_
They took Virella out of that house in handcuffs and put her in one of the big vehicles, then they drove away. I just stood there on the pavement outside and watched until the red car lights turned the corner and disappeared into the dark.
It was a super strange feeling to stand there watching that car go down the road because I had spent so long thinking about this exact moment in my head. I spent time building it up in my head during all those long awful days in that facility, turning it over and over in my mind like it was something I really needed to hold onto tight just to get through the next hour of my life
. And now it had actually happened right in front of me, and I was just standing on a quiet residential street in the freezing cold night air, not really knowing what to do with myself now that Virella was found.
My ribs hurt really bad when I took a breath, and my wrist throbbed with pain. The whole left side of my body was firmly reminding me that I had been standing on my feet for way too long and that I definitely should have listened to the doctor a lot more than I actually did earlier.
I didn’t move away from the spot though, not just yet.
Celeste appeared right beside me after a few long minutes had gone by. She just stood there next to me without saying a single word for a moment, which was totally her version of checking to see if I was doing alright. Celeste was not the kind of person who ever asked you how you were feeling directly out loud, so she would just come over and stand right near you and wait patiently to see what you were going to do next.
"You knew about the bomb trigger, didn’t you," I said to her, looking over at her side profile. It wasn’t a question, and she knew it.
"I suspected it," she said in her usual plain voice. "The control panel was installed way too quickly by hand. When somebody does a complicated job like that in a massive rush and completely alone, they almost always miss an important wire connection somewhere in the system, so I just needed to get close enough to double check it."
"And what if you had been completely wrong about it?” I asked her, frowning a little.
She turned her head and looked me straight in the eyes. "I wasn’t wrong."
That was honestly such a classic Celeste answer to give that I almost let out a small smile right there on the sidewalk.
"Go get inside," she said to me, nodding her head toward the vehicle that was waiting for me a little further up the dark road. "You’ve been standing on that sore leg totally wrong for the past ten whole minutes, and you probably think nobody has noticed it happening, but I definitely have."
I looked down at my shoes on the ground and realized that she was completely right about me. I had been shifting my heavy weight back and forth without even realizing I was doing it, taking all the bad pressure off my sore left side by standing slightly crooked on the curb.
"Fine, I’m going," I said.
I walked over, got into the vehicle and leaned my back deep into the soft seat and closed my eyes for a while. The street outside was totally quiet again, going back to being just a normal ordinary street, and the house sitting behind us looked just like it had when we first arrived there earlier tonight. It was small and unremarkable, and it was not giving away a single secret about all the things that had just happened inside of it tonight.
Kasper got into the vehicle right beside me and pulled the heavy door shut with a loud click. He didn’t say anything to me immediately, he just sat there quietly in his seat, and I was honestly so glad for that because I didn’t have any good words ready in my head yet.
The last thing I wanted at the moment was making up stories
We drove down the quiet road for a few long minutes before he finally turned to speak to me.
"How are you actually doing right now?” he asked in a quiet tone.
"You sound just like Celeste right now," I said without opening my eyes.
"Celeste taught me pretty much everything I know," he laughed but his tone sounded completely serious about it.
I opened my eyes slowly and looked over at him. He was watching me with that steady expression he always had on his face, the kind of look that did not push you too hard but did not look away from you either. Kasper always had a special way of asking you questions that made you feel like he genuinely wanted to hear the real honest answer from you, instead of just a fake polite version that would make the conversation easier for everyone.
"I don’t really know yet," I told him honestly, leaning my head back against the seat. "You can ask me again tomorrow."
He gave me a small nod like that was a totally reasonable answer for me to give, because for a guy like Kasper, it really was.
We finally got all the way back to the hotel a little bit after midnight. The lobby downstairs was extremely quiet, with just the night staff standing behind the counter and the low sound of the building doing whatever hotels do in the middle of the night. My sore body was feeling every single hard step I took from the car to the elevator, and everything that I had been trying so hard to ignore for the past few hours, came back to pay me back with interest and lots of pain.
Just as the elevator opened to the floor of my room, Alaric appeared looking exhausted.
The moment I stepped out, he didn’t even bother hiding his exhaustion and directly pulled me in for a hug.
“I’ve missed you.” He said shamelessly, as if we hadn’t been in the same space just now.
Kasper winked at me and disappeared down the hallway.
I let out a sigh, let myself melt into Alaric’s arms.