Destiny's Revenge (Destiny Series - Book 2) by Straight, Nancy (management books to read .TXT) 📕

now, and the people there are folks I don’t want to be around without him.” So far so good - I was able to skirt the truth and still talk through the root of my problem. “I also don’t have my phone, so I can’t call him or one of my friends to get help, and I only have enough gas to go about a hundred miles.”

“Do you want to use my cell phone?” He held it out to me, and without hesitating a second, I took it.

I didn’t dial Max. I phoned Seth – I got his voice mail. I felt a little self-conscious leaving a voice mail like this in front of a complete stranger, but at this point I may not have a better lifeline available. “Seth, it’s Lauren. I need you to bring me a couple hundred dollars to the rest stop near exit 203 right away. Don’t call my mom or Max or anyone. I’ll explain when you get here. Please, don’t tell anyone. I don’t have a phone, so just know that I am going to be sitting here until you get this. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important. Thanks.” I hung up and handed the phone back to Mike.

He was confused. I was hoping he would pretend he didn’t just hear the voice mail I left, but he didn’t. “Don’t call your parents or anyone? Are you in trouble with the law or what?”

I laughed out loud, wishing that were the extent of my problems. I shook my head, “No, I’m not. I just can’t go back to my boyfriend’s place, and I know if Seth called my mom she would just freak out about the whole situation.”

Mike dug into his pocket and found a business card, then pulled out thirty dollars. “This is all I have on me. You seem like a good person. When you get all this worked out, you can pay me back.” I knew it wasn’t right accepting cash from a stranger, but I did anyway.

“Mike, thanks. I’ll pay you back, I promise.”

Mike stood up and headed back toward his car. I sat at the table with Peanut and waited. The weather was hot and muggy, but there was a breeze, and the sun would be going down in another hour and a half.

Peanut and I waited at the picnic table. We watched cars come and go, as families stopped from long road trips. I carefully eyed every car that arrived, partly concerned that Max or Joe might find us here – but my senses never went haywire. Under any other circumstances this would have been a relaxing evening.

Two hours went by before I saw Seth’s car. He pulled up next to Max’s truck. I waved to him from the picnic table. He walked over to me a little hesitant, “Lauren?”

I had been running through all the possible scenarios of what was going on with Max and Joe. If they were looking for me, where would they have gone? “Boy, am I glad to see you!” I stood up and threw my arms around him.

“Lauren, what the heck is going on? I got a cryptic voice mail from you asking me to meet you here, begging me not to tell Max where you are - while I was on the phone with Max. He’s in a panic right now. He laid out this really unbelievable story and said he has to find you.”

“You didn’t tell him where I was, right?”

“No. I don’t want you to take this the wrong way or anything, but I think he might be a little unbalanced, and definitely delusional. Is that why you ran away?”

I shook my head, “Seth, I can’t talk about it right now. I just really need a place to go that Max doesn’t know about. I left my wallet at his Grandfather’s house and I can’t go back there.”

“Just come back home with me. Amanda won’t mind. We can get this all sorted out.”

Fighting back the emotion that I was sure was showing on my face, I said, “No, I can’t. I just need to borrow some money and disappear for a little while.”

“If you won’t come back with me, at least go to your mom’s house. She’d love to see you.”

I didn’t have the strength to say another word. I just shook my head.

“Listen, I don’t know what’s going on with you and Max, frankly I probably don’t want to know. He’s caught up in some crazy delusion about demons and evil, and I get why you took off, but you don’t need to run away from me or your family. We were here before Max came along; we’ll all be around long after he’s out of the picture. I was as taken in by him as you were. There’s no shame in caring about him, but he really needs help.”

Fire welled up in my body. Did he think Max was crazy? That’s why Seth thought I took off? Frickin great. That was exactly why I never once told Seth anything. Not about my dreams of Max all those years ago, not about Rewsna, and definitely not about that thing that attacked me and left me for dead on the mountain. Losing my temper here would do nothing but draw attention to me, so in as collected a voice as I could muster, “Seth, I just really need to borrow some money until I can get things worked out.”

He nodded, “Follow me up to the next exit. I’m going to buy you a cell phone so I can call you when I need to talk to you. We’ll get a bite to eat and figure out your next move together. Deal?”

I breathed a sigh of relief, and my stomach responded favorably to the suggestion. I nodded and we both went to our cars.

Chapter 15

It was eleven p.m. when my stomach was full, I had a phone