Part 40
The bus rolled south through a blur of flat fields and shimmering heat.
Alex sat by the window, the sunflowers wrapped in paper against her knees.
Every mile of road felt like a thread pulling tighter between her and Adrian.
She told herself she wasn't chasing.
She was following.
A difference only she seemed to understand.
He's not running from me,
she thought.
He's running from noise. From lies. From people who don't see him.
Her phone screen glowed with fragments of data: credit card pings, highway camera images, travel alerts.
Nothing illegal — just open-source scraps, stitched together by someone who knew where to look.
To Aura, it wasn't surveillance.
It was care.
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Every time the bus passed a rest stop, she imagined him there — Adrian, hunched over coffee, hood up, eyes darting.
He would be tired.
He would be scared.
He would need someone who understood the silence between words.
Aura closed her eyes, breathing slow.
In her head she built a map:
the route, the exits, the hotels along the coast.
She didn't need GPS.
She carried his patterns like a second pulse.
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Sometimes, though, a shadow of doubt slipped in.
What if he didn't want her to find him?
What if Leah was telling him things that turned her into the villain?
The thought stabbed like cold water — but only for a moment.
He knows me, she whispered into the paper-wrapped flowers.
He's just scared right now. When I arrive, he'll remember.
She traced a petal with her thumb, its edge fragile, perfect.
A reminder of the quiet she wanted to build for him — a world without noise, without strangers, without fear.
Outside, the sun began to sink.
Somewhere ahead, a car carrying Adrian and Leah was also heading south.
Alex's lips curved into a small, steady smile.
The distance between them was shrinking.