12 Chapter 12

The pair drives in a comfortable silence. Rose wonders if Cal believes in otherworldly things. Is she the only person in the world who believed werewolves and vampires and fairy's and every other mystical creature, is fiction? She wonders what signs her parents were talking about but can't come up with anything. She's never shown any powers, never lit anything on fire and certainly doesn't feel anything except... human. Besides her weird ability to not find love or attraction to any boyfriend, or man at all. She even gave women a shot, nothing there either. She truly feels broken.

She secretly glances over at Cal, who's driving. He's calm. His face doesn't show concern or worry and appears to be completely okay with driving aimlessly, no destination chosen.

As if he sensed her gaze, he looks over at her and smirks, "So do you want to tell-" Rose interrupts and says "Nope, I'm not ready to talk about it. You'd think I'm a lunatic anyways", she mumbles the last part and slinks down in her seat, leaning her head against the window. "Actually I was going to say do you want to tell me where we're going." He chuckles. She sighs and shakes her head. "I don't know. Just away from here." Cal stays silent for a moment before he says "Are you running away from your parents or are you running from someone or something else?"

Considering how to answer, Rose finally says "All of the above." She shrugs her shoulders in the dark, "There's a lot to the story and like I said I'm not comfortable talking about it yet, but to give you the short reason I'm running away... evidently... my parents have basically arranged a marriage for me, to a terrible and scary man. They said it would happen on my 21st birthday." She glances down at the dashboard clock, it's 11:47pm. "So I have 13 more minutes of freedom before he comes to collect his prize." She said sarcastically, but she couldn't even fool herself. She sounded scared.

She waited for Cal to laugh, or ask if she was kidding. It never came. He didn't say anything at all. "Really? You have no comment about that?" He glances over at her and it seemed like he had a panicked expression cross his face for a moment, but it was gone with a blink of an eye. "I guess I'm waiting to hear you laugh and say you're joking.." Ahh he's shocked too. "I'm completely serious and completely terrified. I don't want to go with anyone and I certainly don't want to be forced to be with someone. I'd rather die." A tear slips down her cheek and she quickly brushes it off. "I will not show weakness and I will not be weak." She silently says to herself.

She was so thankful Cal was here and she at least had her best friend and seemingly the only person she could ever trust with her. If she was gonna make it through this, she knew it would be with him by her side.

Just then, the clock struck midnight and her eyes suddenly had a mind of their own as she slipped into a hard sleep that she couldn't stop.

.....

Cal watches her eyes close and glances at the clock. "Wow, right on the dot," he says to himself.

"Sir, it's midnight. She went into a deep slumber. What do you want me to do now?"