Lone Girl (The Wolfling Saga) by Kate Bloomfield Read Free Book Online Page A

his ex-fiancé Anya. Instead I dwelled upon it, letting it poison my mind. He’d be mad if he found out that I still had the phone.
    Stop it , I kept telling myself. Everything she said was absolute rubbish and you know that. Tom is a great guy.
    I had to talk to him about it – ask him what it meant.
    I was about to open my mouth to speak when Tom interrupted. “I’m thinking of sleeping in a bed tonight.”
    “Oh?”
    He turned to me and smiled. “We’ve got a bit of cash. Maybe we should find a motel and uh-” He wiggled his eyebrows at me.
    I glanced his way momentarily before looking back at the road. “ Oh .”
    Perhaps a motel would be an appropriate place to strike up a conversation about his ex. On the road was probably not a good idea.
    “Okay,” I agreed with a nod.
    “You all right?” Tom asked, glancing my way.
    “Yeah, fine.”
    “You still feeling sick after last night?” he asked.
    My stomach squirmed at the memory and another wave of dizziness washed over me. I ignored it. “I’m fine. Why?”
    “It’s nothing. I mean, well, you’re just acting-” he paused, trying to find the right word. “-distant,” he finished.
    It was true. My mind had been on that message from Anya all day. I just couldn’t get it out of my head.
    “We’ll talk at the motel,” I said with a reassuring smile.
    This didn’t seem to ease Tom’s nerves. “Oh, that doesn’t sound good,” he said with raised eyebrows.
    I reached over and squeezed his thigh in what I hoped was a comforting gesture. “Don’t worry.”
    But the crease in his brow told me that he was worrying. 
     
    ~
     
    Tom dropped the sports-bag of stolen thrift-store clothes onto the cheap motel bed and turned to face me with his hands on his hips. “Home sweet home,” he said with a roll of his eyes.
    I placed my backpack upon the vanity table and looked around. “It’s only for another night. It beats sleeping in the car, anyway.”
    “Hey, wait here for a second, will you?” said Tom, quickly dashing out the door again.
    “Okay-” I frowned, staring at the closed door. He’d left before I’d even put two words together. However, he wasn’t gone long. Barely two minutes had passed and he was slipping back inside.
    “Where’d you go?” I asked.
    “A cross the road to the gas station,” he said.
    “You what ?” My eyes widened. “Tom, you could have been recognized!”
    He laughed. “I’m joking, relax,” he said. “There was a vending machine in the men’s room next to the motel office.”
    “What?”
    Tom pulled out a couple of condoms from his pocket.
    “Oh,” was all I said.
    He chuckled, but saw that I was not impressed. “What’s wrong? I thought you wanted to? The other night-”
    He stopped speaking when he saw the annoyed look on my face.
    “Are you still not feeling well?” he asked.
    I sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. “Tom … I have to talk to you about something.”
    His face fell. Perhaps he’d been hoping to distract me from ‘the talk’ we needed to have.
    “I don’t like where this is going,” he said slowly, standing in front of me. “What have I done? Was it the condoms? I know it’s not classy, but-”
    “No, no, it’s not the condoms,” I said with a faint smile. “You haven’t done anything wrong. Just … just sit down, okay?”
    He paused, before perching himself on the vanity table’s stool. “What’s up?”
    I needed to tell him about the message from Anya, but there was no way to talk about it without revealing that I’d been using my cell phone.
    “Last night, while you were sleeping, I-”
    But I didn’t get to finish my sentence, because at that moment red and blue lights illuminated the room – reflecting on the walls and ceiling.
    Tom and I jumped up in unison and ran to the window, peering through the curtains at the three police cars that had just pulled up outside of the Motel.
    “Holy shit,” Tom breathed. “How did they-”
    “Oh my god,” I