Left or Right

Chapter 38

.James.

"Where is she now?" I ask Michelle as we were sat in a rental car we had borrowed last minute after leaving the auditorium.
Michelle was tracking Riley using her phone and the signal detection was just about good enough for us to see where she was headed along the motorway.

I wouldn't have trusted Michelle right now one bit if it wasn't for the fact I knew Ri was in danger. She and Michelle have always been close enough to the point where tracking each other had become a staple in their friendship.

"He's going at like eighty miles an hour. The speed limit is sixty, James," she tells me, causing me to shake my head, not caring one bit. The longer Riley stays in the same vehicle as him, the more at risk she'd be and I can't have that.

I push down on the accelerator as Michelle looks at me worriedly before I speed along the motorway, driving past multiple cars, just brushing the metal of each of the vehicle's doors.
"Which car is it?" I ask her, making her shake her head at a loss. It was a long shot and I couldn't blame her for not knowing.

The car Nate was driving wasn't in sight. All the cars around us were driving at an average speed. Nate wasn't around us anywhere and so I was going to have to pretty much drive blindly if I wanted to chase him down.

"Right, hold on for me, okay," I tell Michelle, making her breathe in and nod her head before I speed again, exceeding the usual limit but I couldn't have cared any less. I wasn't letting Riley get away from me that easily.

"I'm such a bad friend," Michelle blurts out when I begin to slow down on the freeway.
I glance at her for a second to find her eyes sealed shut while her hands gripped the seat she sat on, as if she was clinging on for dear life. "I'm sorry, James. I've been a bitch to Riley and I'm so sorry. You both have every right to hate me, I don't blame you if you do... That girl is meant to be a sister to me but all I've done since she's been back is neglect her."

I shake my head, still driving along to try and catch up with the speeding car which was a whole mile away from us right now but Michelle continues.
"I let her down," she whispers. "I let my sister down and that's the last thing she ever deserved."

Silence simmers between us as I took in her words while she processed everything occurring right this minute. 

"Michelle," I whisper, making her turn her head around to face me before she bites her lip. "I caught her relapsing last night," I tell her, causing the whole content look on her face to falter and shatter, breaking into millions of pieces. "I don't want to point fingers but... you girls really triggered her, you know."

"And just when you begin to make her feel better, Nate has to come and ruin everything," she mutters under her breath, and even though I didn't want to admit it, I hated that she was right.
I didn't even know who Nate was. But I knew none of us needed him to be around Riley right now. I just helped her find herself and now she's about to lose herself to him all over again.

With a brief sigh from the lips, I stretch my hand over to reach her and I brush her arm.
"Hey," I whisper to her, still keeping my eyes focused on the road ahead to make sure I didn't let us get involved in any kind of car accident. "We're going to find her, okay. We won't let him get away with this," I say, making her smile at me gently and nod.

"I hope so," she says back before I withdraw my arm and position it back on top of the steering wheel, pushing down on the accelerator yet again to try and catch up but just as we begin to speed slightly, Michelle looks back down at her phone and shakes her head, her eyes wide.

"What? What's happened?" I ask her with urgency.
"Riley's phone just died. I don't know where she is anymore," she tells me worriedly, clearly in a panic which was enough to make me sigh and shake my head, unsure of where else to go and what else to do.

"Maybe we should—" she begins to say but I instantly cut her off the moment my eyes land on a silver speeding car which had only just pulled off the motorway to head for the main road.

In an instant, I swivel to the side to turn onto the main road equally as much and once my eyes are fixed on the car in front of us, I don't stop driving without any source of determination. We were this close to her now. I just had to find a way of making them pull over without putting Ri in danger of getting hurt.

Looking up at the nearest headboard, I take in the fact they were headed for the airport and my eyes immediately widen.
"I think he's taking her back to Montreal, M," I say, causing her to follow my gaze up to the nearest headboard too before she begins to crumble herself.

"No, she can't. We can't let her go, James," she panics, making me nod.
"We won't let her go," I assure her.

I just had to follow them until they came to a stop and hope I wouldn't lose sight of them in the mean time...