I quickly wiped my face. We cleaned up the hotel room from what few messes we made, and opened the door, and the sheriff gave me a hint of a concerned look when he saw me. I averted my glance.

"I'll escort you out to my vehicle," said the sheriff a bit timidly, "where we will see from there what exactly we are doing."

"Ok," Jay squeaked.

"Do you have all your things?" he asked.

"Yep," Cole said, popping the p.

"We don't have anything," Kai muttered.

We walked down to the lobby in an awkward silence. The lady at the counter stared at us.

"Room ###, ma'am," Zane called after her. "Out before 11:00."

"A-alright," she nodded, still watching us leave, seemingly without blinking.

I couldn't believe we were doing this.

"Uh, there aren't enough seats in the back, so..." the sheriff paused, mid-sentence. "Oops, I almost forgot. Well, did forgot- forget. Forgot there aren't enough seats anyway. I'll have to call for backup, sorry." He seemed surprisingly nervous for his position. I glanced at Zane, who thought this was normal. He wouldn't know. The others didn't appear to think he was acting out of the ordinary, either. "We'll just... wait out here," he continued, and got a walkie-talkie from his vest. "CS17, this is CS17. This is not urgent. I need a backup. I need more seats."

There was a muffled reply from the walkie-talkie.

"Thank you." The sheriff placed it back in its holster and stared off into space.

"We could wait in the lobby," Jay suggested with a small shrug.

"Oh, of course." The sheriff smiled nervously.

We strolled back inside to the lady at the counter, who stared at us again.

"Is it alright if we sit in here for a while, ma'am?" the sheriff asked her.

"Yes, o-of course." She fidgeted with her hands.

Kai let out an exasperated sigh and rolled his eyes as we sat on the lobby couch and chairs.

It was dead silent for a while.

I exchanged awkward glances with each of them.

Finally, another police car pulled up. The sheriff stood up and we followed him outside.

A police man stepped out of his car. "This is it?"

"Yep. You take a few and we'll drive them to the airport unless something turns up."

"Alright."

Kai grunted.

We all knew exactly how he felt.

Like criminals.

Cargo, to be transported from one place to the next.

"Get in," the police told us. "Two in one and three in the other. Doesn't matter who."

We all looked at each other.

Split up? Yes, we were still going to be "together", but splitting up was hard.

Kai shrugged.

Jay and I were both smoothly transported ourselves next to Cole like magnets. We looked at Kai and Zane, and Kai and Zane looked at each other. Kai shrugged again. Zane gave a cute thumbs-up and so did everyone else. I gave Opposite one long look as they went in the police car. Bruise + me went in the sheriff's. I sighed as we submissively got in.

Cole ended up in the middle.

We started driving and I kept my eyes on Zane and Kai's car until we were in front of them and they were out of my sight.

I leaned my head on the window and looked through the bars outside at the landscape, lit up with the morning sun shining on the fresh dew.

I was so tired. We barely got any sleep last night.

Cole was more comfortable to lean on than the window, right?

But that was probably weird.

No; I kissed him yesterday evening. It probably wasn't weird.

I sat up from leaning against the window and looked at Jay and Cole. Jay was looking out his window and Cole was looking straight ahead.

Did he look sad? Or maybe he was just bored, or concentrated.

I had him now. Soon he would be taken away from me.

I decided to rest my head on his shoulder. More like his arm, since he's so much taller than me.

"You okay?" he asked softly.

"Mm-hmm." After a bit, "I can't lose you guys."

"Who says you have to?"

I sighed. "I don't know... how to explain."

"What is going on?" Jay asked."This is really weird and- we have no contact with Kai and Zane." He took a deep breath.

"Do you know what's going on?" Cole asked.

I hugged his arm. "Yes."

"Then tell us!" Jay said.

"I can't," I said quietly. "I mean, I could. But I can't."

"Why?" Jay whined.

"I'll tell you when we're all together again."

Jay groaned. "I can't wait that long!"

"I know," I chuckled.

"Where are we going?" Cole asked me.

"Ummmm, I dunno," I replied honestly.

"Hey, where are we going?" Cole asked our escort.

"Uh, airport," was the brief reply.

"Yeah, where are we going like in the world?" Jay asked.

"Canada."

"Oh," I said.

"What's that?"

"North of here. We might be there in 3 to 5 hours."

I sighed.

Idk what I'm doing with this story, it's really chaotic 😂 I guess the idea was too ambitious. But I'm still planning on finishing it. Hopefully.