Chapter 46

Although an odd feeling of relief washed over Celeste when she heard the alpha's voice, panic also filled her at the same time. There was no way for her to have expected him to have been the one who would answer call.

"Hello?" He answered, a hint of annoyance to the tone of his voice. Her silence probably made him think that it was just a prank call. Celeste couldn't bring herself to speak past the lump in her throat however.

Instead, with clumsy fingers, she managed to end the call on her cell phone before Bane said anything else or did it himself. She let out a breath she didn't know that she had been holding as she looked down at the phone in her hands.

She couldn't imagine that the driver didn't know who's number he had handed off to her. How did he know Bane and why did he think that his number was something that she would want?

Her anxiety had come back to gnaw that the inside of her stomach again as she looked at her phone. Why did everything come back to the that crazy man? How did it seem that no matter where she went in recent days, there was always someone who was connected to him or knew who he was?

Even though she had been trying to go somewhere that she thought would help her come down, her actions seemed to have created the exact opposite of that situation for her.

Her mind told her that she was being irrational, but her emotions were winning out with each passing moment. At first she thought that being somewhere away from everything would be better for her, but it seemed that there was really no 'away' for her.

Her mind tried to reason that it was irrational to think that anything bad would happen to her. She was in a hotel room surrounded by dozens of other people. Far more people than if she had stayed in her apartment. Here, it would also be easier to call out to anyone should anything happen or she needed something. Back at her apartment, she knew of no one who would come to her aid if something happened. They were the kind of people who would think someone getting murdered was spectacle to watch and enjoy rather than prevent.

Even using this reasoning however, Celeste still flinched and startled over any strange noises she heard. Footsteps passing by in the hall outside of her door. Were they going to stop outside her room or keeping going? The thudding of feet above her head felt like a small earthquake. The slam against the wall to the room on her right, startled her the most as it reminded her of someone trying to break something down.

She knew that she needed to get ahold of herself before she went completely down the rabbit hole of fear and anxiety. She just wasn't sure what she should to stop it.

She opted for scrolling through social media and turning the TV on as a background distraction. There wasn't anything good on to watch so she opted for an old soap opera that her adoptive mother used to watch. She never understood what was interesting about them, but it was a welcoming distraction for the time being.

The land of social media wasn't much. She wasn't a frequent user of it. She had only gotten onto Facebook and Instagram because Jen had begged her to create an account so she could tag her.

Half the time she ignored her feeds because there wasn't to scroll through. Blessing and curse of having only a handful of friends.

Celeste always tried to make to like or comment or things her friends posted or shared where it was good, events, outfit of the day type things or something thought provoking.

Her own pages hadn't been updated much since Jen had posted things for. She said it would help other users to know she was 'legitimate'. why that was important, Celeste didn't know since she never messaged strangers anyways.

Swapping to Facebook, she was surprised to see the message in top corner of her page. Hardly anyone bothered with messaging her.

'Lucifer's Devil has sent you a message.' her brows knitted in confusion at first, she was fairly certain that she had no friends with that name. She clicked the message anyways knowing that she could just delete it if turned out to be spam.

'Thank you for liking my messages.' was what had been sent to her. She wasn't quite sure what the other was talking about which lead her to clicking his little avatar to redirect to his Facebook page.

She was greeted by an avatar of what looked like a fierce Tasmanian Devil and a background drop of a rather beautiful snow scape. Looking through the photos she had a vague recollection of getting a friend request from this person a few days prior.

Celeste was never one to add people she didn't know, but she remembered making an exception when she saw the photos that made up the majority of his photos. They were of things such as food, nature shots, animals, or the outside of shops. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to them but each looked like as though it had been taking to tell some kind of story.

There had been a few that she had felt were particularly good that she had liked after accepting the friend request, but didn't think the owner of the account would message her to thank her for such a trivial thing.

'You're welcome. I just thought that they deserved some appreciation.' she replied once she had navigated back the private message screen. She had expected the conversation to end there, but mere seconds as she had replied, another message had come through.

'They're not all mine, but thank you and I'll be sure to pass along the comment to the rightful owner of them as well.' Instead of replying Celeste simply liked the response and again moved out of the private message box.

Now that she was on social media she wanted to look up her friend Liam and see if he had an account. Even if they couldn't meet a lot, she thought it might be a good way to reconnect with him. Partly because wanted to stay in touch and partly because she felt like she owed it to him to try harder to be a good friend to him after what he had done for her that night.

After a few minutes of searching, she did managed to successfully track down his account though much to her disappointment Liam had set it to private so only friends could see the things that he was posting. Was this a work requirement or a personal preference she couldn't but wonder.

She could ask him later. For now though, she was going to get off her phone and watch TV. She was feeling a little less anxious after her distracting herself with social media that she felt like she might actually be able to get some sleep.

Just as she was getting ready to turn her phone display off, she noticed that another message had come back through Facebook again.

Lucifer's Devil: You have a good eye for photos. Do you happen to take any of your own?

Was it polite curiosity or was this unknown person actually trying to hold a conversation with her. An indulgent smile crept across Celeste's face as she looked at it. It couldn't hurt to reply she figured. It wasn't like she had anything else to keep her preoccupied anyways. What could it hurt?