A/N: This is getting fun.
Chapter 2: Mary Brandon
I didn't even need a car.
Even with my grotesquely fast "after" car, the trip to Vegas would still cost me most of the night. Instead, I flashed out the door in a graceful shimmer - at least my speed and strength would never get boring - and started running south. No one would see me, no matter where they were looking. Everyone who thought they saw something would have lost me before they got a chance to look again.
About halfway down there - it only took me half an hour - I began running along the coast, moving so fast I was almost skimming over the water. After half an hour more, I reached L.A. and started to run inland. A weird kind of jetlag kicked in when I stood a couple of miles from the glittering, flashing city.
Could it be true that I'd ran from Washington State to southern Nevada in only an hour and a bit? That shouldn't be physically possible. An ecstatic smile spread across my face as I began running towards the city. Not only was I actually impossible to explain using science, I was also capable of doing things that science had labeled impossible.
Even though I'd never been in Vegas before, not even seen that many pictures of it, the place was exactly as I'd expected. A mess of lights that made my skin softly glow and ripple with neon colors, huge surrealistic buildings rising from the desert ground and a thick miasma of cigarette smoke, sweat, aftershave and alcohol, each smell battering against my senses with a choking intensity. That would make it harder to catch Alice's smell, though it wasn't common in this city.
I discreetly sniffed around for the telltale scent of flowers, spices, clean clothes and the slight, unmistakable and disturbingly clinical sting of hospital, while walking down the crowded streets, ignoring the admiring glances of onlookers, mostly men, but also some truly beautiful women. I felt a flash of pride as I realized what they were feeling was jealousy, and then annoyance that I had to be the center of attention. It was Alice's fault, only giving me clothes that you'd see in a fashion magazine.
I'd gotten used to ignoring the details of all the clothes she'd bought me, just to avoid getting exasperated. The dress I was wearing now was black and loose enough not to rip as I'd covered about half of the way across the States in an hour. It was still hard to believe, that I could -
There. I smelled the sterile tang of old-fashioned hospital from a classy glass building two blocks down. Casually strolling down the street, being careful not to begin running, I made my way down there, and, not even bothering to read the name of the place, I walked up to the bouncer and fixed him with a demanding glare. He placed three fingers pensively on his chin, looking me over one too many times, and stepped aside to let me in.
The lounge inside was even more classy and modern than the building, a sculpted piece of stainless steel and fiberglass forming the bar, and low, rounded plastic chairs made up for barstools. Alice was sitting in one of the chairs, chatting absent-mindedly to a black-haired man in his twenties, who seemed equally disturbed and fascinated by her twitchy, birdlike body language. When I'd taken two steps inside, she whipped her head around at a disturbing speed, smiled at me and motioned for me to come and sit down.
Shooing the man away with a quick wave of her hand, she turned her chair towards me and began to talk in a low, urgent voice. "Bella. I needed to talk to you." Always to the point, maybe too fast. "First tell me what you're doing here. Rose's dead worried." Alice frowned and deliberated my words for a moment before answering. "I'm just trying to get a taste of how people around my physical age are living right now. I really never grew mentally beyond the twenty." She smiled, something that made her look warm and likable, the perfect best friend.
"They're having so much fun, I almost wish I could join them. As it is, I have to make do with faking." She gestured towards a near-finished martini on the bar, a fancy, simplistic cocktail that looked like it had cost way too much for a bit of alcohol and an olive. "I almost understand how they can drink them. Almost. It's better when you have a goal with it, and when it doesn't feel afterwards like you've been drinking cement."
The smile on her face spread into a large, self-ironic grin that faded again just as quickly. "But I need to tell you. I've seen something really disturbing. About in a week from now, all the possible fates for us simply vanish. We're not gonna die, that's a different feeling, but this is honestly scaring me."