So I've never written from Vee's point of view before! It's not something I'll do a lot; not that I don't like her character, but that there isn't very many important scenes with her in them. If it's important with her in it, I will. Anyway, I wanted to type this scene so that we could see just how possessed Nora was in this chapter. I know in the book, it doesn't seem like she's this bad (the way I describe her from Vee's POV) but because it's her point of view, she wouldn't think she was being illogical.

Chapter Twenty

Vee's POV

I smelled burning flesh. Was that me? It had to be me. My toes…my feet…I should've gone and jumped into the ocean. Maybe it would have stopped me from roasting. I looked at my reflection in a passing car. A tomato! Mmm…a tomato. Like as in spaghetti.

I felt delirious. Light-headed.

"I feel funny. Like I'm going to pass out. Maybe I should have gone easy on the baby oil." I'd been fried by the sun! I expected Nora to say 'I told you so', but she ignored me. We were walking back to my car, and she'd been quiet during the walk. When Rixon was around, I'd kind of ignored her…I guess that wasn't very nice. But had she been quiet like this the whole time? It wasn't right. Her face was low, almost haunted. The last time I'd seen her look like this was….hell, it was when her dad passed. It was all Patch's fault. He was literally making her feel like someone had died. I hated seeing her like this, and it was time she moved on. I kept telling her so, but Nora tended to be obsessive.

I opened my mouth to ask if she was okay, but froze in my tracks. "What is that?" came out instead.

Nora looked up, and her eyes widened. "I think it's a car boot."

Yeah no shit, Sherlock! "I can see that. What's it doing on my car?"

"I guess when they say 'violators will be towed', they mean it." She answered smarmily.

I pursed my lips. "Don't get smart with me. What are we going to do now?"

"Call Rixon?" she suggested.

"He's not going to be very happy about having to drive all the way back out here. What about your mom? Is she back in town?" Rixon said he was heading home to…change for some business? His house was in…I couldn't remember. Weird. But he wasn't going to come back, I knew for sure.

"Not yet. How about your parents?"

Oh god no, not the motherboard and her crony. My mom was bad enough, but I wouldn't hear the end of another responsibility talk from my step-dad. I sat down on the curb and put my face in my hands. "It probably costs a fortune to get a car boot removed. This will be the last straw. My mom's going to ship me off to a monastery." Let me lie down now and become a fried Vee in the concrete.

Nora sat next to me, but was still quiet. I thought about who we knew.

"Don't we have any other friends? Someone we could call for a ride without feeling too guilty?" I asked. Nora didn't look responsive. "I wouldn't feel guilty about making Marcie drive all the way out here, but I'm pretty sure she wouldn't do it. Not for us. Especially not for us." Only a grimace. "You're friends with Scott. Think he'd come get us?" I looked around in desperation, and keyed in on a car. "Hold on a minute…isn't that Patch's Jeep?" I hated Patch, on some deeper level I couldn't comprehend. But I'd accept a ride with him if I could get out of this hot sun. I'd just look out the window and scoot to the end of the seat.

Nora followed my look to his car, and her look showed she recognized it.

"He must be here somewhere. Text him and tell him we're stranded. I might not like him, but I'll use him if it gets me a ride home."

"I'd text Marcie before I'd text Patch." I turned towards her. Nora's eyes were still dark, and her voice- it sounded off. She sounded like she was about to fall apart. What had I missed?

All right…"Who else can we call?" We didn't really have any friends. Nora was an introvert and rarely went out of her way to make new friends. I wasn't sure what was wrong with me; something about my aggressive personality. Whatever it was, we didn't have anyone to call.

Suddenly, Nora stood up. "I'm driving the Jeep home."

I eyed her. Something in her face had changed; past reason. Almost wild.

Maybe she was joking. "Is Patch going to be mad when he figures out you stole his Jeep?" Of course he would be. Come on Nora, this is a joke.

"I don't care. I'm not going to sit here all evening."

I had a terrible feeling in my gut. "I have a bad feeling about this. I don't like Patch on a normal day, never mind when he's got his temper on."

"What happened to your sense of adventure?" she demanded. Her voice was sharp, almost high-pitched, and it was scary.

"My sense of adventure stops short of a kamikaze suicide mission. It's not going to be pretty when he figures out it was you." I had always thought Patch was bad news when he entered Nora's life. Like a specter; as if he was going to have his fill of her and then leave her dead in some abandoned lot. He was scary enough to pull something like that, and Nora was pushing it.

She wasn't hearing me. Her eyes went from haunted to glazed. I needed to get her to not make a bad decision and get herself (and me!) killed.

"Do you even know how to boost a car?" I asked. Logic; Nora tended to stop when things were deemed illogical.

"Patch taught me."

Pssht! Doubtful. "You mean you saw Patch steal a car, and now you think you'll give it a try?"

She ignored me and charged towards the Jeep. I had to jog to keep up; I wasn't sure she could even tell how…how possessed she looked. She pulled on the door. Locked. Good, we can't do it. I peeked inside the car.

"Nobody's home," I said, voice high from nerves. "I think we should walk away. Come on, Nora. Back away from the Jeep." I looked at her, and goosebumps rose on my fried skin. Nora's eyes were still glazed, locked on the car.

"We need a ride. We're stranded." She muttered.

"We still have two legs- leftie and rightie. Mine are in the mood for exercise." I was never truly in the mood for exercise, so I knew I was desperate to stop Nora from doing something crazy. "They feel like a nice long walk- Are you crazy?"

She was going to smash the damn window in!

I don't even think she knew she'd lifted it. One second she was glaring at the car, the next the umbrella was at the window.

"What? We have to get in." A small crazy grin had formed at her lips, as if she found what she was doing funny.

I was genuinely terrified at this point. "Put the umbrella down! You're going to draw a lot of negative attention if you smash out the window!" Where was the person who I'd challenged earlier? The one who couldn't even mention Patch's shady dealings, now replaced by this-demon-ready to commit grand theft auto? "What's gotten into you?" I was ready to cry, but I couldn't. If I couldn't control myself, I couldn't stop her from hurting herself.

Suddenly, Nora's head lurched back, and she gasped. Falling forward, she braced herself on her knees, struggling to breathe. Her anemia! And maybe too much heat…maybe that's all this is!

"Nora! Nora, babe, it's going to be okay! Sit down, come on, it's too hot for this! You're hurting yourself acting this way. Let it go, babe! Let him go! Look at you, look at what he's doing! Ohhhh…." She still was leaning over, suffocating. "Here, sit down! You're suffering from heat exhaustion, that's what this is. That's all. We're both panicking. Sit!" I pulled at her arm, but she jerked away.

"I'm okay. I'm okay." She said, sounding more normal. Thank goodness. Maybe the heat wave had passed, and she was feeling back to her senses. Leaning over to grab her tote, she froze. I stiffened.

"I have the key to the Jeep." She stated, sounding shocked.

All this time, all this crap and… "Patch never asked for it back?"

"He never gave it to me. I found it in Marcie's room Tuesday night."

"Whoa." I didn't know how to feel. I hated Marcie, and I didn't care that she'd been stolen from. But she had a key, and people were going to start looking soon. We needed to get out of there, and I wasn't against taking the Jeep if we could escape. Nora jumped into the car, and I quickly climbed into the passenger side. Her hands were shaking against the wheel, and I became worried for my own safety.

"You're not thinking about doing more damage than just driving this thing home, are you?" I looked at her; the crazy grin was back, the vein in her forehead was throbbing, and she was making a low hehehe noise. This girl is fucking crazy. "Because the vein in your temple is throbbing, and the last time I saw it do that was right before you clipped Marcie in the jaw at the Devil's Handbag." I'd been proud of her; now, I wasn't sure. She licked her lips.

"He gave Marcie a spare to the Jeep- I should park this thing in the ocean, twenty feet under."

Noo…. "Maybe he had a really good reason." I offered.

She cackled. I mean, really cackled. "I won't do anything to it until after I drop you off." She pulled roughly into the street.

"You swear to add that disclaimer when you try explaining to Patch why you stole his Jeep?" I didn't know if I wanted to reason with her anymore. I just wanted to get to my lockable door, inside of my safe house, and away from the scary Patch and scarier Nora.

"I'm not stealing it. We're stranded. This is called borrowing."

This shit is called stealing! "This is called you're crazy." I didn't know what I missed, but it felt deeper than just a breakup. Had he abused her? Was this some weird obsession because he'd made her dependent? Was she on a drug that he provided? Suffering withdrawal? "Let's get out of here." I spoke softly, treading eggshells. "We have lemonade at my place. After that we could watch TV. Maybe take a nap. Don't you have to work tonight?"

She opened her mouth to speak, but then halted the car. "What's that?"

I looked where she was looking, and reached forward. A pink bikini top.

Marcie.

That ho…

Oh no-

What have I done?

Nora's body shook, rattling the car, and her pupils shrunk.

"He can find his own ride home." She hissed, facing forward and pulling off.

Patch's POV

"Where-what-wh-"

I stood on the sidewalk, torn between shock and pure rage. Marcie walked up behind me and stopped.

"What the hell happened to your car?"

I turned to her, eyes thinning. "Do I look like I fucking know?" I snapped, gesturing hard at the empty space. Oh, I didn't need this. I'd spent all morning and afternoon with Marcie, suffering her shallow facade and continued attempts to seduce me. 'Oh Patch, I don't wear a top. I'll just wear this sheer cover; it'll be our secret'. You have no chest, there's no need! I could have torn my own hair out, but I'd kept calm. All I'd thought about was getting away; getting in my Jeep, driving her home, and getting some peace until that damn movie double date. Maybe even some sleep for the first time in a day or two.

Getting in my missing Jeep.

Who the hell did this?

I was seething. Marcie rose her hands. "Relax there, kid. We can report this, cops handle these situations. It's just a car."

Just a car…The rottenness could never cease to amaze me. I began scanning the parking lot, looking for clues or witnesses. I saw tire treads on the street, and I followed them to the next street. They vanished as they turned towards the main road. I turned, trying to see if there would be a good vantage point from the beach. Someone would have seen something. My eye caught one of the parked cars. In the employee parking lot. Something was different. One car had a boot. It didn't belong there.

The car was a Neon.

A Neon.

The Neon.

Rixon had gone on a date to the beach today as well; I'd dropped him off. He'd left early, leaving his date. But Vee Sky wouldn't do this. She was annoying, obnoxious, and not very bright, but even she wasn't this bold. No, this was someone else.

If this was a vendetta, she was playing with the wrong person.

"Marcie? Call one of your friends to come get you. I'll wait until they pick you up." I whispered, containing myself. I'd forgotten she was there, but she needed to get lost and quickly.

"Already on it. Addyson? Yeah, hey bitch. We need to go shopping. I also need a ride. So, let's just do both. Yep. Orchard Beach. We've only got a couple of hours; I have another date tonight."

I zoned her out, and settled into a sitting position on the sidewalk.

I didn't react well to thieves. Especially when they had something to prove. Especially when they were childish and kept scratching at my nerves.

I knew who had my car.

And I was livid.

Patch has had enough of this shit!

So I've actually had writer's block on the recent chapter I'm working on. I like to have at least two chapters in the works before I post, but because it's been a week I went ahead. Also because audreyhepburn reminded me. It's when Marcie discovers Nora has her diary. I don't know if I want to do it first person, or third person omniscient. There are things I want to put in, ways Marcie thinks that could only be done in third person, yet...it doesn't sound right. I had a half a chapter written...and I deleted the whole thing. I just didn't like it. What do you guys think? Read and review!