Disclaimer: Ok, same shpiel applies; I own nothing, yadda yadda yadda.
Author's Note: Oh, and by the way, I have NO idea where this story is headed, and I will need feedback from you, the all-powerful readers to let me know what I'm doing! Cause I sure as hell don't….
Onward with the story…
Fine tremors running down her body, Jenny listened to the lecture with increasing unease. Professor Luciard was saying something about how Ragnarok is not only the end of the world, but also when the Nine Worlds become open to each other, no runes or portals involved, as well as strangely centered in Pennsylvania. (A/N: I just made this part up, I don't know if its true or not, but if the shoe fits…)
Shit.
As soon as the lecture finished, Jenny bounded out of the hall, racing to get back to her dorm room. Heedless of the watched-feeling that greeted her, she hurriedly plugged in her laptop to the phone jack in the wall. Thinking better of sending an email to everyone at their respective colleges, she e-mailed Kris, saying, rather curtly, that she would be leaving on a slight vacation for about a week, two weeks tops, to clear her head and relax.
Practically shaking in her haste, she booked a one-way flight to Pennsylvania leaving in two hours. Quickly making a phone-call to the attendance office, she explained that a family emergency would be keeping her away from school for approximately two weeks.
Throwing things into a duffel bag, she grabbed her car-keys and pillow and scrambled off of the college campus to the airport, practically breaking every speed limit in the process.
The watched feeling never went away.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. (A/N: It seems a lot of my paragraphs are starting this way… he he… don't blame me! The spiders made me do it!)
I need to keep Jenny from getting to Pennsylvania. God knows what my bloody ancestors will do to her once she does. I don't know what she's thinking, but it can't be good.
He had heard Professor Luciard's lecture and it was all true. He had no idea how this annoyingly correct professor had gleaned this rather classified information, and wasn't entirely sure he wanted to find out.
Right now, in this instant, I need to keep Jenny from getting to her grandfather's house. That's all, nothing else.
Damn it!
Her flight was delayed. Too much fog and too much turbulence. The expected wait time was another fourteen hours. After hauling ass just to get to the airport in time, the flight was delayed. Fourteen hours.
Just my luck, Jenny grumbled to herself. I should have just ignored this whole business and taken up rug making instead of World Mythology and Ancient Cultures.
She built her class schedule on what her interests were. Of course, at the time, her focus was to find some tiny loophole in the whole complex mass of laws and mythos and lore surrounding the people of the dark that would permit her, in either skill or by law to bring Julian back. And a lot of good it did me, she thought bitterly to herself, it only got me raped and earned the distrust of all my friends.
All her friends, of course, thought she was insane. Dee had gone ballistic, Audrey shrieked and slapped Jenny across the face, Michael, eyes the size of dinner plates, fell over in a dead faint, Zach and Summer tried to talk some reason into her.
Tom, of course, had been furious with her when she announced her choices to the group. She, wanting to be contrary to Tom's wishes for at least once in her life, told him that it was her decision and her life. Furious, he stormed off. A week later, she caught him making out with the captain of the cheerleaders. In the back of Jenny's car. (A/N: From then on, she only drove cars with no back seats mainly in the form of expensive Mercedes Benz's. Specifically silver SLK 320's.) Tom, being Tom, denied it, saying that she was in need of mouth-to-mouth. Jenny slapped him squarely across the face and dumped him on the spot. Three days later while Jenny was walking home, it having been too nice of an evening to drive, from Zach's house, Tom hauled her behind a bush, conked her on the head with a rather large tree branch, and committed the horrid deed.
For a while after it had happened, she had been in total denial. She kept telling herself that it wasn't Tom, that it was somebody else, but even if she was right, it was little consolation. A police officer and his cab-mate found her the next morning, battered, bruised, and with a large lump on the back of her head. He said that she could have died. If she remembered correctly, the officer that found her never touched her. She had a faint recollection of him knowing her name…
Shaking her head at the memories, she got up to go buy a book to read from one of the many shops lining the crowded hall of Gate 14-B.
Walking into a generic sell-all shop, she thumbed through a few books before deciding on a very long civil war novel. Normally, she would have immediately picked up a fantasy or science fiction book, but, having had too much of the unknown for any number of lifetimes, she chose the safe option. The past was safe. At least she knew what happened, none of this waking-up-and-not-knowing-if-I-will-still-be-alive-to-wake-up-again fear that had gripped her all throughout the second Game, and immediately after the third.
Sighing, she paid for the book, a Hershey bar, and a very large cup of coffee; she walked back to her seat, waiting resignedly for the delay to be over and done with as soon as the weather would allow.
No such luck.
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Authors Note: yes, I know it's not as long as the first chapter, but its 11 at night on Christmas no less, and my attention span is currently less than that of a gnat, owing in large to the huge amount of chocolate I have accumulated today. I promise the next chapter will be longer, and hopefully up by New Years Eve, if not sooner. I promise not to fizzle out after the initial drive to write, as I know happens to the most hard-core authors: they are all excited about writing something, they work on it at every opportunity but then they slowly… stop… going… I should know. Personal experience lends a hand for once… ok; I am officially rambling, and will allow you to return to your normally scheduled programming. By the by, sorry about the lack of Julian dialogue in this… I couldn't really thing of what I wanted him do or say, so I kind of… temporarily ignored him.