Chapter Two
"Andrea?" Ceilidh nearly shrieked, her voice rising in both pitch and volume as she stared in utter incredulity at Jenria, "Ohno, you're not starting any of this Sixth Sense 'I see ghosts' bullshit, Jen!" the younger girl added, crossing her arms over her chest and taking a defiant stance as if it would change what the older Asian girl had heard over the phone. Jenria gaped at her friend's sudden indifference, a stray tear rolling down her cheek as more welled up in her lipid blue orbs.
"Cool it!" Adian snapped over his shoulder at Ceilidh. Something in the tone of his voice, an urgent echo in his words, actually moved the girl to silence when normally she would have continued on her rant. She snapped her mouth shut, staring at Jenria in a way that said she very nearly believed the whole thing was her fault to begin with. Adian turned back to Jenria, continuing to rub a hand over her arm comfortingly, "You sure it was her?"
"Sounded like her…" she mumbled back in reply, still gazing at Ceilidh with pleading eyes, wishing the girl would stop with her own glaring, "I'm serious. That voice, no one could fake it without having known her for years," she advocated, as much to Ceilidh as to Adian, "I know I know she's dead. We all saw it happen, but there was no mistaking her voice on that," she pointed to the crushed remains of the once black and red Nokia mobile.
Adian nodded silently, a frown on his features as he mulled things over in his mind. Finally he rose and forced Jenria to stand with him despite how horridly she was still quaking.
"Get some things together. Enough for a long trip. Bring your bankcards, your cash, everything. Leave the cells, though," he explained in a stern voice, glancing between the two girls who could only stare in confusion back at him.
"Adian, what - "Ceilidh, eyebrows knitting together.
"Do it. No arguments, just do it," he snapped, cutting her off without even a breath's hesitation. Though he was still standing before Jenria, hands on her shoulders to keep her from collapsing all over again, his face was dead serious, looking as if he could simply let her fall right then if only to remind Ceilidh of who was in charge via physical force. He wouldn't, though, as it was not in his nature to ever behave like that, and in fact his eyes were stricken as if some one had dropped a major emotional bomb on top of his head and left him to deal with it completely alone.
I suppose in a way Jenria did just that, Ceilidh reasoned as she nodded slowly to him, turning to head to her upstairs room, He was the closest to Andrea, and probably just hearing her name threw him back to the 'good old days'. Shit, man…just when we think life is gonna be all peaceful and crap…
Jenria watched the younger one leave the room and head up the stairwell before turning her watery gaze back on Adian. His stern leader face had vanished, leaving instead the same wounded appearance that was in his eyes before had taken to being written all across his face.
"What is it?" she asked hesitantly. A shake of his head was all she got for a response, "You'll tell us. Eventually, right?"
"After we leave. Please, Jen, no more. Just go get your stuff. We need to get out of here as fast as we possibly can," Adian pleaded, gripping her shoulders a touch tighter than he had been. Her lips pursed as if she were prepared to give argument, but instead she replied with a single nod. She detached herself from his grasp, stumbling slightly as she attempted to make it up the stairs. Adian let out a hefty sigh, crossing his arms over his chest as he stared out the window to the darkened field beyond. There was a deep ominous aura about that particular night, how the darkness seemed thicker than usual, as if it were trying to crush the whole old farmhouse in on itself.
I hate running…
"It was a warning," Adian suddenly said after a good half hour of driving in complete silence along a dark country road where only the occasional sickly yellow cone of light was cast down from ill maintained street lamps placed anywhere from a mile to five hundred feet apart.
Jenria, riding shotgun in the car, turned to Adian with a quirked eyebrow. Ceilidh leaned forward in interest, resting her arms on the back of Jenria's seat. Even though they had all since calmed a great deal after leaving the house in a rush, Jenria still had a hint of paleness about her, a gray tinge touching her skin that hadn't quite gone away, and Ceilidh and Adian both wore almost identical expressions of deep seeded worry that couldn't be shaken off. A handful of thir belongings were stowed in the trunk, the house left trashed in a sign of flight.
"A warning?" Jenria finally echoed after he refused to continue.
"Mhm. From Andrea, and before you say anything," he stated in a slightly louder tone, silencing Ceilidh who had started to speak again, finger in the air as she was prepared to make her earlier comment once again, "she gave it to me before she died."
He glanced at both girls, Jenria off to his side and Ceilidh through the rear view mirror. Both were waiting for him to carry on with his explanation.
"About a week before…before that battle, we were talking in her room. She actually told me she wasn't going to survive it. Not in so many words, though. It was something like 'I'm not going to be around for much longer'. I, being dumb, at the time took that to mean she was going to leave the group. She foresaw her own end, and you can believe me or call me a king bull-shitter, but none of us can deny that she was different from even us. In any case she said, 'You'll get your answers someday, after I'm gone. You have to run, first. Don't question it, just run. If you don't, you'll never live to see those answers'."
The car was hushed after Adian had concluded his explanation. Even the very breath the three took in and out of their bodies had a certain muted quality to it.
Keeping his eyes on the road, Adian added one more thing in a soft, almost strained voice.
"She knew I hated running, she had to give me the right incentive to do it. I wouldn't…I wouldn't have known otherwise, had that voice not been heard tonight."
"Was it really her, though?" Jenria asked, becoming slightly skeptical now that the initial shock had worn off and she'd become a fraction more lucid.
"I can't say. Whatever it was, it knew that I would listen if it was her," was his almost vague answer, given after shrugging noncommittally.
"Then what are we running from? I mean…the singing, and the noises…Adian, what was she warning us against? What if she was wrong, or worse, what if she was right but what we're up against is too strong even for us!" she continued to press, gazing at him with urgency in her eyes.
"I don't know!" Adian snapped, fingers gripping the wheel tightly. Both girls flinched, causing him to relax as much as he could manage to, "I don't know, hun. I really don't. I just have to trust her, trust what she said."
This earned him a frown and a reluctant nod from the Asian as she sat back in her seat and gazed out at the fields rolling by their car. A sign they passed put them at five miles to Mount Angel. Whether they would stop there, though, was only in Adian's mind and in no one else's, and was most definitely not something she felt up to asking at the moment. Something else, however, tugged at her mind long enough for her let it pass over her lips.
"Adian?"
"Hm?" Adian responded softly as rain started to patter at the windshield. A thin sheen of water built up before he even moved to turn the windshield wipers on, and the world outside added murkiness to its already thickly dark appearance.
"Was she…did she seem at peace when she talked to you?"
An uncomfortable silence followed before Adian cleared his throat and shook his head, voice cracking just a tiny bit. Jenria closed her eyes, not wanting to turn her eyes towards him for fear that she would find him in tears.
"No. No, she wasn't…"
In the end they drove half the night and well in to the amber light of early morning, Adian deliberately taking less known and windy roads the entire trip. Somewhere between Mount Angel and Silverton, the girls fell in to uncomfortable, tense sleep, Jenria often whimpering every few moments, her face screwed up with the images she was seeing through the fog of dreams. A few times Adian longed to reach over and soothe her with a touch and a kind whispered word, yet he some how knew nothing was going to ease the girl this night; too much had seeped in to all their minds, leaving them to be gripped in the clutches of emotional pain that dreams might bring.
Seeing his tank low on gas and feeling fatigue weigh on his eyelids and reaction times, Adian pulled in to a cheap out of the way roadside motel about five miles outside of Albany. He parked the car out in front of the office, pulling his jacket over his head to dash in through the now pounding rain that had hounded the car since its journey began. Though jeweled hues flickered smoky in the dawn sky, the day was already proving to be a dreary one with the droplets that cascaded down.
He quickly paid for a two-bed room in cash, avoiding the slightly antsy and curious stares from the grungy worker behind the counter. It was a scruffy place at best, and not a very hospitable one at that, but the reluctant leader of the three knew that it was better this way, less conspicuous and noticeable.
After he had the key in hand, he quickly went back and drove the car around to the shorter side of the L-Shaped building. It took a while to rouse the girls, and while Ceilidh just stumbled around bleary-eyed, mumbling about wanting to go back to sleep, Jenria nearly sent Adian flying with a punch thrown in terror after being yanked so roughly from a terrible dream. She apologized repeatedly as the three dragged their tired, car worn bodies and belongings inside the dingy hotel room, but Adian waved it off as nothing important.
Ceilidh instantly hit the first bed without even bothering to find covers, asleep within seconds. Jenria, though yawning still, had decided she was done with frightening dreams for the night and opted to take a watch shift, knowing good and well that Adian was going to bring it up the second they arrived. Shaking his head at Ceilidh's actions, he gave the other girl a grateful smile and took the other bed for himself.
She herself took the table near the window, drawing up the blinds part way and sitting with her arms resting on the table's surface. Though tense and observant at anything even remotely out of the ordinary, Jenria tried desperately to will her mind away from any dark thoughts that she might brood upon, yet the silence of the room, save for the soft breathing of her friends, and the golden sun so dusty and faded behind the grayness of the morning simply allotted too much free time for one's musings to wander in to unwanted territory.
A warning, given by a friend three years dead. Weird phone calls for over a month, stopping and starting just as sudden as they please. Ominous feelings all around. ...well, no one ever said we had a normal life. Just what does it all mean though? She told Adian we'd get answers, but that raises another important question: are we ready for those answers?
She let out a heavy sigh, squinting as the sun managed to peek through its veil briefly before continuing to lift high in the sky behind the gray blanket. Turning her tired eyes away, she rubbed at her forehead and glanced back at her two friends, a deep frown creasing her features.
What if we can't outrun this? We've already lost so much...could any one of us survive, emotionally and mentally, should they lose the other two? I know I couldn't. What an existence we have here. We couldn't just be normal like the rest of the world, could we?
Wincing at her mental running, she shook her head at no one in particular and went back to gazing out of the window, silencing her mind once and for all. Getting completely caught up in her own depressive though process was no way to spend a watch shift, especially when vigilance was of the up most importance.
Hours passed in what felt like days, and the grayness of the day never broke, rain eventually joining in the gloom as if it thought the ambiance wasn't dreary enough. Just when she thought her eyes were going to burn from the inside out from being open for so long, a gentle hand clasped her shoulder. Adian was above her, giving a weak and weary smile from beneath red eyes and too little sleep. He gestured to the bed with a silent wave of his hand. Jenria hesitated, not wanting to be taken over by terrible dreams once more, but knowing good and well that if she didn't rest some time, she would become more of a liability should something happen.
She rose, stretching out her sore, stiff joints, and stumbled half-awake to the comfort of a mattress and warm covers. She was asleep within minutes, leaving Adian now to the silent din of the hotel room.
The shifts changed twice, Ceilidh taking over for Adian; Jenria taking over for Ceilidh, before Adian finally woke and roused the youngest of the three along with him. He gathered them at the table and asked for quick reports from both of them. Neither had seen anything out of the ordinary, but each felt a certain presence nearing their location.
"It's going slow," Ceilidh mumbled, tracing a finger along the table as she tried to wake her body from sleep. Messy tendrils of red covered half her face, the other half slightly scrunched up from her chin resting heavily in her hand, "Teasing. Like it doesn't want us to run away quickly, but it still wants us to know its coming."
Adian nodded slowly, his own gaze turned out the glass pane, "So we all know now. We can all feel it."
"Adian, what the hell are we supposed to do? Just keep running, hotel to crappy third rate hotel-"
"Well if you'd rather take a credit card and stay at the damn Hilton," Adian snapped angrily, turning his cold eyes on Jenria. She only returned the glare and continued on undaunted.
"-trying to out run some unknown, unidentified force for the rest of our lives? I mean, shit hun, I know she said 'run or you won't survive', but for how long? And what's going to happen when it catches us? Which, undoubtedly it will, considering we're, oh, you know, three spiritually gifted young adults who probably show up on the radars of dark forces like a Goddamn 747 coming in for a hot landing!"
Jenria's last statement left a ringing silence in the air for nearly two minutes before Adian finally muttered in a flat, irritated tone, "You talk a lot."
"And you're a loony," the Asian retorted.
"She's got a point, Aiddy," Ceilidh managed to chime in, her voice quieter than usual as she was prepared to get a thorough verbal lashing for agreeing with Jenria. Aidan let out a growling sigh, pressing two fingers to the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes.
"I'm aware," he said shortly, "but if you haven't noticed, Andrea didn't give me much of a backup plan."
"I thought it was your job to come up with a plan in the first place,"
"Jesus, Jenria! Chill the 'eff out!" Adian suddenly exclaimed, standing up and throwing his chair against the table. The noise echoed through the room, a loud crack that sounded nearly as lethal as a gun firing. Jenria and Adian stared each other down, Ceilidh finding herself with her head in her hands, muttering things about 'insane people'. It very nearly seemed as if the two were going to turn it in a physical scuffle, but Jenria finally put her hands in the air in a truce.
"All right, I'm sorry. I'm just stressed out about this. You gotta remember, I was the one getting the phone calls originally," she explained as calmly as she could manage. Adian took his seat again, tense and ready for another reason to make a scene but willing to remain placid in light of the recent events.
"I know, I know, but it's not about you anymore. That's not to say you were being selfish, its just...last night it got us all involved, and it probably wanted us all from the start. You were just...the go-to target."
Ceilidh nodded in agreement, running a hand through her mussed hair as she interjected, "That still leaves the question, 'What exactly are we going to do about it?' on the table."
"Look, at this moment I just can't think, this feeling in my gut being so strong. I know you two are having problems with it as well. Let's check out of here, get a little further down the state, and then try to come up with a game plan from there. Agreed?"
Both girls gave a silent nod, and the meeting broke. Adian allowed everyone to take a shower and get cleaned up before the trip out, promising food somewhere down the road. Once the car was repacked Adian went to return the key in the front office.
Instead of the scruffy man from the night before, a much more pleasant older woman of about fifty with grayed hair and fascination with pastel hued clothing greeted him with a smile and a cheerful 'Good afternoon'. Behind her a radio played some sort of contemporary music from a station in the nearby town.
"Not with this weather," Adian commented with a smirk and a thumb jerked over his shoulder at the gloomy outside.
"Hey now, any day is a good day as long as you make it one!" the lady said, retrieving his key from him.
Guess you would think that, working in a horrid dump like this, Adian mused, wondering just what had given him such a cynical voice. Perhaps it was all that time hiding away from the world instead of living in it.
Rather than speak his words aloud, though, he simply nodded in agreement, "Okay, good point. I'll keep that in mind."
"Good! Its never good for a young one such as yourself to go about living with his head all in a dark state of mind every day. But listen to me ramble on like that. Probably bored to death of me! Go on, son, and try to have a really good day,"
Adian actually found himself laughing now, pleased by this woman's disposition. It was a stark and welcome contrast to what he'd been facing for the past twenty-four hours. He assured her that he would do just that and began to head for the door just as the radio switched over to afternoon news.
"In our top story today, Canby police are still baffled as to the strange fire that completely overtook a farm house about ten miles outside of town, just on the city border," the radio announcer explained. Adian stopped short of exiting, hand inches from the door handle. The kind woman called to him, but his ears were completely tuned to the news spouting from the speakers of the small radio, "So far nothing indicating arson has been located within the remains of the house, yet investigation crews haven't pinned down an electrical or accidental reason, either. More confusing yet is the current location of the houses' residents, who seem to have simply vanished during the night and have left no indication as to where they might be. An Alex Cross owned the house and it was said by neighbors that he lived with two other females, names unknown. Police are searching for their whereabouts and are working with the townspeople to discern if foul play of some sort was involved. Alex Cross is said to be in his early twenties, with dark blonde or light brown hair..."
"Young man?"
Adian let out a terrified yelp and just about jumped out of his skin. The kind woman was now next to him, a hand on his shoulder and a tight line of worry drawn through her features. She'd probably been there through the entire announcement, and Adian had just completely tuned it out.
"Are you all right? You just stopped right there, dead in your tracks, and turned as white as a sheet!" she asked now that she knew she had his attention. Adian's lips moved but no sound came out. He cleared his throat to rid his mouth of the cotton feeling inside, nodding slowly to the woman.
"I'm fine, really," he assured her, voice too thin for his liking. He prayed she couldn't tell that his fingers were trembling in their outstretched position. She gave him a skeptical look, eyes darting back to the radio for just a moment. The article was over now and had switched to something in local news.
"You sure? Maybe you had a dizzy spell or something. I could get you a drink of water or something. You shouldn't be driving in that condition,"
Adian opened his mouth to accept her offer, if only to put the woman's mind at ease, but he instantly caught sight of her face, realizing that despite the kindness in her voice her expression had changed, eyes suddenly steely.
Shit. Shit shit shit. She probably thinks I'm a fugitive on the run. She heard the description. Damn paper trails. Even if I used a fake name...
"Nope, I'm wonderful. Just peachy keen," he said, straightening up and putting on an air of complete indifference even as he blanched at his rather odd wording, "My sister and my girlfriend are waiting, though, so I'd better go before I get my ears chewed off from either end. Thank you very much, and have a wonderful rest of the day," he quickly rambled off, pulling out of the woman's grasp as she stared, mouth agape, at his sudden change of disposition. Without another word or a chance for her to protest he bolted out the door and took off headlong for the car, giving her just enough time to regain her composure. She pushed the door back before it slammed closed and started calling out to him. He didn't slow until he reached the car, providing a very daring move by hopping over the hood, sliding across it and landing rather wobbly on the other side. He quickly regained balance and yanked the driver's side door open, hurling himself inside and starting the car without even closing the door behind him.
Both Jenria and Ceilidh were crying out in shock at him, demanding to know what was happening. He simply cursed under his breath and jerked the car in to reverse, the car emitting a squeal of protest as he did so. He grabbed the car door, yanked it closed, and swung the vehicle around to face the exit. A glance at his rearview mirror showed him the woman darting back inside the office, though for what purpose Adian's adrenaline driving mind could not imagine, even if he could fathom a small guess. Cursing even louder he sped the car out of the parking lot and on to the luckily empty road.
"Adian!"
"Not now, Jen,"
"Damn it, Adian, answer me!"
"Give me a Goddamn minute!"
The car rang silence, minus the car being pushed to its max under the sudden lead foot of its driver. About twenty miles down the road Adian let out a shaky breath and slowed, pulling over to a dirt shoulder that overlooked a set of rolling green hills and a few farmhouses speckled about the land. He left the engine running, taking his foot off the break pedal once the car had stopped. He dropped his head down on the steering wheel, arms draped across it and hands resting on the dashboard. Jenria's brows knitted in worry and she touched two fingers to his shoulder, testing to find out if he'd explode again.
"Our house was burned down," he said, voice muffled and drained, "and the police are looking for us. For questioning, I'm sure, considering we ran away from a burning house rather than calling on their ohsohelpful selves first. Lovely bit of suspicious there."
"Burned...down?" both girls echoed, eyes growing as huge as saucers. Adian nodded, keeping his head rested on the steering wheel as if the very act of lifting it would kill his very spirit right there.
"And the police are after us?" Ceilidh added, slapping a hand to her forehead and falling against her seat.
"The woman at the counter, she might have already called them, I dunno. I heard it on the radio and freaked out, got her all concerned. The instant she heard the description she completely changed on me," he added as an afterthought, slumping down in his seat like he'd been transformed in to a wet rag and thrown against it.
"How?" Jenria prodded.
"How, what? How did our house burn down?"
"No, I've got that one figured out. Whatever's after us is obviously pretty cunning. Burn down the house, make it look suspicious..."
"The police catch us and while we're being questioned, we're being fucked at the same time," Adian finished, nodding slowly, "Then you're wondering how the police know? The house was under my alias, but that doesn't stop the fact that so is everything else, bankcard included. I used that for purchases in town, so essentially half of Canby, even as small as it is, knows my face," his head rolled over and he stared at Jenria, expression pained, "There was too little we did to make ourselves completely disappear because we didn't want to, but I'll be damned if it hasn't caused our end."
Jenria frowned, shaking her head with a strange resolve as she placed an outstretched hand firmly on his shoulder, "We're not dead yet, and so long as we're still on the road and away from anyone's radar, police included, we'll survive this thing. Somehow."
An eyebrow was raised on Adian's face.
"Three hours ago you were questioning our ability to out run it, now suddenly you're playing Oracle and promising a "Get out of jail free" card?"
Ceilidh gave a giggle, Jenria a shrug and a smile.
"I just saw you haul ass like you've never hauled before, and it made me remember you've pulled us out of the fire too many times to count. Let's called it 'renewed faith', instead of 'Jenria playing Oracle', okay?"
Adian actually mustered a smile as he sat up and brought the car out of park.
"That sounds like the best thing I've heard all day," he agreed, pulling the vehical back on to the road, plotting a new course and small plan.
Even if she did was about to turn the girls and me in, the woman still had a point. "...any day is a good day as long as you make it one!" Granted evil forces and the police are chasing us, but I think Jen's right, we'll survive so long as we stay one step ahead of the game.