I am soo happy to be getting such a good response for this story! Thank you for all the reveiws, favorite story and favorite author adds. I'm definitely gonna keep going on this story. It might take me a while because I've got a lot of things going on right now, but bear with me, and continue to leave some feedback. :
Victoria walked lazily down the aisle in the small convenience store. Kate was off with Chase somewhere not too far away; she could hear Kate's giggles from where she was. She lightly banged the red plastic shopping basket against her thighs as she listened to Chase say something incoherent to her. By the way they were acting you'd think Kate was going out with him and not Pogue.
Victoria rolled her eyes and continued to wander around. Shopping really wasn't Victoria's thing; nothing real girly was for her. Parties? Of course, she was always the main attraction. Soccer? Yeah, she scored half the goals last season. But shopping? It really didn't interest her; spending money on useless stuff like those $50 jeans Kate bought an hour ago didn't make much sense.
Idly, she stopped and looked at the wares on a shelf. It was the soda aisle, with pop, beer, and all that good stuff. What caught her eye was a big, flashy, lime-green sign that shouted "SALE! Crazy Energy Drink, $2.50 +tax." She lifted her eyes to the silver, cardboard cases above it, each holding six eight-ounce black cans of caffeinated drink. She shrugged as she reached up and grabbed two cases. "Why not?" She mumbled to herself. "Could come in handy as soon as it came time to study."
"Victoria! Where are you, girl?" Kate's voice wafted over the shelves.
"Over here, hold on a second," Victoria called back. She picked up her pace to a normal walking speed, leaving the aisle and turning to her left to go look for Kate and Chase. Passing by empty aisles, Victoria got all the way to the end and saw the two of them standing near a rack of sunglasses. She gave a small smile as she approached. "You rang?"
Kate laughed lightly. "Ha, funny. Yeah, we're about ready to get going. You all set?"
"Um, yeah," she replied looking at the sunglasses rack.
Chase raised an eyebrow as he looked into her basket. "Energy drinks? You seriously need that?"
"Yes, I do," Victoria replied with a defiant smile. "Being energized doesn't always come natural to me."
"That I find hard to believe," Kate teased with a smile. She looked up with a light in her eyes behind Victoria. "Oh, hey Caleb!"
"Hey Kate," Caleb said in his deep voice as he approached the group. "What are you up to?"
"Oh, just stocking up the room. Hey!" Kate squealed as Chase jumped up behind her and screamed 'boo!' "You scared me," she said with a giggle. Victoria chose at that moment to sigh and roll her eyes; the two of them did act like they were going out.
Hearing her sigh, Caleb glanced down at her and smiled warmly. "Hey there," he said in a voice just as warm as his dark brown eyes appeared as he gazed into hers. Victoria returned the smile with one of her own accompanied by a small 'hey'.
Kate must have noticed the connection between them as she kept speaking. "Anyways, I wanna go check out that new Brad Pitt film. Who wants to come?" She looked slyly towards Victoria and Caleb.
"Aw, no thanks," Caleb said sort of sullenly. "I've got some errands to run for my mother."
Chase shrugged and smiled at Kate. "I'll go."
Victoria gave him a sort of look. 'Of course you will,' she thought as she turned back to Kate. "I've already seen it," she said sweetly. She didn't have a good feeling about Chase, as nice as he seemed, and she didn't want to spend unnecessary time with him. "You guys go ahead, I'll run back later."
Caleb brightened up a little after hearing that. "Well, instead of running back to the dorms, how would you like to run a few errands with me?"
Victoria grinned. "Alright, sounds good to me. Lemme go pay and I'll meet you outside, okay?"
"Okay, cool," Caleb said. "See you later, Kate. Chase," he nodded to both of them as he stepped outside.
"Bye Caleb," Kate called after him. She looked over at Victoria with a look of amusement. "Have fun, Vick."
"And you with him," Victoria replied as she stuck her tongue out. She quickly went and paid for her cases of energy drink and hurried out the door. She looked around the street, trying to see where Caleb had parked. She didn't even know what kind of car he drove. A car horn honked, directing her attention to a silver corvette. Smiling, Victoria made her way over towards the waving Caleb.
"Hey, you made it," he remarked as Victoria opened the door and sat down, dropping the plastic bag at her feet. She turned and stuck her tongue out at him. "Yeah, I did as a matter of fact. I was kind of afraid you'd left without me."
"Now why would I do that?" He asked as he pulled out into the sparse traffic and started driving out towards the country side of Ipswich.
"Oh, I don't know," she said quickly. "Sometimes people do that." Victoria relaxed back into the seat. "I'm not saying that you're that kind of person, but I've met a few people who'd do that," she added to assure herself that he didn't take it as an insult.
Caleb let a deep, rich laugh roll from his chest. "It's alright, I know what you mean." He steered them down off of the main road onto one that rolled into the woods. "People can be assholes sometimes, and it's hard to tell them all apart."
"Exactly," agreed Victoria. The wind rushed through her blonde hair as they drove steadily through the woody area, whipping it across her face. She turned her face up to look at the bright blue sky, barely visible above the brilliantly colored fall trees. "Wow," she said softly to herself.
Caleb turned and smiled mysteriously at her. "Beautiful, huh?" He asked her. As he looked at her, he didn't know for sure whether or not he was talking about the scenery outside the car or the passenger in it.
Victoria turned back to him and nodded eagerly. "It is. Back home, all we've got is rocky shores and stupid sea gulls and boats." She laughed softly to herself. "It's definitely nice to have a change in scenery."
"So, I hear you're from Augusta, huh?" He asked, glancing at the road for a moment, then back at her.
"You've heard right," she replied, titling her head towards him. "Fishing hell-hole of the world."
"Can't be that bad."
"Oh, but it can be," Victoria countered. "Absolutely nothing up there but fish." She shrugged. 'Well, maybe now would be a good time to ask him. I need to know!' "Anyways, I hear that you've got some deep family roots here," she mentioned casually.
"Um, yeah." Caleb turned off down a dirt road and continued to move his eyes from her to the road and back to her again. "My family was one of the original settlers of the Ipswich colony."
"Oh really? That's cool," Victoria nodded as she thought about it. "Kate tells me that you are really close with the descendants of the other families that settled Ipswich."
"She's right then," he said with a small laugh. "Pogue, Tyler, Reid and I all grew up together. It's cool in a way, I guess."
"I'll say," Victoria agreed. They drove in silence for the rest of the way, occasionally glancing at each other in the awkward silence and offering a small, nervous laugh every once in a while.
After a little while, they pulled up to a rickety wooden fence enclosing a large field and an old, dark house. "Where are we?" Victoria asked curiously.
"My family's old colony house," Caleb replied in a dark tone. He grabbed a small, white paper bag off of the dashboard and got up out of the car.
"Does anyone still live here?" She asked him, looking up at his tall, lean figure.
"Just our caretaker Gorman-"
"BAM! BAM!" Gunshots exploded, and Victoria ducked down behind the dashboard.
"Gorman! It's me!" Caleb shouted holding up his hands in a sort of motion to show he didn't mean any harm. He looked down at Victoria through the corners of his eyes and smirked. "He doesn't see as well as he used to."
"Um, you think?" Victoria spoke in a shocked voice as she slowly sat up. Caleb laughed.
"Who's with you?" A threatening, but feeble voice shouted from inside the house.
"Just a friend," Caleb shouted harshly back. He nodded down at her and closed the car door. "I'll be right back, stay here." Victoria nodded, and he turned and walked quickly through the gate, down the path, and out of sight into the house.
Victoria watched him as he disappeared. She couldn't help but get the vibe that he felt troubled when they pulled up. It might just have been that her senses were going haywire just then; the area of woods where she was sitting was starting to tweak her nerves. The wind chose to blow right then, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up on end. She glanced around her, turning around to look at the road they just came off of. The leaves on the road were dancing in the wind, making it look as though some invisible being was standing there tossing them around.
The cold wind rushed down the back of her shirt, sending her shivering in the silver car. Victoria couldn't help but feel like she was being watched right then. 'You're just paranoid, Vic. Remember last night? That's all it is,' she tried to reassure herself. After a moment, she felt her heart start to relax.
That was until she felt the huge jerk in her stomach. "Oh!" She cried out softly, shoving her fist to her abdomen as if she was trying to stifle it. Her eyes flickered to black almost immediately as she gritted her teeth against the throbbing pain. Darting back and forth, her eyes scanned the area, searching for whatever might be inflicting this.
It wasn't the first time she felt it. It'd happened three times in the two weeks before she left for Spenser, and since she showed up, this was the second time. Victoria didn't know what to make of it. Part of her wanted to tell Caleb about who she was and what happened to see if he knew any thing about it, but the other part was on guard dog duty, chomping on her to keep her mouth shut. She groaned as the pain dulled to almost nothing, and she closed her eyes for a moment.
"Hey, you okay?" Caleb asked as he approached the car.
Victoria looked up and offered a small smile. "Yeah, I'm okay," she said with a forced cheerfulness.
"Good," Caleb said, getting into the car and buckling his belt across his chest. "So," he stuck the key in the ignition and started the car. "You need to go back to the dorms to change, or shower or anything?"
"It depends, why?" Victoria asked in suspicion.
Caleb smiled over at her. "We're going to Nikki's."
"What's Nikki's?" She asked slowly with a confused smile.
Caleb grinned and looked back as he started to back the car onto the road. "You'll see."