She had left everything behind that night. Her car was still in the parking lot the next morning, her timecard was not punched with a clock out time. Her purse was still on the shelf in the employee room.
Felicity had just vanished.
While her parents were calling police and generally freaking out, Felicity herself was in perfectly safe condition. Well, as perfectly safe as one could be on the back of a motorcycle going probably at least twenty over the already fast highway speed limit. Her trademark copper colored curls had been tucked up into the helmet Alister gave her, lest anyone recognize her. She was now a runaway, at seventeen.
She never would have thought of herself as the type to run away, but she didn't think much of herself as a duelist, either. She had always been responsible. Straight-A student, varsity volleyball player as a sophomore, on the student council and SADD (Students Against Drunk Driving). She met Jessie, who seemed a dream boyfriend. He only trapped her and tormented her. He became her nightmare.
Alister promised her excitement, a way to change the world. A way to escape Jessie. A way to exact revenge.
The motorcycle began to slow, and Alister's voice echoed in her helmet via Bluetooth, "I'm starving. How about you?" They had been driving all night straight, and Felicity's only complaint was that her body ached from being hunched over on the bike for several hours.
"Not hungry," she answered as he took an exit. He followed signs to a popular diner. With all the people at the restaurant, no one would pay them any extra attention.
They were seated and given menus. Alister glanced through, quickly locating what he always ordered in a breakfast diner. Felicity propped her chin up with her hand looked out the window without even touching the menu. She looked bored. The waitress brought their coffee, and while Alister added a couple packets of sugar and a creamer, she drank hers black.
"A girl who drinks coffee black? You're weird," he prodded.
She shrugged without looking away from the window, the forlorn look never wavering from her features.
"Not up for talking?"
She sighed and looked down at her hands, with which she had begun shredding a napkin. Her lips parted several times, as though she were going to speak and then they would close.
"I don't want you to think I'm rude," she began with an apology. "I'm already becoming homesick. I don't know where this is going to end. I don't know how to be a person anymore."
At this last statement, Alister narrowed his eyes and leaned forward slightly, remembering that Dartz's orders were to gain her trust to bring her to their side.
"I've seen what Jessie did to you. You didn't deserve that." He actually hadn't seen what Jessie had done to her, but she didn't know that. Her violet eyes shot up and met his steel ones. He wasn't expecting her to do that, and ended up inspecting her eyes. They were gorgeous, accentuated with gold eye shadow and mocha eyeliner and mascara.
"How do you know about Jessie and what he did to me?"
The waitress brought Alister's plate, and refilled their coffees.
When she left, Alister spoke. "Our leader knows all. His name is Dartz. He was the one who saw you hurting and who sent me to save you." A perfectly manicured eyebrow quirked, and he knew he had come off as a looney.
"You're not going to take me to a jungle convent to poison me, are you?" she asked, trying to make her tone light but studying his response. Dealing with Jessie's narcissistic psychotic rampage had given her a crash course in psychology.
Alister's features darkened, and her anxiety spiked, hoping she hadn't made him mad. She didn't know what this guy was capable of.
"It's not like that," he defended quickly. "We are going to cleanse the world of people like Jessie. What do you have to lose?" Felicity's mouth dropped into a frown.
"What about my family?" As dysfunctional as her family was, she still loved them.
"You'll have a chance to save them."
"And what exactly are we doing to 'cleanse the world'? It sounds like the Holocaust and if it's anything like that I want absolutely no part in it."
Alister smirked. "It isn't anything like that, don't worry. I'd rather have Dartz explain it to you when we get there."
"Where is there?"
"You'll see."
Felicity gave up asking questions as he gave fewer and fewer word answers. She was probably annoying him, but it was hard to tell.
"Am I annoying you?"
He didn't look up from his plate as he casually responded, "Yes." He noticed how quickly her demeanor dropped to that of a kicked puppy. He looked up and frowned.
"What's wrong?" he asked, wondering how severely her psychosis was damaged from her ex.
"All I do is annoy everyone. It was Jessie's biggest complaint," she answered in a small voice. She excused herself to the bathroom as tears sprung to her eyes. Alister watched her walk away in surprise. She went to tears over nothing. He hadn't even used a mean tone when he admitted she was annoying him.
This mission will be the hardest he had yet. He didn't know anything about girls. There weren't any women swordsmen. Well, he figured they'd be called "swordswomen." While mulling over these thoughts, he realized he didn't really know how to get along with people in general.
"Raphael would know what to do," he thought as he kicked himself for upsetting her. He didn't know what her limits were. All Dartz said was she had been mentally and emotionally abused by her ex. No mention to how bad it was.
Felicity returned and Alister racked his brain trying to figure out a way to make her feel better without apologizing and bringing the whole issue up again. Wracking his brain, nothing surfaced.
Luckily his phone went off right at that moment. He glanced at the screen, and stood to walk out of Felicity's earshot while he answered Raphael.
"You have the girl?"
"Her name is Felicity, and yes she's with me. We're eating. Well, I'm eating. She won't."
"Dartz said she probably wouldn't."
"Wouldn't what? Eat?"
"Yeah. Just hurry up and meet us at the rendezvous point. I wanna get out of this shitty town."
"Whatever." He snapped his phone shut and headed back to their table, where the check lay. Felicity was back to staring out the window, thinking God knows what. He threw some bills down on the table and she jumped up instantly, not wanting to piss him off. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. He didn't respect her, she was too eager to please, but he couldn't help pitying her.
There's an emotion he hadn't felt in a long time.
They pulled on their helmets and roared off into the rising sun.
