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TEN
Perry's Coffee & Tea
Willow, Connecticut
Saturday, October 7, 2006
2:13 PM
Amy slumped back in the metal chair positioned inside of Perry's Coffee & Tea perched at the end of Willow's one shopping district, sitting on the main street that lead in and out of town. The metal was cold, matching the unnecessary air conditioning that circulated throughout the square room, but felt good against Amy's thin cardigan—but it was just about the only thing that felt good at the moment.
For the past hour, Amy and Taylor had been sitting inside the coffeehouse, waiting to hear back from the Enterprise in New Haven. In the time before that, the two had walked all the way back to David Hollbrook's house, ducking beneath bushes whenever they saw a squad car roaming around, only to find that their borrowed Lexus was missing from the driveway in which it had been parked. Not sure what to do, Amy had waited for Taylor to call the rental place back downstate before turning to find someplace crowded to hide out in. Making the trek over to Main Street, and finding that it was just about the only area they could blend in at, Amy listened to her friend's conversation as she tried to figure out whether or not the car had been towed to the police impound lot or sent back to where it had come from. By the time they reached the café, neither question had been answered, with the other person on the end of the line telling Taylor just to wait to see if it turns up.
While Amy knew there was probably a quicker way to figure out where the car had gone, it wasn't an option either of them were willing to risk. To walk back into the police station, the same station that had taken their purses and wallets from their pockets upon arrival and had neglected to return them—in all honesty, Amy had forgotten in the confusion—would be the same as asking to be arrested again, or so she thought. Judging by the way the sheriff, or whoever that had been in the interrogation room, had reacted to their presence, it was unlikely that he would let them walk away again. To go inside would be to undo John's release, and Amy would much rather leave her things behind than to face more time inside of a jail cell.
But how they were supposed to get back to New Haven was beyond both Amy and Taylor's comprehension. With only a mobile phone between them, which Taylor had managed to keep thanks to her habit of stuffing it in her bra, neither girl had the money or resources to call anyone for a ride. With all of their friends going in the way of the demon last month, anyone reliable was already six feet under, and neither girl knew anyone well enough to expect them to make the trip all the way up to Willow, especially since most students on campus didn't have a car.
Tapping her fingers against the metal tabletop, Amy pursed her lips as she looked around the coffeehouse. Aside from the two of them, only a handful of people sat inside, situated close together in the small shop. As conversations carried on around them, most of them in hushed tones to keep from being overheard, Amy momentarily pondered the idea of hitching a ride back to Yale. However, having already broken one law today, Amy wasn't too keen to bend another, especially since hitchhiking was considered fineable in Connecticut.
Pushing the thought aside, Amy turned her attention to Taylor, who looked more bothered by the idea of having to find a way back than she did. Though she knew that her friend wasn't used to having to rely on herself without money, especially since Taylor's family was more loaded than her own, Amy had a feeling that not being able to whip out a credit card to solve the problem was bothering Taylor more than she would ever admit. In fact, Amy had a feeling Taylor had only taken to investigating odd things because it gave her a reason to warm up the piece of plastic that sat abandoned in her wallet—that, and the fact that Taylor was beginning to thrive on danger.
For some reason, both of those things pestered Amy, making her feel as though Taylor was shoving herself into a life that wasn't meant for her, for either of them. With John's orders that they return to school and continue to act like normal girls—something she had been lobbying for ever since her friend had first brought up the subject of leaving Yale to stick their noses into something weird—Amy's mood had changed toward Taylor, giving her the sense that Taylor was up to something more than "doing the right thing" as she had previously stated her reason behind this had been. In the years that Amy had known her friend, Taylor had always been the last person to suggest they do something for the sake of humanity, always choosing to do what she wanted rather than what might assist anyone else. For her to suddenly turn a new leaf struck Amy as just as strange as two girls disappearing in a puddle of water in the middle of the night.
However, Amy had a strong suspicion that she was only feeling that way because of the last time she had been lead down the rabbit hole. A demon had been posing as her friend to push her onto the path she was currently turning away from, and that was something Amy couldn't ignore—the paranoia that anyone she knew could be a mask for a different creature. Ultimately, though, Amy sensed that wasn't the case this time, especially since during the days of Bailey, she had felt a sensation in her gut that was equal to someone tying her intestines in a knot. Whenever the two had brushed hands or bare skin, a sudden writhing would overtake her. For the past few days, Taylor and Amy had run into one another more than once, and nothing had yet to squirm in her stomach.
But that still left the question open for interpretation, for an explanation as to why Taylor was abruptly interested in tracking down the boogey man and killing him. For the past month, Amy had spent hours away from her own dorm room because of Taylor's obsession to find weird things and hunt them down, but Thursday night had been the first time that she had actually found anything. In the weeks leading up to that, Taylor had been buying books from the student store and local shops, spending money on pre-assembled shelves to hold them, and wasting away her days holed up inside her room instead of heading to class. It was like something in her was changing, going from one extreme to the next. At this time last year, if anyone had heard that Taylor Rosen was ditching school to head out on ghost hunts, they would have laughed before tracking her down at the nail salon to ask her why anyone would spread such a rumor.
Sitting up rigidly as the phone placed on the tabletop between the two girls began to ring loudly throughout the café, Amy glanced down at the black mobile right before Taylor snatched it up, noticing on the caller ID display that Enterprise was listed. Getting up from where she sat, Taylor crossed the small shop and disappeared outside, Amy following not far behind out of curiosity. For some reason, Amy had a feeling the disappearing Lexus had been returned to the rental lot rather than snatched up by the police, especially since the car didn't belong to either of them in the first place. On top of that, Amy also had a feeling that Taylor was about to be charged handsomely for getting arrested while driving it, in addition to someone having to take it back to New Haven.
Listening in the best she could, Amy picked up bits of the conversation, pieces that confirmed her suppositions. According to the person on the other end of the line, from what she could hear, the car had been towed by one of the police officers in Willow and that an extra hundred dollars was going to be added to Taylor's bill when she came to pay it. Tuning out the rest, especially when it came to her friend arguing over the Enterprise employee's claim that she wouldn't be able to rent from them again, Amy leaned against the wooden façade of the café, choosing to watch the people walking along the sidewalk instead. Across the way, two elderly women hobbled by while a trio of younger girls laden with bags followed behind. On Amy's side of the street, a man sat at a bench while on the phone, leaning farther back into his seat the longer he talked.
By the time Taylor ended her conversation—in a huff, judging by the way she snapped the mobile shut—Amy had watched as each of these people disappeared into different buildings or vehicles, leaving the pair of them to stand alone on an empty street. Feeling suddenly exposed, Amy swallowed hard and turned to head back inside Perry's Coffee & Tea, only to be grabbed by Taylor before she could do so. Furrowing her brow, Amy went slack as Taylor began to pull her toward the opposite end of the lane, finding that Main tapered off into nothing but an abandoned field. Looking around and discovering that a cluster of cars were parked along the final curb of the road they were standing on, probably belonging to the workers inside the clothing boutique that sat at the tail end, Amy narrowed her eyes in curiosity as Taylor headed for the oldest vehicle, peering inside the windows as though looking for something.
"What are you doing?" Amy asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
"We need a ride back to New Haven. And unless you know where your dad went…"
"You're going to steal a car?" Amy asked, raising her eyebrows. "Seriously? After everything we just went through, you're going to…" Trailing off as Taylor shrugged and smiled, Amy frowned. "Have fun."
"You're not coming?"
Reaching up to grab a lock of hair to twist absently, a habit she fell back on whenever she was unsure of what to say, Amy cleared her throat. "No."
Smirking, Taylor rolled her eyes. "Good luck getting back to school then."
Letting out an exasperated sigh, Amy shook her head and turned back toward Main, not bothering to check to see if Taylor was behind her. There was definitely something changing in her friend, something that was causing the girl to act reckless and insouciant, almost as though she didn't care about anyone or anything except for what she was doing at the moment. Turning around to see whether or not her walking away had changed the other girl's mind, Amy pivoted to look back just as Taylor slammed a rock from the path underfoot into the driver's side window, shattering the glass. Bunching her jaw in concern, as well as wonder over whether or not she should stop her friend, Amy took a step toward the girl just as the sound of an engine overturning filled the air. A second later, before she could do anything else, Taylor was gone, speeding down the dirt road in the old Buick she had quickly hotwired. Scoffing as the dust trail faded, Amy returned to town, finding herself abandoned and alone forty miles from where she was supposed to be.
Maybe I should have gone with her, Amy sighed, biting her lip.
Figuring there was only one way she was legally going to be able to return to Yale, an idea that she previously hadn't wanted to enact, Amy crossed away from Main Street and began toward West Hartford, hoping against hope that the officers inside would allow her to collect her things and leave. Though that didn't seem likely, Amy had a feeling that John was still around, probably remaining inside in at length in order to get more information on the case that he had taken over from the two girls—the case that should have been his in the first place. Knowing it would be better to either be reprimanded by John or taken into questioning by the police instead of being arrested once again for grand theft auto, Amy quickened her pace, knowing that the walk to the station was just upward of five miles.
Taylor didn't know what was wrong with her or what was causing her to act like a rebellious child. As she sat behind the wheel of a stolen vehicle, something she had done not even a few hours after being arrested for breaking and entering, she sped toward New Haven on the I-91 as though the speed limit was more of a suggestion than a regulation.
Gripping the wheel, she kept her hands firmly in place as her eyes darted back and forth from the road in front of her to the stretch of cars behind her, hoping against hope that none of them were a police cruiser intent of pulling her over. As the speedometer hit ninety, something she only drove on the abandoned stretch of roads back in Cicero whenever she was bored out of her mind, Taylor attempted to relax into the cloth seats the Buick provided, only sitting more rigidly the closer she got to her destination. All she had to do was get off the freeway, ditch the car somewhere within walking distance of Yale, and be free of what she had done. Hopefully it would be hours before anyone went looking for the car, giving her enough time to rid herself of whatever sudden carelessness had come over her.
Drifting onto the off ramp, Taylor swallowed hard as she veered around the cars stopped at the light, making a right toward the section of town she knew was frequented by people who were more likely to steal a hotwired car and less by college students who were holed up in their dorms, squirreling their time away as they studied for finals. Finding an abandoned field sitting behind an equally deserted building, Taylor put the car in park and used her sweatshirt to wipe her prints off of the steering wheel, backing up from it as though it was likely to explode when she was finished. Making sure her phone was tucked safely into her cleavage, Taylor started toward Yale, seeing the tall brick towers from a distance.
In all honesty, Taylor was beginning to become scared of what was going on with her. In the years past, she would rather be relaxing and studying than tracking things down. Even when Bailey Yost had suggested that it was their job to figure out what was going on with the deaths on campus back in September, Taylor had brushed her off and tried to pass the buck, wanting nothing more than to mourn the loss of her friends and return to normal. But after that ghost attack in her room, and after spending long hours behind the computer, something in Taylor had kicked into gear, causing her to act obsessive, something she had never been before. Most people knew that Taylor Rosen was the type of girl who would rather chase boys that spirits, who would rather get her nails done than break one fighting demons, and who would much rather go to class than forget it.
Prior to the ordeal at Yale, Taylor had planned to become an English teacher at her old private school, finding it to be an easy job that allowed faculty to have three solid months off a year, as well as a couple weeks vacation. She was going to finish university and live an easy life, her parents already having set up her financial stability but only allowing her access to the trust fund in her name after she turned twenty-five. Until then, she was supposed to find her own way in the world, using her credit card sparingly and having to keep her monthly bills under a thousand dollars. So far, she had been able to do that, even living under the projection of cash up until now, but lately, almost as though either the attack in her dorm or the coma she had been put under had sparked it, she had begun to live under the "life's too short" motto.
Pushing the thought away as she crossed over to Chapel Street, Taylor turned her mind elsewhere, over to Amy still abandoned in Willow. She was going to have to figure out a way to retrieve her friend, who had every right to walk away from Taylor's GTA stint, but that seemed to be an issue that was slowly becoming placed on the backburner. Amy could stay in Willow for a few more hours, there was something Taylor had to do first.
Making her way across campus, Taylor headed straight for Dwight Hall and up the stairs, thankful that she had had the mind to leave her dorm unlocked. Knowing that no one would dare break in, especially since theft on campus was ruled with an iron fist, Taylor pushed the door open and headed inside, making a beeline straight for the Els Dimonis Mortals D'aigua to pick up where she had left off.