Purple | Cole Stewart -VERSION DISCONTINUED

Chapter Nineteen: Discoveries

From what I had seen, there were only two major chain restaurants in all of western Virginia: Cracker Barrel and Waffle House. And just our luck, only one was open before nine o’clock in the morning. 
“Thank goodness,” Liam said in a solemn voice as he parked a short distance away from the Waffle House. “I don’t know how we would have chosen between these two fine culinary establishments.” I snorted.
He had nominated himself to order whatever he could afford with twenty bucks, and refused to let either me or Ruby go with him. Before he could leave, though, Zu caught his attention by waving her small notebook at him.
“Done already?” She nodded. “Why don’t you have Chubs check your answers? No, don’t make that face, He’s better at math than I am, anyway.”
“You’re damn right I am,” Chubs said without looking up from his book.
Zu flipped open the notebook and scribbled out a few words before flipping the notebook towards Liam. He grinned.
“Whoa, whoa-long division? I think you’re getting ahead of yourself, ma’am. You still haven’t conquered your double digit multiplying.” With that, Liam walked off towards the Waffle House.
“You really have to stop encouraging him. He needs to accept reality at some point.” Chubs said to Zu, causing her face to scrunch up. She punched him in the shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he said, but he clearly wasn’t. “It’s just a waste of time and energy to teach you this stuff when you’re never going to get the chance to use it.”
“You don’t know that,” Ruby interrupted, flashing Zu a smile.
“Yeah,” I cut in. “You’ll be miles ahead of everyone else your age when things get back to normal.”
Whatever normal was supposed to be- these days, I really didn’t know. I didn’t want to admit it, but Chubs was probably right. How was long division going to help Zu in a world like this?
“You know what I’d be doing if things were normal?” Chubs asked. “I’d be picking which college I was going to attend later this fall- Carter, you’d already be there, wouldn’t you? I‘d have taken my SATs, gone to football games and prom, taken chemistry…” his voice trailed off, but we all knew what he was thinking.
“Pffft,’ Ruby said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Like you would have ever gone to a football game.”
“Hey, I resent that!” Chubs handed Zu’s notebook back to her. “Here, you need to work on your nines.” he turned back to Ruby in the passenger seat. “I can’t believe you of all people fell for his cotton candy dreams.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You were in Thurmond for what- five years?”
“Six.” Ruby corrected. “And you’re missing the point. It’s not that I believe in what Lee’s saying; it’s that I hope he’s right. I really, really, hope he’s right, because what’s the alternative? We’re stuck hiding out until their generation dies off? We flee to Canada?”
“Good luck with that,” I muttered, then continued a little louder. “Canada and Mexico have both put up walls- keep us out and them in.”
“Because they thought IAAN was a contagious disease.”
“No, because they’ve hated us all along and were only looking for the right excuse to keep our fat asses and fanny packs out of their countries forever.” Chubs replied.
Liam reappeared then, carrying five styrofoam containers as best he could in his two hands. He was almost running towards us, leading me to believe that something had gone terribly wrong inside the small restaurant. 
Ruby leaned over and popped open the door for him when he was close enough, and Liam dumped the containers he had been holding into her lap.
“Oh god, what now?” Chubs cried.
“Whoa-” Ruby said as she tried to move the containers into a manageable position. Betty’s engine started up with a snarl, and we went flying backwards- down the road and into a nearby alleyway. We came to a quick stop, and the force threw us all forward.
“Lee, what the hell-”
“We’re… going to stay here for a while,” he panted. “Don’t panic, but I think I saw… I mean, it’ll just be safer here for a bit.”
“Oh yeah, start a sentence with ‘don’t panic’ that always works,” I muttered, reaching forward to grab three of the containers from Ruby and distribute them to myself, Zu, and Chubs.
“You saw her.” It wasn’t a question; Chubs already knew the answer, and so did I. “Lady Jane.”
Liam rubbed the back of his neck and leaned forward to peer out of the alley. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure.”
Dammit.
“Holy hell,” Chubs squawked. “Pretty sure or definitely sure?”
I was really hoping Liam would say pretty sure. Sadly, the entire world hated me, so I did not get my wish.
“Definitely sure. She’s got a new set of wheels -a white truck- but I’d recognize that smug face anywhere.”
“Did she see you?” I asked, setting my food down next to me. We couldn’t really see anything outside of the alley, so I figured I should get a better look with my abilities.
“I don’t know,” Liam replied. “Probably not, otherwise she and whoever her new boy toy is would have tried to run me down. They drove by just as I was leaving.”
I closed my eyes and let out a breath, drawing in what I could see like I always did, until other things started to fill in and my body relaxed. The voices around me faded away as I let my bubble float up through the ceiling and down the alley, searching for a truck-I couldn’t see color when I did this- and Lady Jane. 
Nothing. It looked like we might be in the clear.
I floated back down and opened my eyes. “I think we’re good- it doesn’t look like she’s in the parking lot, so she probably left already.
Four heads turned to look at me at the same time.
“What?” I asked as I opened up my styrofoam container. It was nice and simple- scrambled eggs, bacon, two pancakes, syrup.
“How the hell do you know that?” Chubs asked.
I shrugged. “I just did the drawing thing- y’know, the one that lets you see out into your surroundings?”
Silence.
“Wait- does that- is that not a normal Blue thing?”
Chubs shook his head, Liam just kept staring at me. I let out a sigh. “Damn. Okay, so I do this thing where I close my eyes and imagine everything I can see-or could see, before I close my eyes- and then the things I can’t see just kind of fill in? I guess?”
“Huh.”
That was all Liam said before he turned back to his breakfast. We ate in silence.

Word count: 1139