Aleatory

Chapter 4 | Reagan

I considered breaking out my loud, pointed sigh again for the...third time so far? I didn't know anymore. What I did know was that we had been standing on this highway for the last two hours while my arm ached and my legs ached and nobody was interested in us. At all. If I wasn't nearly past the point of caring by then I might have been offended.

Well, okay. That wasn't completely true. There had been that one guy in the truck who'd pulled up a little while ago, but his face had been very red, and when he yelled at us the words were so slurred that even Brooke had trouble making out all the curse words. I'd nearly turned around and walked back home right then.

Only I hadn't, because of - you guessed it - Brooke. The same Brooke who had been steadily avoiding my gaze more and more in the last twenty minutes or so, until now she was outright ignoring me.

I glanced at my watch. Half an hour more, and then we're -

I stopped at the look on her face. Brooke didn't look miserable exactly, just - disappointed. Like the way she'd looked the time she and I had spent weeks planning and fantasizing about the concert we'd had to beg for tickets to, and then she'd come down with chicken pox three days before it. We ended up spending the day of that concert in her room watching Ice Age.

That had been three years ago, but the look was the same. I sighed, but only to myself.

One hour. One more hour and then I'm taking her home.

Maybe two -

"Yes. Yesyesyesyesyes, come on..."

I blinked. An old, slightly beat-up Toyota seemed to be trying to pull over to our side, while Brooke was bouncing a little on her feet waving at it. Unbelievable. It didn't look like it was going to be another trucker. I wasn't really sure what I'd been expecting out of this, but I hadn't thought this far.

Eventually, the car made it to us. Brooke took a deep breath, the kind that meant she was about to start a pitch.

The window rolled down as I tried to remember the signs of insane people.

The woman inside looked...I wasn't really sure how old, actually. She had pale skin, dark hair, a silver earring and weirdly big blue eyes that she was currently using to rip me apart using only the power of vision.

"What are you two doing out here? You all right?"

Physically or mentally?

I tried my most inviting smile. "We're not in trouble. We were just, ah..."

"Hoping we could catch a ride," said Brooke quickly. "If that's okay."

The eyes narrowed. Uh-oh. I turned my smile up a few notches.

They narrowed even more. "Where do you need to go?"

What a great question. Brooke's smile widened a bit more too, and the woman shot us a look that said pretty clearly that if either of us got any sunnier right now she'd run us over. I tried not to wince, dropping the grin entirely.

Brooke didn't notice. "Where are we going! That's a great - " she faltered a little at the woman's face. "Well, that depends. Where are you going?"

A pause. I gnawed on the inside of my cheek. This was going to end badly. I could feel it.

"I," said the woman slowly, watching Brooke like she didn't know what to make of her, "am going to..."

To the graveyard. The Portal. To devour the souls of the innocent.

"...to the bank."

What.

The woman nodded to herself, satisfied. I was not satisfied.

"To the bank," I repeated glancing at her licence plate reading the blue lettering of Washington, DC on the top. "In Woodbridge? You don't live in Woodbridge."

"No."

Another pause. The death glare was focused back on me now. Is that a problem? Is not what the woman said, verbally, but even I could figure it out.

"The bank!" chirped Brooke, nudging me slightly in the ribs. "I mean, of course, the bank, gosh, I love banks. Can we... I mean, would you mind? If we tagged along?" She was grinning again, that tight, wide-eyed grin that meant she was trying really hard not to laugh.

Brooklyn, you are going to get us eviscerated.

There was another pause, this one more awkward than anything else, as the woman surveyed us for a few seconds like she was trying to judge whether or not our bodies would fit in the trunk. Then she shrugged, grimaced, and sighed, all at the same time.

"She's like you in ten years," murmured Brooke, mouth still working.

I opened my mouth to respond just as the passenger doors to the car unlocked.

"Fine," said the driver, starting up the engine again. "What the hell. Get in."