Royal's Way

Chapter 4

The woman shifted uncomfortably when her boot sent the water of the puddle under her flying. She shuddered, looking up to the small buildings around her and watching those weird metal vehicles pass by.

It rained the same. It felt the same. But it wasn't anywhere near the same world.
She looked at the crystal in her hand. It was no longer pulsing. This was the place.

Earth?

She looked up again, staring at the gray clouds covering the skies. No stars?
The texture of the ground was strange. Different. No weeds stuck through the cracks of the weird stones.
This was where they banned their prisoners?

But this was where he was.

With a breath, she continued around the corner of the building, and paced reluctantly down the path.

==

I hated seeing Rachel's "Missing Person" posters on the bulletin boards of the school. You never think of stuff like this happening to you.

Scanning the large crowd of the school hallway was frustrating when you were looking for a specific person, and said specific person is short. If I wasn't going to find her, I was going to check in with Ian. If I couldn't check in with Ian, I might as well just get to Quinn's truck and check then. Maybe that would be easier than asking to look. That would be even more awkward.

Ian's head poked out from the crowd, standing at his locker and checking his phone.

I quickened my pace, hoping to God he had an answer for me.
"Ian, have you seen Quinn?" I called as I approached him. He turned to me, scowling as he put his phone in his back pocket and shut his locker. "I saw her when we first got here. Why?" "I need her." "Obviously. She's probably still hungover somewhere." "Seriously. I need her." Ian scoffed. "Alright, alright. She's probably on her way to English." I groaned. "'Kay. Thanks." "Why do you need her anyway?" "I'll tell you later."

I don't know why I was so determined to figure this out. I felt like I was going insane, that everything was falling on top of me. Somehow, I just knew that this mystery wasn't going to resolve itself.

I ran up the stairs to the next floor, running towards Quinn's classroom and hoping to catch up with her before the bell rang.

The crowd was minimal up here. I awkwardly pushed through people, scanning the crowd closely while simultaneously apologizing to the people I bumped into.

I suddenly spotted the back of Quinn's head, her rushing towards the classroom with the intent of not being late. Again.

"Quinn!" I called, making her stop. She turned in circles for a moment, before I called her name again, and she finally spotted me as I approached.

She rose a brow. "Missed me already?" "At lunch," I said, getting straight to the point, "Can I borrow the keys to your truck?"
She scowled. "Uh, I thought you couldn't drive yet?" "I'm not driving. I just need to look for something I lost when you drove us to the party last night."

She blinked. "Well, as long as I'm there. I have stuff in there."

I groaned. "Okay. I lied. I need your radio."
Now she looked even more confused. "Uh, what? You missing a game, or something?" "Hard to explain. You can be there, I don't care. I just need your radio." The only reason it was hard to explain was because I had nothing to explain. I didn't understand why I was going through all this fuss; only that I wanted to do it. Or maybe needed to.

She stared blankly at me for a moment, before shrugging. "Uh... okay. You're crazy, or somethin'. Lunch."

With that she turned, waving her hand for a moment before entering her classroom.