“I don’t know,” Ana said grimly. “But I don’t want to find out.” She shook her head. She regretted not putting her hair up before she started driving. The wind whipped it into her face, and she didn’t dare to remove a tightly clenched hand from the steering wheel to brush it away.
.jpg)
"Agreed." Laurel nodded, turning to look out the window. She couldn't help but feel like they were both being watched. Like there was something just beyond her sight, keeping tabs on what they were both doing. But it didn't make her feel scared… this presence felt friendly, for some reason. Laurel looked back at Ana, whose hair was whipping all over the place. "Can you see okay?" She asked, glad that her hair was so short.
"I'll be fine," Ana replied, which wasn't strictly true. "Hopefully. Probably." She glanced around, all her senses on alert. There was no one on the road. No one at all.
"Okay," Laurel said, not sounding at all sure. She turned back to the scenery passing along beside her. In an amateur survivalist move, Laurel let her mind wander. If she stared hard enough, she could almost imagine someone running through the woods beside them… wait. There was someone running in the woods alongside them, somehow. She wasn't totally there, though. She looked like a ghost! A ghost who was screaming something at Laurel. But no matter how hard she listened, Laurel couldn't hear a thing. She blinked, and the ghost was gone. Turning back to the front, Laurel tried to convince herself that it was just her overactive imagination. The ghost lady didn't really exist.
After a period of silence, Ana glanced over at Laurel. "You okay?" She asked, sounding concerned.
Telling Ana about the ghost lady would make Laurel sound crazy. Then again, having monsters from her dream appear in real life was also crazy, so it didn't really matter. "There was a ghost running next to the car." Laurel pointed out her window, but the ghost lady was still gone. "She was screaming something at me, but I have no idea what." She shrugged. "Sounds crazy, ri–"
"Laurel." A warm voice came from right next to her, but it wasn't from Ana. Laurel turned to see the ghost lady sitting between them, smiling kindly. Laurel started to scream, then clamped her hand over her mouth. Screaming didn't seem like the best reaction. "Nice to see you too, Ana." The ghost lady turned to Ana. "I'm glad I was finally able to make contact with you two. The Shadow King has a tight grip on this place."
"What the f-" Ana jumped, her sudden movement jerking the steering wheel, so that the jeep careened to the side, before she righted it. She stopped the car with a screech of brakes and turned to the ghost. "Why are you in my car?"
"Because I have to tell you something." The ghost said, as if it was obvious.
"Who are you? Are you dead?" Laurel asked, leaning away from the ghost. She couldn't believe this was happening. First those monsters, and now ghosts? What was next, aliens?
"I am Queen Alina. And I am not yet dead." Alina sighed, her gaze suddenly very far off. Now that Laurel had a clear view of her, she could see that the ghost– Alina– had been very beautiful at one point. But there was something off about her. All the colors, from her gold hair to her green eyes, were a little too bright. And Laurel could see two strange holes in the skin of her forehead hiding under the fringe of her bangs.
"Um… are you sure you're not dead?" Ana's heart was pounding hard in her chest, fear rising in her. She was okay with monsters, but ghosts? That was a whole other level. "Because you look pretty dead to me."
"I'm not! It just takes a lot of energy to project myself here, so I had to cut a few corners," Alina exclaimed. "But I'm running out of time. Do you know about the weapons yet?"
"The what?" Laurel squeaked, still trying to get as far away from Alina as she could.
"I'll take that as a no," Alina sighed and snapped her fingers. A gold line appeared in the road in front of them, leading farther down the road. "Follow that line and you'll find something to answer most of your questions." Alina turned and looked behind her as if she had heard something no one else had. "I have to go. Follow that line and stick together and you'll do fine, my heroes." She smiled at both of them, then disappeared.
"Heroes?" Ana asked, looking confused, and more than a little rattled. "Should we follow the line?"
"Um… probably?" Laurel slumped back into the seat. "She seemed to know what she was talking about. But what would we need weapons for? You already have plenty of weapons."
"I don't know," Ana said with a frown. "I don't trust her. This is getting weird." She sighed. "It couldn't hurt. It's the wrong way from my brother's house, though, so we'll have to be careful." She started the jeep and started following the gold line, driving quickly.
"It's probably a good idea not to trust her. I mean, she didn't look human." Laurel shivered, remembering the queen. Queen of what? "But yeah, I agree. Getting some answers wouldn't hurt at all." She looked out the window, half expecting Alina to be hovering outside again. But it was empty of both queens and monsters, thankfully.
"I sure hope this isn't a trap," Ana said. After a bit of silence, she sighed. "We need noise. I wish I could turn on music, but we don't know if there are any monsters around." She shook her head. "I hate this."
"Me too." Laurel nodded. If it was a trap, they would probably be done for. "Heh, I'm with you there." She laughed softly. Having music would be good. It could distract her from all the thoughts spinning around and around in her head. Let her relax a little. But Ana was right. The monsters might hear it and come after them. Laurel hummed to herself instead, watching the gold line disappear under the Jeep.
"So… Laurel, huh," Ana said after a pause. "What do you do for fun?" She was trying to break the silence. It made her feel safer, not that she'd like to admit that she wasn't feeling in control.
"Uh… I like to read. And I paint sometimes," Laurel said slowly, slightly confused as to what brought on this sudden ice-breaker session. "I love fantasy. And horror, sometimes," She added as an afterthought. "What about you?"
"How do you like horror?" Ana asked, sounding amazed. "I've never been able to stand anything to do with ghosts and death and stuff like that. Too spooky." She shrugged. "Then again, I'm a bit of a coward." She turned to a new part in the road, following the gold line into a forest. "I don't do anything interesting. Research, exercise, boring things like that. Studying, too."
"I mean, there's something terribly exciting about horror. Though I like it better when it's contained in pages. Horror movies are defiantly not for me." Laurel grimaced at the thought, then listened to Ana. "You don't seem like that much of a coward to me," she offered, keeping the 'but then again I've only known you for a little while' part silent. "What are you researching? Nothing exciting, I'm guessing?"
"Not really," Ana said, smiling slightly. "I want to get a degree in Psychology, but there aren't many good colleges around here, so I study at home. Psychology is really fascinating to me, for some reason. Criminal psychology, especially."
"Oh, psychology?" Laurel asked, grinning. "That sounds cool. Too bad there wasn't a good college you could go to, but good job on making it work anyways." She thought it was wonderful that at least one of them knew what they wanted to do with their life. Looking out the front windshield, Laurel could suddenly make out something that looked suspiciously like a castle. Before she could really make sure what she was seeing was, in fact, a castle, the structure disappeared behind some trees. But the road seemed to be taking them right towards the supposed castle. "Did you see that? It looked like… some sort of structure, up ahead. You think we're getting close to our destination?"
Ana had not seen it,, as she had been glancing behind her to see if anyone was following them. She hadn't seen anyone on the dirt road, but she was still wary. "No, I didn't. I hope we're getting close, it feels like someone is watching us."
"Well, let's hope it was where we were going." Laurel kept her eyes on where she'd seen the structure, but it did not emerge from the trees again. "Oh, gods. Let's hope it's Alina or some birds. I don't even want to think about the alternative," Laurel said softly, looking at the road behind them as well.
"I agree," Ana said grimly. "Although, how do we know that Alina is friendly?" It was a question that had been bothering her for some time.