Challenge #144
Option: #36the road
Note: I hadn't known I was going to include this part...but the picture lead me to it. It's shorter than the past few, but it's mostly transition. Mostly. Also broke 10k with this bit.
Peeping Alice pt.13
Alice tries hard to keep her eye on the road as she drives home. The changing colors of the evening sky vie for her attention though, the pinks and purples cast interesting thoughts in her head. She is distracted enough by the beauty of the Midwestern evening to let her thoughts of the afternoon drift to the back of her mind. She rarely worries about Vincent when he wanders off own his own, and his brief recognition of the afternoon occurrances give her confidence in his own odd abilities. Whatever they might be... she muses to herself.
She takes a leisurely drive home, passing through the cities more scenic areas as she drives. She enjoys the time to herself, without Vincent, without Carol...and without having to use any of her Talents. She watches couples strolling through the Plaza as she drives slowly through, smiling at what look like perfectly innocent outings. She imagines herself on such a night, walking slowly down a shopping lane with someone special. We'd stop at the fountains for pictures...or maybe just to talk...
As she exits the shopping district and starts into a residential neighborhood she tries to pull her thoughts together and focusing on the driving. The historic apartment homes that line the street draw her attention back off the street, as the Aetheric seems calmer, steadier. Older somehow.
"I'll have to ask Vincent about that...later," she wonders aloud.
Even with the side trip through the Plaza, her drive home is swift, and before she's ready for it her apartment building appears before her. Home, sweet, home.
As she clicks the deadbolt closed on her front door, she drops her work gear on the floor next to the door. In the same moment, there's a quick knock on the otherside of the door that makes her jump slightly. She flicks the lightswitch next to the door so she can peer through the peephole in the apartment door. Through the small hole she can make out Vincent's wavy platinum hair as he leans down to unlock the door. Before he can finish she quickly undoes the deadbolt and pulls the door open.
"Vin?" She gives him a quick once over before she steps back from the doorway to let him enter. She notes as he walks through the doorway that his black coat is covered in a thin layer of dust, but he looks unharmed.
He gives her a pleasant looking smile as he strides passed and into the kitchen behind her. Muffled as if speaking with his head behind a cabinet door he says, "I did not find anything. How was the rest of your afternoon?"
"Um. Fine." She closes the font door and locks it again before making her way to the kitchen. "No more weird dark spots. But, I did talk to George on my way out this evening..."
"The guard by the employee door?"
"Mmhmm." She nods, "He said that there were "technical difficulties" with some cameras today. His bunny ears, not mine," she says mimicking George's earlier parenthetical emphasis. "Whatever happened today messed with equipment in several stations, so I don't know what to think."
The two of them work in relative silence as they maneuver around the kitchen making a simple dinner. After setting the table for themselves, Vincent takes off his dusty coat and slides into one of the chairs. "I went over that entire building, and could not find a thing. Whatever it was left after you fainted."
She shrugs her shoulders as she pours dressing on salads for both of them. That explains the dust, doesn't it? "I've never felt that much power before. And it definitely wasn't there after I woke up." Alice sets a salad at each table setting, and sits down to eat hers.
"We will keep watching for anomalies then, and hope next time we are prepared for it."
She looks up at him, "How do we know there's going to be a next time?"
"You were handling a lot of power on your own today Alice." He looks at her almost approvingly before turning back to his food. "I believe whatever it is may be drawn to that, searching it out as it were."
"You mean me, don't you?" She pushes her food away and looks at him demandingly her green eyes flashing with the first hint of fear. It's looking for me.
Perhaps.