Installment 21

I sit in silence for a short while. I was kind of shocked by Elena's anger at my questions, but I still wanted to know. I figured that probably wasn't going to happen, though.

“I'm hungry,” I tell her.
“Well, you should have eaten earlier.”
“You mean yesterday.”
“What?”
“It wasn't earlier, it was yesterday, when we stopped at the service station and you made me get something to eat, which I've eaten and the drink, which I drank. Unfortunately, I'm not a super-secretive immortal assassin, so I need to eat more than once, and I'm hungry,” I stare at her as she grips the steering wheel tighter, “and I need to pee.”
“Fine,” she says, almost shouting, “We'll stop.”
“Thanks,” I say, smugly.

Twenty minutes later, we pull into a roadside pub advertising home cooked food. Elena wanders in and I run to the toilet. When I return, she is sitting at a table with 2 pints of cider in front of her.

“You can't drink. You're driving. You're supposed to be my protector. I don't want a drunk protector.”
“Jesus, Fi, keep up, will you. I'm not fucking mortal. I don't need to sleep. I don't need to eat. I don't get drunk.”
“Well... it looks bad.”
“Fine!” she pushes the pint in front of me, “You have it. Have lots of them. Drink yourself into a coma. You'll be much easier to deal with that way.”
We both stare at the menus, not really reading, just avoiding looking at each other.
“Sorry,” I say after a while, “I'm being a brat, aren't I?”
“A little bit.”
“I just... I guess I don't know how to behave in these situations.”
“Don't piss off your protector is a good start.”
I giggle slightly, but I'm not entirely sure she's joking.
“What do you want?”
“Um... Ploughmans looks good.”
“Ok.”

She goes to the bar and orders the food, also coming back to the table with a glass of lemonade for herself.
“Better?”
I smile, “Much better.”
I take a big gulp of my cider, and haven't quite put the glass down when Elena pushes me to the side and down under the table.
“Hide!” She whispers, desperately, then gets up.
I see her feet move across the bar. I slide round to the other side of the table. I glance out the side and see her talking to Janet. Part of me wants to stay under the table, part of me wants to run away, but a big part of me wants to hear what they're saying. They're standing at the end of the bar, near the door to the kitchen. If I could get into the kitchen, I think I could hear, but I couldn't see how to get in there, and really couldn't think how I'd explain to the kitchen staff what I was doing there.

Just then, I felt a lump in my jacket pocket. I reached in and pulled out the pendant I'd got in Ogmore. I can't quite where it came from, but I knew that it would help. I put the pendant round my neck and took a couple of steps out from under the table. No-one seemed to notice me. I watched Janet, and coughed, ready to leg it out of the pub if she turned round. No-one seemed to notice at all. I walked slowly toward the kitchen, slipping through the swing door without anyone so much as looking my way. There was only one person in the kitchen, chopping salad, presumably for my lunch. She didn't seem to notice me, so I stood to the side of the door, as hidden as I could be, even though I was fairly certain she wouldn't see me if she looked right at me.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” Elena seemed to be telling Janet off. I couldn't hear what Janet said, but I didn't dare open the door to hear more.
“Well, we still have to deliver her. You know that, Janet.”
“I know!” Janet spoke a little louder, “I just...” then something I couldn't make out.
“Jesus, Janet! I know she's just a mortal, but that's pretty low.”
“Like what you did wasn't?!”
“Janet, I had her drugged and willing to do whatever. You just had to play. Just as well she put that phone call down to drunken memory, or we'd have been in deep shit, and then to drag her off to Ogmore like that... it's supposed to be a sacred place.”
“It felt sacred, Elena. It felt... human.”
“Janet, what the fuck is so human about manipulating the woman's dreams. She didn't even realise it was you.”
“You manipulate peoples' dreams all the time.”
“I don't make any fucking claim of humanity.”

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. All the dreams, the day I woke up with her, all her doing... and now I was to be delivered somewhere. I ran past the chef, and out the back door. I saw Janet's car, with the engine still running. I jumped in it, and tore out of the car park.