The Lamia Hunt

Chapter Forty-Nine: Travelling

18:35 17/03/2015

"I'm hungry," whined Hudson, leaning as far out of the window of the car as possible. "Can we stop somewhere?"
Summers sighed exasperatedly, his hands gripping the steering wheel as tightly as possible.
"I've told you before, Hudson; no. And what were you planning on doing, anyway? It's not as if you could actually feed."
"You don't know me." He wasn't looking at him, his eyes fixed glazedly on something in the distance that Lucy couldn't see, and didn't much want to.
She wasn't sure how long they'd been driving for, but it had been a while, and they'd crossed at least one border.
They still had a way to go, though.
It had been an unspoken certainty that Summers would be the one to drive, and that there would be no change in shifts, and Lucy was perfectly comfortable with that arrangement; it would most likely have been unwise to leave the responsibility of driving to either Jordan or Hudson, and she herself wasn't even going to contemplate it. That had been something Fidèle hadn't taught her, for one reason or another. Perhaps it just hadn't seemed necessary. Perhaps he didn't know either. It wouldn't have surprised her.
Either way, it didn't matter, as nobody had thought to ask her opinion on the matter.
She was sitting in the back of the car, behind the driver's seat, next to Jordan, who was utterly absorbed in a book, and hadn't raised her head once in roughly an hour.
But then, there hadn't really been any reason to; conversation had been all but nonexistent, and although the scenery outside could be described as vaguely picturesque, it wasn't enough to attract Jordan's attention - or Lucy's, for that matter.
She did look at it, though, not thinking of what she was watching. Her thoughts were a-whirr, nothing settling in one place long enough to form an opinion of it. She was nervous, though, extremely nervous, nervous about what was going to happen next. Of course, there was still a way to drive, but after that, when they arrived at the Lamiae Verae? She hadn't heard of them before now, and all she had to go on was the uneasy word of the three she was travelling with.
And honestly, she didn't trust them that much, either. They hadn't given her reason to. But she hadn't given them any reason to trust her, either. So here they were, she and the other three, holding each other at arm's length, too scared to let go or bring each other any closer. And for what? If they let her go, she'd go; she didn't know where she'd go, but she would if they let her. They'd never have to see her again.
But then, they couldn't know that. No matter what she said, they weren't going to be able to believe her. Perhaps they never would.
But even before they got to the Lamiae Verae, there would be problems. How would they be able to get through the borders without identification? Did the others have? Lucy knew she didn't. There was no way that they could know that, though. Had they just assumed? Was it only going to come up like a looming monster when they reached a point where they needed identification? She didn't want to mention it now, though; her situation was precarious as it was, and she didn't want to rock the boat any further.
It seemed kind of stupid to think that, though, when the boat was probably already sinking. So it didn't matter.
Lucy took a breath, and, leaning over the seat in front of her, said,
"I forgot to say that I don't own a passport. Is that-"
Hudson laughed raucously, drowning her out.
"Like we do!" He paused. "Were you honestly expecting that we'd actually be doing this legally?"
"Well-"
"If you're wondering about getting through border controls-"
"I was a bit, yeah."
"Well, don't." He laughed, quietly. "We've got a trick that can get us through easily; Nescius thing."
Lucy sat back, smiling faintly. Of course. It was obvious, now that it had been explained.
She'd already seen how much of an effect those three's powers had; it wasn't much of a stretch to imagine them using them to get through border control. And there was no chance they'd get caught, either. Perfect.
But this knowledge had put her back on guard; she couldn't be too wary around these three, not with the powers they had. They obviously knew how to use them, too, and that made them even more dangerous. If she let her guard down... No, she wasn't even going to think about it. She was going to stay alert, and that would allow her to stay alive.
Or that was the plan, at any rate.