Evil's Beauty

Chapter 1 - Beginning To An End

"Katherine!" Vanessa called again, as she waved a rolled-up booklet behind the headrest of her seat. It was only then, Katherine drew her gaze that was drifted into the passing by trees of England to what was swaying in front of her. She grabbed it out of Vanessa's hand—it was a pamphlet of the art museum they were heading to.

"So that's the fancy place every artist hypes about huh?" Katherine said, flipping through the pages of paintings and sculptures in beautifully-structured buildings. Vanessa chuckled in the passenger seat.

"I guess so, it actually looks pretty good, maybe even better than that ju-jitsu gym I was talking about." She turned the rear-view mirror towards her to reline her lip gloss with her fingers, she turned her head to the other side, and puffed her big curly brown hair. Josh fought it back to where the view of the road behind him is visible again.

"Oh please, it's like there's many of those karate places here." Josh's hand returned to his steering wheel. He had a brown and orange watch on his wrist that reflected England's cloudy sky. "You are lucky to even find one around this ol'chap land."

Vanessa whacked him on the side of his arm, which gained "ow's" and small laughs from the driver. "At least I know I wouldn't need a gym to kick your ass if you keep messing up karate and ju-jitsu together."

"Alright! Jesus! You are gonna crash us all, girl!" Josh adjusted his tilted dark blue cap and rubbed his pale, freckled skin where Vanessa strike. He looked in the rear view mirror with a grin and pointed a thumb towards Vanessa. "See what happens when you let ya girl sit up here? Not cool man."

"Hey, she's the one who knows how to read a map."

That was Derek, he threw his hands up in a defensive stance. Nudging both of his friends beside him with his wide frame as he did so.

"And you heard the girl, she don't need no gym to do kung-fu or whatever the fuck to strangle the shit out of someone. So no way I will argue with that."

"Unless of course, if you want me to, babe." Vanessa glanced back in her seat to wink at Derek. He rose between Katherine and Naomi to grab Vanessa's face for a kiss. They all groaned.

"Oh take your time guys, it's not like I'm driving stick or anything." Josh's sun-kissed freckled nose scrunched together when Vanessa's chest blocked the stick shift of his car. The friends pulled the couple apart, Katherine smiled.

"Hey Josh, so you know how to get there, right?" Naomi asked after a while. She was wearing a short sleeved white hoodie with a grey hood, her hands snugged into the pocket where earphones peeked out. Katherine and Derek looked to Josh for an answer.

"Yeah, this road should be right, the place is just straight up the mountain—right Nessa?" Josh turned to Vanessa.

"Uh..." Vanessa picked up the stack of maps at her feet and rummaged through them. "I think so, I mean, they should all lead to the same mountain, which ever road we take is the same so..."

There was a short silence.

"Wait, it should? Or it will, Nessa? Because there was another road before we came up here that pointed east."

Vanessa froze for a moment.

"Well, which one did you go to?"

"You told me to go straight, right? The one that leads straight up here? Before you fall back asleep?" Josh carefully said each sentence, his eyes remained on the road.

"Then it should be right, I don't know, do I look like I live here? I know just as much as you do." Vanessa pushed the maps off her lap and had them once again at her feet.

The heads in the backseat turned back to Josh.

"Vanessa, I'm running low on gas. If we get all the way up there and it's not right, we can't come back down."

"We just passed by a gas station at the foot of the mountain." Naomi said. Her hand gripped Josh's seat now. A growing disbelief started to spread across her mellow features.

Vanessa threw her hands up and let them immediately hit her bare olive-toned thighs. The sounds of her bracelets and rings clashed together.

"Well what the fuck you guys? Why didn't you get gas?"

"Because we thought you'd know where the fuck is the place!" Josh looked to Vanessa, his murky blue eyes filled with shock.

"HEY! Watch it, Josh!" Derek yelled, his voice filled the car. Naomi winced silently at the sudden loud volume from the boy beside her.

"Oh, don't you even dare blame it on me, do you think I know the entire geography of England just 'cause I have a gosh darn map in my hand?" Vanessa sat straighter in her seat, tugging a leg under her. "And who doesn't get gas when they can while travelling in a foreign ass country?"

"'kay guys! Come on, let's not go off the tracks here. Let's just—" Katherine interrupted, she glanced once at Naomi for help on what to do next. "—go up there, and see what we could do, it's too late to go back down anyways, right? Do any of you have service here?"

"Nope, no bars here." Naomi said, she curled a strand of her ashy short hair behind her ear as she checked her tangled phone. "Let's just keep going, maybe it is the right road."

Vanessa shot an annoyed glare at Josh, in which he shot one back as well.

"Yeah great, let's cross our fingers and hope we would find our hotel up there," Josh said at last.

"Oh, just shut up and drive, would you?" Vanessa rested her elbow on the car's window sill, and rubbed her temple. With no more words coming from the friends, Josh stepped further into the pedal, and sped up further into the grey mountain.