CHAPTER TWO


Over the speakers the mechanical voice spoke. “Dialing.”

Static tainted each ring indicating the bad reception in whatever Podunk town her GPS had managed to get her lost in this time. Elizabeth had never originally wanted to leave the city—not like this. Her plan had been to go to the airport and buy one way tickets to all the vacation islands she could think of—Tahiti, Bora Bora, Maui, Santorini. It wasn't a logical plan, especially since she didn't have any money, but she wasn't working on logic. He was somewhere out there in one of those rich people places which meant her daughter was somewhere out there as well. 

Her body tensed and the grip on her steering wheel tightened until her knuckles were bone white. “C'mon,” she muttered, willing the universe to somehow send her message telepathically for him to pick up his damn phone. When the line clicked she breathed a sigh of relief stating, “Oh thank god you-” only to be met with another robotic voice. His automated answering machine. She released a string of profanities. This was very much like him. He'd always been impossible to get ahold of. The son of a capitalist banker, there was always some convenient excuse for his absence—business meetings, family dealings, some charity banquet to attend. Elizabeth had never been invited; his family never had approved of her.

“It's Elizabeth,” she began after the beep, stating her name out of habit though by this point he should have known the sound of her voice without an introduction. “Everything's a fucking mess here. All the roads are blocked. The whole city is being evacuated. And Nate...he's gone.” 

Nate had been her fiance. An officer of the law, he'd been in the thick of it since the beginning. At first they thought it was somehow drug related—like going mad from too many bath salts—but it spread too rapidly and before they could gather any concrete evidence the CDC began issuing warnings all over the nation. It spread too fast to contain. Dispatched to handle the many influx of calls, he'd been infected during one of them. The last time she'd seen him he'd looked terrible—yellow pus oozed from the wound and a large red streak ran up his arm to his neck. Beads of sweat dripped from his forehead which she'd tried to dab with a cold compress. Even if she hadn't mentioned it out loud, he knew the thought of her daughter consumed her thoughts. He'd given her his Beretta—a 9 mm Px4 Storm Compact—and told her to go.

Warm tears streaked lines mascara down her cheeks which she wiped away with a finger causing it to smear. Trying to maintain a steady voice, her attempts failed as the emotion seeped through. “I need to know you guys are okay. Call me as soon as you can. And tell Darya I love her.” With that she tapped on the red button to end the call. Her eyes remained fixated on the black mirror as if expecting for it to light up within the next few seconds. It didn't.

The car was in park for now, the headlights stretching ahead to reveal nothingness as she sat on the side of the road. Her thoughts shifted and her emotions ranged from guilt for leaving Nate alone the way she had in his last moments and the determination to see her daughter without knowing exactly where she was. Elizabeth leaned her head against the seat with a heavy sigh.

She'd never been a good mother. It ran in the family. When her daughter was born, she'd been too young—too wild—and she knew her little girl deserved better. That was why she asked him to take her which he agreed to with a resoundingly apathetic okay. Often she worried he was raising her in the same way his parents had raised him and his sister—remaining distant while hired nannies took care of everything. It'd been years since she'd seen him in person though they spoke over Facetime when time permitted so she could see her daughter. Darya had his blond curls that bounced whenever she moved and her honey brown eyes, which she got from Elizabeth, were always distracted by something. (“Butterfly!” “Doggy!”) Once she'd taken her father's large frames off his face and placed them on her own which promptly fell into her lap.

Ever since cleaning up her act, she'd wanted to have a serious discussion with him about their daughter's custody. 

Closing her eyes, she clinched her phone in her hand and allowed her mind to drift. What felt like a moment turned to hours as the morning sun kissed her awake. Wiping the sleep from her eyes she tried to start the car only to find the battery completely drained. With a frustrated growl she gathered her things and after looking up directions to the nearest military checkpoint began making her way there.

((OOC: Was gonna do Sarah too, buuuut. I'll invoke chaos in the house later.))