Kori POV
"SHUT UP AND DANCE WITH ME!" My voice cracked as I sang my heart out to my road trip playlist. It took three days to get here, but Felicity and I were finally on our way to Georgia to start our summer.
"Your voice is terrible! What happened to the choir soloist from high school, huh?" Felicity laughed.
"She decided that there was more to life than pianos and music notes," I smiled at my best friend. Felicity was my only family since my parents died six years ago. We had just started high school when my parents were out on a date that ended in their deaths due to a drunk driver. A police officer came to my home at 2 a.m. to tell me of my parent’s tragic end. Felicity happened to live down the street at the time, and she saw the police car from her bedroom window. She dragged her parents out the door to my house, so they could get her some answers about the dramatic scene happening on her street. After hearing my story, her parents took me in, no questions asked. We have been two peas in a pod ever since.
"So that made you tone deaf? Aren't you classically trained?" Felicity asked.
"You ask me that all the time, and you know what happens when you ask," I smirked at her. My hair was braided down my back for a reason. I turned my attention from the beautiful landscape in front of me and put my fingers on the window button. She really should anticipate my revenge after four years of wind blown hair dos, yet she acts like it is the first time I did it everytime.
"Shit," she rushed to tie her blonde hair back into a ponytail as I rolled the windows down. The salty air wafted into the car, exciting me more for our road trip.
Her ponytail whipped across her face, making it impossible to see. I burst out laughing watching her struggle to keep her hair out of her mouth. This is why I always braided my hair for car rides with Felicity, because this was my sweet revenge to her constant roasting. She fails in trying to keep her hair in her hands before she finally gives up. Her hair is undoubtedly a knotted mess. My revenge is complete, so I roll up the windows of my little Ford Focus.
"Korinne Bernice Althea! You did not just helicopter wind after promising not to do it this road trip," Felicity tried to look stern, but her ridiculous hair had me busting my gut already.
"Felicity Joan Moshly, I promised not to ruin your hair if you didn’t poke fun at my amazing self," I grinned. Her face looked stunned at my words. “Deals only work if both sides keep their word.”
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Felicity tried to give me puppy dog eyes as an apology, but that trick stopped working in tenth grade when I took her place in an awful game of spin the bottle. She managed to pull her hair into a messy bun and stared out the road ahead of us trying to keep from laughing. "Tell me why I agreed to get in the car with you again." Felicity jokes.
"Summer vacation, trip to the beach, all the money we saved up to get away before we graduate next spring. Are those good reasons?" I put my sunglasses down basking in my short term freedom. The hot sun was shining brightly on the blue water to my left. Seagulls passed by every few minutes hoping for scraps of food. The smell of the ocean made my shoulders relax. We started planning this trip a year ago by finding online jobs for the summer and renting a small apartment for the summer from the HomeAway app. It wouldn't be as fancy as the movies, but if we needed more money, we would just pick up a local job. Besides, come autumn, I will be deep in my studies in history and creative writing to finish my bachelor's degree.
"Sure. A last hurrah before we have to get big grown up jobs and worry about the state of the world." Felicity crossed her arms thinking about the future. She wasn't looking forward to life after graduation. She was already being scouted by corporations since she won a national contest for her prototype cyber security program.
"Cynical much?" I raised an eyebrow at her.
She shrugged, "By product of having journalists for parents." Fe turned down the music.
Suddenly, my skin felt like it was burning. The heat was coming from my crescent shaped birthmark. What the hell? The heat continued until it was painful enough for me to vocalize my discomfort. Felicity began questioning if I was okay, but I couldn't answer. It was taking all my focus to keep the car going straight down the road. The pain began coming in intense waves originating at the birthmark on my collarbone. My little Ford Focus began swerving on the road. What was happening to me?
Felicity touched my shoulder gently until I heard her scream. "KORI!" Felicity shouted, forcing me to hit the brakes to look at her. She was pointing at a fast moving blue blob heading toward us. Was a bird in the sky dive bombing my car? No, the form didn’t match a bird. This thing was big and coming in hot.
"What-" My voice cut out as I felt anxiety overflowing in me. There were no words to describe what we were seeing. A giant blue thing was heading toward us. "The hell?" I pulled over on the side of the road in case another car came by. My hunch was right because a truck came barreling down the road.
Booommm!
Dirt flew into the air, causing little rocks to hit my windshield. There were four new, tiny cracks in the glass once the dust settled. Rage began building inside me. I was going to have to replace the whole windshield now! Felicity and I looked for whatever caused this stupid mess when we realized the blue blob was hit by an old Chevy truck. The truck didn’t stick around to see what it hit even though it drove away with a huge new dent in its red hood. Out of the bushes came this blue skinned…woman? Was that what hit the truck? She wobbled out of the bush in her brown sundress and bare feet. Her hair was dark like the deep ocean, and her skin was light blue like the sky. Her silver eyes met mine at the same time my birthmark burned.
"Korinne Althea, you have been summoned," the blue woman said.
"Who is that? She looks like a wingless fairy," Felicity said, astonished. “Do you think she is here to help us fall in love?” I shook my head at Fe. She had been reading too many fantasy romance novels.
The blue woman looked at Felicity with a surprised expression. "That human can see me…"
This can't be good. A blue, nonhuman woman is calling my name like I know her, and Felicity seems fascinated by it. My stupid birthmark is burning like a flame, yet I haven't started crying yet. Anxiety was building in my body. I silently dug my nails into my arm trying to keep grip on the situation. What the hell!