Into Thin Air

Chapter 8

"I brought us a surprise." Penelope opened her jacket to reveal a tall bottle.
"Seriously?" Hope glared at her. "You brought booze to our top-secret, super-serious investigation?"
"Yep." Penelope twisted the top off, took a long swig, and then offered it to Hope. "Want some?"
"No." Hope balled her hands into fists at her side. "What I wanted is to not have to babysit you. I came for a mysterious puddle of goo, not a lame hangout."
Penelope looked down at the bottle in her hands. "You and your fucking martyr complex, Mikaelson."
Hope rolled her eyes at that and stomped off to look around by herself.
"Suit yourself," Penelope muttered. She tilted her head back, downing as much as she could in the time she could hold her breath. "You know -" Penelope called out, throat burning. "- you probably need this more than I do."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Hope snapped, kicking over some tall reeds with her boots. 
"Why do you actually want to find Jade?" The witch drummed her fingers on the side of her bottle as she waited for an answer she knew she wasn't gonna get. "Is it because you miss her? Or because you want to be some great detective?"
"Because she's a student and she's missing and no one else is doing anything about it."
Penelope took another drink. "That didn't answer my question."
She waited for Hope to yell at her, to demand that she either help or leave or to tell her to stop asking questions, but instead, Hope tilted her head to the side, eyes shining a bit.
"I just want answers."
"Yeah, that's what I thought." 
Penelope stayed silent after that. She followed Hope for a bit until her legs got too tired, and then she sat down in the center of the field to keep drinking as she waited.
"Penelope!"
By the time she reached Hope, the tribrid was already crouched down in front of the steaming pool of darkness. Penelope furrowed her eyebrows, reaching out to hold a hand above the steam.
"Don't touch it!" Hope grabbed her arm sharply, digging her fingernails in enough to leave marks. The two girls stared at each other for a beat, Hope's face terrified and Penelope's confused.
"I wasn't going to." Penelope slowly took her arm back from Hope's grasp, not moving her eyes. "I just wanted to see if it was hot." Her hand hovered flat above the mud for a long minute. "It's not."
"Did you want it to be?"
"It's steaming, isn't it?"
"Hmm." Hope leaned back on her heels as she thought.
"Should we throw a rock in or something?"
"Sure."
Penelope dragged her hands through the dirt around them until she found a good-sized stone. She tossed it in gently, careful to avoid the splash. 
Hope's breath burned in her lungs as she held it and she felt no relief when she let it out after a few moments of uneventfulness. "Nothing happened."
"That was underwhelming." Penelope punctuates her disappointment with another drink. "Should we throw a rock in or something?"
"What?" Hope whipped her head around, skin prickling. "How drunk are you?"
"Not enough apparently." Penelope felt around for another rock. 
Hope watched, jaw hanging open, as Penelope went through all the same motions as before. 
"That was underwhelming."
Hope just continued to stare.
"Should we throw a rock in or something?"
"I think we should leave," Hope said quickly, pulling Penelope roughly to her feet and away from the puddle. "Right now. Come on."
Hope was so concerned with getting Penelope out of the field and into the car that she didn't notice the slug on the back of her boot or the slimy trail it left up her sweatpants as she drove them back up the driveway and dropped Penelope at her dorm.