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Annabelle and Ellenore are driving across the country. It’s a wonderful way to see America, via its highways. They can only travel at night, of course, stopping during the day. To save money, they sleep in their motor home, the windows carefully blacked out. Annabelle tells Ellenore about how painful the sun can be. She doesn’t want a repeat of that.
They are headed to New York City. It feels almost like a pilgrimage in reverse. So many thousands of people began in the east and headed west. The two of them are listening to one of many long Spotify playlists of love and travel songs they carefully curated.
“Are you sure we’re doing the right thing?” Ellenore asks. “I feel bad leaving Marc behind… and what about his dad and the rest of your friends?” She’s driving, keeping her eyes on the road, and spares her girlfriend brief glances now and then.
Annabelle gives her a small, slightly sad smile. “We’ll go back to L.A. eventually. We’ll see them again. I just think that, for now, I’ve done all I can do in L.A., but there’s so much more that can be done in the rest of the country. If the Anarchs can liberate New York the way we did Los Angeles, then we are one step closer to driving the Camarilla out of America all together!”
Ellenore can’t help but smile a little. Being a vampire for a couple of years has done nothing to damper Annabelle’s brightly burning ambitious spirit. She loves that about her. “You think so?”
Annabelle’s smile widens. “Anything is possible.” She reaches over and squeezes her girlfriend’s knee affectionately.
Ellenore takes a hand off the steering wheel to squeeze her hand back. “You think they’ll listen to you in New York?”
“Probably not at first,” Annabelle admits. “They’re probably going to be really stubborn, but I am confident that there will be Kindred there who will listen, who will want to hear what I have to say and who will be inspired to rise up. It’s a big city. It’s impossible that all of them are a hundred percent under the Camarilla’s boot.”
As she looks out the window, it’s impossible for Annabelle not to think about what Adrien Clairmont said to her about dogs chasing cars, not actually wanting to catch them, but loving the chase all the same. He was right. Annabelle needs a rebellion. She needs a fight. It was in her blood long before Carver ever thought about turning her into a Brujah. It took some soul-searching, but Annabelle is at peace with this knowledge about herself. There’s always going to be a fight, and she’s always going to be in the thick of it. She will keep fighting until she dies the true death. This is her purpose, her reason for existing on this Earth.
The motor home continues its journey east. On either side of their highway is nothing but fields and farmland, pitch black in the middle of the night. Above them is the bright and shining milky way.