This has not been spellchecked or edited 😛 And this is not a continuation of last week’s prompt. Remember to leave prompts in the comments so I don’t have to spend my time finding my own 😉

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Prompt: “You’re lucky I’m tired because if I was fully awake I would have already shoved you off this roof.”

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Elizabeth Webber clenched her fists around the steering wheel of the minivan as she heard Maxie Jones blow another goddamn bubble. Pop! Snap!

She was going to murder them all.

She would pull this godforsaken rental vehicle over, force these morons out onto the side of the road and then she would beat them to death. Bury them somewhere in the endless desert that served as the only landscape she’d seen in three days.

She hated people. She hated these people. Who the hell decided it would be a good idea to pile themselves into one car and go cross country?

“Turn on 90s on 9!” Maxiechirped from the back of the van, where she and her boyfriend Nathan had spent most of the trip cuddling and being generally the worst people alive.

“Kiss my ass,” Elizabeth muttered, slapping Patrick Drake’s hand as he reached out to obey Maxie’s dictate. “You do it, and you’ll be out the window.”

“Hey.” Patrick slapped her hand back and changed the station—to Today’s Hits! which might be more mildly annoying than Maxie’s suggestion. If she had to listen to that damned Bieber song one more time—

“Just because you got dumped, Elizabeth,” Maxie began, with as much sympathy as she could muster—

“I did not get dumped,” Elizabeth said, her teeth clenched. “I dumped him. I am the dumper.”

“Well, he was screwing someone else,” Patrick added helpfully. “So I mean, in that sense—”

“If you finish thought, Patrick Michael Drake, I will set you on fire and let the coyotes eat your remains.”

“Are you guys bothering Elizabeth again?” Robin Scorpio said, with a yawn. How Patrick’s girlfriend and Maxie’s cousin managed to sleep through the incessant yacking—

“I’m not bothering. I’m simply saying she’s been taking her bad mood out on us for the last two thousand miles,” Maxie said. “And it’s not cool. This is our summer road trip, too.”

“Speaking of road trips,” Patrick murmured, squinting at the GPS. “There’s a town coming up at the next exit. Last one for about an hour. We could stop there for the night.”

Maybe it was near an airport. She’d fly back to Port Charles, make sure that lying slime bag was out of her life and find new friends—new friends without annoying relatives.

“Sounds good. I’m getting tired of the car,” Robin said. “And I’m sure Elizabeth wants a break from driving.”

“She’s so diplomatic,” Maxie giggled to her boyfriend. “We all want a break from Elizabeth’s driving.”

“One more crack about my driving and I’m steering this van into on-coming traffic,” Elizabeth snapped.

“Yeah…” Patrick twisted in his seat to look at the couple in the back. “She’ll do it, too, so shut up, Maxie.”

“We should have flown,” the blonde pouted, but mercifully—she stopped talking.

---

The sixth seat in the car was empty—having been meant for the son of a bitch she’d found bouncing on one of his co-workers the day they were supposed to leave. Elizabeth had thought a road trip to California would get her mind off it all.

Until she remembered she was going with two other couples, and while Patrick and Robin were being kind enough to keep their PDAs to a minimum, Maxie could give two shits.

She’d never liked that girl.

After they’d checked into a hotel, the four of them had disappeared to find a diner, while Elizabeth decided a night in with some pizza would be great.

Until the delivery guy brought her ham and pineapple pizza and then blinked at her when told it was the wrong order.

He’d vaguely said something about coming back, but she had her doubts.

And now, standing in front of the ice machine and finding it out of order…

“You know, if I ever needed proof that God was a man and not on my side,” she muttered, “this trip—this is it.”

She gave it one last mighty kick, turned, and smacked right into a broad chest. “Oof—watch where you’re going!” Elizabeth began, stepping back and tilting her head up—and blinking.

“I could say the same about you,” the gorgeous blond man in a pair of blue jeans and a gray uniformed shirt proclaiming his name to be Jason. It hung unbottoned over a dark blue t-shirt.

“Sorry about this machine,” he continued, setting a tool box down. “Owners don’t want to replace it.”

“Oh. Well….” Elizabeth bit her lip, “sorry about kicking it.”

He just shrugged. “It’s not gonna get any more broken.” He—Jason—unscrewed something, and the machine split into two as he opened it. “Did it make you feel better?”

“For a second,” she admitted. “And then…” She looked down the walkway toward the parking lot where the minivan had been parked before the others had left for dinner. “What city am I in, anyway?”

“McLean, Texas,” Jason replied. “I guess we’re not your destination.” He squinted at the machine. “Can you hand me that flash light?”

“What?” She blinked, then handed it to him. “Oh. No, not really. Patrick—my best friend’s boyfriend—he wanted to do a road trip along Route 66 this summer. We’ve been planning it for months.” She looked away, where the lights of the road could still be dimly seen. “I’m ruining it for them.”

“Can you give me that racket wrench?”

She handed it to him. “I’m not a bad friend. Not normally. But at the last minute, Robin wanted to bring her cousin and her boyfriend, and Maxie drives me up the wall. She’s always talking and never has anything to say.”

“So why didn’t you say no?”

His head was all but inside the machine now, his voice muffled as he did—something—to the gears inside.

“Because she’s my best friend. And Maxie’s parents are divorcing—” Elizabeth hesitated. She’d let herself forget that—her own irritation and anger had swallowed everything.

“Can you give me the socket wrench?”

She did so. “Right before we left—I broke up with my boyfriend. He was supposed to come, too.”

“At least it wasn’t a nonrefundable trip.” Jason pulled back, looking at her, his blue eyes with a bit of wicked amusement. “Or you know, after you’d put deposits on caterers. And hotels. You know how difficult it is to get out of those contracts?”

“Guess I hadn’t thought about it that way. The only thing I had to cover was his part of the rental for the van.” She tilted her head. “You speaking from experience?”

Jason shrugged as he reached for a rag to deal with his greasy hands. “My sister. Asshole stood her up two weeks before the wedding. He’s lucky my dad didn’t have a shotgun handy.”

“I’m probably better off. It’s not like we were dating that long,” Elizabeth admitted as she watched Jason close the ice machine back up. “But I should have backed out of the trip.”

“Maybe.” Jason took the bucket she’d had in one of her hands and shoved it under the dispenser. He punched the button with a closed fist. A cascade of ice chips slid into the red plastic. “There you go,” he said, handing her the bucket. ‘

Their hands brushed as she accepted it. His skin was rough, calloused. Elizabeth bit her lip and tilted her head. “You like ham and pineapple pizza?”

“Is that where my order went?” Jason said, grinning. “I guess Bobbie Mack got confused with two orders. You mind sharing?”

“Not even a little.”

Prompt: “A ragtag team of misfits end up in her library looking for clues to a cache of stolen jewels.”

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Elizabeth Webber picked up a pencil and twirled it in her hands. When she fumbled and dropped it, the tap! as it hit the wooden counter of the checkout desk echoed in the silent room.

It was nine o’clock in the evening and there wasn’t a soul to be found in the Lila Quartermaine Library at Port Charles University—no one studied this late save for exam period, and that was still a month away.

Nope, she had been stuck with the deadly Spring Break death week, and endless, boring nights stretched in front of her.

She left the pencil where she found it and returned to her sketch pad, glaring at the stark white page. How would she finish her project if she couldn’t come with a single subject to draw? “Use your experience!” she muttered as she reached for her charcoal. “Draw what you know. Asshole.”

Why had she taken the drawing class? Why was she still wasting her time chasing an empty dream when she should be concentrating on her doctoral degree in art history? Her grandmother’s voice had been that horrible mixture of annoyance, irritation, and fondness. Oh, Lizzie. What shall we do with you?

“If I ever figure it out, Gram,” she murmured as she stared at the charcoal clutched in her fingers, “you’ll be the first to know.”

She started to just scribble some shadows, an outline of the window to her left starting to emerge and lost herself in the work. No one had to see the drawing—no one ever had to set eyes on it. It was just enough to put the charcoal to paper.

The slight click drew her attention several minutes later. Elizabeth blinked, raised her head. Looked around. The room remained empty—the doors to the three connecting hallways and larger collections remained closed.

She set the charcoal down, rubbing her thumb and index finger together to smooth away the black dust as she stood, moving towards the counter and her cell phone. It was Mac’s job to deal with the security, not hers. His job to keep her safe and secure. Even if she had to force him away from his Netflix marathon of Parenthood.

There was another slight click, this time louder and from above. Just as Elizabeth raised her head to look at the skylight dome, the glass shattered and dark shapes catapulted through it, dropping right on top of her.

She screamed, scrambling away from the large lump of someone that had fallen on her. She pushed and shoved until she got her foot free. As she tried to get to her feet, she was tackled again, a hand slapping over her mouth.

“What the fuck, man! You were supposed to clear the library!”

“I did!”

Elizabeth bit down hard on the finger cover her mouth. The guy hissed, but it didn’t move. She struggled, and he let her sit up, but kept an arm clenched around her shoulders, the other at her mouth.

The second voice had been familiar, and she scowled as she recognized the dark brown eyes beneath black ski mask. Mac Scorpio, their security guard. Damn it.  And there was no sound of the alarm ringing.

“Let me go!” She twisted and struggled, but the grip was iron tight and impossible to dislodge.

“Lizzie?” Mac drew off his mask, his expression filled with dismay. “You’re supposed to be in the Bahamas!”

She hissed and bit down again. Her captor hissed again, and removed his hand. “You know her?” he demanded of the security guard, his voice deep and irritated.

And familiar.

“What are you gonna do to her?” a third voice asked plaintively, younger than the first two. “She knows who you are, Mac.”

“I’m not gonna hurt her,” Mac said to him, disgusted. “It’s Lizzie.”

“What are you doing?” Elizabeth demanded, struggling to her feet as soon as her captor released her. She thrust her hands up to the shattered glass dome. “And what’s with the entrance? You’re the goddamn security guard, Scorpio. You could have just walked in.”

“I slipped,” the younger man said with a sigh. “And fell through. Mac and J—” He coughed. “They got tangled up.”

Mac stood and winced at the dome. “I cut the security wires. We got about ten minutes before anyone notices. Let’s just get this over with—”

“What ‘re we gonna do with her?” the youngest asked. “She’ll call the cops man—”

Elizabeth slowly stepped away from the trio, pursing her lips and narrowing her eyes as she did so. She was twenty feet from the nearest exit, but maybe—

“You’ll never make it,” her captor said dryly. He looked at Mac. “You screwed up. You fix it.”

“Lizzie—”

“My name is Elizabeth,” she managed through clenched teeth. If they were going to kill her, she would be damned if she went out with that god awful name. She didn’t even look like a Lizzie. “Look, let’s not be hasty? If you leave, I won’t—”

“We’re looking for the Quartermaine diamond,” Mac said, with a sigh. He dragged a hand through his hair. “It’s here. In the library.”

“The Quartermaine—” Elizabeth blinked, her pulse racing “The six hundred carat…” She shook her head. “It’s a myth. A legend. No one’s even seen it in the last two centuries. Why would it be here?”

“I told you Elizabeth is an expert on the Quartermaine collection,” Mac told the man standing at her side. “She can help us find it—”

She narrowed her eyes. “Even if I said yes—” And everything in her screamed YES!!!  “Even if I said yes,” she began again, trying to keep her voice from quivering with excitement. “It wouldn’t matter. You’d have to cut it up in order to fence it, and there’s no way in hell I’m letting you dismantle the eleventh largest diamond in the world.”

“Eleventh?” her captor repeated, his husky voice laced with amusement. “You sure about that?”

“It’s one hundred and twenty-six carats smaller than the Jonker,” Elizabeth said coolly. She glared at the man, his eyes blue behind his mask. “It was once the fifth largest in the world until the diamond mines in Africa started throwing out larger ones. It was dug out of a Brazilian mine in 1687 and bought by the Duke of Morgan for his new wife in 1700. It remained in the Quartermaine family until 1776, when it vanished from the family collection.”

“She’s a doctoral student in art history with a specialization in gemology,” Mac said with a touch of pride. “She helped me pick out a good ring for Felicia.”

“Felicia,” Elizabeth said, with some disgust, “is going to skin you alive, Mac, if you get caught. And you’re gonna get caught. How are you going to fence the Quartermaine diamond?”

“Don’t have to,” the youngest said, proudly. “We get to sell it whole—”

Elizabeth snorted. “The Quartermaines—”

“Are you in or out?” her captor asked, irritated.

“Do I have a choice?” she demanded.

He tugged off his ski mask, revealing a chiseled set of cheekbones and disheveled short blonde hair in wild spikes. Her breath hitched—because she knew that face. “We’re going to find that diamond,” Jason Quartermaine said, “because it’s my goddamn inheritance and my grandfather stole it from me.”

—

He was going kill Mac Scorpio. He was going to peel his skin from his bones and flay him alive.  The son of a bitch had one freaking job—one!—and he couldn’t make sure that the night clerk was tucked away somewhere where they wouldn’t run into her.

Instead, the pretty brunette with the smart mouth and flashing blue eyes had been right dead center in their search zone.

“Why didn’t you tell me the night clerk was Elizabeth Webber?” he demanded of his partner as the third member of their trio drew off his own mask, shoving it into his back pocket. He hadn’t wanted to include Michael, but his nephew had threatened to follow them.

“I thought you knew where the diamond was,” the security guard replied with a furrowed brow. “What do you care?”

Elizabeth Webber, his sister’s childhood best friend. His grandmother had told him she was writing her dissertation on the Quartermaine collection, but Jason hadn’t really thought she’d be familiar with the diamond.

“I said I thought my grandfather hid it in the library,” Jason said, his teeth clenched. “I should have asked her instead of hiring you. She could have written a damn chapter about it for her paper.”

“Why did you have to break in?” Elizabeth demanded, drawing his attention back to her. “You’re Jason Quartermaine. Your family built this library. There are, like, three buildings named for you people. You make one phone call and they’d hand the library over to you.”

“I guess she hasn’t kept up with the family gossip,” Michael said with a bit of false cheer. “Grandfather hates Jason. And—”

“I’m not Jason Quartermaine anymore,” Jason muttered. “Where the hell have you been?”

Elizabeth hesitated, regret flashing in her eyes. “I moved to London for school after Emily—” She looked away. “Your grandmother just said you weren’t at home anymore.”

“If we could do the reunion and catch up later,” Mac said, “the security company is going to notice the system is offline—”

“This is a real crack plan you’ve come up with.” Elizabeth rolled her eyes and started towards the desk. She drew up short, her eyes widening with fear as Jason stepped in front of her.

“Where are you going?” he demanded. “Are you calling the police?” He had to keep her quiet. Damn it. If Mac had just told him about her—if he’d asked his grandmother more about her—

“I’m calling the security company,” Elizabeth said slowly. “To tell them that something fell through the dome, and that some thing’s wrong with the system. Mac, you should probably get back to your station to call them, too. You two—” She eyes their dark clothing. “Maybe you should change.”

Michael tossed a duffel at Jason. “We got our street clothes—”

“You can be here…consulting with me about something. You’ll figure out that before they get here.” She lightly stepped around him to reach for the phone. “You can handle that, can’t you?”

Jason hesitated, looked at her as she hit a speed dial. “Does that mean you’ll help me?”

She met his eyes as she put the receiver to her ear. “Find a diamond that no one has seen in two hundred years? A find that could make my career and finally finish my dissertation? You should have come to me first instead of breaking in.”

“Why didn’t we come to her first?” Michael asked as he followed his uncle towards the stacks where they began to swiftly change into the clothes from the bag. “Seems easier than buying off the guard.”

“I had my reasons,” Jason muttered as he dragged on his jeans. “Get rid of the gear and go find some books. You’re a student here, you can make it work.”

“She knew Aunt Emily?” Michael asked, tucking his polo shirt into his slacks. “Why didn’t she recognize your voice like she knew Mac?”

Jason rubbed the back of his neck. “Because it’s been fifteen years. And…”

“Wait…” Michael frowned. “Elizabeth Webber,” he repeated. “Wasn’t she in the car—”

“Yeah.” Jason cleared his throat. “The night your aunt died, my brains got scrambled, and—”

“—my father walked out away without a scratch.”