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Heart dropping, I take the foot off the gas and scan the side of the highway for somewhere to pull up.
“What are you doing?” Mel looks back over her shoulder. “You can’t let them pull us over!”
“Yeah,” Celeste’s voice is calm. “I think we have a pound or so of Ghostshade in the back.”
“But–”
Mel waves her hands. “Drive!”
Mind scrambling, I push down on the gas. The car lurches forward inelegantly and I grip the stirring wheel tighter. As we approach the turn to Asphodel, the traffic slowly becomes more dense. My pulse rushes in my ears as I weave through traffic, the police car not far behind me.
“Faster!” Mel demands, her sharp-toothed grin wide in the rearvision mirror. “Go!”
My skin prickles with sweat. Already, the highway is turning back into a city street, buildings beginning to crowd the side of the road. Not far ahead, an intersection approaches at nauseating speed. My stomach drops as the light turns red.
“I have to stop!”
“You can’t!”
I glance over at Celeste, who looks amused and utterly unaffected.
These people are fucking insane.
“No! Nonono!” Mel yells as I begin to slow down. I desperately scan the intersection for an opening.
Just as the police car catches up behind me, I notice a gap in the cars crossing. Again, I give in to the vampiric side of me, this time lurching myself toward it. Bile rises in my stomach as I floor the gas and we leap out onto the intersection. Mel screams and hides her face behind her hands. In the corner of my vision I see that even Celeste sits up a little straighter. We miss an eighteen-wheeler by a hair’s width but come out the other side unscathed.
Despite myself, I join in when Mel starts to laugh. As I continue to shoot up the road, the police car remains stuck on the other side. Mel directs me down a narrow set of sidestreets, through the parking lot of an office building and into a parking garage. Here, she changes the numberplates.
“I thought people only did that in movies,” I say, watching her from the driver’s seat.
Celeste shrugs. “I think Mel’s whole life is a heist montage.”
When I attempt to get out, Mel says, “What are you doing?”
“You’re going to make me keep driving?”
“I live about ten minutes away,” she says. “And then you’ll have to drop Celeste home anyway.”
“Isn’t this your car?”
Mel tilts her head. “Work car. One of them, at least.”
“How many cars do you have?”
Celeste sighs. “Enough for Mel to have her fun.”
I look over at her. “And you?”
She shakes her head. “I haven’t been sober enough to drive in a long time.”
I catch Mel grimacing at that. With a sigh, I resign myself to my fate. For a while, at least, it seems I’ve frightened Mel into silence. Despite the fact that I’ve nearly had a heart attack on multiple occasions tonight, the whole drive has been a surprising lift to my mood. Maybe, I’ve even had a little fun.
As Mel leans forward between the seats to play with the radio, I let my eyes wander over to Celeste. She’s leaned her head against the window and is watching the houses pass by. A single curl has freed itself from the pin holding back her hair and is falling languidly over her shoulder. Her face looks implausibly delicate in the stroboscopic lighting of the passing lights.
”...a song for all the lovers out there…”the radio mumbles before the first notes Tracy Chapman’s ‘Baby Can I Hold You’begin to play.
Noticing that I’m looking at her, Celeste’s eyes find mine, the corner of her mouth curving upward. She winks and blows me a kiss.
