Grab the bike, he whispered through my brain.
I moved my arms forward and grabbed on to the bike, feeling him shift as he got on. Then he pulled me on behind him and a loud roar sounded as he turned over the engine.
“Hold on,” he rushed.
I held on.
It felt like we’d been released from a sling shot as he blasted forward.
One second everything was dark, and the next, I could see again.
“Eeek,” I said as I watched the end of an alley loom ahead of us.
“There’s a turn. It’ll be tight, though; steady yourself,” Nikolai ordered.
I steadied myself as best as I could, mostly by wrapping my arms so tight around his waist that I knew it had to be uncomfortable.
He didn’t complain, though.
The turn was tight, and I hadn’t even realized there was one there until we were taking it.
We moved down an alley behind buildings that was so narrow that I could easily reach out and touch the two buildings that were back to back.
Nikolai didn’t seem to notice…or care…because he just kept riding forward so fast that I could barely breathe.
We made it to the end of the alleyway and pulled straight into traffic, cutting off a white police car in our efforts.
“Oh, shit,” I breathed.
He pushed us forward even faster, completely ignoring the police car’s red and blue lights; instead weaving in and out of traffic like his life depended on it.
And maybe it did.
I didn’t know.
I turned to see if I could spot anyone behind us, but saw nothing but the red and blue lights, and the traffic trying to part for the police officer to get through.
“You’re gonna have to go faster if you want to get away from that cop,” I said.
I couldn’t believe those words had left my lips, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
“Hold on to your titties,” he called over the roar of the wind and the engine.
I looked forward, wondering how he was going to get out of the traffic jam I saw in front of us, but once again my vision went warped, and I saw nothing out of the ordinary.
Traffic was moving.
There was no police car behind us.
Everything felt…normal.
But it wasn’t.
Because I could still feel my hair flying backwards.
Could still feel the adrenaline as it coursed through my veins.
Everything was still the same, but it wasn’t.
“Don’t you think you could warn me when you’re going to just throw me into an illusion?” I yelled.
I felt the rumble of Nikolai’s chest as it vibrated through his rough chuckle.
“I did,” he informed me.
I snorted.
“Hold on to your titties,” I said, “isn’t a warning.”
“Toe-may-toe, to-mah-toe,” he drawled.
I snickered and leaned my head against his back, enjoying the ride as much as I could.
He rode for what felt like forever, but ended up being mere minutes.
He stopped abruptly when we pulled in beneath an overpass.
We went from about sixty MPH to a full stop in less than a hundred feet.
“That was fun,” I lied, trying to catch my breath as we stayed huddled underneath the bridge.
Nikolai turned his face towards me.
“I knew I should’ve had Skylar check your head for brain damage.”
I pinched his side, causing him to squirm out of my touch.
“Now what?” I asked him.
He sighed, slumping forward slightly on his handlebars.
“Go home. I thought if this turned out okay, and nobody saw us, we could do this more often, but it’s more than apparent that, without the patrols in the city to keep us safe from the hunters, we’re not going to be able to leave the house,” he admitted softly.
A dark shape made itself visible from the shadows, and I gasped, shrinking back.
“’Bout time you got here, dammit,” Nikolai grumbled.
Sorry, Charlie. I couldn’t help but stay back and see where they went, Perdita said.
She sounded so good when she was being bad! If I’d said something similar, I would’ve sounded like I was being sarcastic. Perdita, though, sounded like she was being as courteous as she could be.
Nikolai sighed.
“Where’d they go?” he asked.
“A warehouse just east of the city. They didn’t even try to follow you.”
“Fuckin’ wonderful. I need to change my license plate now…and get us new helmets. And you can never wear those clothes out again. Motherfucker, I have a headache,” Nikolai said, slumping forward with his head in his hands.
I felt like a shithead.
I asked him repeatedly to go out, and I never once realized that there would be danger.
I just wanted something to do. A place to think that wasn’t the house that felt like a freakin’ cage.
And I’d endangered us.
But he’d never said anything!
He didn’t want to make you feel trapped, Perdita said smoothly, her large head turning to look at me.
I slumped into Nikolai’s back, wondering if he’d heard what I’d just said.
He didn’t seem to notice, though.
His eyes were focused on the traffic passing us, and it was only then that I realized that we were hidden in the shadows.