Imperial (Insight #8)(43)

As we raced down this never-ending road, I reached my hand out the window and felt the warm air against my skin, inhaled the complex yet simple scent of the night. I could not help laughing aloud, feeling that youthful awe that I felt back then once again.

My laughter pushed him to drive faster, to turn up the music a little louder. His arm stretched out behind me, wafting his intoxicating scent in my direction. I pulled my arm in and took the silent invitation he had offered, sliding across the seat so my body was against his, something I had done long ago, a move that caught him off guard for an instant, but then he gently let his arm fall around me.

Remembering the past perfectly, tonight his arm fell around me as I laid my head on his shoulder.

I found myself fascinated by his hand, how it controlled this beast with such minimal effort. I reached for it, wondering if the steering wheel hummed with the vibration the car sent through me.

“I never did teach you to drive, did I?” he said as he glanced down at me.

I moved away from his embrace, clearly stating that was not what I was asking to learn.

“What?” he asked with a bit of a laugh in his velvet tone.

I just shook my head no as I slid back to my side. When I got there and glanced back to him, he was gone, but the car was still soaring down the road. I heard him belt out laughter and found him in the back seat. “You better take the wheel, Glory. Don’t hurt this magnificent beast.”

“Vade, you get up here this instant!” I bellowed as I feverishly tried to figure out what to do. On instinct, I moved into the driver’s seat, thinking that if I turned the key it would stop.

“There you go, take the wheel,” he said just over my shoulder.

“Vade, I can’t reach the pedals.”

“I got them. Steer,” he said as he failed to hide the humor in his voice.

One glance down told me that that was true. The pedal that I thought gave the car power was against the floor.

Steer. I can do that. I’m a freaking sovereign, for Creator’s sake. I’ve got this.

With shaking hands, I gripped the wheel and felt the vibration of the car soar through my being. I ever so slightly turned the wheel, and the car weaved from the straight line it was on.

“Not sure I’d go that way. Trees, Glory; trees would hurt her.” The calm humor in his voice was so addictive.

Her. He always called it a ‘her,’ but there was nothing feminine about his car. I managed to move the car between the lines he’d left her in before.

Just as I relaxed and convinced myself that he had control of this, that he would not let me hurt this car, I felt the heat of his skin next to my neck. “I should have done this long ago,” he murmured. I knew that tone; it was one of his more sensual ones, one that he would have not dared use with me the first time I rode in this beast. I glanced to his eyes in the mirror before me and felt my soul pulse, the scent of roses flutter through the car. “Eyes on the road,” he playfully ordered as his humming fingertips outlined the strap on my shoulder.

Before I could glance back to my path, I saw lights behind us, lots of lights; blue, red, white, and an horrid sound was coming from them, one that gave me an awful sinking feeling in my core.

“Vade!”

“Yes?” he said, as if he could not see those other cars chasing us.

“What do they want?”

“For you to slow down, I’m sure.”

Before he finished his sentence, I’d slid down in the seat and pressed the pedal that I knew stopped the beast. But we did not stop; instead, the car spun wildly.

Laughing, he shouted, “Oh, Glory, you have caused them angst.” The car finally stopped with a violent jerk. I soon figured out that it was now facing those lights that were chasing us. On instinct, I braced my arms across my face.

Then all at once, the horrid sound ended and I felt a fading warmth on my arms. Slowly, I let them down to see a sand dune in front of me. He had moved us, car and all, more than likely to an entirely differently side of the dimension we were in, maybe even a new one.

“Did you wipe their memory? Make sure they didn’t crash into themselves?” I said with a deep sigh.

“Drinking coffee and eating donuts whilst wondering why nothing exciting ever happens in their town,” Vade said from behind me.

I leaned back in the seat and stared into the mirror at the reflection of his deep grey eyes, the shards of light that pierced through them. He was now comfortable in the massive back seat, one arm behind his head as his long legs were relaxed in a wide stance.

This was another first, one that led to an epic first.

Seeing a sun that was not clouded with smog was something that the timid girl I was had never been afforded. Seeing one melt into the ocean was a gasp-eliciting experience. I didn’t understand where it went, why the water didn’t steam with the heat of it as it fell into distant waves. Vade had showed me thousands of them, stating that no one sunset was like another, which was very true.

I gripped the steering wheel. Before us was an approaching storm, behind us a blissful sunset. It was kind of poetic, placing me between two points that have and will occur as I stood between the memories of the girl I was and what I, or rather we, had become. So much had changed, yet even more had stayed the same. I still had questions and wonders that I kept from him. That timid girl had never perished.

Right now I felt ashamed; Silas’ conversation was echoing in my thoughts, how he dared me to say that word, how he accused me of feeling it for Vade.