"That's a three-hour drive, August. What do you expect me to do when you get me there? Play checkers with you?"
I roll to a stop at the flashing red light that marks Keller's Ferry's only major intersection. I hear the click just as the bell on the dashboard chimes and suddenly Zephyr's fist pounds on the door beside her.
There are no other vehicles at the intersection, so I press my foot to the pedal and start the journey up the two lane, mountain highway that leads to our destiny.
"Do you have the child locks on?" Her voice is filled with awe and laced with real fear. It sets my jaw on edge and has my heart pounding with uncertainty.
"Augustus? Are you kidnapping me?"
"Shh, Fiore mio, please put your seat belt back on." I don't recognize my own voice; it sounds flat and far away; dim under the white noise of my blood rushing through my veins.
Flipping the switch to turn on the high beams, I keep both hands on the wheel as I take the car around the sweeping curves that follow the contours of the mountains as we climb in elevation.
This section of the highway is far from any settlement, clinging to the side of a cliff that was blasted into the mountains over a hundred years ago. The only light on the road comes from the headlights and the moon overhead.
Zephyr has gone deathly quiet beside me. The light on the dashboard that said her seat belt was unfastened has gone out.
Beside me, I can sense her apprehension, her hand tightened on the door handle beside her, the other periodically reaching to tighten the seat belt across her chest, her inhalations rough between held breaths.
We round a bend and a deer bolts from the side of the road into the forest. Zephyr startles beside me.
Reaching for hand in the darkness between us, I'm relieved when she takes it and squeezes my fingers tightly.
This is the stretch of road where her father and grandfather hit a deer nearly twenty years ago. It caused them to lose control of the vehicle and run off the road-- killing both of the men somewhere in the process.
She told me she doesn't travel this road at night.
I am the worst of selfish men.
I'm proving the whispers about me true; I am not a good man. Not someone who should be trusted or welcome in their community. I've literally kidnapped a woman and now I'm taking her to my home in a remote, abandoned, mountain village-- and, God help me, but I do not want to play checkers when we get there.
It's not until we level out on the stretch of road that enters Moonshine Ridge that I feel fiore's grip soften, allowing the blood to flow back into the fingers she's been strangling in our silent ascent of the mountain.
"Why are we going to your house, August? Why would you bother kidnapping me just to drive me up there so you can tell me one more time how you aren't interested in me 'that way'."
She drops my hand to make the air quotes as I make the turn onto the road that will take us past her family estate, the educational camp they run for school children, and up to Turtle Village.
"You still haven't read any of the messages I've sent you today, have you?" I grumble at the obvious.
She scoffs beside me, more relaxed now that we're on level ground with wide clearances on both sides of the road that's more familiar to her.
"I got the gist of it from the previews-- 'I can't be the man you're looking for,' 'I don't want you to regret meeting me.' Same shit you've told me already, August. I get it. I don't need to hear you say it in person. Why do you think I stopped trying to talk to you and agreed to go out with Brian?"
My hands clench on the steering wheel at the mention of the boy's name. I'm still not committed to letting him get away with putting his hands on my fiore.
"I want you, fiore. I've never wanted anyone or anything more in my entire life."
"Bu-- wait. I thought you said we were going to your house?"
Zephyr's first thought is lost in her confusion when I make the turn into Hart's Gulch.
"I'm taking you home. You can call me and I'll give you a ride back to Slow River tomorrow."
I pull in front of the storybook cottage she lives in and release the safety locks, fully expecting her to jump out without hesitation.
"What happened to 'I want you more than anything in my life, fiore?’"
Her seat belt is unbuckled, but instead of moving to exit the vehicle, she turns toward me. I go ahead and kill the engine, turning the headlights off manually so as not to draw attention from her neighbor.