Page 26 of Priest and his Anarchist

My hand tightens around the keys. Did she not just hear what I said? “I can’t! I don’t know how!”

“Get in the car, Luna,” Priest growls, brushing past me.

I tense, heat rushing to my cheeks. “You’re coming?”

His arm disappears through the side of a different car, before reemerging with a cap. He flips it backward and opens the door to Bishop’s Maserati. An expensive car, I’m guessing.

“What, you think I’d let you leave without me?” His face remains hard and expressionless.

Neither of them wait for me to answer before disappearing into the satin black sports car.

“Shit. Okay.” I rush to the driver’s side and close the door. “I’m not kidding. I truly don’t know how to drive.”

Priest’s laugh dies in his throat as he massages his chin. “Yeah…we can’t have that.”

I don’t know why it matters to him whether I can drive or not. I straighten, resting my hands on the wheel. “I guess this isn’t a good time to ask how to turn it on?”

No one else laughs, so I search around the steering wheel until a button that says Start glares back at me.

“Foot on the brake before you push.” With his clear instructions, I press the base of my foot against the brake, pushing the button. The engine growls to life and I release a small exhale.

“Okay. But wait, I don’t even know where we are!” I turn to them both, but dark eyes hold me captive, matching the shadows that contour his face.

His lip twitches. “Riverside.”

I stop a moment. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. “Riverside? But…won’t I get spotted?”

The muscles in his jaw tense. “We’re not hiding you. Those who know you know you’re alive.”

I look between the gear stick and the lights on the dash. “P is for Park, D is for Drive, R is reverse, N is Neutral. You don’t use the others.” I’m still reciting the letters when his next words come out strained. “Put the car in Drive, Madness.”

“Oh.” I squeeze the gear, but it doesn’t release.

“Foot. On. The. Brake.” He doesn’t even hide his annoyance.

“Geez, okay.” I press on the brake again and the gear stick slips into Drive.

River bursts out laughing from the back seat.

I turn in time to catch her taking a photo. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t. You love me. That’s why you’re happy I finally came.”

I am happy she’s here, but I’m worried about what she’s been doing as well, or why she hasn’t mentioned it.

“Tap the accelerator. Not too much, or you’re gonna owe me a new GTR.” He gestures to the car in front of us, his eyes darkening. “Slow.”

I’m deluded. He kills people.You do not find your tormentor attractive.But…

“Okay.” Blood roars behind my ears, drowning me in a pool of haze. When his eyes fall to my lips, everything dissolves around us, including time.

He tilts his head to the side and rests back, snapping us back to reality. “Drive. We have to be back by twelve.”

“Agh!” River whines from the back, the light on her phone illuminating her face in the rearview mirror. “Can’t slaughter wait?”

I do as I’m told and the car rolls forward. “I did it!”

“No.” Priest gazes out the window. “Don’t get too excited, Madness. I haven’t taught you to drift yet.”

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