Now You See Me

Fifty: Scarred

Aside from looking like he wanted to push me out onto the road at any available opportunity, the taxi driver paid me next to no attention for the rest of the journey. I could tell he was painfully aware that I was there; on the steering wheel his knuckles were white, and on occasion I would catch him looking at my mouth in the rear view mirror to make sure I'd put my fangs away and kept them there. I didn't ask him to stop even though it bothered me, because I felt too bad for scaring him in the first place and for probably putting his job in jeopardy. He did, after all, have an escapee hospital patient in his back seat.

Never mind that he didn't have the faintest clue what the escapee patient was.

He probably thought I was a vampire; if he'd had garlic handy in the glove compartment he'd probably have chucked it at me just to rule it out. There was a shrewd, calculating look in his eye which I didn't like; one that suggested that maybe he was trying to think a way around me. Internally, I groaned. If only one thing went my way today, it needed to be this more than anything.

I had an awful feeling I was going to regret thinking that, but it was too late now.

By the time we turned onto the correct road, all my muscles were aching from how tensely I'd been holding myself. My skin was burning with dehydration; every movement felt like it set me on fire, and that horrible hazy detachment – the kind that had come over me in the illusion when I got to critical level – was starting to fog my brain again. I was too grateful that I'd managed to get this far to be surprised. All I wanted was to get to the rehab centre and away from this driver. I could almost taste his fear, but somehow it didn't feel entirely genuine. Unease was weaving its way through my thoughts.

Weaving – more like flooding.

"Here we are," the driver said, pulling in at the side of the road. "If you're paying me double, we come to eighteen quid, please."

"I need to go inside and get it," I said. Even my voice was going by this point. "I don't have it on me."

"Don't you, now?"

We heckled for a while, him refusing to move the car another few yards closer to St Martin's, with me having to remind him that I had no shoes on, and that he might as well because then I could just get out, get the money and give it to him. I eyed the pavement out of the passenger window; gritty and very well-textured. I didn't want to walk on it at all, especially not with the way my skin was feeling by this point.

Eventually, I convinced him to move. He stopped just shy of a straight run to the gate, but it was better than it had looked like I was going to get for a while there.

"I'll be back out in a minute," I said, popping the passenger door and sliding out, hissing with pain as my feet touched the ground.

I could feel him eyeing me as I stumbled to the garden wall of the nearest house to steady myself. I began to move along it, making sure not to let my hand leave contact with the brick so I could easily catch myself. I didn't want to rely on my reflexes when I was feeling so awful – I wasn't sure I had any reflexes that were functional at that moment, aside from breathing. Even that was difficult.

I almost fell inside the door to St Martin's when it opened before I knocked, and I came nose to highly-polished coat button with Lucien, who didn't seem at all surprised to see me there.

"Who is he?" he asked, without any kind of ceremony, nodding his head towards the taxi idling at the kerb.

"Taxi driver," I gasped. Couldn't it wait? "Need to pay him. Eighteen. Cuz I scared the crap out of him."