Cross

15 | We're Here

"Patience is inversely proportional to the distance from the front of the queue." - John Day

                 Chapter Fifteen

"How's Dex?" I asked, as I drove through early morning traffic on a surprisingly warmer day. With the cold frost overstaying its welcome for so long, I had given up hope of ever experiencing a warm, summer day again. I had been wrong, however.

"Better than before, thankfully," Agent Lam said. She squinted as a ray of the bright morning sun pierced through the windshield, blocking her view.

I glanced at her, my hands tightly coiled around the steering wheel, for a few seconds before diverting my attention back to the road. Luckily, the sun was not hitting me directly in the face, sparing me from accidently rear-ending the minivan traveling well below the speed limit in front of me.

After a few seconds of writhing in her seat, she sighed deeply and cracked her window down a few inches. I couldn't hear her inner thoughts, but a sharp feeling in my gut alerted to me to a few possibilities of where her mind was at.

"Pull the sun visor down," I said. "It'll help."

She followed my advice without saying as much as a word. I furrowed my eyebrows as I concentrated on switching lanes on the highway to avoid the minivan, which was slowly becoming the bane of my existence. Turning my right signal on, I waited as cars rolled past me, one by one, completely ignoring my call for help. Groaning, as Agent Lam sent me a pitying glance before falling back into her thoughts, I cursorily glanced at my rear-view mirror.

The next car, a new model of Ford, was only a hundred meter or so away, and from the looks of it, it too was not going to allow me any space to maneuver Dex's car. Biting my tongue before I could release a string of curses, I pressed on my gas and swerved sharply to my right, just narrowly missing the Ford. The balding man punched his honk in response as a breeze swept away his vulgar curses.

"Woah! What was that?" Agent Lam exclaimed. Her eyes were bulging out of their sockets, as she rubbed the side of her head. A trickle of sweat trailed down the side of her face as she glanced back at the car I had nearly pummeled into.

"I hate driving," I said, shrugging, even though my nails were digging deeply into the leather steering wheels. Dex was definitely not going to lend me his car anytime soon after this incident.

"Okay, but that's no reason for you to drive like a mad woman!" She exclaimed. "You knocked me right into the window!"

I watched as her lips morphed into a pout, her hands still massaging the wounded area. "Relax, Lam. You'll be fine. I was just getting tired of this minivan strolling as if it was on a fucking picnic."

She gave me a harsh look, full of disappointment and subsiding anger, before she frowned. "You should've told me before we left. I wouldn't have ever let you drive if I knew you had unresolved anger issues."

I grimaced, locking my jaw in defiance. "I do not have anger issues."

As she began talking about her psychology degree, and all of the information she had gained from taking multiple classes, I turned my head towards the lane I had just exited only to find a smug face looking back at me.

"Look!" I exclaimed, jerking a thumb towards the scumbag driving the cursed minivan. "He knew exactly what he was doing! I can't stand people like him."

"Breathe, Angie," she said. Her hand was rubbing the exposed skin on my arm, but it didn't calm me down. Not in the least.

Gripping the steering wheel as if my life depended on it, I waited until the car in front of me had gone a safe distance before I said, "You might want to hold on tight."