The Soul Collector

Ch. Forty-Four

"Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything."

- George Bernard Shaw

                                                                                ***

Galloway felt like she'd stepped off an airplane at fifty-thousand feet without a parachute. Everything about what had just happened flew around in the whirlwind of her brain. Her mouth tasted like mint and she looked at Sirius to find him already looking at her.

He tilted his head. "What does this really change?"

She exhaled a laugh, brushing the pad of her thumb against her lower lip. 

"I wish you wouldn't do that while you're driving," Sirius murmured.

Immediately dropping her hand, she answered his initial question. "Well for one, I'm actually flagrantly disregarding the rules now. For another, everyone I know is going to have a field day with this. And third, it scares me."

"Scares you?" Sirius echoed. "Nothing scares you."

"You know, I used to think that," she said. "But doing this means that if anything happens, it's my fault."

"This was in motion a long time before you," he reminded her. He was quiet for a moment. "I'm willing to take the risk. Are we just driving through the night?"

She frowned, then raised an eyebrow at the double meaning his last question contained. "I think that's probably best. And two days ago you were saying that you didn't care to have any more reminders about how Hell enforces its rules."

"Liar," he said flippantly. "I've been lying since I met you. Mostly. The thing about spending as much time down there as I have is that demons aren't actually all that creative. Can't give me anything I haven't already lived through before. It scares me like pain scares all things with nerve endings, but it's not something I'm fearful of as far as myself is concerned and that's the difference. Are you okay to drive all night?"

"Well whatever I choose I don't think I'll be getting much sleep either way," she snapped, then sighed, taking her hair out of its ponytail in an attempt to relieve the tension headache that had taken up permanent residence in her skull. "Hand me my phone."

Sirius raised an eyebrow, but she flapped her hand at him and he obliged, grabbing the back of her hand before placing the phone slowly in her palm. He didn't let go immediately and she said, "You realize that we still can't just do anything we want, right? We still have to make sure we don't get caught."

He scowled. "So we just get to admit that we want to do something?"

She shrugged apologetically before dialing Logan's number. Frowning as it rang and rang, she glanced at the clock on the screen to find it was close to three in the morning and almost hung up. 

Then, a sleepy voice croaked, "What?"

"Caleb?" she asked and Sirius huffed, turning to look out the window.

"Galloway?" he said around a yawn. There was a shuffling sound and he groaned. "It's three in the morning."

"We can sleep when we're dead," she responded. "I'm sorry, I didn't think you would be asleep."

She could imagine his scowl as he said, "I haven't slept more than four hours in the last two or three days."

"My heart breaks for you," she said dryly, not finding much sympathy considering she'd had her share of late nights and long stretches without sleep. "I'd feel for you if I could reach you, honestly. But I need to talk to Rhys, anyway."