Sunbound

☀ Fast Cars and Broken Hearts

C H A P T E R   23: Fast Cars and Broken Hearts

☀ ☀ ☀

Skylar could kill.

Given the circumstances, he was sure a lot of people could. Put a gun to a wife's head and watch how quickly her husband is ready to draw blood in order to save hers. Rip an infant from its mother's arms and feel the weight of a parent's devotion come down on the assailant like a sledgehammer. Take a girl with two first names and a hatred for many things, put her in a yellow convertible with a man twice her age, and witness a car chase on a dark expressway in Sante Fe, New Mexico.

Skylar's life had been relatively quiet in the three years he had spent away from California. He worked, saved up money, and drove. It was monotonous and directionless, but he didn't mind that very much. He made it a point to be by himself, and for very good reasons. The kind of reasons that prevented him from feeling like he could kill. Now, he was an unabating powerhouse of violent intent, rubber burning on the painted lines of roadways, swerving in and out of sparse traffic in pursuit of the vehicle he watched Scout take off in.

Skylar's knuckles had turned into white marbles. He could almost hear them cracking when he jerked his steering wheel to pass an unsuspecting vehicle. His foot burned from pressing down so hard on the gas. He hadn't driven the Chevelle that hard in a long time. Matter of fact, he couldn't recall the last time he had. He also couldn't recall the last time he had been that pissed off. This was exactly the sort of thing he spent three years avoiding.

The convertible was going fast, but Skylar was advancing just as quickly. He was not letting that car out of his sight as he continued to weave between passerby on the expressway with reckless abandon. All Skylar could think of, besides just being mad as hell, was how much he did not like Scout at that moment. Enough to almost take the nearest exit and forget about her, but Skylar knew he would never be able to face Scott again if that were the case. It was an unspoken promise between the two men that Scout would be Skylar's responsibility for the duration of the road trip. No one had ever kept any promises they had made to Skylar throughout his life, but that didn't deter him from keeping promises he made as best he could, so he pressed down harder on the gas as he followed the convertible down the slope of the next exit.

The two vehicles were now roaring down city streets. Some of the street lights were out on this side of town, and it looked a lot seedier than where they had just came from. It reminded Skylar a lot of the part of town back in California that he grew up in, or the place he was born in in Michigan that was now known for its crime and all the lead in its water. It pissed Skylar off even more. If a man is going to take a woman to his bed, then the least he could do is take her back to a decent one. Skylar felt like nothing where they were headed was going to be "decent" in the slightest.

Skylar was jonesing for a cigarette. Bad. He hadn't felt his nerves as hot and wired as he had then in awhile. It made it hard for him to keep his attention as focused. All of the street signs and lights started to blur together, and it wasn't long before Skylar's eyes burned and red blended into green. The convertible made it through a yellow light, but by the time Skylar reached the intersection, it was blaring red.

A small, white car shot out from a side street that had a green signal.

Skylar slammed his foot down on the brake peddle. His whole body became as stiff as a week-old corpse. The screech was deafening. Smoke from burning rubber clouded the Chevelle and all Skylar could picture was the black of his car melting into the white of the other like spiderweb jasper soaked in the cherry wine from beneath his skin. Skylar had no intentions of dying that night, but he supposed that if he did, that was just how it was meant to be. He didn't have enough resolve to fight it these days. Just for the sake of having a silver-lining, he thought to himself, At least I died in my car, the only thing that's been good to me lately.