Underneath the Moon is Where My Secrets Lie

Chapter Twenty-Three: Troubles Are Still Ahead

     Suddenly, I heard sirens as they blared nearby.

     I jumped into my front seat, panic seizing my heart. I gripped the steering wheel, jamming the key into the ignition. I slammed my foot down on the floor, and my car jerked forward, screeching along the asphalt road across the street from the tunnel. 

     I raced under the belly of the stone bridge.

     A black and white cop car raced down the street behind me, passing the road that I was currently on. 

     I slammed down on my brakes as I parked on the side of the road, interested in what was going on behind me.

     But then, the cop car backed up...

     ... and it came rushing down the street that I was on.

     Once again, panic flooded through me, and in no time flat, I had my car back on the road.  

     I followed the road, and I made a risky, dangerous turn as the road curved over a very high cliff. Underneath the cliff was a steep, rocky, seventy-foot drop into a gigantic body of water.

     I slammed my foot down again, drifting on the thin strip of road provided, the front of my car hanging off the road. 

     I held in a scream as a full half of my car hung off the road. 

     If I could time this right...

     I looked in my rear-view mirror, and I saw that the cop car was gaining on me.

     Luckily, downtown was just up this road...

     I switched into reverse, my car shooting back from the drop. Fluidly, I then returned to the drive gear, my wheel spinning right.

     Perspiration trickled down my forehead, down my neck, and it made my hands slick and slippery. It was now necessary to grasp the wheel with every ounce of strength that I could manage.

     I saw the streaks of sweat that my hands left behind on my charcoal-black steering wheel.

     I swerved my car onto a couple of different streets, attempting to lose the police car. 

     Despite my attempts, I couldn't lose it. After my third attempt, I came up with an idea.

     One that could possibly get me killed if I wasn't careful.

     I turned my car around on the next street, getting into the lane that was going in the opposite direction. I then started driving in the middle of the empty road, ignoring the bright, shiny, yellow line.

     When I got a couple of yards in front of the cop car, I acted as if I were going to crash into it. The car still sat there, though, acting as a barrier.

     I then backed up as the cop car, sirens and lights still blaring and flashing, threw itself into a half-turn, occupying both lanes of the road, one half of the car in each lane.

     Perfect.

     This was my chance.

     I shifted my car into reverse, made a half-transformation, and boosted my car right over more than five whole streets to my left. 

     When my car landed safely on the correct side of the road, I shifted back into my human form and continued on. 

     I remembered that they would be looking for me, so I parked my car in a store's now-full parking lot. 

     I used my phone so that it could tell me where I was. 

     I found out that if I walked a couple of blocks down, there was a bar that I could just hide out in.

     But, before I could walk - or, at least, check out how my leg had healed - I remembered Emeran and my license plate.

     My glance shot toward my trunk instinctively.

     Covering my license plate was a big, thin sheet of Emeran's cloak's fabric. 

     It was snagged from the inside of my trunk, so thankfully, Emeran hadn't escaped.

     Both of my problems were solved, then.

     I went to the front of my car and grabbed scissors and a special mask - modeled like a gas mask - and a device shaped like a small pill that released sleep-smoke from inside of my glove box.

     First, I cut Emeran's cloak - such a shame I had to do so, by the way - and then got to the real work.

     I wedged the pill-like object inside of the tiny space in between my trunk's "door". 

     I made sure that it was jammed in tightly.

     I grabbed a roll of blue tape and the pill's remote, and I went to work on taping up that tiny space.

     When everything was set up, I strapped on the mask and pressed the button on the remote.

     A few tiny puffs of purple smoke exited through a small rip in one of the tape pieces.

     I heard frantic clawing inside of the trunk, but then, it quieted... 

     ... until it stopped completely.

     I tore off the tape and put everything else away.

     That's when I walked to the bar.