In The Dead of the Night

09 | speeding miles

Third time's the charm, third time's the charm, third time's the charm. 

The phrase echoed from Shawn's memory to my subconsciousness, like the ticking of the seconds running away as I listened to the clock in the warehouse barely hours ago. It seemed as though it had been a much longer time since then, although I had only been gripping to Shawn's hand in the front of a stolen yellow taxi cab for barely half an hour, and we had been on the same North-facing highway the entire time. Occasionally, as the words echoed in my head, I heard the same sound of cackling laughter that he had described to me, like the ringing of broken, distorted bells to wake you in the dead of the night.

Even though we had only been driving North for a short while, the air seemed colder than it did an hour ago. At least my lifestyle with my father had brought me to the bad habit of collapsing into the bed covers with shoes, jackets, and glasses among other things on, but the sweatshirt I had on from two nights ago wasn't nearly enough, as the temperature only seemed to be going down. Maybe it was the bullet holes in the taxi walls slowly leaking in more frost-bitten, midnight air, or maybe it was simply the thought of the cackles that made me shiver more by the second. 

I stared as hard as I could through the window, cracked in some places and blood-covered in others, at the rails of the highway we drove upon. Most of it was dented and ripped apart, due to the non-existent maintenance and the liquor shop with the glowing red sign in the distance. Only those fleeing for a better place came to this road, and few got it. Shawn and I would only get one on the flip of a coin. We were heading in the direction that the Third Try originated from, but also in the direction of the place where my father kept his trainees. North Point was of utmost security. Even I wouldn't be allowed to come near it until I was 21.  

It was a place of frozen waters and obsidian pathways aglow with white flame, rumored by my uncles a wistfully long time ago. Even after working alongside my father since they were barely old enough to sit in the driver's seat, they weren't trusted inside. Paranoia ran in the family, they would joke when I was younger, before I'd grown and realized I'd inherited too much of my mother's trusting, sensitive soul.

I myself had often fabricated a building that was dark in color and demeanor, covered with ungodly imaginations; books, maps, and candelabras would line darkly stained wooden shelves among other things, and rooms that at first glance might appear to be places for dining or socializing, would be storage for any kind of weapon someone might wish for. In my mind it was full of all the recruits I'd helped scout since I was young, but I feared that when we arrived it would be as empty as a bottle of brandy left to the first drinker, as abandoned as the liquor shop with the glowing red sign on the side of the road.

"How are you?" Shawn asked after I had spent far too much time staring at a particular splatter of dark red liquid on the window. I sighed. The world seemed a slight bit too big for me at the moment.

I said instead, "How long will it take to reach North Point?" 

Half expecting him to repeat his own question, I considered how appropriate it would be to answer, 'lost', but instead he glanced at the ceiling of the car, through the bullet holes and at the dense grey clouds, as if thinking.

"Making the assumption we stay alive the entire time, we should get there in three days' time," he said. "Most likely longer than that, because there will be days where all we can do is hide and stay alive."

I turned to meet his eyes, and for once, he complied. "Is it even worth it? Wouldn't it be safer to just go to the West as soon as we can? North Point is the safest place, but going there is like passing to North City, only so much worse."

He squeezed my hand three times in the front of the taxi, holding my eyes steady to calm me even though it was him that had seen someone closer to him than anyone dead in the street, had heard the cackles of laughter in front of him. The familiarity if anything was comforting, the familiarity of his steadiness and strength and golden, glowing stare. The holes in the roof let in small snowflakes here and there, and I noticed how they stood out against the darkness of his curls.