Lost in Technicolor

The Car Ride

"I didn't think, Petra was going to let you go," Erik said from the back seat of Drake's car.

Jade turned her head to look at him. He was glancing out the window, but all of his attention was focused on Drake.

"Yes, I had my doubts that I'd make it out alive," Drake smiled as turned the car through the curvy country road.

"Where did you get the car?" Jade muttered.

"I keep it at the house Damien owns in the city. It isn't too far a walk from Erik's bakery," he answered.

Sighing and shifting back into her seat, Jade looked out the window herself watching the cows and sheep pass by slowly, Drake wasn't driving nearly as fast as Damien had been on that road with her. He probably didn't want to reach Erik's place too quickly though because that meant that he was that much closer to having to travel back to Damien, but it was more likely because the roads were covered in an inch of slippery ice. So he zoomed along the road at a steady pace. Absentmindedly, Jade reached down with her left hand feeling for the ring that Petra had given her and was horrified to find that it was no longer there. She immediately began looking around her seat, maybe it had fallen off in the car? It was too big for her finger, but she thought that she would've noticed if it had fallen off.

Drake glanced over at her, and put a hand on her shoulder which compelled her to sit back up to see him holding the ring between his thumb and forefinger smiling. When did he take it from her? Then she remembered when he had taken her hand before they had left. At least now she knew why he took the time away from Petra to talk with her. Scowling she reached out to try to jerk it from his grasp, but he pulled it away quickly and then glanced at a wristwatch on his right arm. When had he bought that?

"Drake," she began angrily, but he hushed her quickly. Rolling her eyes, she tried once more, "I need-"

"Will you please be quiet?" He growled, shooting her a meaningful glance which carried over to Erik and then back. So he didn't want to talk in front of Erik, but couldn't he at least give her back her ring? What if she traveled right that second? She would hit the stone road traveling at fifty miles an hour hard.

"Seriously," she tried to say anxiously, but he stuck his hand in her face holding up five fingers, then four, all the while watching the face of the clock, three, two, one.

What's it for? His thoughts burst into her mind, abruptly.

Smiling to herself angrily, she turned away from him with crossed arms, holding onto her thoughts tightly so that he couldn't hear even one.

Sighing, he said aloud, "Then it's mine."

He stuffed it into a pocket in his jacket and buttoned the fabric closed, keeping his eyes on the road the entire time. Her outrage made her stubborn and so she locked her thoughts as deep as she could in her mind. He couldn't punish her like a child into doing what he wanted her to. She swung her legs over her seat and moved to the spot in the backseat beside Erik, who gave her a friendly smile in greeting, while Drake merely scowled at her though the driver's mirror. She reached over and grabbed Erik's hand maybe if she held onto someone she would be less likely to travel. The idea sounded dumb in her head, but she had few other options.

"What's the matter?" He asked.

"Nothing," she muttered, closing her eyes, but somewhere inside her she could already feel the spinning feeling as Drake slammed on the brakes and laid his fist into the car's horn.

"Damn animals," he hissed at the cows standing in the middle of the road.

Erik said something critical, but Jade wasn't able to hear it because she was already gone.

"Blowing the horn won't do a thing," Erik said, angrily, "you're just confusing them."

"Oh, so you're a cow herder no-" Drake began, but Erik interrupted him.

"We're such idiots!" He said, planting his fist into his forehead, loud enough to make a sound.

"What are you going on about?" Drake asked, grabbing the corner of the chair and quickly turning around to see him and there was only him to see because Jade was long gone.

"Thank God, you stopped when you did or she'd have landed on the road pretty hard," Erik sighed.

Drake narrowed his eyes and reached into his pocket feeling for the ring that he'd taken from Jade earlier that day. He didn't want Erik to see it though. If it was what he thought it was then the fewer people who knew about it the better, so he said, "Go outside and move the cows, so I can park the car to the side of the road while we wait for her."

Erik rolled his eyes, but opened the car door nonetheless and then once he was outside, slammed it. Drake immediately began to fiddle with the ring. It had to be the thing that was supposed to control Jade's time traveling from Petra. That was why she wanted it back so badly.