Hands behind her back and too scared to move them, tears streamed down Sapphire's face. She cursed herself for being so foolish to have let herself get into this situation. After everything that had happened to her sister, her parent’s constant warnings, yet here she was, almost certain that she would be dead before the end of the day.
The world rushing past her suddenly slowed and she took the chance it gave her, reaching up and pulling the helmet visor down, but just as she did so the bike started to accelerate again and in a panic she flung her arms around Jake's body.
Jake smirked to himself, when he had picked Sapphire up outside McDonalds he could tell she was nervous about getting on the back of his motor bike. After dutifully telling her that they wouldn't go too fast and that it was perfectly safe, she had eventually agreed to take his rucksack and climb on board. The first few minutes had been at a gentle pace, staying with the busy weekend traffic and Sapphire had been happily chatting to him over his shoulder, her visor up. As soon as they cleared the town centre he had opened up the throttle on the little 125cc engine speeding up to just under the 30 mile per hour speed limit. Not very fast at all even for his bike but Sapphire had gone rigid and as they slowed for some traffic lights he heard her slam her visor down and realised that she had been too scared to reach up and shut it while they were moving.
It felt kind of nice now with her arms wrapped around him, and as he came onto more open roads and started to accelerate further he could sense her relax and go more with the flow of the bike. Unfortunately though they only had a few miles to go and within ten minutes of setting out they had turned off of the main road and pulled up at the end of a long straight country lane. According to the report that Sapphire had acquired, the mysterious gate should be about half a mile down this lane.
He kicked the bike's gearbox into neutral and raised his visor twisting his head around so he could talk to Sapphire.
"Are you ok?", he asked.
Sapphire nodded, bumping the back of his helmet with hers as she did so.
"Jump off then and I'll park the bike."
Sapphire somewhat unsteadily, put her left foot down onto the ground and swung her right leg over the bike seat, still holding onto Jake for support as she performed the unaccustomed manoeuvre. Then quickly stepped back as she realised she was still holding onto him.
He quickly unlatched his helmet strap and pulled it from his head in one swift movement, then stood slightly awkwardly as Sapphire struggled to release her chin strap.
"Here let me", he said stepping forward and reaching up to the chin strap as she dropped her hands hopelessly away.
It only took him a moment to release the catch but for what could have only been a few seconds but seemed like an eternity he found himself staring into her grey eyes framed by the opening in the helmet. She really is quite beautiful, he thought to himself but could say nothing other than a mumbled, "you have to squeeze the catch together, you'll get used to it."
Sapphires heart was racing as he had reached over to help her with the helmet strap. Her brain was telling her to play it cool, but all she could think was how cute he looked with his long brown hair tousled from wearing his helmet. She suddenly realised that she'd been standing there with her helmet unstrapped for several moments, had she been staring at him? She didn't think so but still felt her cheeks redden as she pulled the helmet off with both hands and shook out her long black hair with its purple, red and blue highlights.
"So shall we go take a look at this mysterious gate then?", Jake suggested, sensing the awkwardness and trying to cover it with activity.
"Sure let's take a walk", she replied.
