Page 93 of Stoker's Serenity

“Hey, you off?” I asked her.

“Nah, not yet, just on my last ten. Saw your man, here and decided it was time for ‘the talk,’” she said.

I rolled my eyes. “A little late for that, pretty sure he knows all about the birds and the bees,” I said, without missing a beat.

“Ew, God, no!” she cried. “The one about if he hurts my girl, I’m gonna have to get creative with body disposal.”

He laughed. “Pretty sure I could teach you a thing or two about that. Gators love ham,” he said with a cryptic little smile.

I shook my head and grinned ruefully at the both of them.

“Score any boxes?” I asked her, changing the subject.

“Why, yes. Yes, I did. Why don’t you guys come grab them?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Stoker said, and we followed her back to her store, through the back corridor, lest we upset the fine sensibilities of any shoppers. Stoker, unfortunately not being an employee of the mall, had to wait for us to come back out. He stood around on his phone while we ran and got the flattened cardboard, and took both mine and Linny’s load when we got back out to him.

“Lead the way, baby,” he told me, and with a quick hug and a bye-for-now to my best friend, we went out to my car to stow the empty boxes in my back seat for the drive home.

“I rode here,” Stoker said, giving me a quick kiss before I got into my car. “Bike’s over there, I’ll see you at your place.”

“Okay,” I got into my car and he shut the door for me.

I pulled on my seatbelt and headed for home, taking Sunrise to the I-95 on-ramp to get home. I pulled up onto the freeway, and a short time later, Stoker zipped past my driver’s side and pulled two car-lengths in front of me. I laughed a little, thinking at first that he was just fooling around, but a big, black, jacked-up pickup blared its horn at me and barreled past me on the passenger side of my car, using the shoulder of the highway to do it. I watched Stoker pour on the speed and my heart dropped into the pit of my stomach. I reached forward and tapped my phone screen, and thankfully, caught it before it completely went to sleep.

I dialed 9-1-1, but I knew they would never in a million years get here in time.

“9-1-1 What is your emergency?”a woman’s voice poured from the speaker on my phone set near my dash, and I hit the power button to shut off my radio.

“Yes, hi, I’m on the I-95 headed north, and my boyfriend is on his motorcycle ahead of me and I don’t know what’s –” I sucked in a sharp breath as the pickup swerved, trying to knock into Stoker, trying to knock him off his bike.

“Hello, ma’am?”

“Oh, my God, please hurry, he’s going to kill him!” I cried. But I knew, they would never make it in time.

“Ma’am, I need to know where you are. Can you give me a description of the vehicles involved?”

I stammered and rattled off random information, the signs stating what exit was coming up, babbling out the truck’s make and model as I laid my foot into my own accelerator to try and catch up to them.

Stoker was keeping ahead of the guy who was leaning out his window, screaming at him, and my heart climbed into my throat.

“Oh, my God, this guy is crazy!” I cried, as he swerved at my beloved once again.

“Help is on the way. Can you give me the truck’s license plate number?”

“Yes, hang on, I’m trying to get closer.”

“Only do that if it is safe to do so, don’t speed.”

I fought not to roll my eyes and thought to myself,Fuck that. That’s my whole life up there.

I grimaced as the truck accelerated and Stoker dodged around a car, barely. I checked my speed and my mouth went dry. We were going too fast, way too fast, and traffic was growing thicker. I swallowed hard at another near-miss and said, “You know, what? Fuck it. Just get here already!”

I poured on the speed, and went around two cars, pulling up on the passenger side of the truck, which had switched lanes. My heart beat a frantic tattoo against the inside of my ribs as I gained ground and got ahead of them both. Stoker zipped past me in the lane on the other side of the truck and I took a deep breath, tensed, and made a stand.

I jerked the wheel, cut off the truck and stood on my brakes with both feet, gripping the steering wheel in a death grip with both hands, at ten and two, the tires of my little car screaming against the sunbaked interstate’s surface. I braced back against my seat and screamed as the grill of that truck rushed into view, filling up my rearview mirror, and then came the devastating crash as he collided with my little car’s back end.

I kept screaming as I was shoved forward even further along the freeway, Stoker still ahead of me and growing smaller as he kept going, and my car finally slowed, the truck growing smaller with the sound of tearing metal as it stopped under its own braking power.

---