Page 17 of Her Magic Light

I walked beside and slightly behind Locke to one of the cars, keeping my face pointed forward so I wouldn’t accidentally see anyone I knew in my periphery. There was a crowd gathered, that much was clear from the noise, and several people called my name. My cheeks flamed. One voice could have been Mrs. K, but I determined to ignore everything. I’d be the subject of the gossip and the rumor mill soon enough, even without adding fuel to that fire.

A car door handle clunked and a heavy hinge squeaked. Locke ushered me into the seat behind the driver, slammed the door, then a moment later he slid into the driver’s seat. For a moment, I sat completely still, trying to work out how to buckle myself in. Even with my hands in front of me, I wasn’t sure I could get strapped in without choking myself.

“You good?” he gruffed.

“Sure.”No.“Who needs to be buckled in? Who cares if we wreck, and I die.”

He didn’t respond. Instead, he shifted the car into drive. But we didn’t move immediately.

The door across from me opened, and the grumpy guy must have gotten in.

“Coop,” Locke said by way of greeting.

Then Coop reached across me and I flinched, but he only grabbed the seat belt and clunked the two parts together.

“Buckle up,” he muttered under his breath.

“Coop.” Locke spoke. “You put that spare pair of shades in the glove box?”

“Yep.” Coop was a man of few words, apparently, but Locke scrabbled around in the front. I listened to the familiar noise of a glove box being opened then closed before there was the low rumble of the car engine starting.

Around us, multiple car doors slammed, and we waited only a short while before the car started to slowly roll away.

We stopped abruptly.

“Damn,” Coop ground out. “What’s going on?”

“The crowd surged,” Locke said. “I need to wait for them to clear.”

“The others will do it.” Coop sounded almost bored. “No fixing stupid.” He sighed.

Locke chuckled. “Always the same way, though, right?”

“Yeah.”

I couldn’t see much beyond the dark of the glasses and the tiny light from the windows, so I lifted my hands to remove the shades. When I grasped the edges, someone caught my hand.

“Nope.” Coop reached over and pressed them back into position on my face.

“What? But I can’t see.” I turned to face him, able to barely make out his outline and facial features. “These are too dark.”

“If you can’t see,” he said, “then they’re just right, Rainbowlocks.”

“What are you talking about? I need to be able to see. What aren’t you showing me? What’s going on outside?” Being forced into the darkness felt cruel and unusual, and I shivered.I didn’t understand any of this.

“It’s not about what’s going o—”

But Locke spoke, cutting across Coop. “A bunch of people are standing in front of the car, blocking us in. We’re just waiting for them to be cleared.”

“Cleared?” That didn’t sound great when the people doing the clearing had guns. I picked at the fabric on my pants. “Like, are you going to—”

“Peacefullycleared,” he amended. “Until then, we’re going to sit here a little longer.”

“I want to see. I need to check on Bess.” I tried to turn around while lifting my glasses again.

“Leave ’em,” Coop growled as he shoved them back into place again. “And if you can’t leave them, you’ll need to wear a hood.”

“Ahood?” I practically screeched at them. “You mean like one of those sack things they used to put on people before they hanged them?” I shuddered. “I don’t like being enclosed in the dark.” Just the restricted light and blocked vision from the shades sent a thrum of low-level panic through me. “Much less the thought of hanging.”

---