Carolina Moon

Chapter 6

Lucy

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She hadn't meant to veer, but at her sudden startle, Lucy lost all control of the wheel.

The tires skidded on the loose gravel. She fought with everything she had to get a grip on the steering, her car skirting toward the edge of the road. By the time she had managed to get the tires pointed at a sharp angle, the vehicle was tipping down the grassy slopes.

She let out another scream as the station wagon hurdled down the incline and came to a jarring stop at the bottom of a drainage ditch.

Lucy trembled. Her heart beat in her ears. And in the backseat, the stranger was slinging on his jacket and shoving open the door. "So sorry about that," he said, like it was nothing. Lucy trembled a moment longer, looking in the side mirror at the man's silhouette. He was standing there, stretching his back, a denim jacket on that was ragged at the hem. He looked like he'd just woken up from a nap, his arms crossed behind his neck as he flexed his back and let out an audible stretch.

Finally finding her bearings, Lucy ripped off her seatbelt and shoved her way out of the car. "Who the hell are you?" she asked, her breath rugged and her lungs tugging unrelenting. She ignored the feeling, stomping toward the stranger to get a good look at him.

He was tall, slightly gangling. His hair was a straight blond that hung just a little longer than his ear, which poked out through a gap in the strands and sheened with a single hooped earring.

He grinned a little, his smile broad and kittenish. "Well that wasn't the getaway I had planned, but it certainly was exciting, wasn't it?"

Lucy was confused. Not only by the eloquent British accent of the man, but by the sheer status of his existence. If there was anything stranger about him, she would have assumed he was a hallucination. But he looked normal—no third eye or butterfly wings or butt-for-a-face like her usual hallucinated people had.

Lucy gave him a nasty look and skirted her way around the car to get a look at the damage. The engine was off, but a whisper of smoke was curling from the hood. She didn't know much about cars, but Cam had done well to drill into her the concept of "smoke bad, no drive".

"Shit," Lucy cursed, stamping her foot in the soft grass. "I have to get to work. What am I going to do now? Buses don't run this far from town!"

"I can give you a ride," said the man, but Lucy shrugged off his offer with a frustrated kick to her rear tire.

She balled her hands to fists and turned her frustration back to the man who had been invading the backseat of her beloved wagon. "Explain! Who are you and why were you in my car?"

"I was hiding, simply," said the man. "Speaking of, what did you say to those men at the gate?"

"They were asking about a wolf," Lucy rumbled. "But I don't see how that's any of your business."

"I know what they came for," said the man. "But what did you say?"

"That it'd been here and it was gone," Lucy explained, raising her chin just to show her disdain. "What's it to you?"

"Good," the stranger muttered, rubbing a hand along his jaw. "Good. That will work."

That will work? Lucy examined him again. He didn't look homeless, nor did he look like one of the folks downtown, stumbling around with drugs in their systems. He looked healthy, if anything—a strong body and vibrant face. In fact, the more she stared at him, the more Lucy thought he almost looked...magical. Like the elven king, from one of the fantasy games Cam always played.

Lucy crossed her arms. "What do you have to do with the wolf? Are you the one that set that thing free?"

The man tilted his head and examined her face. And after a long beat of silence, he said plainly, "Yes."

Lucy considered him, feeling her anger lapse. "Well, that was a stupid thing to do, but I guess so was keeping a wolf as a pet."

"Exactly," said the stranger, a smile sweeping his face. "Now, I do apologize for invading your lovely...property." The way he seemed to choke on the word lovely rubbed Lucy the wrong way, but she bit her cheek and resigned. The stranger went on, "Those men had been tracking me for some time, and I had nowhere else to hide."

"No where else but my car?" asked Lucy.

"Something like that," said the man. "But regardless of this mess, you've no reason to worry. I'll pay for the damages, of course."

"Of course you will," Lucy examined his face with a bristle of skepticism. "And the tow truck, I presume?"

"Of course," said the stranger. He produced a set of keys from his pocket, and added, "If you allow me to drive you to work."

Lucy looked around, confused. She didn't see a car parked anywhere near the barn—nor the stretch of road she'd driven. "I don't accept rides from strangers." She pulled her phone from her pocket to give Cam a call, when suddenly the keys were thrust in front of her eyes.

"You can drive, then," said the man.

Lucy raised a brow and glanced briefly to the time on her phone. She would be late at this rate, car or no car.

She gathered her things and followed along as the stranger trekked his way back toward the barn. It was a long stretch of gravel road, and as they walked, Lucy couldn't help but ask, "Why did you steal the wolf?"

The stranger shrugged. "Consider me an activist."

"Well, you aren't a very smart one," Lucy muttered. "This isn't a place for gray wolves. Pretty sure you just introduced an invasive species into the environment...or something."

Suddenly, the man came to a stop. He held his keys up and pressed a button, and a sudden light burst on just beyond the tree line. Lucy squinted as he slipped into the forest, and walked out wheeling a motorcycle. It was sleek and low and black, like the ones she'd seen in movies. She had never driven a motorcycle before, and a nervous lump welled in her throat as the man deposited the keys into her hand.

"Go ahead. Get on," he said.

Lucy felt the cold wind grip her. She looked around, knowing that there was a very real possibility that a hallucination would pop out of the dark on her drive. And besides, it was a motorcycle. If she needed to escape at any moment, she could just...hop off.

"Cam's going to kill me," she said with a sigh. "Here, you drive."

The man took the keys back gladly, and swung a long leg over the front of the motorcycle. Lucy shuddered a little as the engine snarled awake. "Cam your boyfriend?" asked the man.

"Brother," Lucy muttered. Awkwardly, she reached a leg over the passenger seat and tested her weight.

"Older?" asked the man. "Younger?"

"Twin," Lucy said.

The man glanced over his shoulder at her. A look of interest had swept his face. "Twin?" he asked.

"You know enough about me," Lucy grumbled. "I'm going to be late. Can we just...?"

The man snapped out of whatever curious trance he'd fallen into, and twisted around to place a helmet on Lucy's head. "Put this on for me?" he said.

Lucy wedge her head inside, looking around the place through the plastic of the visor. "Where's yours?" she asked.

But the man ignored her and reached back instead for her hands. "Try not to grope me," he said as he wrapped her arms around him. "I may like it too much."

Lucy hadn't even a moment to scoff at him. Before she could so much as put the air into her lungs, the bike bucked forward.

Lucy gasped and struggled to find a place to rest her feet as they rolled forward off of the grass. "Hold on," said the man. "Tightly."

But Lucy wasn't afraid, and she would not cling to this strange man like a damsel in distress. She kept her cool, lightly holding onto the slack of his shirt. Then the motorcycle bucked again. Inertia dragged her back. Lucy slung her arms around him, holding on for dear life as the bike tore off through the gravel road.