Page 14 of Challenge Me

I met your eyes in my rearview mirror, my fear obvious in mine, even to me.

“Hey, Ghost.” You reached over, placing your hand on my shoulder. “Look at me. You are still driving; the engine is still going. It’s probably nothing serious.”

I shook my head. You didn’t understand. How could you? You were human. For humans, “nothing serious” meant an appointment. A doctor. A dentist. A bandage. Rest. Medicine. Your bodies betrayed you constantly, yes, but they also tried to forgive you. Skin closed. Bones knitted. Blood clotted.

Cars did not heal. Small problems only meant bigger problems were on the way. A strange noise became a repair. A repair became a warning. A warning became a list. A list became a bill. A bill became a conversation about whether it was worth it.

My pride could not bear it.

“We’ll look into it when we get home.” Your hand traveled down my arm, squeezing my hand. I looked at your hand over mine.

You couldn’t even fix yourself.

The thought came cruel and uninvited, but it was true. Your injury was not something that could be polished away, something that could be replaced with a better part. What hope did I have?

The shame rose fast and hot.

Too much.

I could not bear the way you looked at me then, that pitying look that mirrored the expression Fox had made at me earlier. I sank deep into my frame, withdrawing from the shape beside you, from the hand in yours, as I folded myself back into metal and leather and engine noise, leaving you alone in the driver’s seat with the dead radio between us.

I could still feel you there. Your hand tightened on the wheel.

You said my name once, softly.

“Ghost?”

I did not answer.

I could not.

The road stretched ahead, dark and endless, and for the first time that night, I did not feel like a king riding it.

I felt old.

Chapter Six

Lai

Muscle cars were so fragile. I didn’t laugh or make a big deal out of the sudden silence, though the temptation was there. Ghost had gone from swaggering old lord of the road to a wounded war veteran over a dead radio, and while some part of me found that deeply, absurdly funny, a larger part of me knew better than to poke at it.

Ghost was taking it hard.

So when we arrived back at the mansion, I parked him carefully in the garage and let him rest.

The Challenger, sulking in the dark, somehow managed to look like the silent hero of a country song whose horse had died and whose woman had left him for a car with Bluetooth.

I stood beside his door for a moment, cane in one hand, the other resting lightly on his frame.

No answer. No pale eyes in the tinted glass.

Just silence.

I knew he needed space. Somehow, all my men and all my cars were the same type. Proud, wounded things with powerful engines and terrible communication skills. Would I ever learn?

Probably not.

But at least I knew how to deal with them.