Page 50 of Chad's Chase

‘Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far…

Isilently seethed after Chad’s last words. Too irate to speak. Too irate to even argue. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to plunge a sharp knife right in the base of his throat, puncture his lungs and fuckingkillhim.

How dare he blow up my bike! What gave him the goddamn right?

Um…you kinda just tried to kill him, the annoying voice in my head reminded me.

To keep from screaming obscenities at this impossible pestilence of a man, I chewed on my tongue and ate my words for dinner. That, and because he was speeding like a freaking lunatic, tires screeching and all, and my body was pressed back in the car seat.

When the car began decelerating, the buildings and street signs no longer a blur, I noticed we were on the road to my apartment complex. Disappointment pricked at me and I stupidly found myself saying, “I thought you said you were taking me with you?”

A look of irritation passed over his features, as if the sound of my voice was the last thing he needed to hear, like I was nothing but an obnoxious gnat. He just kept on driving until we were at my apartment, not giving me the courtesy of an answer.

I wanted to stick my tongue out at him, but looked out the car window instead, and that’s when I noticed the flashing lights.

Police cars and a fire truck.

The hell?

The gates were taped off, no entry. But it didn’t seem as though Chad was there to get in. He swung right up to the yellow tape outside the gates, drew up the handbrake, left the engine running, got out of the car and walked unhurriedly up to one of the police cars parked a distance away from the others.

While he bent at the window to talk to whoever was in that cop car, I dragged my gaze back to my apartment building, trying to understand what had happened, considering there was no fire and there wasn’t much I could make out from this distance.

Setting the bag with the food on the dashboard, I leaned forward to peer a little bit closer through the windshield. A horrified gasp escaped me when I saw the thin sheets of sooty black smoke, residue of an extinguished fire, floating out of an apartment on the top floor.

Myapartment.

Holy shit, my apartment had been on fire! What the fuck?

People, residents of the complex, huddled around, staring up at my ruined apartment. The fire truck must have gotten there before the fire consumed the whole building, because it was only my apartment bleeding smoke.

While I was out chasing Chad, my apartment had been on fire.

The sound of the car door opening dragged me from my warranted indignation and tongue-tying shock. Chad folded himself back inside the sports car with a duffel bag.

Mychocolate brown duffel bag. Which had over half a mil inside.

Tossing the bag onto my lap, he slammed the car door harder than I thought necessary, shifted the gear in drive, and reversed from the scene.

Lost for words, I glanced down at the bag in my lap, then at the side of Chad’s face, then in the rear-view mirror back to the apartment building, then at the bag again, then at Chad. “How did you…hold on…you’rethe one who set my apartment on fire?”

Driving a little less manic than before, he gave me a sidelong glance as an answer.

A growl rumbled in my throat like a Bandersnatch and I gripped the straps of my duffel bag to control the rage spiking inside me. “Why the hell are you setting all my shit on fire?! Arrrghh! Do you have to be such a deviant fucking miscreant?!”

Chad turned his head to me and cocked it slightly. “A deviant miscreant?” he asked, low and slow. “And, what areyou?”

As I heaved in a breath, gearing up to shout at him some more, he unexpectedly soared into an incensed roar. “San Fran is my safe haven, with minimal crime and impossibly happy people. And sometimes it creates a nice illusion that all is right with the world. But every once in a while, someone like you comes along and starts shitting on my rainbows and fucking unicorns. Painting my blue skies black and my white clouds red, eclipsing my sun, sucking me back into the fucking darkness. And you know what, it pisses me off! You’re pissing me the fuck off, Blood!!”

With each word, his voice crescendoed, got growlier, and by the end, I was pressing myself against the car door.

“So tell me,” he said in a lower octave, “if I’m a deviant miscreant, what are you?”

“The angel of death?”

With a humorless laugh he said, “And yet I have you in my car. Taking you to my home.” Exhaling, he tutted. “Oh Death, where is your victory? Where, oh Death, is your sting?”

“You’re tryna slew me with aBible quote?” I asked, incredulous. “Pretty sure that’s an insult to God.”