The door to the jail cells opened with a squeak. Technically there were two squeaks, cause as prepared as I was, I couldn’t stop a little jump and gasp from escaping me. The cops probably hadn’t noticed, though, right? With how loud and dim it was in here?

“Bit twitchy, eh?”

I winced a bit before slowly turning to face them, hands in the air just in case. “I didn’t sleep very well last night,” I said, swallowing hard. “Uh. New bed. You know how it is. Also a new place I was sleeping in. Er, I was sleeping in a new place. Makes you a bit nervous, so I was a bit nervous while sleeping, which I think probably also contributes–” holy fuck what was I saying. I had to physically bring one of my raised hands down over my mouth just to shut myself up.

I could do this. I could! I was the God, Joni was the familiar, I didn’t need her!

“Right.” The police officer who’d spoken fixed me with a long, nasty grin, his sardonic response rolling off his tongue like I imagined chewing tobacco would. Not that tobacco is necessarily something that rolls off the tongue, but this ‘riiiiight’ sure was. “I see you’ve already got your hands up, Miss Knox. Makes me think, you know exactly why we’re here.”

Okay. Minimal lies, minimal words, minimal thoughts.

“You’re here to collect bail,” I said. “I’m paying Cara’s bail so I can bring her home for a bit. Get her someplace comfortable before the trial.”

The officer hitched his thumbs in his belt, still fixing me with that long, lip-curling stare. “Yup. I don’t like it. My boys Emerson and Conroy don’t like it,” he added, gesturing at his backup. “But rules are rules, says you get to post bail no matter how much you deserve to be locked up in here til we can put you away for good.”

I swallowed again, my mouth getting drier with each subsequent swallow. “Yeah. Uh. Shame. Them’s the rules.”

“So, like, you also totally don’t have the money, right?” Christopher asked, leaning back in the air like he was reclining in a theatre seat.

This was something I had actually thought of. I took a deep breath. “Right. So, since I’ve already paid the bail, you’re going to let us out. I’m not involved in this whole crime one way or another, I’m just here to pay Cara’s bail and get her someplace comfortable.”

The leer didn’t let up a micromilimeter as I spoke. I fully expected him to hock a wad of tobacco at me.

“We’re here to escort you out,” he said, eyes giving us a disgusted once over. “Make sure you don’t go wandering in the station. Just cause she’s free to leave this cell doesn’t mean either of you just to roam around here wherever you like.” As he spoke, he took a few heavy steps forward, motioning for his boys to follow. The balding one, Conroy, pulled a key ring out and started fidgeting among a buncha jangly little gold keys until he found the one that fit Cara’s door.

The shorter one, Emerson, hitched up his big sunglasses and cleared his throat. “Few things we gotta run by you, so you know the terms and conditions–”

“You already emailed me those,” I said, the words rushing out of my mouth in a desperate attempt to avoid a lengthy legal spiel. We were on borrowed time before they sent more backup in. “We’re going out the back door, right? You’re supposed to take us out the way with the least, uh, witnesses.”

Witness was a bad word, and Cara’s eyes bugged when I said it. But I couldn’t think of the right word, and I was just trying to avoid a lot of interference.

“Witnesses? Bro are you killing people?”

I cringed at Christopher’s words but didn’t respond as the police officer gestured us to follow.

“Oh one more thing.” I took a deep breath. “You just gotta tell your guard buddies–uh, the police chief… or, you know, actually, you were just about to radio whoever sent you in here and tell them that you got this handled.”

The main guy who’d been leading this little fetch mission nodded, pulling out his radio. Cara and I followed the other two out the back door as he began spinning up a yarn to tell his boss.

I probably should have stuck around and listened to what he said, just so I knew what the official story was. But before I even thought that, we were several halls away, winding down narrow corridors that made me feel like I was in an optical illusion painting. Like the ones on the back of cereal boxes.

Beside me, Cara’s body was stiff as rocks. I couldn’t even imagine what she was thinking. I also didn’t have the brain space to think about it right now. This was a ‘plot one step at a time’ kinda afternoon.

“Real nice of you to offer us a ride,” I said as we finally stepped through the last door into the lot outside the station. “You guys are definitely the coolest taxi drivers on the planet. I mean, you got the outfits and kitted up cars and everything. Just super rad.”

Emerson peered down his sunglasses at us. “Bro you know it. That’s just how we do here at Cops Cop and Taxi Service.”

“Yeah.” Conroy tipped his hat. “Nothing but the most totally epic and awesome service for every customer.”

They had both adopted heinous Californian surfer dude accents, and I had to wonder whose definition of ‘coolest taxi drivers on the planet’ we were going by.

“Just razzle on in girlies,” Conroy said as he opened one of the squad cars. “Emmy J and C-Roy got you from coast to coast, from all to most.”

Literally who was coming up with this? Was this the old God’s idea of cool? Was it the officers’?

Cara looked horrified by it. Her eyes were the size of waffles as she watched the cops slide into the car.

“So where’s it gonna be, my home dawgs?” Emerson asked as he turned the car on. “Y’all’s got a destination or we j chilling?”

“Edge of town,” I said. I didn’t have a destination in mind yet, but I wanted off cop territory. “Like, uh, west end. Uh, by the, uh, you know the… we asked you to take us to Pizza Dog’s.”

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

“Man, totally sick.” Conroy nodded. “We gotchu.” The two cops whipped out a shockingly intricate and in-sync handshake before gassing it out of the complex.

“Just make sure to turn off the scanner?” I suggested as we hightailed it towards the main road. “Uh, tracker. Er. New policy says any devices in the car that can be tracked need to be turned off.”

“Right right, totally.” Conroy began flipping switches. “New protocol’s rad though. Fuck the man, you know? Trying to track us and all?” He turned around and smoothed his almost hairless head. “Mind turning off your phones? NSA’s all up in that shit.”

“Uh, no. Not ours. Mine. Uh, customer devices don’t count. Or, I dunno, maybe they should. Can they track my phone?” Better be safe than sorry, right? Probably? I switched off my phone for good measure before looking at Cara. “Wait, do you even have a phone?”

“Uh. Mine is still at the police office.” Cara’s voice was so quiet I could barely hear it.

“Rad,” Conroy said. “No chance the fuzz get a blipper on us, track us to our destination.”

Cara looked at me and did a slight double take because I was probably looking at least as baffled by all this as she was.

“Dude this is the funniest shit,” Christopher said, floating behind me as we whirred down the road. “Shame Joni’s not here. She’d find this hysterical.”

“Blair maybe,” I said. “Joni not so…” My voice died as I slowly looked behind me. Where were the others? Were they just forever left behind? Would I have to reclaim them? They typically flew faster than a person walked, but not faster than a car. Was there a limit to how much distance could go between us?

“Blair?” Cara asked.

I ignored her. It was getting a little old, hearing my words parroted back to me every time I forgot to make it look like I was on the phone. I slid my eyes to Christopher and jerked my head back behind us.

“Seriously, no idea,” he said, thankfully getting my point. “I haven’t really noticed any kind of range but usually that’s cause you don’t go much further than the bathroom.”

“Have you ever, like, gotten a weird feeling if I get too far away from you?” I asked.

“No, I–are you on the phone again?”

I shot Cara a glare before looking at Christopher.

He shrugged unhelpfully.

Shit. So maybe that was gonna be a sneaky little Step 2. Recover my familiars. Cause as much as I could whine and bitch about them, I did really need them and I was going to be pretty screwed if they didn’t just–

“Eep!” The noise wrenched itself from my lips as a chilling shock washed over me, and the next thing I knew, I was literally engulfed in the ectoplasmic bodies of Joni and Blair, both of whom wore looks of anger and surprise. I’ll let you guess who was wearing which.

“Oh.” Blair’s lips jutted in a pout. “So she did forget us.”

“All good back there, girlio?” asked Emerson. He leaned back, giving me a lazy grin. “You sounded spookered.”

“What the fuck is going on?” Joni asked.

Before I could formulate an answer to either (which honestly probably would have taken me a while, let’s be real) Conroy jerked the car to a graceless stop.

“As you requested,” he said. “We are at our destination.”

Thank god.

“Ahh, thank you so much,” I said, forcing a sunny smile as I pulled Cara out with me. “Really appreciate it, you did us a real solid, thanks! Your next passenger is three towns over and you’re running late so best get on that. Bye!”

They waved bye back and hopped into their car, off to ruin their lives just slightly more while I tried to figure out what the fuck was next.

First things first.

I turned to Cara. “Hey look, this is gonna sound weird, but I need you to not look at me all funny when I sound like I’m talking to no one. I know that it doesn’t always make sense, but just try to act like it’s normal and don’t just repeat back what I say cause that kinda drives me crazy.”

She barely looked like she heard me as she glanced up and down the quiet road we’d been deposited on. “Huh? I mean, okay, if you need me to. That’s kinda the least weird thing that’s going on right now. Were those two your… accomplices?”

Did I tell her I was a God here? That was honestly seeming like the least harmful way to proceed. Another lie would gum up her brain even more, especially since we were probably stuck with each other for a bit. She couldn’t go home, and I knew how shitty that felt cause I also couldn’t go home. She had no money, that was the whole reason she was stealing CD drives. What else was she going to do but stick with me?

“Uh. I’ll explain more in a bit. Let’s just…” I looked up at Pizza Dog’s. Could we justify going in? It’s not like anyone knew where we were, and I could go for some secluded booths and sketchy pizza. “Just get some food. Recharge. I need to sort out a thing. A few things, actually.”

Top of mind had been ‘find Sammi a home’ because I was tired of running around, but I’d just been distracted by some new glowing lights in the corner of my vision. I had broken Cara out of jail after all.

Cara definitely looked like Pizza Dog’s wasn’t top on her list, but after a moment of looking around, probably looking for anything else to do, she sighed and followed my lead towards the bar.

Once we were inside, I sent her to the front to get our orders. Told her it was a seedy spot, so she’d have to watch the food while it was prepped so no one made off with it.

That wasn’t even a lie. I’ve had three pizzas stolen at this place.

Meanwhile, I snagged a booth and read over my scheme rewards.

SCHEME UPDATE:

Type: Breakout

Difficulty Level: Blue

Participants: Cara Geraldo

Status: Success!

Details: Cara Geraldo was liberated from her jail cell.

Reward: Partial level up. New Scheme! “Find a safehouse for Cara.”

~~~

I wrinkled my nose. That should’ve been a level for sure. But whatever, I wasn’t gonna argue with the Source here. Besides, I had a feeling that I was damn close to my next level. Like even a small self-scheme would get me there. So finding a place to live would definitely get me there.

Cara arrived with a big, greasy pizza shortly after I debriefed a very pissed off Joni and a very sad Blair about why we’d left them behind.

“Oh shoot, so you’re going to jail for killing Noah now?” Blair asked, maybe picking up about half of what I said.

Fortunately, Joni had been listening, and she took savage pleasure in filling Blair in as condescendingly as possible.

While my ghosts set each other straight, I helped Cara put the pizza down, grabbing myself a thin paper plate and big honking slice.

“So,” Cara said, her voice a lot more even now. “You have some explaining to do.”

Damn she really had a one track mind. I held up a hand, already wincing. “Yes, I do. I know. But this isn’t the place for it.” She opened her mouth, so I rushed over her impending interruption. “I know I know I know. But it’s not. There is a spot, New Olympia, that’s safe from police and armed fences and pizza thieves alike, and once we’re there, I swear, I’ll tell you everything. I just… I don’t have the time to say it all right now.” I didn’t have the time to even think about what I was gonna tell her, if I was being honest. Which I wasn’t, really, I guess, since I was lying about it. “Just… I might need your help getting there.” I pulled out my phone, switching it back on.

“Okay, fine. Fine, I’ll wait.” Cara leaned over to look at my screen as she started chewing on a slice of pizza. “Where’s New Olympia?

“That,” I said, pulling up my apps library and tapping HouzeHunting, “is the million-dollar question we’re about to answer.”