Installment 22

I was on the motorway with no real thought to where I was going. I took a few deep breaths, realising that my breathing had gone pretty irregular.

"Ok, Fi," I said aloud, "Where now?"

I was still considering that, when I noticed a passenger in one of the passing cars staring at me. I tried to keep my eyes and mind on the road, but kept having to glance over. Soon enough, the car had gone by and I couldn't see him anymore. I gasped with the realisation, he couldn't see me.

I grabbed the pendant from around my neck and put it back in my pocket. There's no point being invisible if it was going to bring more attention to me. An empty car bombing down the motorway was not inconspicuous. I needed to be cleverer than that. I needed a plan.

I was on the motorway with no real thought to where I was going. I took a few deep breaths, realising that my breathing had gone pretty irregular.

"Ok, Fi," I said aloud, "Where now?"

I was still considering that, when I noticed a passenger in one of the passing cars staring at me. I tried to keep my eyes and mind on the road, but kept having to glance over. Soon enough, the car had gone by and I couldn't see him anymore. I gasped with the realisation, he couldn't see me.

I grabbed the pendant from around my neck and put it back in my pocket. There's no point being invisible if it was going to bring more attention to me. An empty car bombing down the motorway was not inconspicuous. I needed to be cleverer than that. I needed a plan.

***

Ok, so they were taking me to someone in Scotland, presumably, so I should head back to England. But then, I guess they'd expect that, so maybe I should head further north. Shit! Either I do the most obvious thing, or I do the next most obvious thing, and they knew the car I was driving. They probably had some kind of GPS tracker on it.

I took the sliproad off the motorway into the service station and got out of the car. I put the pendant on, and started trying the doors of cars. I knew it was unlikely that anyone would leave their car unlocked - that only happens in films – but I also felt that, when wearing the pendant, I could do pretty much anything.

Sure enough, the fifth car opened. I got in and felt around under the steering wheel for wires to put together to hotwire the car. There weren't any. I felt immediately let down, not only by the pendant, but by hundreds of cop shows and films that had led me to believe hotwiring a car was easy. If Keanu Reeves could manage it, surely, I could!

I pulled down the sun-visor to check for keys, the other foolproof way of stealing a car. There were none. I wasn't as surprised. I had always suspected that was an American quirk. I opened the glove compartment, to no avail, then had a better idea.

I climbed in the back of the car. The back seat footwells were full of newspapers and discarded coffee cups. While I was fairly certain the pendant would protect me from the driver's view, I didn't want to push my luck, so I lay down and pulled newspapers over me. Now I just had to hope that the driver wasn't headed straight back to where I'd left Elena and Janet, wherever that was.

I'm not sure how long it was until someone came back to the car. They started the engine and set off. The stereo was blaring out ABBA's greatest hits or something and the driver was singing along loudly. It was a little difficult not to giggle when he tried to hit the high notes, but I managed to stay quiet. Once we were on the motorway, I sat up a little, still hiding behind the passenger seat, to look at the signs and get an idea of where we were heading. Sure enough, we were headed south again, into England.