The Stronghold

Ready To Go

"I'll freeze you in place," Tom said calmly. "And alert everyone else."

"I thought you were meant to be the good guy?"

"I am." Tom took a step away from me and angled himself ready to move suddenly. "And right now, you're being the bad one."

He sprinted for my shut door and shouldered it open, scrabbling for the note and holding it well out of my reach. I jumped up to try and reach it, cursing my short height.

"Thomas," I said through gritted teeth, "give me that back!"

"Dear all," Tom said, raising his voice above mine and announcing it in his head also, "I regret to inform you that I will be leaving the Super Glitches for a short time to pursue personal matter. I expect none of you to even attempt to follow me."

"Tom!"

"I leave shortly. By the time you read this I will be gone, driving back home. I will only try to find you again once the matter has passed."

"TOM!"

"In the meantime, I wish you all well and hope you do not worry for me. Get on with your lives, please."

"THOMAS!"

"Yours always, Pepper." Tom crumpled the note and looked down at me coldly, blue eyes casting ice into my heart. "No paragraphs. Naughty." He tapped my nose, the anger still visible.

I lowered my head and held out my hand for the scrap of paper. Tom reluctantly handed it to me but before I had a chance to rip it up it burnt to ash in my hand.

"If you leave," Georgina growled, "I will follow you and kill you, Pepper."

*

Keeping my head held high and the windows low I drove along, foot pressed to the floor. Georgina had persuaded me to let her come along and Tom refused to be left behind and so we were all sat in my fabulous new Lamborghini Venono. It was sleek and silver, streamlined and shiny.

"You've got these little things, that you've been running from," Georgina started to sing quietly.

"You either love them or I guess you don't,

'You're such a pretty thing,

'To be running from anyone,

'A vision with nowhere to go."

"So tell me right now," Tom joined in. "You think you're ready for it.

'I wanna know why you got me going,

'So let's go,

'We'll take it out of here,

'I think I'm ready to leap, I'm ready to live."

"I'm ready to go," I sang, joining their chorus, "get me out of my mind, get me out of my mind,

'I'm ready to go,

'Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh..."

We continued for the rest of the song, smiling and crooning at the top of our lungs. Passers by gave us very odd looks but we continued, grinning and dancing around. Georgina was properly bouncing up and down in her seat and Tom was moving his arms around, showing off slightly. I kept one hand on the wheel and used the other to tap a rhythm on the side of the door, counting the beats.

I slowed at the traffic lights and laughed as some girls stopped in the middle of the road to stare at Tom. I pressed the horn and they jumped, hurrying onwards. The lights stayed on red and I started to get impatient, whistling the rest of 'Ready To Go' by Panic! At The Disco under my breath.

"Hey," a girl said, leaning her arms on the side of the car where Tom was, in the back. "Are you free tonight?"

"No, I'm not," Tom said apologetically. "Busy with some friends."

"Got room for one more? Make it a threesome." She batted her eyes at him and he shifted backwards, pressing his back against the door.

"I'm working," he said firmly.

Haven't you got a device to turn the lights green?

This is amusing.

"Doing what? With a face like that you could quite easily be a prostitute." She reached into the car and stroked the side of Tom's face. He frowned and opened his mouth to talk. She grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him to her, a wicked glint in her eyes.

"Or you could get even the best to do it for free," she whispered. Tom whimpered and I slammed my foot onto the floor, sending the girl flying and almost hitting a pedestrian or two.

"I see why this is a supercar!" I screamed over the noise of the wind.

"Put the windows up! The roof!" Georgina hollered.

"Just get me away from that girl!" Tom wailed.

Swerving across the pavement and successfully denting a lamppost I drove back to the Stronghold, jerking the wheel to the right and the left and hoping that the automatic gear changes could keep up.

Georgina pressed a button and the roof started to go up. Unfortunately it was ripped away by the wind, smashing through a storefront and causing people to scream.

"Be careful!" Georgina yelled. "You'll kill someone!"

"Since when have you cared about other humans?"

"If we crash then I die too!"

I nodded and drove suddenly sideways, heading down a side alley and bouncing through onto open roads surrounded by fields. Within seconds the city landscape had returned - but only slightly - and I was heading down into the basement of the Stronghold, home at last.