He nods happily.
“Well then, I’m sorry to be the one to inform you that muscle cars are especially bad for the environment.”
He shrugs. “So I’m a bad environmentalist. There’s also the small issue of a war with the Priory. Wouldn’t do to show up late to a battle because the bus wasn’t on time. Are you going to get in or what?”
I circle around the vehicle.
“You like it?” he asks as I drop into the faded red bucket seat.
I snort. “No, I hate it. It’s horrible and ugly and I won’t be seen in it.”
Bishop beams. “It’s a 1969 Shelby GT500.”
I run my finger over the wood-paneled dash. “Authentic.”
“It’s great, isn’t it? I was worried you wouldn’t like it.”
“Who cares if I like it?” I say. “It’s your car.”
He guns the engine in response.
Sure, why don’t you wave a cigarette and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s out the window while you’re busy making Aunt Penny hate you?
Bishop maneuvers the car through traffic until we hit the open freeway. The engine rumbles beneath me. Hot wind snaps my hair across my face, and the radio, tuned to some obscure punk-rock station, blasts a song I actually know. Bishop mouths the lyrics, tapping his hands on the steering wheel as sunlight reflects off his aviator sunglasses. Before I know it, I’m singing along too. Bishop smiles. I smile. There’s a whole lot of smiling going on. And I just know that this memory will be forever burned into my brain, because this kind of magic—the kind that can’t be conjured with a spell, where everything is just right, and all your problems vanish for three perfect minutes—doesn’t happen every day.
But then the song fades away, and guilt stamps down the thrill of the ride. How can I have a great moment when Mom’s dead? What kind of person does that?
Bishop turns the radio down. “You all right?”
I nod and force a smile, looking out the window. He leaves the radio turned nearly to mute, so that the hum of the tires on the freeway is the only sound in the car.
“So are you going to tell me where we’re going, or what?” I ask, just to fill the silence.
“The Guadalupe sand dunes,” he answers.
I glance over at him. “Um, why?”
“Because it’s big and open and there are places in the dunes so remote it’s highly unlikely we’ll come across another human, which is a rare thing in L.A., and I’d prefer not to have to wipe anyone’s memory if at all possible.”
“That’s great, except remember that whole part about the Priory trying to kill me yesterday? Don’t you think it’s a bad idea to go out, just the two of us, to some remote sand dunes? They could attack us.”
“That’s exactly why it is a good idea. No way would the Priory think we’re stupid enough to be alone after yesterday. They’d think it was a trap.”
“Yeah, ’cause it’s definitely not stupid,” I mumble.
“Just trust me, okay? I’ve got something up my sleeve if that happens, which it won’t. I’m completely prepared.”
As usual, he has an answer for everything, almost as if he’d planned out this conversation or something. “Hey, have you done this before?” I ask.
“What? Drive my 1969 Shelby GT500 to the Guadalupe sand dunes with a hot cheerleader? No, I haven’t. Why?”
“No, jerkass,” I say, grateful he has to pay attention to the road so he doesn’t see my pink cheeks. “I meant teach someone magic. Have you taught other gir—er, other people before?”
Bishop laughs. “Have I taught other girls? Nope. No other boys, either.”
I shake my head, looking out the window instead of at him so that I can suppress the smile threatening to spread over my face. Soon his laughter ebbs, and the radio takes over the silence again.
After driving for miles, we exit the freeway, and a short while later we arrive at a huge parking lot with a squat information building and a single car parked close to its entrance.
“This is it?” I ask.
“Not quite.” Bishop shifts the car into park and opens the door. “No vehicles allowed past here. We walk the rest of the way.”
“Since when do you care about rules?” I slam my door and follow him toward the edge of the lot, where the sand dunes begin.
“I’m making an effort. Don’t want to sully your impressionable young mind.” He glances back and grins.
“You’re not even two years older than me,” I point out. But then a thought strikes me. “Unless you’re secretly two hundred years old or something?”
Bishop laughs at the horrified look on my face. “Nope. I’m really eighteen.”
“Oh good,” I say, relieved. There are already too many ways I feel inferior without being a virtual toddler in the life experience department compared with him.