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His mom had told him – the picture painted by her far stronger than any memory he had – about his father’s car, the one he took with him, the faded leather and butter candy smell he’d never smelled again. And consequently he and Mom took buses to wherever they needed to go, if it wasn’t within a feasible walking distance. He’d had most of their county’s bus routes memorised before middle school.
Spencer hadn’t minded the swaying, jolting movements of the bus: it was the people that bothered him, the sour, warm bodies pressing near him, a suffocating heat in the summer and a symphony of awful rustling jackets in winter. School trips were better, the class spread out in a coach, and unlike some of his unluckier classmates he was never struck by carsickness.
Apprehensive as he was about getting on a flight for the first time, his nausea was purely the anxious variety and Spencer found himself more interested in the flexibility in the wings and careful mechanics than anything else. Motion sickness arises in the inner ear, after all, and he’s never had problems with that.
Not even the few times he’d gone on a boat. Lurching in the swell, it had felt unsteady beneath his feet but not dizzying. Just surreal.
Which leaves the conclusion that it’s Morgan’s driving.
“Meyer as in M-E-Y-E-R or M-E-I-E-R?” Spencer asks, skimming the crumpled map, keeping it as steady as he can as Morgan fights impatient drivers for a spot in the traffic. That is to say, not very.
“I don’t know, whichever one you’ve just found,” Morgan says. “They said east, right? We’ll find it.”
The miniscule print clings together and the lines are watered down colours, drained from sunlight and hard to distinguish from one another. They swing left. “We were meant to go straight,” Spencer says, though he’s not convinced they were on the road he thought they were. It’d be so much easier if they had the directions verbally – he wouldn’t have to try and read, for one thing.
“Shortcut,” Morgan says, as if either of them have ever been to this city before.
“I thought those were meant to—” Another corner. “—save time.”
“All right, pretty boy, where am I supposed to go?”
Spencer glares at the satnav which, for no particular reason, decided yesterday it was no longer going to work. “Left at… Jackson?”
“I think we went past a Jackson a few minutes ago.”
“So where are we?” he asks, scratching the slate clean to map their route once again.
“I thought that was your job,” Morgan says. “I’m handling it, we’re gonna get there.”
He peers out the window and catches the signs at an intersection. Irritatingly, they’re closer than they should be if Morgan was taking a real route. “How?”
“It’s easy, you’ve just got to relax,” he says. “Vibe it, you know?”
Spencer blinks. “No?”
“…it’s driving,” Morgan says. “I don’t know how to – you have actually driven before, right?”
“Yes,” Spencer says. Morgan raises an eyebrow. “To get my license.”
He laughs.
“Vibe it,” Spencer repeats. “What does that even mean?”
“It means relax,” Morgan says. “It—what car was it?”
“Green Chevrolet,” he says absentmindedly, retracing their turns. “KXL-0137.”
Morgan flips the sirens on and they pull a tight U-turn. Ahead, the green car accelerates, ramping up on the curb to pull off frantic overtakes, pedestrians skittering back against the buildings.
Spencer braces his arm against the door before he slams into it shoulder-first, already feeling the dull bruising there as the SUV surges forwards through the gaps created. The engine roars. “That’s him.”
“No,” Morgan says, “I’m going after some other guy for the hell of it.”
The car swerves out of sight, taking a hard right at a junction, and Morgan chases the red light through it. Spencer pushes himself up in his seat, peering above the vehicles to catch a glimpse of a dark, metallic green.
As their unsub cuts into the opposite lane, red and blue lights spill out behind them. The local cops race to catch up. Morgan drives well – he must, given the speed they’re going and how they haven’t clipped a wingmirror or skidded, hasn’t swerved like the car they’re after – but the corners taken at such a speed have his stomach lurching.
Further from the city centre the quality of the roads begin to crumble—pot holes, mild cracks in the asphalt, edges merging abruptly into grass verges. Spencer swallows as they hit a small bridge over a stream – hardly more than a speedbump – and take it with a suddenness that sends his heart to his throat.
Nausea crawls up his chest and he breaks out in a cold sweat; he wipes his hands and tells himself it’s adrenaline.
A sharp pop and the green car skids, tracing tyre tracks in the gritty road, screeching to a halt. Morgan slams on the brakes and the seatbelt pulls tight across his chest, scrapes at his collarbone. The unsub jumps out and makes a break for it, a faltering run hindered by the blood leaking into his sock.
Spencer throws the door open and races after him.
He leverages his momentum and they slam to the ground, the man face down in the grass. He’s got the advantage of surprise and he clicks the handcuffs around his wrists.
“All right?” Morgan says.
Spencer opens his mouth to reply and, still leaning over the man, ducks his head towards the grass and throws up.
“Reid?”
“I’m all right,” he says, wipes his mouth. “Carsick.”
Morgan heaves their unsub to his feet, an amused look in his eyes.
“What?” Spencer says. “It’s not like I want it.”