TOBY.
It had been a while since I indulged in one of my favourite past times, biking. With all that had been going on, with someone trying to kill me, and another trying to sabotage everything I did at work, not to mention the whole Ruby drama and Yasmin's usual tantrums, I needed to let out some steam so I decided to go biking. The only thing I loved more than my cars were my powerbikes. My latest flavour was a beast with an engine to match, it could reach speeds of 60mph in just three seconds and it was fitted with blue tooth and cellular connections that send data directly to my smartphone. It cost an arm and a leg even for me but it was more than worth it.
After strapping my helmet in place, I was off, the feel of the wind at that speed never failed to send my adrenaline pumping and send me flying to my happy place. I wheezed through traffic between cars and lorries and vans until all I had was the open roads behind me. I cruised for a few hours across the highway and attempted to stop when I came across a red light, if it was yellow I would have just cruised right past it, I clutched the throttle and stepped on the break but nothing happened. I repeated the action several times but my bike sped past the red light. Thankfully there were no cars on the road but it became obvious that my bike had lost control. Sweat gathered beneath my brow under my visor as gripped the handles hard and tried to think of an end to this precarious situation that was not a fatal crash.
"I need space." I thought and a few minutes later, I drove past what must have been a farm. Large hay bales were drying in the fields so the idea hit me, I ramped up my speed and jumped over their fence headed right for the hay bales. I drove right into them, the grassy smell feeling my nostrils and the rough texture prickly every inch of my exposed skin. My bike attempted to power through but eventually died out, hay stuck in its moving part making it impossible. I crawled off my bike and out of the dry grass that had just saved my life, my whole body sore from the impact and my palms bleeding. Two men ran towards me, their stance seemed defensive but as they came closer they relaxed on seeing me helpless on the floor.
"Hey there partner, what's wrong with your fancy bike?" One man said.
"I don't know, the breaks stopped working," I said, my words were barely audible to me beyond the sound of my heart beating out of my chest.
"Stopped working or they were cut." the other man said. He pulled my wrecked bike from under the haystack, grunting under the strain. Normally, any fault in the bike would be displayed on my screen, this just goes to show that it was sabotaged. They must have hacked the system. Maybe I should let my dad know what had been going on.
"This bike was tampered with." They both bent over fiddling with the wreckage of what used to be my baby. I pull out my phone from my pocket and find the screen is cracked but it's still working so I dial Aiden.
"Hello, I just had an accident, could you come to pick me up?" I said when he picked me up after the second ring.
"Are you okay? Where are you?"
"I'm fine as for where I am…hey, can you come to give my friend directions so he can pick me up," I said gesturing to them. One of the men collects my phone and begins to describe our location.
"You should file a police report, I could call them up right now. By the way, my name is Tom and that's Jack." He said, helping me up.
"I'm Toby. I'll call the police when I get home, I don't want them to hold me up with their questions." I said.
"Your bike is prime evidence." The guy named Jack whistles. They waited with me till Aiden showed up, they offered me water but I declined. Aiden called me when he was at the gate and Tom went to get him. When he pulled up in his truck, I was surprised to see Ruby seated in the front passenger seat. They both alighted from the car and rushed toward me but Ruby stopped a couple of feet away.
"What the hell happened?" Aiden asked after I was settled in the backseat of his truck. Jack and Tom hauled my bike into the back of his truck with the advice that I hand it over to the police as soon as possible.
"One minute, I was riding my bike on the highway, all is well in the world and the next thing I was trying to break at a stop sign and it's not working. Luckily, I spotted a farm with a field full of bales of hay so I jumped their fence and crashed there."
"How is that even possible? You've barely used that bike."
"I know, it's crazy," I said, I eyed Ruby where she was seated calmly, could she possibly be behind the attacks? I doubt that. I couldn't even suspect Aiden but then you know what they say about a man's enemies being members of his household, I thought.
"Would you like us to go to the police?" Aiden asked.
"No, let's go home."
"We should go to the hospital," Ruby said.
"No hospitals, I'm fine as you can see."
"We don't know that and your hand is bleeding." She argued.
"I'm perfectly fine, my hand is nothing a little first aid won't fix."
"Maybe we should listen to the lady, Toby she does have a point," Aiden said.
"Take me home," I said stubbornly and he did just that. The rest of the ride was silent, everybody left to their thoughts. When we arrived at our building, Aiden wanted to follow us but I said I was fine so he went straight to his apartment. I walked in gingerly feeling stiff all over.
"You should have gone to the hospital. What if you're bleeding internally? " Ruby said. I ignored her and headed upstairs, straight for the shower. Taking a shower in my state was both torture and bliss, the soap got into the several cuts and bruises I didn't know existed and caused them to hurt ten times more and the hot water soothed my sore muscles.
After my shower, I headed downstairs to find the first aid box. I sat back down and began to clean my wounds but it was difficult because of how painful it felt.
"Let me do it," Ruby said, she must have noticed how difficult it was for me. I stared at her face as she cleaned my wounds gently and she looked so innocently beautiful, all I wanted even at that moment full of pain from the first aid cleaning was to kiss her.