Dark Rider

“Oh okay,” A.J. nodded in agreement and sat down beside Kassie’s resting figure, he leaned over her a couple times to shoo away returning bugs, he figured if she woke up and seen bugs by her head she would flip out and break some limbs for it. “We should hurry up; these bugs are out for revenge or something. They keep bringing back friends.”

“Yeah,” Rider lowly agreed as he leaned down and scooped Kassie up into his arms, once again. As they walked through the dense darkness that was called Tripe Woods, they stayed in silence. Seeing as Kassie was asleep, they felt no need in talking; they were perfectly content with the quiet woodsy setting that the darkness cast out. It felt like hours after they had started back walking from their short minute break when they stopped again, staring out at the highway marker that showed they were close to a town, where they could sleep and rest for the night. “I don’t know about you, A.J. but I’m really beginning to despise trees.”

“After all that walking,” A.J. murmured weakly as he climbed down the inclined hill towards the highway sidewalk for bicycles. “I would be perfectly happy never setting foot near the outdoors again, screw camping trips.”

“I hear you on that one,” Rider chuckled as he stepped off the damp grass onto the cement sidewalk. “Now, when we see a hotel, you have to hold Kassie. Can you handle that?”

“Why?” A.J. questioned with eyebrows raised as he walked side by side with Rider, Rider didn’t answer but hummed to himself until they spotted a motel right off the exit road, Rider quickened his pace until they easily blended in with a family of seven and slowed their walk while the family checked in. Rider and A.J. breezed past them and continued down the sidewalk, looking for an empty room. Since Motel’s are only one story, he didn’t have much to search through before he found an empty, yet cleaned room.

“Hold her,” Rider whispered as he handed off Kassie to the tall twelve year old, he glanced around himself for any witnesses before he leaned down and worked on breaking into the old type locked door, it wasn’t a keycard lock but an actual key lock. So with the help of a bobby pin, which came out of Kassie’s hair without her permission and Rider’s skilled burglary ways, they made it in, in no time. “Abracadabra.”

“You’re good,” A.J. grunted out a gust of air as he nearly threw Kassie into Rider’s waiting arms, Rider glanced from Kassie’s moving but non-responsive figure to A.J. with narrowed eyes. “What? She’s heavier than you give her credit for, I’m not saying she’s fat cause she isn’t, but she’s not a feather either.”

“I would hate to have you as my kin,” Rider’s half flabbergasted and half hysterical response made A.J. smile instead of turn angered by the not so friendly insult. “You’re just a mean kid aren’t you, A.J.?”

“I’ve had a lot to learn from in my life, I’m entitled thank you very much,” A.J. explained with a proud smile before he turned and walked in the cracked open door, Rider chuckled to himself before he walked in the room after him.

A good five hours passed before Kassie took a deep breath and opened her eyes, letting it out slowly as she took in the surroundings. It was unfamiliar and strange, the room was completely dark yet she could make out the outlines of the room, the light colored walls and dark wooded furniture like the table, dresser and desk set on opposite sides of the room. She knew where she was after she spotted the bathroom sink, with the hairdryer attached to the wall with a corded line and the small sample shampoo bottles still laying on the sink untouched. She was in a hotel room, she realized then that she must have been carried from the woods where she had rested for only a second, or at least that had been what she thought before she woke up. She yawned quietly and covered her mouth with her hand as she climbed from the made up bed she laid on, she glanced down at her body and grumbled to herself, she was covered in dirt, grass and some things she’d rather not know what, she needed a shower. Crossing the distance from the queen sized bed to the full bathroom, Kassie locked the door and began to take off her clothes, she turned around and started up the showers nozzle before she turned and looked at herself in the mirror. She looked horrible, she thought as she touched her fingertips to the circles underneath her left eye. Pale and exhausted looking, hopefully from just waking but still painful to look at, Kassie closed her eyes for a second and then opened them again to see that nothing had changed, nothing except the fact that her eyes seemed brighter, more like her. The blue and gold speckled orbs shined in the florescent lighting. She loved her eyes, they were the only thing really that she loved about herself that she had gotten from her parents, they were her mother and father’s eyes combined. The blue was her father’s where the gold came from her mother; they blended well together and set off a unique look to her new self. With white looking blond hair and short layered pieces sticking out everywhere, it paled her face out a bit more than meant to from her skin tone but she liked it a bit more than before. She turned away from the mirror then, if she wasted anymore time pointing out the things that she either now hated or had hated in the past she would start off her day with a very dull beginning. She paused to feel the temperature of the water before she went in scalding her shoulders from the heat it was turned on. She shivered once from the change of temperature going from the cold hotel room to the hot shower, she began to lather the sample shampoo into her hair, smiling at the smell of lavender, one of her favorite fragrant in the world; she rinsed it out before washing her body with the small piece of soap left to use. She rinsed off and climbed out of the shower, short as it was, she felt renewed. It had been a couple days since she had been able to shower, she felt extremely sickening to be around nonetheless feel. She dried off and paused to look around the bathroom, one thing she had forgotten in the mix of feeling ecstatic about getting a hot shower in a rush that she hadn’t grabbed any clothes or thought to ask Rider, wherever he may have been for an exchanged clean pair. “Uh,” she poked her head out the door after she wrapped the towel around her damp steaming body. “Rider? A.J.? Where are you guys?”

“Right here, I was sleeping,” Rider grumbled as he leaned up and rubbed his face, he laid his hands on the bed flat and pushed himself off to the floor. “What is it, Kassie?”

“I don’t have any clothes, what do I do?” she whispered so she wouldn’t wake up A.J. who she just then seen, was sleeping on the bed she had been sleeping on peacefully before.

“Hang on,” Rider walked closer and pushed the door open, making Kassie push back and shake her head with a look on her face showing the shock she felt from his sudden display of dominance. “Let me in, I have to give you my shirt.”

“You can take it off and hand it to me,” she insisted as she held out her hand that wasn’t holding the towel securely around her chest. “Don’t even try to be so—male right now, I’m in a good mood, don’t ruin it for me.”

“It was worth a try,” he shrugged his shoulders before he pulled off his shirt and handed it to Kassie, she barely was able to focus on grabbing the blue polo from his extended hand because she was to busy ogling Rider’s bare chest, which happened to be decked out with a six pack, a nice muscular pair of pecks and those things that her friends when she was younger called Love Handles on his hips. “Are you done drooling so I can go get some clothes or should I stand here a couple more minutes so you can stare?”

“Go away,” Kassie grumbled as a blush made its way across her cheeks showing the fortitude of her embarrassment, she ducked her head in and shut the door within seconds and leaned her back against it while she held the shirt to her chest. “My God.”

Pausing to laugh, Rider shook his head and turned around, walking across the room without his shirt. He grabbed his shoes from the ground and placed them on his feet before he walked out of the room, locking it before he left to borrow more clothing to help them along. Meanwhile Kassie stepped out of the bathroom and ran to the bed, lying down so she could cover up under the comforter until Rider got back. She appreciated everything he’s done and more, she needed to thank him not only for everything in the past but for everything in the future also, the leaving at midnight to get her clothes without whining about it once made her smile, she liked that about him. He wasn’t a whiner and he wasn’t a baby about everything like most men usually were, but then again he wasn’t most men. He was so much better, so much more intelligent, happy and caring for others. As sexist as it seemed, she had her own lookouts for men, and his little details that she noticed only made him better and make her lookout on men become harder and harder for others to achieve, since the bar raised higher and higher with every little comment and crack of a smile. “Stop smiling like you just got lucky,” A.J. murmured half asleep as he rolled over and laid on the pillow with his mouth half open, same as his eyes. “It’s disturbing.”

“Oh shut up,” Kassie’s arm reacted before her mind and it flung out and struck the side of his head, acting like an older sister more than a mother figure at the moment. She was in the beginning stages of a crush and already her cousin knew, how embarrassing for her. She grumbled under her breath a few short sentences about annoying little boys and how he shouldn’t even know what got lucky meant meanwhile he grumbled about how women were crazy and rubbed his throbbing ear.

“What happened to you guys?” nearly twenty minutes passed when Rider walked in to find Kassie and A.J. laying on their sides, staring at each other as if at any minute one would kill the other, his bet was on Kassie, she had pent up anger on her side where the larger than average twelve year old only had brute strength. Sometimes that didn’t work, when a woman set her mind to something, she tended to do whatever it took to get the job done, risking death or worse to them it was completely worth it, whatever the cost.

“Nothing,” they said at the same time, both of their tones were of bored concentration, the acting out part was the faking out the impression of sheer boredom, while the other figured if they really were. A.J. should have known better, she taught him how to do it after all.

“Hm,” Rider grumbled under his breath as he walked across the room and sat down the large duffle bag that he had borrowed from the 5th Avenue store down the street, on the table and unfolded the Velcro buckles and pulled out a pair of blue jean pants and a lime green shirt that read Lime & Salt with a picture of a margarita glass on the left breast. “Kassie come get dressed,” he picked up a pair of black panties that had a pair of the Rocky Horror Picture Show lips on the back. “And these.”

“You’re a pervert I’ve come to notice,” Kassie concluded as she climbed from the bed, holding the ends of her shirt to cover everything, she grabbed hold of the clothes Rider held out and went to run to the bathroom but Rider held onto the other end. “Rider let go, I need to change.”

“But you look so good in my shirt,” he teased as he pulled slightly, making her stumble forward, she narrowed her eyes and pulled her side once more before Rider let go with a sigh. “Fine, fine. Go change, we’ll finish another day.”

“You wish,” Kassie grumbled as she jerked her clothes from his hands and jogged to the bathroom door, she turned to shut the door but paused to quickly shout out. “And this isn’t even your shirt, it’s the department stores that you stole from, so ha.”

“Smart-ass,” Rider chuckled as she slammed the door and left Rider and A.J. in the darkness of the room, Rider pulled out a few more articles of clothing and flung them at A.J. who merely let them lay across his face while his eyes stayed closed and he kept quiet. “You’re next to change, bud.”

“Just don’t hurt her, Rider. I know you’re an angel and everything but you’re a fallen angel, that means you’ve done bad once, you’ll do it again. You hurt her, and I’ll hurt you, you understand me?” A.J. threatened a plausible threat to Rider as he opened his eyes and sat up. “I don’t want to have to mend another heart of hers. Her father’s already cracked it; I can’t fix what’s broken. So I’m warning you—don’t even try it.”

“I’m not scared of you,” Rider started off calmly as he leaned against the table, sighing softly he looked down to A.J. and tugged a smile to his face. “But I won’t hurt her; my mission is to keep her save and that means unharmed and alive. I can’t get involved with her, I won’t even try. You’re a good kid, how about making sure you don’t break her heart yourself. You scared her with the train episode. I’d appreciate it if you took care of her when I leave; I’ve grown slightly attached to her emotional and smart-ass. I’d hate to have to come back here and kick your little hind end for leaving her alone. Now, do you understand me?”