Dark Rider

“Deal?” A.J. asked with one eyebrow raised higher than the other as his hand slowly rose to shake on it, Rider nodded and shook his hand agreeing before he turned to the bathroom door, which opened and Kassie stepped out.

“You got it a size to small, Rider,” Kassie complained as she pulled at the end of her shirt, making the green material stretch downward. “I don’t like it, it’s too tight.”

“You look great in it,” Rider smiled softly as he looked Kassie up and down. “Kassie, they fit you. They aren’t too big or too little, okay?”

“Are you sure?” she questioned as she looked down at herself once more, biting her lip in concentration as she studied the materials stretching power. “I think it’s too small.”

“Stop being such a girl, Kassie,” A.J. whined and crossed the room to walk into the bathroom. “Gosh, just wear the shirt. If it’s too small, it’s fine. You can get away with big boobs and a nice figure, you have curves. Flaunt them, not many girls can!”

“Is it just me or did that sound like he was rooting for the other team there?” Rider pointed towards the closed door while glancing nervously at Kassie.

“Like he’s gay?” Kassie questioned his meaning as she moved her gaze from the door to Rider, who was standing there with his hands on his hips, looking oddly masculine in such a feminine pose.

“Yeah,” he nodded and agreed quickly as he stared at Kassie almost sadly.

“Hm,” she murmured before she nodded softly. “Yeah, he sounded really gay right then,” she sat down on the bed edge and glanced around. “But its okay, if he turns out to like the same sex, at least I’ll have someone to go shopping with.”

Laughing slightly from the seriousness in Kassie’s voice, Rider took a seat beside her and waited for A.J. to come back out from changing, of course it took him a total of twenty minutes to shower and dress before he walked out with steam pouring out behind him, clouding up the room. “Like it wasn’t already heated in this room,” Rider grumbled as he looked around and sighed. “Okay listen, its six. We can either sleep a bit more or get the hell out of here.”

“I vote for get the hell out of here,” A.J. raised his hand to vote but placed his hand back down slowly after he received two very strange glances simultaneously.

“I think we should get to moving, we can’t stay in one place for to long,” Kassie said after she dragged her gaze away from her young and very odd cousin who seemed to always have two cents to be put in, even when there was minus in the bank. “Can you get a car that won’t be so noticeable to cops to steal?”

“Barrow,” Rider corrected Kassie as he stood up, grunting as he pushed off the bed’s edge. “And yes, I’ll go steal a Ford or something, won’t be very stylish but durable at least.”

“Ford sucks,” A.J. stuck his tongue out in disgust as Kassie glanced between him and Rider, who had a look on his face that showed he thought the opposite, in fact he seemed almost to willing to defend the Ford, but he shot it down when he realized the argument would be useless.

“I don’t think so,” Rider shook his head and slowly turned on his heels, walking towards the door he threw his arm up to show he didn’t want to talk to him about it. “Speak not, want not—to slap you silly.”

“Mature,” A.J. shouted as the door slammed shut, leaving an overly amused Kassie and a fuming A.J. who was more than ready and willing to debate on cars and which were better, in the dark hotel room. “Real mature, and he’s how old?”

“Thirty,” Kassie said with a bit of a grin on her face, A.J. glanced over and rolled his eyes before grabbing hold of her arm to drag her outside so they could look around. Kassie knew that being outside could be dangerous, but she figured being inside the motel, as she seen now, was just as dangerous. At least they weren’t somewhere like New York again, she’d be afraid to leave the curtain open on the window if they had been there let alone walk outside. She followed A.J. all the way to the end of the parking lot where he leaned up against the motel’s billboard which was leaned up against a white fence, he sat up on the top post and patted beside him, waiting for Kassie to climb up and take a seat with him. “That’s kind of high.”

“Get up here,” A.J. demanded, Kassie of course grunted and rolled her eyes in annoyance before she began to climb up the three posts that slanted parallel like a fence post used on most ranches. “I’m guessing, from a brother type point of view, correct me if I’m wrong, Kass. But I kind of got this feeling that you might like our protector guy a little bit more than friendly like.”

“Why would you say that?” Kassie questioned as she looked at A.J. innocently, biting at the bottom of her lip as she held tightly to the board below her bottom.

“I can just tell,” A.J. said softly, acting more like himself with his gentle smile than he has in many a days, Kassie smiled at that and leaned over knocking her shoulder into his jokingly. “If you like him, it’s fine and dandy, but Kassie. He’s an angel, he’s dead—he’s not alive anymore, he may look like it but he’s not one of us.”

“I can still like his personality,” Kassie pointed out with somewhat of a defensive tone as she looked out at the motel, looking at the people who either were leaving or were just arriving to check in. “And he still has his body from when he was human, its just that he doesn’t have a fingerprint or I.D., social security card or anything of that—matter.”

“I understand,” A.J. said quickly, trying to save himself as he held his hands out, balancing himself on the thin little board underneath him. “I’m just talking freely here, Kass. Don’t let it bother you; you never did like my girlfriend.”

“That’s because she told me that she had a tattoo and she’s thirteen,” Kassie defended herself as quickly as A.J. had before. “Plus, she tried to make you get a nose piercing, that’s ridiculous.”

“It wouldn’t have looked that bad,” A.J. felt like he was defending way too much within the last few words he had said, it seemed like they were firing things at each other yet it wasn’t an argument. He thought it felt weird but he wouldn’t complain, the less yelling was the better for his ears.

“Alexander,” Kassie scolded him with a shocked chuckle passing through her lips, turning her head to stare at A.J. she shook her head at his youthful ignorance. “You would have looked like a damned bull with that ring, it would have only taken one time for it to get snagged on something and there goes your nose.”

“You do have a point,” A,J. nodded his head in defeat and sighed softly, letting silence take up the moment and keep it on standby as they waited and watched their surroundings.

“A.J. have you ever wondered what would have happened if your mom hadn’t of died?” Kassie questioned softly as she looked up at the cloudy sky, staring at each cloud as if trying to see the angels that she knew existed fly out and around the sky.

“I have wondered,” A.J. admitted as he looked from the sky to Kassie, watching as she smiled at the sky, imagining the angels and children that died so young playing in eternal happiness in those beautiful clouds. “I do wish that I had a mom to be here for me, but I’m glad that you were here to be her replacement. Thank you for that, Kass. I really do love you like you are my mother, just its awkward cause your only seven years older than me so—I can’t exactly call you mom.”

“I don’t want you to call me mom,” Kassie looked away from the sky to stare at A.J. honestly. “I would never take that title away from your mother. I knew her, she wanted children, A.J. and if she had lived, man you would have loved her. I know I did, she was my favorite person in the family, she was my age—a little younger actually when she got pregnant with you but—we were like sisters instead of cousins.”

“You think she’d be proud of me?” A.J. asked softly, for the first time ever opening up enough to ask Kassie the one question he always wanted to know the answer too, always that questioned lingered in his mind; he needed at least a hint.

“Blue boy,” she whispered his nickname as she scooted over and placed her arm over his shoulder, pulling him into a close hug. “You have no idea how proud she would be of you.”

“Really?” A.J.’s smile was indefinitely surprised as he returned her hug two times as tightly, kissing Kassie’s cheek he smiled and whispered. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, A.J. I should be thanking you, you’re the reason I’m still alive,” Kassie laughed as a tear raced down her cheek, she chuckled softly as she wiped it away and laid her head on his shoulder. “Anyway, before I start crying maybe we should change the subject to something better like—“

“What are you two doing?” snapping from the serious atmosphere they had set, A.J. and Kassie both turned at the same time to see Rider fast walking towards them, a look on his face showing his anger. “You were supposed to stay in the motel room!”

“You didn’t say we couldn’t leave,” A.J. murmured as he hopped down and went to help Kassie down but Rider beat him to it, grabbing Kassie by the waist, Rider sat her on the ground and started to pull her to the beat up ford truck he had apparently stolen.

“I figured that part was pretty much common sense, A.J. you’re being hunted by a sadistic soul and a evil bounty hunter, you’d think low profile would be a few words that should stick close to mind,” Rider snapped as he flung the rusted door open and picked up Kassie, sitting her in the seat while A.J. opened the passenger door and took his seat beside her.

“Are you mad at us?” Kassie asked softly as she looked at Rider worried, he climbed up in the truck and slammed the driver’s door while he pointed to the middle seat’s seat buckle. Kassie hesitantly buckled herself in and glanced back up at Rider, she was worried she had put them in jeopardy or something, and by the look he was casting towards the innocent highway it seemed that she may have or worse. “Rider will you please talk to me?”

“I just can’t believe you would go out of the motel after everything, in broad day light, you could have been killed. You don’t know what these demonic damned spirits will do when they have their minds set on something. Most spirits, like people are calm and let things happen around them even when they don’t like it, the ones that get put in the Abyss are the ones that do something about it, they want to hurt people and they don’t care what they have to do to make it happen,” Rider sighed and looked from the road to Kassie for a split second. “When I seen you outside on that damn fence, you scared the living shit out of me. I was so happy you weren’t dead but so mad you two would go out in the day where anyone could see you.”

“What’s the difference between day and night, inside or out?” A.J. asked as he leaned against the door, but soon leaned off of it when he seen it shaking slightly, it was loose and nearly falling off its hinges.

“Don’t ask,” Rider grumbled lowly as he looked around, glaring as he took a right at a stop sign. “Its—there are spirits everywhere, hence the ghost thing that’s been all the rage these days. Spirits can communicate with others like people, and like people they are drawn to some, attracted by something specific. You are like a light, you and A.J. are like lighthouse, flashing the bright light around. Or like a—a warm lighted heater, the warmer and the brighter you are the more they are attracted, everyone is a heater, anyone who has a soul and that is human. But since you’re being hunted by your flesh and blood, something that is tied to your soul from this lifetime, you’re stronger to them. In the darkness, it fades just a little. It helps; you’re shielded by things, when you’re out in the open. You’re like a moth to the flame.”