Dark Rider

“Neither do you,” she pointed out as she bit into another chip, fully intending on chewing while speaking, quite rude but she could care less. “You said you would let us have the ideas.”

“I—“he paused and shut his mouth, glancing away from Kassie to pout his bottom lip at the windshield since she was right, he had said she should drive and think of some ideas, he sighed again. She figured he was growing used to sighing like it was how he should be breathing; slowly he pulled over on the side of the road and put it in park. “Trade spots then, hurry we have to go.”

“Someone’s impatient today alongside the hyper energy you’re flaunting,” Kassie chuckled as they awkwardly got into each others path until Rider picked up Kassie by the sides and sat her on his lap, slid over into her seat and then pushed her off into his seat. She grumbled as she hit the door hard against her shoulder, result from his rough handling. She glanced over at him and merely glared before she turned back to the road, she placed her seatbelt on for safety before she glanced down at the gearshift, and she frowned then. “How do you work a stick shift?”

“Could have told me you couldn’t drive this thing before I got comfy,” Rider argued to himself as he flipped over to his back from his side where he was trying to rest comfortably against the less than comfortable cushion. “Move back.”

“Let’s just get another car,” Kassie compromised as she shook her head, refusing to move from the driver’s seat, knowing that she would feel like she let him down if he were to move her. “Preferably an automatic.”

“Move again and I’ll go steal another damn car,” Rider griped as he moved from the middle seat to the driver’s seat with ease this time around instead of having to remove Kassie, she did it herself by unbuckling herself and sliding under him to her seat. He grumbled the whole five mile destination to a parking lot for a grocery store. He parked the car at the very end between a group of large trucks, cars and minivans. “Which would you like, Miss Picky?”

“The blue explorer,” Kassie pointed off towards the right where three cars were in view, a large yellow Hummer, a blue explorer and a silver Ford Focus.

“I’ll go see if it’s an automatic, you two stay put and gather the supplies,” Rider rolled his eyes and reached over Kassie to strike A.J. in the shoulder, seeing as he had fallen asleep with a mouthful of chips and dip in his open mouth. Waking with sudden anxiety from the slap, A.J. threw the Mountain Dew that had previously been held in his resting hand into the air, soaking the entire cab of the truck. No one said a word as Kassie turned her deadly gaze towards A.J. and wiped her face downward with one hand, Rider only shook his head and climbed from the truck, barely wet since he wasn’t nearest to the panicked twelve year old when he had a spasm.

“The first chance I get,” deadly quiet and yet calm, not nearly as angered as he figured and it worried A.J. because that always meant calm before the storm with her, Kassie pointed her finger at A.J. and hissed. “I’ll get you back. I liked these pants.”

“You didn’t exactly like the shirt so—“A.J. shrugged his shoulders nervously and slowly began to pick up the wet unopened bags of chips to take with them into the other vehicle. “I did you a favor—in a weird way.”

“You’re lucky my nature isn’t violent because if it was, I’d be kicking your butt right now,” Kassie sneered and climbed out on Rider’s side, when she stood on the pavement she let out an aggravated growl and wiped down her used to be green but now faded red shirt. “Why is it always me?”

“You have really bad luck for some reason,” Rider chuckled in amusement as he walked over and collected some of the bags from the cab, leaning out he shut the door with his foot and nodded his head towards the explorer. “Come on, it’s an automatic.”

Kassie grunted in acknowledgement and followed Rider to the blue explorer, where she took the driver’s seat with pride and some fury, gripping the pink steering wheel cover. She glanced behind her to make sure that everyone was in before she started the car; coincidently the car’s keys had lain in the seat untouched. “I want you two to be quiet and sleep or else I’ll injure you both in very serious ways. I need peace and quiet for at least three hours, do you understand?”

Rider nodded in completely agreement as his hand flew to cover over A.J.’s mouth, after he had to nearly throw himself in the back to do it, he knew the boy hadn’t thought through the fact that she had said peace and quiet, no words were meant to be spoken even if it was the small agreeing okay that he knew A.J. was about to say. And when his hand covered, A.J. glanced at Rider accusingly and raised his eyebrows. Rider mouthed the words Not a word, just nod and smile before his hand moved away just as quickly as it had arrived. Thankfully, A.J. took Rider’s advice and turned to the rearview mirror and glanced at it with a smile and nodded, Kassie had looked through it to them both as she watched them argue wordlessly and she smiled when she seen her young cousin comply to Rider. Turning back around towards the windshield, Kassie put the shift into reverse and backed out of the parking space, and then drove out of the parking lot calmly and in no hurry. It took a good half the day to reach the state line; she had been more than content the whole time that A.J. and Rider had kept quiet for more than six hours. Most of the time they had slept that long, some of it they stared out the window until they grew bored and fell back to sleep. Pulling up to the toll booth that dared to demand a dollar before crossing into South Dakota, Kassie realized that she didn’t have a dollar to her name. “What?” Rider questioned after he spotted her frantic look in the side mirror that he had been looking out to.

“Find a dollar or we’re screwed,” she told him as she looked around in the ashtray, where she only found what it was used for, ashes from cigarettes. “Wake up A.J. he needs to look in the back.”

“I found a quarter,” Rider called out like a kid being told he had won a trip to Disneyland. “A.J. get your lazy ass up and help us find money!”

“What?” he jerked up much like he had been doing lately, panicked and frantic and he looked around wildly. “Money?”

“Find some money, we need a dollar for the toll booth up here and we’re broke, we don’t have any dough,” Rider explained as he threw the chip bags from the floor up into the air, glancing under them as he hurried to find another seventy five cents.

“I found a penny,” A.J. said after a good few silent seconds of him looking under the fold up cushions. “And two dimes.”

“Forty six cents,” Kassie said softly as she flipped the glove compartment door down and looked through it. “Ah, I found a nickel! That’s fifty one cents.”

“I found another quarter,” Rider came up from the far back, his hair a bit disheveled, flipped in different direction from the fact he had to jump over the seats to get into the back. As he lifted the quarter in the air proudly, his facial expression of happiness turned to pure shock as he seen another quarter stuck to the back, held together by something no doubt spilled on them like coke. “Make that two quarters!”

“We have a dollar and one cent,” Kassie said happily as she moved up in line, she held her hand back to the boys and felt them both pile in what they had found, Kassie pulled her hand up and tried to break the quarters apart but couldn’t seem to budge them. “Rider get up here, I can’t get the quarters you found apart.”

“Shit,” he complained as he climbed over the back seat and the middle seat to get into the passenger seat where he took a deep breath and let it out in exhaustion. “Hand it here.”

Kassie transferred all the other coins into her opposite hand while she picked out the quarters and held it out to him, Rider picked it from her extended hand and immediately tried to break the two apart, but found it rather difficult. “See, it’s not exactly the easiest thing in the world. I couldn’t get it to even barely move to the left.”

“It’s a toughie,” he agreed with a grunt as he tried pulling them apart with his fingernails dug into the nasty goo, he pulled at them until it popped open and his extended arm nearly took out one of Kassie’s eyes, if she hadn’t of ducked he would have been picking the quarter from her socket. “I’m sorry, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, hand it to me,” she said as she gave him the awkward eye, the look that signified You about damn took my head off, don’t come near me and it made Rider chuckle lowly as he slowly held his hand out as a peace offering almost. Kassie grabbed the quarter and budged the gas pedal to move the car up a little so she could throw in the dollar to the funnel type machine. When it counted the money and the road block went up, she moved through like the breeze and let the breath she had been holding out like a gust. “Jeez, I thought we were toast.”

“Good job people, we sure know how to scrounge up a dollar in a few seconds flat,” Rider announced with pride as he held both hands out for a high five, Kassie laughed and reached out while she drove to smack his hand while A.J. slapped it from the back.

“Imagine what we could do with a whole five bucks,” A.J. teased as he stretched out in the back and groaned in pleasure from the wide range of space he could sleep with. “Oh how I like backseats.”

“That makes two of us,” Rider smirked and winked as he looked at Kassie, who just laughed and shook her head at his perverted ways, not to mention the snort that it choked out of A.J. in annoyance.