Dark Rider

"Long time no see, Lester," the driver's voice was gravelly like he had smoked a couple dozen packs of cigarettes a day, it was quick and silent as he ran up the stairs in a flash and stood in front of Kassie's father. "What happened the last time I was here?"

"You—you gave me a warn—warning," Kassie's father trembled and stuttered as he leaned against the door, like he was trying to mold himself with the wood, anything to get away from the man in front of him. That sight confused Kassie, she wondered why he, out of anyone scared her father, he had been up against mob bosses and murderers in court who wanted to kill him and yet a biker scared him to stuttering. She agreed that they were scary, seeing as five or more still rode their bikes around and around in circles just beside her, closing her in the middle even tighter, but still she didn't get why he was scared. She listened though, over the roaring engines and the gravel spinning, she could hear the faint sound of her father's frightened voice, which seemed to make her stomach flip, happy that for once he wasn't the one giving out the fright but receiving it and the booming voice of the biker.

"And what did I say went after warnings? You’re a lawyer, Lester, you should know what happens when someone is given a warning," the man prodded Kassie's dad with a teasing tone as he slowly stepped forward, his large boots thumping loudly against the wood porch floor.

"They get punished and fined," Kassie's father flinched as he looked down and closed his eyes, like expecting something to strike him, mainly the crowbar or the chain but when it didn't he glanced up hesitantly and stared at the man. "Rider—aren't you going to punish me?"

"Oh yes, but I think we’ll have some fun before you get sent back," the rider chuckled as he turned around and walked down the steps loudly, every chain on him jingling and every heavy piece such as belts or boots thumping as he hopped the steps. "Alright boys, have at it. I need to talk to the children."

Watching as the rider waved his hand towards her and A.J. while he walked down the gravel walk way, Kassie felt her stomach drop like she was freefalling down thirteen stories, he was handsome in some strange way. The tall, dark and handsome thing worked for him but the fright overpowered the clutch inside her teenage hormone body that drove her to drool over his shirtless, vested broad chest. "Who are you?" Kassie surprised herself for being so up front but she held her face blank as he approached with an amused grin on his tan face.

"Young Kassandra, my you have grown," he groaned under his breath as he ducked backwards slightly while he looked her up and down, she could tell even though he had black as night sunglasses over his eyes, his head nodded up and down that was her signal. "And nicely I might add."

"How do you know me?" Kassie was now beginning to get aggravated as she had spotted her father being pulled by two big bikers to the back of a bike, where they wrapped two ropes around each foot and got on there bikes, Kassie quickly shielded A.J. from sight but still found herself unable to look away. "What are they going to do—"

"Ah," the rider clicked his tongue against his teeth and stepped closer quickly and placed his thin but well built arm around Kassie's shoulders and pulled her sideways from sight of the gruesome truth of the matter. "Let's not worry about that for right now, how about I explain to you how we first met and slowly work our way up to what the deal is now."

"I'd like that," Kassie tried to look over his shoulder but he moved to walk behind her, blocking her of all viewing. "What is your name, first off?"

"Atrum Veho is what they call me," he smiled as Kassie's eyebrows furrowed in confusion, hearing the foreign slur of language coming from his accent less mouth. "It's Latin for Dark Rider, but I go by Rider."

"That's your name?" Kassie asked casually, feeling a strange bond like she had known him for years and he was just coming back for a visit. She looked down at A.J. and found he was watching the star lit sky with wide drowsy eyes, which hinted he was close to sleep and it made her slow her steps.

"The heavens named me that, my mother named me Francis, but honestly do I look like a Francis to you?" he raised one thick black eyebrow in honesty, which included a lot of laughter deep in his honey colored eyes while his hands gestured to his chest.

"No," Kassie found some laughter that was quiet and expressed it shortly before she cleared her throat and turned her head to stare at him again. "How do you know me, Francis?"

Furrowing his eyebrows, Rider chuckled lowly and shook his head at her boldness; it made him realize how nice it was to laugh again. He hadn't in a long time and while doing so it felt foreign, so different then shouting and frowning. "Please, it's Rider. If any of my men hear you calling me Francis they'll think they can, and they'd be sadly mistaken," He paused and pointed to A.J. and then gestured to himself, but Kassie refused with a shake of her head and he didn't blame her with everything that had just happened. "Your father has had previous offenses. He used to abuse your mother as well; I warned him if he did it again that he would suffer. I guess he thought I meant just to your mother."

"I've been abused my whole life," Kassie whispered softly as she gazed from the ground up to his face, his face was emotionless as he stared, or so she assumed, at her face in return. "No one has ever saved me, why now?"

"You never stuck up for yourself, we only come when we know you have agreed for help, it seems pointless if we help those who refuse to be helped but those who ask, receive," he nodded his head as he gestured once more but to his bike that time. "Come, I'll take you and your cousin away from here, you'll be safe and no one will ever blame you again."

"Where would you take me?" she asked as she stared at the bike in contemplation, she wondered what would happened, it was understandable if she chanced her own life because she would have to suffer the consequences, but chancing A.J.'s was a completely different story, he had his whole life to look forward too. “And do I have to ride a bike?”

"Somewhere else, wherever you would like to go," he asked in the silence that surrounded them both. “And no.”

She thought about it for a few minutes before she shifted A.J. and leaned sideways, staring at the stars as she answered his request. "I want to go somewhere, like that book 'Wonder City," everything is perfect there, is there place like that?"

Rider smiled as he walked closer to Kassie, he leaned down and pulled his shades down to the bridge of his nose, smirking like he knew something she didn't. "Close your eyes there, K.K."

Before she could open her mouth and question him on how he knew A.J.'s nickname for her, the only thing that no one knew of but when she blinked her eyes she was standing in front of a large High School gym filled with students wearing school uniforms that seemed to be from the fifties. "Oh my Davey Crocket," she murmured under her breath as she glanced down at herself and seen she too looked like the many around her. "How—A.J.?"

Everyone at that moment seemed to simultaneously turn and stare at Kassie, who seemed like she was in the middle of the gym like an art project, being observed. "You are?" the gym teacher walked over with his clipboard in hand, whistle around his neck and those tight all to known gym shorts wrapped around his thighs.

"Kassandra Mackerel," she mumbled as she glanced around distantly, while the coach stared at her as if trying to study her. "Where am I?"

“Where do you think you are?” the coach asked quietly as he studied her movements, though she didn’t pay much attention to his facial expressions, she did pay attention to those around her who moved in closer to be apart of the scene.

“Wonder City?” it came out a hoarse statement as she glanced back at the teacher, who nodded his head slowly as if he were explaining quantum physics to a ten year old. At that point, Kassie’s throat felt as if it swelled two sizes larger, she began to clear her throat painfully while grasping it and the situation. She hadn’t meant literally when she told Francis that she wanted to live in Wonder City; she just meant somewhere as peacefully. And how was she to know that he actually could make it happen, not her that was for sure. “Where’s A.J.?”

“Who’s A.J.?” the teacher asked as he nodded for a couple of large basketball players to come closer, no doubt to help get the insanely talking girl away from the other students, wouldn’t want something crazy to happen and make an even bigger scene.

“My cousin, where is he?” Kassie questioned them as she stepped back and looked around frantically, she needed a way of escaping and she may have found it, spotting the gym doors to the right of her she took off in a sprint towards it. Once she had burst through the doors into the bright sunny outside, she looked around only for a moment before she began running again, she needed to find A.J. and fast he was alone in Wonder City? Impossible as it seemed, she still believed it and since she believed it, she feared it. And far as fear goes in her book, Kassie was at the extreme level as she searched everywhere with wild eyes, she almost thought that she would have to give up for the day until she seen feathery chocolate brown hair wildly dancing in the wind right behind a small rose bush in the middle of Mystic Forrest Park. Kassie’s heart danced around in her chest as she ran and jumped over the middle flower bed to the opposite side of the bush, glancing to the rose bush she smiled and then frowned. “Did you have to take it so literally?”