Friction and Fire

Confrontation Brewing Part 3

Her bike tears through city streets, the sounds of the garage fading in the roar of engine and intent. Rhonda's fury is in every turn, every surge of acceleration, leaving her sister's words in the dust. Her ponytail is a furious auburn blur behind her, her defiance palpable and unrestrained. City blocks turn to streaks of color, lines that cross class and expectation. Each one shifts the balance of power as she rides, each one another piece of her furious campaign to take this broken promise and break it back.

Anger and pavement pass beneath her, moving faster than her breath or even the wild pace of her pulse. Street names change like the turns she must take: 14th to Capitol, Capital to Industrial. And soon, just blocks from the highway, Industrial becomes Commerce.

She mutters words that the wind tears away, words only she can hear. Words to herself, words to Vondrel. The wind leaves them behind, but they don't leave her. They bounce in the helmet like they're on tight, mechanical loops. "Nobody messes with my family." The city doesn't get smaller behind her, but she's determined to make it.

Faster.

She turns on Sable, its broken promise of a smooth road leaving potholes in her resolve. She bounces against the seat, the shockwaves intense and jarring. Her thoughts keep pace.

Her voice keeps pace. "Think again," she says to the city, but the sound of the engine is too loud for the city to hear.

Blocks speed past, but each one is another reminder. Each one is a wrench, tightening the parts of her plan. Each one is another call, spinning in useless circles. Call me as soon as you can.

The streets grow nicer and the lines on the map twist, but they still spell it out: what she's doing, where she's going.

Sable. Franklin. York.

Each one brings her closer. Each one leaves more and more behind.

Wind and words tangle like the hair beneath her helmet, growing knotted and complex. They're almost impossible to untie, but not completely. They're angry and frantic, determined and absolute. But Rhonda? Rhonda's got nothing but time. She's faster than it, and she is.

The blocks become as wide as the homes are big, and neither are like the place she's left. Each one feels like it could be the place she should stop, but none of them are. Her engine whines with the weight of impatience, but she tells herself to stay calm, stay steady. She drives harder.

"Weak-kneed," she spits. It's both insult and dare. The word is a solid thing in the sky-blue emptiness around her. She dodges it like an obstacle. She dodges it like blame. The throttle pulls open and stays there, leaving the speed of her decision in the dust of its smoke and rumble.

Expensive cars watch her go by, fenders gleaming. Manicured trees and shrubbery do too, shocked and silent.

She's lost them, but not herself. She's in control, and so is the fury.

It pulls her down long streets and across longer stretches of angry, uneven asphalt. In the nicest neighborhood, she's the only one moving fast. She's the only one moving at all.

The lines of city streets become the slow curves of a suburban maze. They twist and tangle like she's doing her best to trap herself, but she's doing nothing of the sort. She rides and rides, and even when she reaches her destination, she won't be done. She won't be satisfied until everything is exactly like it should be.

Her own fierce, frustrated words stick in her memory, tied tight like the twine in her fists. They form a web, a catch of emotion, a net of desperation. And each street, each turn, tightens it a little more. A little less air for her to breathe. A little less doubt about what she'll do next.

She's got one thing in her mind, and it's this: Alicia. Alicia's tears. Her determination to make them disappear. To fix things. To make them right.

She clings to it like she clings to the throttle. Hard.

Even a short time ago, the "we" in "we'll fix this" felt like a lie. Like a hope. But now, with each intersection, each surge of her bike, it's feeling truer and truer. It's feeling possible.

Her own words float back, powered by velocity and defiance. "He picked the wrong sister," she mutters. The wind rips them apart like soft, old paper.

They whip away.

She sees their flutter in her mind, glimpses them in her furious ride. She's the blur that catches up with them, tears them into what she wants them to be. Rhonda Taylor and all the rules in the world, racing against the clock and racing against who gets to make them.

She's past another intersection. Fast as the light she won't wait for.

Faster than a traffic signal, faster than a breach of promise. The red light fades, blinks, vanishes behind her. So does another, and another, and another.

She grows closer to a final decision, her conviction hitting the sweet spot between gas and determination.

She roars past the mansions, past the memories of her own indecision. Her own expectation of failure.

But Rhonda's got no room for expectation, failure or otherwise.

The sight of the street is familiar, more familiar than the sleep she didn't get and less familiar than her family. Like the braided strand, all three are tied together. Alicia's. Her promise. Her ride.

She's close enough to the Lancasters to smell them. She's not.

Her boot doesn't even tap the ground when the city finally wins. Her foot doesn't even steady the bike when the entire universe and Rhonda's memory come to a hard, complete stop.

The map of her thoughts folds in on itself, a big, unfinished thing like her night. Like a promise she's ready to keep. She's ready to fight it with or without the names that fill its winding streets. She's ready, even if they're better than they should be: Taylor Place. Whittier Lane. And now, Emerson.

It's the longest wait of her life. Long as a night spent with promises that won't keep quiet.

With no road to eat and no air to chew, her frustration builds. Her mind and her engine rev as she slows, slowing for both of them. Her determination builds with the glow of the traffic light, a slow fire on the edge of everything. Everything she wants. Everything she's decided to take.

Then the tiniest pause in everything she doesn't.

This time, it all makes sense.

She clutches the brake. And in the red-light stop, she digs out the memory of where she's headed. The determination to go further.

She takes a second to make sure of the address. She won't stop again, unless it's to stop him. She vows, like everything else. She pushes it as hard as she pushes the bike.

"We're going to fix this," she says, voice ringing against her helmet and against the fateful little line on the map.

On paper or otherwise, the ride is short and almost done.

But this time, when she says it? When she really says it?

She almost believes it.

There's the familiar look, the glare of wealth. The unfamiliar one, the actual kind.

A face turns up from a steering wheel. A silent expression in the chrome-mouthed neighborhood, confused and condescending at once. Her face is set in iron, just like Rhonda's.

They lock eyes for a full and complicated second, unblinking as the street lights in a part of town that never gets dark.

Rhonda throws her a salute.

She guns the engine.

She has the last word, the last intersection, and the last laugh.