-1-

The motorcycle is close to me, I feel the heat of the exhaust on the back of my legs as it drags in slow circles around me, blowing my silly dress around my knees. I hear the sharp grunt of the Justice Officer holding me followed by a slack in their grip as they fall to the ground.

The cuffs binding my wrist vibrate before falling to the ground  and once they are free I  quickly pull the bag off my head. At first the brightness blinds me and I cover my eyes with my elbow as they adjust.

The scene around me is chaos; dust, bullets, spurts of blood and frantic bodies.

Colette—and I know it’s her on the under the helmet—is kicking up a cloud of dust and thick black smoke  with her bike; obscuring me from view of  the brigades of Justice Officers.  Her leather jacket clad arm reaches out for me and I grab it. I drag behind her for a few seconds, tripping and stumbling over the heel on my stupid rhinestone sandals before I get my shit together and hurl myself on the back of the bike, straddling the seat behind her.

“Hold on !, ” Colette grunts, tossing me a helmet. I quickly put the helmet on and tighten my grip on her waist, plastering my chest to her back.

I feel her body brace as she swipes at the control panel display in her helmet, puts both hand on the handlebars and then guns  it down a side alley and right towards the Federation Day Street Fair.

I think she is going to turn off down a side alley, but we go right for the street fair crowd celebrating obliviously on Seville Avenue. People scream and run as the motorcycle tears through the crowd but Colette is undeterred.

She swerves and cuts through the clusters of people and the vendor stalls, making a few near misses but never hitting anyone.  Behind us I can hear the sirens of Justice’s cars trying to get through the crowd to chase us, but they can’t get through the streets like she can on her bike.

We come out of the street fair and hit the main thoroughfare, Colette pays no mind to traffic lights as she speeds towards the highway. They all seem to go green right as we pass through them.

In all the time I’d known Colette  I’d never ridden on her bike—it’s a rush just  feeling the thrum of the powerful engine. I can’t even tell where we are, everything feels unreal and ephemeral as it whips past us. I always knew riding was important to her, that her bike was an extension of herself but now I really got it.

She lets out a victorious scream that gets lost in the roar of the engine as we finally break on to the of highway and lose Justice. I can feel it reverberating in her rib cage. My heart leaps into my throat as she bucks backwards, tilting the bike back and riding on one wheel down the empty stretch of smooth highway.

I scream.

She laughs.

Setting the bike back on two wheels, she taps the tint off our helmets and our eyes meet in the rearview mirror. I try to express my terror at her stunt through my eyes. And even though she’s wearing a helmet over her mouth I can tell she’s just smiling at me. This whole thing was stupid and dangerous—which must mean she was loving it.

She touches her gloved hands to where my hands are clasped on her waist and nods. A comforting gesture as if to say we’re going to be okay.

I smile back.

My smile quickly vanishes when I spot a Justice car in the mirror. Colette must see it too because she speeds up suddenly, swerving to take an exit that runs through the west side of the Sprawl.

 

-2-

 

The exit comes out to an abandoned residential area and she squeezes us down a side alley. The bike leaps off the ground when it hits a pothole, but she rights it and we go down a dark tunnel.

The tunnel is pitch dark except for the few feet in front of us  from her headlights. We speed down the tunnel for nearly fifteen minutes before her headlights catch on to something painted on the wall in luminescent paint. She slows the bike down and then we’re on an incline going further underground.

 A ramp opens in the bottom of the tunnel and as we whip by,  LEDs on the wall turn on, bathing the tunnel in a white glow. Inside the tunnel walls are tiled white, but the space is dingy and unwelcoming.

It was always rumored the Santoro family had the Sprawl tunneled--that they had access to secret entrances and exits under the city from when the train system had been underground. I guess it was true.

She stops the bike and helps me off. I feel unsteady on my legs but I instantly hug her because I needed something to hold on to for a moment. She hugs me back, she smells like leather and flower-y perfume and I inhale it.  I want to hold on to her forever but she slowly backs out of the hug and takes her helmet off, sweaty black strands stick to her face and her eyes are sparkling.

“You saved me--” I start.

“We don’t have a lot of time,  they’ll be here soon--”

“Who--”

“Listen, Twyla you’re a federal fugitive now,” she says urgently.

“I know, god, I’m so fucking stupid—"

“No you’re not.” She says, smiling and touching my forearm. “You’re a badass Twyla Banner and I know we can look out for each other. Join me. We can ride together. Let’s change shit, you and I.”

I stare at her, she looks anxious and excited and I feel like I’m about to ruin it.

“You mean…Join the Santoro Family ?”

“Who gives a fuck about the formalities ?,” she says. “I’ll teach you what you need to know. You’ll work with just me. We’ll lookout for each other. You’re going to need connections now and I can--”

I hear the low rumble of an engine and before I can say anything the Justice vehicle from the road barrels down the tunnel and slowly comes towards us. Colette quickly puts her helmet back on and I put my hands up. I expect her to do the same but she removes a firearm from her hip and points it at the Justice vehicle.

The headlights blink in a 2-4-2-1 pattern and she nods her head, slowly putting the gun away.

The car door flies opens and a uniformed UAF officer steps out of the driver’s side. Aunt Minnie and Luce bolt out of the backseat with their guns pointed at Colette. Colette  just draws her own weapon back out and points it at them.

Rias steps out of the passenger seat of the car  and walks in between the standoff, it’s an effortless, powerful sort of  walk I’ve never seen on him.

He nods at Colette who nods back.

“I told you. The Covalcotti rider is with us.” Rias says pointedly to Aunt Minnie and Luce.

He has a stare down with them and Aunt Minnie slowly lowers her pistol.

Luce doesn’t.

“Are you fucking crazy, Twyla ?,” Luce suddenly barks at me, his voice echoing off the tunnel walls  “Why did you try and kill the attorney fucking general ?”

“I didn’t think,” I say, wishing we weren’t having this conversation in a tunnel surrounded by all these people. “I thought I could--"

“You’re not Lachlan,” he yells. “You’re not Ma and you’re not me, Twyla. You were supposed to be fucking better.”

“I screwed up !,” I shout back at him. “If I could take it back I would--”

“Enough.” Rias snaps. “We don’t have much time. We’re all in this together, so let’s get everyone up to speed so we can end this.”

“I am not in this,” the UAF Officer who was driving the Justice car says.

We all turn to her.

Luce looks back at the UAF Officer like he forgot she was there. I get a good look at her uniform, her last name is Collins and she has a lieutenant rank.

“Eden’s doing me a favor,” Luce says loudly. “Nobody sees her here, got it ?”

“Favor ?,” Lt. Collins smiles, shaking her head. “You know when I said let me know if you need a favor I meant like a parking ticket. Not help the people who tried to kill my boss’s boss escape.”

“You’ll be compensated--” Luce tells her.

“Yay, drug money,” she says sarcastically.

“We can disguise it as a scholarship for your kid to go to school or something--”

“I don’t have kids--”

“We can decide that later,” Rias says, loudly. Sternly almost. “We need to finish this.”

“What exactly is this ?,” I decide to finally ask. It was all too weird. My family, Colette, and a random UAF officer in a tunnel together. It sounded like the start of a bad joke.

“Me saving your life,” Rias says.

I quickly learn that Rias contacted Colette when I’d been taken into custody and had  Luce contact Lt. Collins, a friend of his from school who was a national security advisor in the UAF. Lt. Collins leaked to Luce where and when Haley and I were going to be taken out of the hotel and Rias had Colette create a distraction and get us out.

“Wait…where’s Haley ?,” I ask.

“Handcuffed in the backseat,” Luce scoffs at Lt. Collins.

Lt. Collins crosses her arm.

“Luce, I’m not comfortable with any of this but I can’t knowingly let them both go,” Lt. Collins says, she sounds regretful. “I’ll look the other way on your little sister but Attorney General Maxwell seems to have a greater interest in Haley being in custody…I have to take him back. I’ll make sure--”

“No,” Luce tells her flatly.

“Hey, don’t forget I could have you all arrested,” she warns him.

“Who in here do you think won’t put a bullet in your head ?,”

Lt. Collins goes stiff and crosses her arms.

“We’re not putting bullets in anyone’s head,” Rias says walking towards them. “The Vulcan’s on it’s way. Twyla and Haley are both going to the safehouse until things cool down.”

I look over at Colette who is standing in a dark corner, she shakes her head slightly.

“I can’t just go to a safehouse,” I say. “I have school—I— does Mother--how long do you--”

“Your brother is right,” Aunt Minnie says. “You go and we’ll figure everything else out. We need to see if we can smooth this over with the AG’s office. We’ll take care of this, but you need to go somewhere he can’t get to you.”

I can’t help the tears that comes to my eyes as Luce pulls out my syndicate and shoots a round of bullets into it. 

This was just the beginning.

 I’d lose everything.

The only other person I knew who had been in hiding was Alan Gray and he’d been in it for almost three years.  Mother never got out of it, she was always looking over her shoulder.

I look over at Colette, standing silently like a ominous spectator in the corner. Colette knows she’s outnumbered by Shy Cartel members. I want to tell Rias to give Colette a way to contact me at the safehouse but I don’t want Aunt Minnie or Luce to hear. I hope she just knows that even though I’m going into hiding I still want to talk to her.

By the time the Vulcan arrives Luce has struck up some sort of deal with Lt. Collins and she releases Haley while Aunt Minnie is on a call convincing a Federation spokesperson that MBC had nothing to do with the attempted hit.

Luce sets the Vulcan to camouflage and before I get in I look around for Colette to thank her one last time, but at some point when, no one was paying attention, she'd disappeared.

 

***

-3-

 

“So, like what exactly do you do at Uncle Jean’s brothel ?,” I ask propping my head up on the pillow.

I’d been dancing around this question since we’d been at the safehouse and I finally decided today I was going to ask it. Haley looks at me from where he’s sitting cross-legged across from me on the other side of the bed and shakes his head, closing his eyes.

“Oh, come on ! God, everyone treats me like a baby and I’m sick of it, I’m not naïve I know  about things,” I remind him.

“Luce would kill me if we talked about this,” he says and picks up the purple pen. “Best 3 out of 5 ?”

I sit up on the bed, and pick up the blue pen as he slides the notebook between us.

The safehouse was an old farmhouse that sat on a patch of dried earth at the edge of an abandoned gated community 500 miles from the Sprawl. It used to belong to an agoraphobic and somewhat neoludite bodyhacker named Blackbird, but it had been empty for years.

It had electricity and running water and that was about it.

For the first few days Haley locked himself in a bedroom, staying out of the way when Mother had come to drop off some of my things and some food. Mother was pissed at both of us and said she was working with Aunt Minnie to smooth this all over. She said she’d be back soon to bring me home.

That was 8 days ago.

On the third night Haley knocked on the door of the room I’d been sleeping in and apologized to me and then said he didn’t want to be alone anymore. The next day we’d started cleaning out the house, inventorying the food and supplies and passed the time watching movies on my tablet but he said he couldn’t concentrate on movies. He said when things got bad for him he liked to play simple logic games.

I didn’t have any games  on my tablet and we weren’t connected to the network so we’d started playing endless games of tic-tac-toe, crossword puzzles and word finds on the old blue books we’d found in a closet.

We hadn’t talked about anything serious beyond his attempts to tell me he was sorry and that everything would be fine for me.

“Is that why you picked up the gun ?,” he asks me, as he sketches out five new tic-tac-toe boards in the blue book.

“Huh ?,” I say, unsure of how we got onto this topic.

“You said everyone treats you like a baby…is that why you picked up the gun ? To prove a point.”

“No,” I say almost too quickly. “I just wasn’t thinking…you know how my father was. He taught me stuff and I just reacted.”

“I didn’t know your dad,” Haley reminds me.

It felt like Haley had been around so long I forgot he’d showed up not long after Dad died. My Dad was the best Dad, he’d treated Rias and Luce like his own—not that Luce would ever admit how much he liked that.

“He was just always into me knowing how to protect myself. I wish he’d met you, he would have liked you.” I say, drawing an O in the bottom right square.

“I get it, you know.” Haley says, threading his hands through his hair, fisting it into a ponytail before letting it fall around his shoulder. “What it’s like to be the baby. I had two older siblings...we weren't as close ad you and your bothers."

“Your sister seemed nice though,” I say. I’d run into Haley and his older sister having what looked like an awkward lunch on a restaurant patio when I was walking back to school and we’d have a brief conversation. She’s complimented my entire outfit and asked me to join them but I had to get home.

“Isla tolerates me. Your brothers would move heaven and earth if anything ever happened to you. They’re probably doing it right now.”

I accept this because despite myself I know it’s true. We’re tied on our 4^th tic tac toe game when I hear the electric beep of the security system alerting us that someone is  coming through the gated community’s gate. Haley picks up the small pistol off the nightstand table and presses the security button in the wall.

A screen projects on the far wall and his body relaxes as we both see Luce jogging through the gate and up to the door. The door flies open (8 encryption lock be dammed)  and Luce charges upstairs, when he gets to the bedroom door he’s breathing hard, he gives me a quick once over before locking eyes with Haley.

“Get out, Twyla,” Luce barks at me.

“What’s going on ?,” I ask.

“Just give Lex and I a minute. Alone.”

“Luce--,” Haley starts.

“Go Twyla,” Luce says and then he pauses. “Please.”

I look between them and begrudgingly leave. I wander down to the kitchen and paw through the frozen meals we hadn’t gone through. I settle on my favorite blueberry waffles when the security system beeps again.

I turn on the security system and see Aunt Minnie’s dark violet Volkswagen Beetle pulling into the driveway of the safehouse. Rias gets out of the passenger side of the car and he’s holding a small black toolbox.

I watch on the screen as Rias leads the way into the farmhouse with Aunt Minnie, Mother, Alan and Uncle Jean following behind him.

The door opens and the once quiet farmhouse is filled with their chatter.

“This fucking house. Remember Blackbird, Minnow ? Sorry bastard. Fuck this house.” Alan Gray says and without acknowledging me disappears down a flight of stairs that lead to what was once a basement lab.

“Look outside ! You shouldn’t have driven up to the door, you’re left tracks in the sand. Next time I drive,” Uncle Jean chastises Aunt Minnie.

“God, Jean It’s just sand, Alan can sweep the tracks away. Alan—Alan ?,” Aunt Minnie responds as she takes off her dark knee length suit jacket to give to Alan and then seems to notice for the first time Alan is gone.

She looks out of place in the simple farmhouse in her bright pink bandage dress and lacy black heels, but seeing her makes me feel like everything is going to be okay. She rolls her eyes when we hear Alan pounding on the  basement door, cursing himself for permanently sealing the entrance when there had been a rumor the Federation was  raiding bodyhacker labs a few years ago. There was no way to get into the lab without tearing the foundation of the whole house.

Mother barrels through them all and hugs me tightly before steeping back and looking me up and down and then kissing my forehead.

“Are you doing okay ?,” she asks.

“I’m fine,” I say. “Is this over ? Can we come back home ?”

“We’re getting there,” Mother smiles smoothing back my hair. “Minnow and Rias struck a deal with the AG’s office to sweep this all under the rug.”

“Almost.” Rias says pointedly.  “We almost have a deal. Where’s Haley ?,”

“Upstairs…with Luce,” I answer."…Um, Luce just came barging in a few minutes before you got here and told me to leave the room.”

 I decide to add because I had no idea what they were doing up there.

Rias’s sighs and he almost looks pissed. He and Aunt Minnie exchange a look I can’t decode. My brother had changed seemingly overnight. He looked slightly addled but more serious than usual. He’d been this way ever since he’d helped orchestrate my escape.

Then it hits me.

This was his first cartel problem without Rayne. He was leading this and it seemed like in a span of a week he’d decided to lean into his own darkness.

Barely a second later Haley and Luce are coming down the stairs. Haley’s face has pink undertones, the saltire around his neck is out and slightly askew and  his brow is furrowed as he steps towards Rias.

Rias looks from Luce to me and then back at Aunt Minnie.

“Read it for them, Ri.” Aunt Minnie prompts him and Rias looks into his Syndicate.

“The official statement from the Attorney General’s office on the Federation Day incident states that ‘the attempted killer has been deemed mentally unstable and is being kept in a mental hospital where they are being treated for undiagnosed trauma from time spent in the RLA,” Rias reads. “ As such, their identity will not be made public. The girl who picked up the gun was an unrelated patriot trying to help. The Attorney General and his family are safe and well and hope to put this incident behind them.”

Rias looks away and at me.

“Mother and Luce  had all videos and photos of the event destroyed and Minnow and I have ensured that all the MBC employees who saw anything know the drill… It’s basically like it never happened.”

I feel relief like never before. I knew I was privileged in a lot of ways but right now I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. Maxwell and Prescott had been so furious and out for vengeance the last time I saw them.

“How did you get Maxwell  to--”

“Maxwell is running for president." Rias interrupts me. “The Mojave Blade Company formed a private PAC supporting him called People for Justice and that PAC just  made a 10 million dollar campaign donation.”

And just like that all the relief was gone.

Shit.

I knew what that really meant.

They’d paid 10 million dollars in cartel drug money to get the AG’s Office to change the story. Probably more with the cost of hackers to destroy the video and photos and the bonuses to the MBC employee’s paychecks.

“$10 million ?,” I repeat and Rias just nods. “You didn’t have—I--I could have just gone on the run, you didn’t have to do that for me--”

“It’s not just for you,” Aunt Minnie explains. “Maxwell threatened to hit the entire company with a sanction that would have shut us down and put a lot of people out of work--”

“Although if it had been just for you it would have still been worth it,” Mother tells me. “We’d do anything to keep you safe, Twyla.”

“Besides we’re getting the money back,” Minnow says and clicks her way over to Haley. “You’re on the hook for the 10 million. You can work it off at the brothel and by doing cartel jobs as they come up.”

Haley lowers his head and nods.

“I know.  I will pay it all back,” he says. “Thank you, Minnow.”

“Don’t thank me,” she says. “You disobeyed a direct order from Rayne and involved the MBC in it. I would have happily given you up to Justice. Saving you was all Rias’ idea.”

He turns to Rias.

“Thank you, Zacharias,” he says and Rias looks uncomfortable, pained almost by the thank you, but he wipes it away.

Rias picks up the small black toolbox he’d brought in with him and sets it on the wooden kitchen table. He opens the fingerprint lock and pulls out a machete from the velvet lining.

“Like Au—Minnow said you tried to kill Maxwell against my father’s orders--which are now my orders. You made MBC complicit in your act,” Rias swallows. “I can’t have members of my cartel thinking they can ignore my orders and get away with it. Things are delicate right now and I need them all to know that even though I’m young disobedience won’t stand.”

Haley nods.

“I know. Luce told me,” Haley says “Can I ask a question first ?,”

Rias looks to Aunt Minnie who nods and then Rias nods.

“Are you still going to honor your father’s promise to kill Maxwell for me ?,” Haley asks.

“Sure,” Aunt Minnie answers easily. “I mean, it won’t be until  after the dumb bastard’s elected but it’s not off the table. A deal is still a deal. As long as you don’t go rogue again.”

Haley nods and places his palm on the table. One of his hands was a cybernetic prosthetic that Alan had installed to fix an injury he’d gotten while in the RLA. The cybernetic hand looked just like skin, but I had a feeling this wasn’t that hand.

Rias grips the handle of the machete carefully, we all knew Rayne liked to cut fingers off but I wasn’t sure if Rias had ever seen how Rayne actually did it.

Only Uncle Jean seems alarmed by what’s about to happen. He suddenly stands up straighter.

“Come now. He makes me good money with that body, you can’t just start disfiguring it!,” Uncle Jean says, but he doesn’t move to take the machete from Rias.

“Eh, it’s honestly not so bad. Plus, it’s a fun party trick.” Aunt Minnie smiles , pulling off her own prosthetic finger from when Rayne had cut her middle finger off. “Or sex trick,”

At this comment Alan, who had suddenly re-appeared, shoves her lightly and she laughs throwing her suit jacket over his head.

“You can pick the finger,” Rias tells Haley, his voice a hoarse whisper.

“Rias, don’t.” I say, walking in front of Rias and lowering my voice. “This isn’t you. Remember what you always said ? You said it wouldn’t be like this--”

“Twyla, move. Please,” Rias says, begs almost. “I can't start letting things slide, this cartel is all my father left me and I can't let if fall because no one respects me. I have a job to do and you’ve caused enough trouble for me.”

Hearing him say this stings a little, Mother pulls me away and holds me to her chest so I don’t see but I can hear the slice and a small whimper from Haley and that’s it.

“Let’s get your shit,” Luce says to Haley, who was holding one hand cupped in the other, his face bright red.

They walk upstairs together and it’s only then that I hear a muffled cry. I suddenly couldn’t be in the same room as Rias anymore.

“I’m going to get my stuff too,” I mumble and start to head upstairs behind Luce and Haley but Mother stops me.

“Not yet,” Mother says. “Twyla, we don’t trust Maxwell and we’re still not sure if Maxwell will hold up to his part of the deal…We’re going to keep you safe here for a little while so he won’t try and use you against us.”

“But Haley’s going back--”

“Haley has to start paying back his debt and he’ll be under Jean’s protection,” Mother explains. “Besides he’s not my daughter. You are. I think it’s best if you’re out of sight for awhile.”

“So, what ? I have to stay here by myself ? For how long ? There’s nothing out here-- I don’t want to be in this place alone.”

Mother seems surprised to hear that I didn’t want to be left in a house in the middle of nowhere with no connection to civilization. Like she hadn’t thought I’d fight back.

“I know it’s not ideal, Twyla but sometimes you just have to hide when you’re a fugitive--”

“You’re a fugitive--” I remind her

“I’m different,” she says. “And I don’t wish my choices in life on you…look, how about everyone take a week to stay here with you,” Mother decides and looks around to the group.

“Who is we?,” Alan asks.  I barely want to spend one more second in this plac--”

“Obviously she doesn’t mean you,” Aunt Minnie interrupts him. “But maybe we can do an every other week, every three days or so  thing ? Or every other weekend ?  I want to help but I still need to be with Rias for some meetings in the Sprawl so a whole week won’t work for me--”

“And I love you, love,” Uncle Jean says putting an arm around me and nuzzling my hair. “But you know what happens when I leave my children--,”

“You’re a pimp, you don’t have do anything,” Aunt Minnie retorts. “ It’s not like you have to be in the room directing the fucking--,”

“Well no, not unless they pay me to--,”

“And atleast you have Charlotte to take over for you--”

“Charlotte ?,” Uncle Jean scoffs. “The poor thing would be walking in circles  like a toy car if I’m not there to give her direction. They’ll  all crawl right over her--,”

“Hey, maybe Sage can stay with her,” Alan cuts in to the Dorys bickering. “She won’t take up supplies.”

The thought of having Alan’s half human, half robot girlfriend or whatever crawling around the farmhouse with me just gave me the creeps. I like Sage but  she was basically a computer with a human skin, she never slept and her heart gave out at weird intervals.

“Um, no thanks,” I say and Alan shrugs. “Look, I know you are all too busy to stay out here with me. Just let me go home, I’ll hide in the loft or at Arkham-”

“The Feds know about Arkham’s cartel connections now and if you’re in the Sprawl Maxwell can find you too easily,” Mother says. “Twyla, you’ll just stay here until after election day—once we know Maxwell has what he wants.”

“…That’s like two years from now,” I argue

“Twyla, we’re trying to keep you safe,” Mother says patting my hair. “Please, I know it’s hard right now but let me protect you. We’ll figure it all out later.”

Rias was right about me, I’d caused him and myself more trouble than I was worth.This whole thing was as much my fault as Haley’s. The moment I’d picked up that gun and pointed it at the Attorney fucking General I’d made myself a pawn for a game between the cartel and Federation and it looked like the only person losing was me.

***

 

Mother stays overnight the first night, but then she has to go and help Luce with something cartel related. She spends most of the night trying to make a secure connection to the network so I can atleast be online but she can’t do it and promises she’ll try again next time.

In the mean time she gives me an ancient radio and says we can communicate using the radio waves. I don’t believe her, but she tells me Luce’s dad taught her how to do it and together we make it work. She shows me how to use the radio to call if I need help.

The radio reception is grainy and godawful but some nights it works. Some nights I even hear other people using the forgotten radio signals, their voices crystal clear and speaking in code.

I’d always thought of myself as a loner, always keeping my distance and secrets from other students in my class. Never truly letting them in.  But I’d never been lonely until now and it hurt.

I try and do homework but it’s no use without a teacher to guide me, I read and re-read all the romance novels Uncle Jean left me, organize and re-organize the freezer and  turn on the buzzing radio static just to have some noise.

I’d always lived in cities, I wasn’t used to the quiet or the boredom or feeling trapped.

Two weeks into being by myself I think I’ve officially lost my mind because I hear the sound of a motorcycle in the distance.

I race up to the farmhouse attic, out the big attic window and scurry up to the roof. I plant my feet between two groves in the shingles  and  hold on the weather vane to ground myself on the sloped roof.

I look out in the vast desert beyond the gate and follow the distant sound until I spot the dusty black sports bike and  Colette’s long black braid just off in the middle distance. She’s stalled in the middle of the desert and looking around, likely using her navigation tools to figure out where she was—not that this place would ever show on a map.

The safehouse was notorious, it had been in use since Rayne’s grandfather and had never once been found. I know Colette is a good tracker but she’s not that good so I wave my arms frantically and scream to get her attention but she’s too far away. I lean back in the window, pick up the bottle of beer I was nursing, guzzle down the last few gulps and toss the glass out the window. It makes a loud crash on the driveway below, she probably won’t hear it but her navigation system will pick up the sound vibrations.

As if on cue  her head turns and she begins driving towards me.

Once she passes through the gate I hear the security system ping. Filled with adrenaline I race downstairs, out the safehouse front door and right into her. She’s barely off the bike when I tackle hug her to the ground.

“Twyla!,” she gasps, her voice filled with shock.

“Colette!” I mimic her.

I’m on top of her and we’re laughing as she tries to get out of my tackle. It feels good to touch another person.

And then we kiss.

It may have been an accidental lip bump at first but now it’s deliberate, my lips purposefully crushed against hers.

Colette sits up, nipping my lower lip and boxing my body in with hers. She lifts me by my arm up until we’re both standing, our lips still locked. I’m wearing pajama pants and a tank top and her hot leather riding jacket burns my skin.

I unzip the riding jacket and  she lifts her arms momentarily as I remove the thin shirt underneath from her body. She’s wearing a thick black sports bra underneath that shows of her hard, tanned, flat stomach, dusted with thin hair.  She presses herself closer to me and I hold on, wondering if she notices I’m not wearing a bra.

 

***

 -4-

Later, I bring her a frosted glass of my new favorite drink; which is really just water with a swirling mix of red, orange and yellow from the different flavor packets I’d mixed together. It was one of the many things I’d come up with in my copious spare time.

“What is this ?,” she asks sniffing the colorful drink.  

“I call it a sunrise,” I decide looking at the colors swirl and mix.

“You know that’s already a thing, right ?,” she asks. “Tequila sunrise. My  cousin fucking loves them.”

“Well, this is a Twyla sunrise,” I say mixing one up for myself.

I bring my drink, along with an unopened bag of chips into the cozy living room and sit next to her. I hadn’t been able to even look at the kitchen table since  Rias had cut off Haley’s finger on it.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come visit earlier. Nobody would tell me where you were,”  Colette tells me. “Rias messaged me that you were safe, but he refused to tell me how to contact you. Told me it was a safety risk, even though I helped rescue you in the first place.”

“Rias has changed,” I tell her. “I think I broke him.”

“No,” she says shaking her head. “I get it. He doesn’t really know me. He’s doing what he thinks is best even if it fucks me over. Anyway, I broke into Luce Grace’s car depot and put a tracer on  all his cars. I saw a few of the cars came to this general area, so I thought I’d investigate. So, what  ? You’ve just been out her by yourself ?,”

I nod.

She looks around at the odd assortment of vintage farm house  furniture.

“This is a nice safehouse,” she says. “Better than Nico’s panic rooms. Do you like it ? I bet you get a lot of reading done,”

“I’m a fucking fugitive,” I remind her. “This isn’t exactly a vacation…it feels like a prison.”

She downs her drink and places it on a rooster coaster before reaching for the unopened bag of chips, which I think detracts from my whole “feels like  a prison” point.

“The offer still stands, you know.” she says. “You can ride with me. I can teach you.”

“The Shy cartel spent a shit ton to save my ass,” I tell her. “I can’t just bail to join the Santoro Family.”

“Fuck the Santoro Family, I’d never make you join us.. They’re all sexist assholes,” she says  “I mean you and I could ride. Move from city to city, have adventures….write out own stories. There’s more to the Republic than the Sprawl and Mojave, you know ?”

I shake my head.

“I can’t leave.”

“Why ?,” 

Because it scares me shitless.

“My family,” I remind her. “They’d be pissed if I left.”

“Why ? You’re losing your mind in here. What are they going to do ? Ground you ?,” she smiles and I shake my head.

I make her lunch and show her all the stupid games I invented. We’re reading passages from Uncle Jean’s erotic novels and making fun of them when she suddenly stands and looks out the window. She reaches for her helmet and my heart plummets down to my toes.

“The sun’s about to set. I have to go while it’s still light out and I can follow my path back,” she says. “I’m sorry I have to leave you, but I’m not really made to be cooped up--”

“It’s okay,” I say even though I suddenly feel like crying.

We walk to the door hand in hand after she gathers her stuff. At the door I can’t seem to let go of her fingertips

“Soooo,” I sing awkwardly swinging her hand. “Before you go should we talk about the making out thing, or--”

“Do you want to ?,” she asks, plainly.

“Yes….No ? Honestly, no, not really,” I admit.

"I love you, Twyla Banner” she says. “ I always have, always will. Whatever you want us to be I can deal with. Nothing changes how I feel about you.”

“I love you too,” I tell her and bring her in for a hug. I know it’s not goodbye forever, but it may as well be because time seemed to speed up when she was around and slow down when she wasn’t.

She pulls away from the hug and kisses my check, I smile extra to make her think I’m okay as she gets back on her bike. As soon as her helmet is on I turn and go back into the farmhouse. I’m halfway up the stairs when I hear the engine start.

And then I realize, fuck it.

I was allowed to make a choice and I didn’t want to be locked up in a castle like some abandoned princess. I could be apart of the world and still lay low for a couple months or  years. It’s what my mother would have done.

I bolt to the window, to see Colette is still out front. It looks like she’s been idling for the last few minutes, not quite ready to leave.

“WAIT !,” I call out to her and she tips her helmet covered head at me, removing the tint.

“I’m coming with you!,” I call out and her face breaks into a smile.“Let’s do it. Let’s try  it; you and I on an adventure.”

I dress quickly,  grab a few outfits, a notebook, the purple pen and the radio and run down the farmhouse stairs. I scribble a quick note for Mother and leave it on the entryway table;

Went to write some new stories for myself; will be in contact. Thank you for everything. Love, Twyla.

And then I burst out the door and straddle the back of Colette’s bike, she tosses me a helmet and I put it on like I’ve been doing this all my life.

And then we take off.

I don’t really know which direction we were headed in or where we were going next, but I know it will be a place I’ve never been before. I know I’ll come back here, back to this farmhouse when the time’s right and then I’ll go back to the Sprawl. And when I do, when I’m back to how things were I’ll have my own stories, lots of new stories of places and people that only existed in my head. The End

A/N

- Yes, I got a little meta in the end but only because I had no idea how to end this. I hadn't planned for what happened after the whole Maxwell/Haley reunion but I knew I wanted Twyla and Colette to ride of into the sunset at some point.

- I have no idea how I ended up with so many same sex relationships in here. I originally wanted to write about female friendship, but I  just couldn't unsee.

- Part of me does kind of see this as like an origin story for Rias. I don't know much about his character's future but I do see him as being this young leader who leans into the evil and that adults begrudgingly fear.