As Red Light Strikes

***

26 years earlier

"Rozalynn Pace, Evan Pace, Stop it right now!" Aileen Pace sounded something between serious and deathly tired as she scolded her kids fighting in the back seat. She hated the competitions but Marion had a point. It wais healthy for the kids to have activities to do, then again it wasn't the lack of activities that went wrong the last time around. She turned towards her husband for support but as always he was smiling at the banter, looking annoyingly amused by it.

"But mom it's unfair" Fifteen year old Rozalynn Pace whines while slapping away her younger brother's hand that is reaching for the paper bag on her lap. "Evan is eating my cookies'' She sends a nasty glare at her brother.

"Mom Roz is being selfish as always." Evan whines, matching the tone of his older sister. He might be seven but he knew how the game workee. He was a smart kid and usually he liked his older sister. Then again he would prefer a brother but that looked like it is a wish for the past. Rozalynn was a cool sister, it was just that he liked to push her buttons as she had quite the temper if you knew how to dig it out from her.

"I need the sugar, I have a competition tomorrow."

"Well I have a big competition tomorrow too, so hand me one." Evan met his mother's raised eyebrows in the mirror and muttered please.

"You are seven, how big can your competition be..."Rozalynn teased, ignoring the question and smiling victoriously but too early as usual. "You are just a little baby..." She taunts.

"And you are an old lady." Evan fires back. Their father was cracking up with laughter in the driver's seat.

"That is not funny." Roz fumes in her seat. "Besides I am not old, I am an adult, something you will be in what over ten years maybe?" She sticks out her tongue childishly.

"Roz you are only fifteen." Marion Pace finally decided it was time for him to step in and reverse the nuclear war currently building up between the siblings.

"I am only fifteen... how can you say that..." Roz glared at her father looking betrayed "...only fifteen?"

"See honey, it is quite a big deal..." Her mother smiled towards her husband softly.

"Roz what I meant..." She doesn't let her father finish his sentence.

"Can you just put some music on... I am over this conversation...please." Roz added the 'please' with a hint of irony but considering the circumstances her parents decided not to say anything.

"Hand me a cassette." Marion Pace smiled instead.

"Why does she always get to pick?" Evan whined loudly.

"Because I am the oldest..." Roz glared at her little brother like she is daring him to argue her point but it is Evan so he didn't coward away from a challenge.

"Are not!"

"Am too!"

"Are not!"

"Am too!"

"Stop it, both of you." Aileen Pace's input had no effect on the two fighting kids and she looked to her husband for support but he too seemed unable to stop the fight from where it was going.

"No you are not, Deuce is." Evan's words made an eerie silence fall to the car and for the first time the seven year old seems somewhat regretful.

"We don't talk about him... that name... it doesn't mean anything anymore." Rozalynn's tone had a frightening chill to it as she pronounced her words clearly, loudly and in an empty manner.

"Rosie, it is okay to miss him.. to miss your brother..." Aileen Pace softly replied, trying to comfort what now obviously is broken, shattered in pieces a young girl's trust in humanity, in...

"He is not my brother... not anymore, not after what he did." It was a sentence so filled with emotion that it could tear apart entire audiences if it were to belong to a theatrical masterpiece but it is empty and hollow, a reminder how the two parents could not save their little family from the darkness. "He is not family, not my brother but a mare monster." Rozalynn sounds final. "Papa, the music please." Marion Pace does indeed put the music on and for a while it is only the music playing in the background until the rest of the family one by one start with the usual chatter Rozalynn stays quiet. Deuce used to indeed be family, her brother, her everything as her now active parents were too busy for her and ...she hated  herself because she was weak and sometimes she really missed him. Not that he deserves her thoughts, he deserved nothing but pain and anguish. She swallowed her tears, willing herself not to think about the one who should not be on her mind but somehow he is always present. Always there mocking her sadness and loss. She is brought out of her thoughts only when her father screams angrily.

"What is that car doing?"

"Watch out Marion." Her mother's voice rings in her ear and as she looks forward it all happens so fast.T he road, the turn and then the car sliding, slinging welting over and lastly hitting hardly into something, right before everything falls black.