An Enchanted Night

4*Rebels in the Night

The moment he stole the keys out of his parents' closet safe Adam felt lost in a trance. His mind is focusing on anything and everything except what he's about to do. The sound his boots make against the hardwood floor. The creaking of doors as he opens and closes them. The rumbling of the garage door. The accompanying worry about the ears on the other side of the house hearing it. The soft sigh of relief that passes through his lips after a few anxious moments come and go without the sound of angry footsteps traipsing through the house. Success.

And when he turns, he's face-to-face with his past.

Standing there, in the middle of the cold, grey garage is his motorcycle. With the garage door up, the moonlight sneaks inside to illuminate it. The light bounces back against the red metal to cast a crimson shadow on the cement floor. It reminds him of what happened that night. The night a different type of crimson covered the ground.

"Let's go! Hurry up before they catch us," his sister shouts in a whisper as she runs toward the motorcycle. Am I dreaming, he wonders, as he stares at her circling the motorcycle.

"Sis?"

"We're just three rebels tonight, aren't we?" she grins, pats the motorcycle's seat and looks back at him. "It's called a Honda Rebel, right? From 1985?" she questions with her brows raised, expecting an answer.

He nods his reply as if it's the start of that fateful night a year ago.

His thoughts snap back to his sister as she mounts the motorcycle and says, "You going to finally let me drive?" She's wiggling her eyebrows up and down because she already knows the answer to the question. It's always no.

"Are you crazy? Skootch back, sis," he says, deciding to just enjoy whatever this was – dream or memory.

She giggles as she moves back and smiles so wide the Moon aims her gaze right at it, blinding him momentarily as he gets on the seat. The motorcycle roars to life, enticing his sister to join in with a loud holler of excitement. As he turns to yell at her for being too loud with their sleeping parents in earshot Adam is startled back to reality.

There is no one behind him.

Rebel, party of one.