Conflict

Part 3, Chapter 17

Shocked silence filled the air.

Strip opened his eyes, dreading the very worst. His wing hadn't intercepted any bullet. The oil staining his hood and fenders was warm, vital fluid. He glanced back at Lightning. The rookie was shuddering, trembling under his wing with eyes closed. He was shamelessly frightened, but lacked any evidence of a wound.

The evidence lay beyond.

Rick sat motionless, twenty feet displaced from where he'd been moments prior, directly between Paul and Lightning. Confusion filled the Power Wagon's eyes as his gaze flickered down to the gaping holes just barely above his fenders. His mouth hung slightly agape as a puddle of fluids grew rapidly between his front tires. Within seconds, he started to seem distant.

Izzy came to first. "No. No, no, no." She threw all caution to the wind and rushed to Rick's side, the only father figure she'd ever known.

Rick blinked a couple times and frowned, trying to focus. He then looked to her and smiled softly. Strip saw the glint of tears lining the truck's windshield, contrasting the serenity his voice and expression otherwise conveyed.

"It's time," he said to Izzy. "Finally. Remember what I told you, Izabel."

Her eyes widened and likewise filled with unrelenting tears.

"I can't do that without you," she whispered. "I can't."

"You will," he countered softly. "I know you will."

Before she could continue, he looked from her down to his left. Strip sat silent in shock, trying to process the sight of the dying truck and comprehend the conversation he'd just heard. What had they been talking about? What had just happened? This couldn't be. Aside from Izzy, Rick had been the only constant throughout his entirety of his life, the seemingly steadfast anchor in the eye of the storm. When no one else could help, Rick always could. He was a manufacturer. He was immortal.

Except he wasn't.

Strip met his maker's gaze and felt a funny sense of déjà vu. Rick hadn't ever looked at him with that sort of soft, genuine candidness before – had he? Strip didn't think so, yet a fuzzy memory surfaced. Though it was distorted, like looking through warped, stained glass, it existed.

"You couldn't have made me more proud, son," he whispered.

He was gone. Just like that. Strip pulled away slightly, away from Rick's body, away from Lightning. He lost all sense of self as thirty-five years of memories flashed before his eyes. Some were clear, others so hazy they might as well not have existed at all. Getting fixed after the wreck. Learning the truth about his parentage and having it ripped away. Sitting in meetings looking at lazily drawn statistical charts. Those were all typical, flashbacks he had grown used to, but a new one surfaced. Sitting in a yard, a bright sunny day, looking at a small white house in the country. To his left, a Monaco sat smiling at him. To his right, the same white Dodge truck that lay before him now.

Stephen's hearty chuckle brought Strip back to reality, fast and hard. He realized how sick the forced transformation made him feel. He realized what he had lost. He realized his anger.

"Well isn't that sweet?" Stephen commented. "Never get attached. To anyone. Let alone kids. That's my motto. What'd you say, Paul? Think this'll do?"

The Bel Air stared down at the gun he held, black metal contrasting red and white paint. Paul grimaced as though he were disappointed. Had he really pulled the trigger? A white tendril of smoke still wafted upwards from the barrel, disappearing into a vent.

"Anything to end the war," he muttered, frowning. "It wasn't supposed to be him."

Lightning shrank away from the deceased body and backed towards the wall. That bullet had been meant for him. Now there was a dead car – a car that wasn't supposed to die. Not that day. A car that was responsible for creating nearly a fourth of the lives in North America was gone just because of his presence.