“Heroes aren’t dead!” a female voice cut through the loud air of the bar fight.
It was as if the woman snapped Aia into a trance. The yells, the music blasting over the voices—everything had come to a stop, and for a moment, all Aia could see was a silhouette standing on the top of a wooden table. Her arms were raised. Dust and splinters flew around, and her braids looked messy as she gazed up at the ceiling. Her skin was sunburned. And yet she looked like a god among mortals.
Someone grabbed Aia’s arm. Timmy. He pulled, and Aia’s legs moved on their own. Then it all disappeared behind a closed door—the woman, the yellow-lit bar, as well as the mayhem of the night.
The group rushed. The outside was dark and quiet. The police were already on the way, but Aia couldn’t think of the people who might have died tonight, or wonder how it had turned into something so extreme. She thought of the woman’s patterned shirt. Her high brown shoes, the few strings around her wrists, and the words she’d yelled, as if she’d known what Aia had been feeling for a while. The woman might have been a cowgirl. If there were still any cowgirls left.
The group reached the bikes. Engines began to roar, and people’s faces hid behind helmets before wheels began to move. Then it was no longer people. They became ghosts. Machines merged with people’s bodies. One with the motorcycle, and one with the night.