Lainey found it to be true, the fact that wild, feral eyes are drawn to the movements of other wild, feral things. Her own eyes were currently attracted to the prowling's of one such thing, her ears tuned toward it’s guttural reverberations, her senses recognizing something of herself in the way the souped-up roadster crept jerkily towards her, it’s muscle flexing against it’s brakes as though anxious to pounce, the familiarity of it tickling at a salacious memory deep within her.

The car stirred some untamed thing inside Lainey which slowed her steps, allowing the danger to creep ever closer in spite of her natural predilection to flee… even wild things have a breaking point… but then a resigned willingness to either consume or be consumed halted her steps altogether until she waited, allowing the distance between she and it to close. Lainey couldn’t forget. How did one unlearn the exhilaration of lust, or the intoxication of being it’s object. God knows she had tried, but she couldn’t forget the summer heat, the youthful intrigue, the secret hidden trysts. These were, of course, the delectable parts. They were the reasons for the excitement produced within her by the approaching car, and they revealed to Lainey her long suppressed yearnings for those things, despite all that had happened.

Like it or not, Lainey Frost was possessed of a wildness.

“C’mon, Lainey. It’s just a ride home.” Gideon’s eyes were a drug boring into her own, sedating her judgement. They were a drug she had tried before and whose cravings she didn’t want to like, that she was afraid to like. The fire and ice intensity of those eyes seared through her, beautiful as they were, so that Lainey instinctively knew she must pull herself away or suffer another terrible injury as consequence for her addiction.

”What is it with you Galloway boys and these cars?“ Lainey hoped to sound cavalier, but her voice failed her, dribbling the words out meekly, barely even audibly. Lainey understood perfectly well that this specific car was no accident. Gideon had always idolized Noah, just as Noah had idolized their father. Gideon had chosen this car on purpose, and had obviously worked hard to make it just like the one Noah used to drive, the one that had killed him and had nearly killed her. “Please, Gideon.” She tried to look him in the eye, the better to get her point across, but she only melted into that crystalline, Noah-like gaze of Gideon’s.

"Damn these Galloway boys," she thought. "And damn what they did to her!"

“Please Guideon,“ Lainey found her strength. Gideon was only a boy. He was the age now which she had been at two years ago, when she and Noah had…

“I can’t. Just leave me alone, Gideon. Please leave.”

The hurt in his eyes at her rejection nearly changed her mind. Hadn’t she already hurt the boy enough? But she didn’t call out for him to come back. She couldn’t, could she? And even if she had, could he have even heard her above the sudden mechanical storm she’d wrought?

The heavy growl of the small block V-8 as the ’57 Chevy idled away was every bit as frightening as the low rumble from an unseen bear or lion would be from out of the primeval darkness. Lainey knew it to be just as deadly in fact, as she had once danced in that darkness. Cast in her father’s era the car did not look antique, not with it’s custom hood scoop, flared fenders, and chromed out racing wheels, but the Chevy’s heavy heartbeat reverberated through her, rattling her bones, and her nerves, and even her sexuality. When safely away from her, whether from anger or disappointment Lainey could not know, Gideon floored it’s accelerator, loosing 455 cubic inches of mechanical muscle strong enough and loud enough to shake loose the very pillars of Heaven. As the it’s engine roared, and it’s squealing tires spewed a towering chimney of billowing white smoke into the ethereal blue Lainey shrunk down inside herself, the sights and sounds taking her back to that night when love had lived and died for her as quickly as a meteor‘s shower ends.

Like most sixteen year old girls Lainey had once had girlfriends. She had even been somewhat popular, back before Noah. But while those girlfriends had been drawn to the football quarterback, or to the baseball boys, even back then Lainey’s eyes had been drawn to the wild things, to the things the others couldn’t understand, and feared. From Lainey Frost’s very first glimpse of Noah Galloway she‘d known exactly what it was she wanted, and who. Lainey had been standing outside the high school when his souped-up Chevy crept past her, it’s “balls of steel” engine rebellious at being reined-in beside her, spitting and sputtering it’s disgust at her. He’d stopped on account of her, brashly ducking his head for a better look through the passenger-side window. Brown, wind-blown curls splayed from beneath a ratty ball cap. A tight, greasy t-shirt and faded blue jeans completed the “motor head” look. His arm reaching out for the steering wheel had been tanned and muscled, with delicate blue veins which longed to be traced coursing down it’s length. But it was his eyes that captured her, so icy-hot that she found her heartbeat matching the spitting and sputtering angst of the Chevy’s. He’d smiled a crooked smile at her through the window, Noah had, but the smile hadn’t been necessary. She was already aware of his desire, his eyes had made sure of that. She might have climbed in then and there if he’d asked, but he hadn’t, thank heavens. No, the car had rumbled away, leaving behind a million questions and no one for Lainey to ask them of, her heart despairing of ever seeing either car or driver again.

But she should have known better. Eighteen year old boys are hungry, and must eat. It seemed that everywhere Lainey went from that day forward Noah was somehow there, too; whether parties, dances, or ballgames. Things progressed quickly from phone calls, to holding hands, to kisses, and more. Long and lanky, he took her to his home, where she also fell in love with his Uncle Benjamin, and his little brother Gideon, a sparkling-eyed fourteen year old with the same curls spilling over his forehead that Noah sported.

It had been her idea, sneaking out. They drove until they found a dirt road, and a quiet place. She and Noah made love for the first and only time on a blanket laid over a dry, sandy wash beneath a bright, low-hanging moon. They had used whispers there for no real reason as the slow, black water serpentined past. It had been soft, earthy, and innocent. They had proceeded slowly, cautiously, tree frogs and crickets urging them on from the darkness. Noah had balked in the end, afraid of hurting her, content with touching and tickling her most sensitive parts with his calloused fingertips until her body literally ached with wanting him, so that she nearly screamed at him to do it, already! And when he finally did do it, it was even better than she’d imagined, and nicer, and sweeter; his lean body rocking gently atop her softness, and then faster, yet his rigor somehow still soft in her hands, and salty to her taste, as if the tawny muscles of it were melting for her comfort… except, of course, for that tiny bit of pain that warmed her to her core, reminding her that she was now a woman.

He’d kissed her then, gazing into the shadows of her eyes as an easily rolling thunder rumbled like waves towards them from the faraway distance. ”I love you, Lainey Frost.” The words had come to her on queue, right when she’d needed them most, making her so happy she could have burst.

If only she had whispered them back. But in that youthful moment time had seemed no obstacle.

On spindly legs they’d dressed, helping one another in the darkness, giggling guiltily in their clumsiness. Their get-away car had been that lone obscene thing which shattered the stillness of the night. Her insides a-smoldering Lainey had climbed aboard him as he drove, grinding on his lap and kissing his neck, her grooves wetting his mounds through their confounded cotton clothing.

The flashing lights had been a surprise, coming as they did from nowhere. “Oh God, Noah! No! Don’t let me get caught.” But angry parents would not have been so bad.

From her perch on his lap she’d watched the lights through the back window. They were clearly pulling away from the police car when the turns became too sharp. His arms left the wheel to embrace her protectively as the car slid from the road and into a ditch, where the Chevy’s great speed sent it, and them, reeling high into the air.

She’d lost her spleen, and broken her sternum, but Lainey was comparably lucky. Still in the hospital, the funeral had gone on without her. He was completely gone to her, devoid of closure, as though Noah had never been anything more than a sweet, recurring fantasy from her youth. But then Uncle Benjamin had come by, wondering what had happened, seeing if she was ok, but she honestly hadn’t known the answers to any of his questions. She either couldn’t, or wouldn’t remember. Over time, some of the memories returned, in spits and spurts, until she longed to go to Uncle Benjamin now that some of the answers were unveiled, but it seemed that the more time ticked by, the harder that became.

On Lainey’s 18th birthday she was still grieving. Two years of ever-so-slow healing. Her school friends were already marrying the quarterbacks, and the baseball boys, while her stitches, and bones, and memories scarred over. Those girls seemed happy-as-not when observed from afar, from where Lainey watched alone as she spiraled down in her whirlpool of guilt.

And then it had all begun again, as though a wish had been granted. The car had frightened her when she first began to see it on her few sojourns about town; sleek, black, growling panther-like through the streets, or leaping and screeching when kicked, barreling from sight. It’s novelty awakened something inside her; a longing, an urge to track it’s blacktop skid marks right up to it’s very lair, where she might actually pet the beast. It frightened her because she knew her drug now, and she knew her weakness for it. And as she’d known from the start that it would, on one of her sojourns about “it” finally rumbled up behind her, a crooked smile finding her through the passenger-side window.

”Hi Lainey.” He seemed genuinely happy to see her, Noah did, as if he had forgotten what she had done. Of course the boy wasn’t Noah, but it was exactly the same, her feelings exactly the same, only the day and the year being different. The blood inside her froze, paralyzing her in memories, and desires, and shames. Those same icy-blue eyes burned her, bilging long dried-up tears to her surface. Standing there, on the outside looking in, Lainey felt the warmth of other suns, and the warmth of another’s skin in the cool of night. God, how she so longed for him to be Noah.

But it wasn’t Noah, was it. “Gideon?”

He was forced to read his name off of her quivering lips, as her voice failed her, but despite it his smile grew. She had dreaded this moment, feeling unsure about how the younger Galloway boy would react to seeing her, the girl who had killed his older brother, but Gideon seemed genuinely happy to see her.

”Yea. How are you, Lainey? We’ve missed you, me and Uncle Benjamin.”

Not trusting her voice, she constrained herself to a nervous, half-smile by way of gratitude.

”Can I give you a ride somewhere? I’d love to talk.”

Lainey was suddenly sixteen again, standing in front of the high school. She would have climbed in, if he’d only asked. From inside looking out those crystaline eyes burned into her, just as they had before. She could see the desire in them, and she felt it in herself, and she wondered if he could see it in her as she could in him. The thought broke her down so that she had to get away from him, and fast.

”C’mon, Lainey. It’s just a ride home. Can’t you trust me?”

But he had it all wrong, didn’t he? She did trust him. It was her she didn’t trust. Damn these Galloway boys, anyways! “Please Gideon, just leave me alone.”

She was still standing there, staring at nothing, holding her feelings in, tamping them down. The smell of burning rubber was still heavy around her, the shame still hot on her cheeks when another rumble found her consciousness.

Gideon had circled the block and come back. She climbed in, as he’d known she would.

It felt the same, the speed did, the exhilaration, the freedom. It was nothing for those things to toss the heaviness inside her out the opened window. For a moment she was allowed to be a girl again, with a boy. She never imagined she could have that again, what with the warm winds whipping at her hair through, her shrieks weightless upon ticklish rises and under dipping valleys, his laughs at her screams, the bluish veins on his steering arm longing to be traced.

The sun was low when the Chevy finally rumbled them to her curb. “Can I see you again, Lainey? On Saturday, maybe?”

Her mother’s worried face looked out from the window. ”It’s not a good idea.” Gideon was just a kid, though he no longer looked like one, what with his bulging biceps and chiseled features. She would have to be the smart one in this room, if there was to be a smart one.

”Of course it is. Uncle Benjamin would love to see you. So would I.”

”No Gideon. I can’t.” She climbed from the car. “Thanks for the ride.”

She was half way up the driveway when he called out to her. “See you Saturday, Lainey. I’ll pick you up at noon.”

The driveway seemed dreadfully steep as Gideon drove away. Lainey’s feet felt dreadfully heavy walking it. The house waiting at the driveway’s end seemed dreadfully domesticated, her room inside it dreadfully lonely. Her parents seemed dreadfully apprehensive, her future dreadfully docile.

They should not have let her out alone. After two years cold-turkey Lainey had tasted her drug today. Gideon had rolled up her sleeve, and had administered her cure as any good doctor or dealer would, shooting it through her veins and removing the tourniquet, releasing a rush like Satan’s pet "bat out of hell" straight to her heart.

Could she go back now? Could she ever go back after this day’s relapse? She understood her parents, and could not condemn them for their comforts and amenities. But if “they” were right, her friends and her parents, if she succumbed to their cautions, what would their caged life offer her? Roasting beef and darning socks? Could she stand so little, she who thrived on passions? Wasn’t the dullness of them just as deadly to the wildness in her spirit as his injuries had been to her body?

And if she ran, and it were to go with Gideon as it had with Noah, could she survive the trauma again? Perhaps not, but did she care? Wasn’t one form of death the same as another? For two years she had tried it their way, and where was she now? Sad, broken, lost in yesterday and the rush he had given her. Was the spirit pumping through the beating heart not as crucial to it as the blood was? She’d had just a taste, but after today she knew that the spirit was as crucial, and she knew now what it was she needed.

Damn those Galloway boys, and what they did to her.

Yes... she knew exactly what she needed. At noon this Saturday, come hell or high water, Lainey Frost would be ready and waiting.

I like to think we were in love,

I and the girl so different than me--

Torn leather jacket, one fingerless glove.

My babydoll dress to her faded blue jeans.

She cared too much, it dragged her under,

Played with fire and ice to mask her fears.

Her wishes drowned out by rolling thunder,

Only I could see her dried-up tears.

I believe we were in love, once,

Before she was blinded by a world of weapons.

But her cautious love was the devil's last chance

To steal her away from the pillars of Heaven.

It seemed that she was gone already

As I shut my eyes and wished her well.

And I heard the engine in her '57 Chevy

As she ran from love like a bat out of Hell.

I can see her golden hair

The fire in her amber eyes

Hidden ’hind the spit-clean windows

Of your father’s ’57 Chevy

I don’t got no balls of steel

And my blurry vision

Leaves but dried-up tears

Yet I long to say my vows with her

Before the pillars of Heaven

The sight of her burns like fire and ice

Melts me into a puddle of sweat

Drowns me in my faded blue jeans

Till’ there’s nothing left but my soul to see

The rolling thunder beckons me forth

Tellin’ me it’s the devil’s last chance

I slide out from my hiding place

And run like a bat out of Hell

Torn leather jacket flapping like wings

Wings that chase after her

Wings that will take her from you

People often say that art is a reflection of the soul. Then what is a soul when the art is torn and unfinished? Maybe I'll never know, I don't know as much as I claim to be smart. I mean— I'm supposed to be smart. I make good grades, and I'm told I'm gifted,but I always seem to have more questions than answers. My own brain is a mystery, and I'm the one in control of it.

Either way, I made my way towards the train tracks with my questions in tow. Keeping my eyes on the ground, I stuffed my hands in the pockets of my faded blue jeans. I thank every higher power that it was a free dress down day. In the distance, I heard rolling thunder. I groaned for what felt like hours. Reaching for a hood, I realized I was wearing my leather jacket, which didn't have a hood.

"Well, that's just great!"

Shaking my head, I picked up the pace, trying to get home before the storm. Rainbow beat down on my skin as I pounded past the train tracks. Running like a bat out of hell, I flipped out my phone to text my mother. She was worried. Of course she was. I'm running home with only a heavy school bag and a torn leather jacket on me. My glasses were blotted with rain, clouding my vision. I stopped in my tracks and wiped my glasses.

"Isn't New Jersey weather just divine," I mumbled with scorn. As I picked up my walk, I ran into a sign.

Road Work Ahead

Shaking my head, I changed directions. Impulsively, I turned around to see why the road was closed. Construction workers drove large trucks hauling off wood and giant balls of steel. Sharp directions were being hollered in all directions. A new house was being made. A better house. A house I could never live in because of our unjust world. The house was elegant and angelic. It was marble like the sculptures of ancient Greece. There were large posts like the doors looking like the pillars of Heavan.

Its beauty brought me envy. I could never have the luxury of the renter. The world wouldn't allow it. I put my head in my hands. It shouldn't be a big deal. It was just the devils last chance to make me hate what I have. I was grateful for what I had. My family, my accomplishments, my health...

I let my thoughts wander aside entered my house.

"I'm home!" My mom rushed over to me. She bombarded me with questions, and I felt my mind grow weary. I felt like a zombie as I changed out of my damp clothes.

"What took you so long!?" I turned around sheepishly.

"Uhhh I—"

"Because she walks like a snail! No, wait! Even the snail is faster than her!"

I rolled my eyes at my brother's intervention.

"I was walking normally until the rain started. I didn't know it was supposed to rain, and people were working on the streets I usually cross."

Sometimes, I wonder how my brother and I haven't gone crazy around each other— I mean, more than we already are. We're about as alike as fire and ice are in personality. There's something poetically cliché about having a quiet but intelligent oldest daughter and a sociable and intelligent younger son. Praised for the same reason, but seen in different lights. Something gnawed at me, and I guess it showed on my face.

"What's wrong," asked my mother.

"Nothing."

"Don't lie to me! I see it on your face." She looked at me with annoyance while I frantically shook my head.

She let me be after that. I fumbled to the corner between my bed and desk. Sliding down, my mind filtered out only one question.

What went wrong?

Again, I had no answers. The future was supposed to be good, they said. High school was supposed to be our golden years. All the awards, straight A's, they couldn't be for nothing. Right?

Still, no answers.

My questions were interrupted by a blaring and horn and wheezes. A '57 Chevy pulled into the driveway across the street. It was as blue as the ocean and looked as polluted as one. Vintage, but not old enough to be considered antique. Something about it lured me like an anglerfish to its prey. Was it the color? Was it the fact it was still used? Or was it its look that resembled a broken person. Vibrant but dented, clinging to its last resort. Its sputters were cries of help and oil stains resembled dried tears I'm the dim light.

Whatever it was, I couldn't make it let me go.

I get it.

I used your '57 Chevy without permission. Truth be told, I like to think of my balls of steel as rolling thunder--ball-lightning--on that bat out of Hell that was my pteropine stallion. And yes, it was the last car to pass him by, ungulate and horned, the devil's last chance: but no fingers--ten thumbs made him irresistible and I had to pick him up.

And yes, we crashed the pillars of Heaven, as a blur of fire and ice through the uprights of the uprighteous. Rolling thunder, ball-lightning, All while you slept so securely sweetly.

The affectations only punctuated my guiltless irresponsibility--the faded blue jeans, torn leather jacket, tattoo stating what I was born to do, and not a dry eye in the house; no dried-up tears for what might have been. That kind of might ain't right, but now my kind of might was right.

Yes, I confess--proudly, defiantly, and righteously.

Whatever you shout at me, push your objections hard to overcome your red-shifting, 'cause you're falling behind. I'm internally combusting and I'm blue-shifting. Possession is my qualification, and I have it all. You want retribution? Then come and get me! At the very least, argue your point, 'cause we're movin' on! FUJIMO!

Click, clack.

Click, clack.

Back and forth balls of steel swinging on a string, one stops and the other starts, impossible to escape from the laws of motion. I watch the sway of the dancers endlessly trapped in their line, predictable, knowable, understood. Light reflects off of the representation of the laws of nature, and I swing back and forth unsure if what I am doing is what should be done.

I slowly pull myself away from my workstation white lab coat swirling around me as I walk down the hallway to clock out for the day. My locker looms, this is the devil’s last chance to pull me away from my decision. I hang up my coat with decisive movements and exchange it for a torn leather jacket to match my faded blue jeans. I take a deep breath and slide my glasses case out of one coat and into the other. The decision is made, I turn away letting the door slam shut, the final clash of rolling thunder of a raging storm all that remains now is calm.

It is laughably easy to walk out the front door, the security guard barely even glancing at me. I peel out of the driveway, the best impression of a bat out of Hell that I have ever given, the implications of what I have just done still pressed down deep within my mind. I spare only a brief wish that I could turn around and follow the ’57 Chevy I pass going the opposite direction.

I blur past the city, and the fields out into the forest where only trees stand to bear witness to what I am about to do. The clouds reach far above me, pillars of Heaven stained red by the setting sun. I slowly open the case in my hand, a flash of light blinds my eyes for a moment. She is awake. Buzzing fills my ears before I can convince my eyes to open. Golden dust and lacy wings.

Dried-up tears stain the tiny face of the one fluttering in front of me, a heartbeat, a wingbeat, and then she is gone, leaving only her memory behind. The battle of fire and ice has come to an end within my heart, the ice of my fact loving mind melted by the fire burning in my soul for all living things. Slowly tears slip down my face as I sink to my knees in the grass. I have destroyed my entire life for this, to leave no trace of something Other. Knowledge sacrificed on the altar of morality in exchange for life. Now there is only one question, was it worth it?

Jessy and I were chalk and cheese. Fire and ice. She was fiery, passionate and loud, loud, loud. I would stand and glare at the boys she flirted with. In her faded blue jeans and torn leather jacket, she was my god. Why she wasted her time with those morons was beyond me.

After school, we'd drive around town in my dad's '57 Chevy, smoking, in silence. I was sure we were the definition of cool in those days. The best days of my life, turned out they were the devil's last chance.

When she turned on me, my world collapsed. Those balls of steel she had that I'd once so admired, scared the shit out of me. The pillars of heaven that once sustained me had come crashing down.

After hiding in the bathroom stall during lunch for a month, I was desperate to escape. The rolling thunder of my rage hit in waves. I sat with my dried-up tears, and was determined that as soon as was humanly possible, I'd be out of that town like a bat out of hell.