#amrakk

Of all the things Nlaea owned, her motorbike was among her favourites. There were scuffs on the black and red paint, and there were some possibly-not-street-legal modifications curtesy of Nyliri, but it was gorgeous and somehow bulky and streamlined at the same time. Driving the bike, affectionately nicknamed Alyan after her childhood dog, was among her favourite activities. It sounded stereotypical, but driving the bike made her feel free. During spring and summer she could smell the freshly cut grass through her helmet and, on good days, the smell of someone having a barbeque in their back garden.

Today was an excellent day to go for a drive. She’d become vaguely aware of another bike pulling up next to her as she waited for the light to change from red to green. She’d also become vaguely aware that the bike had two people, both of which were waving their hands to try to get her attention.

“-..strider!” shouted the passenger, muffled by their helmet. Nlaea recognised that voice. She recognised the bike, too. Those goddamn kids. She gave them the finger with all the venom she could muster with her helmet completely blacking out her face. Nakhara revved her motorbike. Nlaea could see the shit-eating grin in the small section of her face where the visor was clear. She stared at the pair, then at the road. It was clear.

“Do-.. -..coward!” Amrakk shouted while Nakhara revved the engine again. The road was still clear. Nlaea revved her own engine.

Orange.

Some passer-by’s gave them dirty looks. Nlaea leaned forwards on her bike, Amrakk leaned forwards on her Nakhara and tightened her grip on her hips.

Green.

They both flew past the lights, kicking up dust and rubbish that had been discarded in the road behind them. Adrenaline flooded Nlaea, making her heart pound in her ears and her hands shake. It was a good feeling. She wasn’t sure how fast she was going, but Nakhara and Amrakk were going faster.

Corner. Drop the speed. She overtook them.

Having a passenger made a bike harder to turn, but she suspected all three of them knew that. Nakhara and Amrakk had good synchronism but not enough to match Nlaea’s ability when she was alone. Her knee nearly scraped the ground when she turned.

They picked up speed. Whenever one bike came into view of the other affectionately awful gestures were thrown between the trio and barely heard insults were shouted, drowned out by the growl of the engines.

British roads were not ideal for street racing because, no matter how hard Nlaea tried, she couldn’t speed around a roundabout without crashing. This was something that occurred to Nakhara and Amrakk too, since they stopped next to her on the roadside a few seconds later. Nlaea pulled off her helmet. Nakhara and Amrakk did too, but with much more style.

“Fucker! It’s hard with a passenger!” Nakhara shouted, but she was smiling.

“You challenged me. Don’t sulk because you lost.” Nlaea said, a little breathless from the adrenaline rush. She checked her phone.

1 New Message from Axilya

“I saw you.”

The sun beat down on the three women standing on the car park outside the shitty block of flats that the first woman lived in. She wore sandals, short jorts and a faded t-shirt that barely read the words "It's Britney bitch." Amrakk wiped her forehead of the sweat that was gathering "fuck me, it's way too warm."

A second woman, wearing a much more respectable outfit, black tank top and jeans, crossed her arms. "What does Nakhara want, dragging us out here?" She leaned back against her motorcycle, cracking her knuckles. "Maybe it was to see those sweet, sweet abs?" The first woman nodded appreciatively at the aforementioned washboard anatomy. "I know I'm glad to see them."

"Keep it in your pants, and away from Nlaea's muscles, Amrakk." this one from the third woman, wearing a long, graceful Maxi dress, with long red locks of hair falling down across it. "It's your girlfriend who got us down here, you live with her, don't you know what it is? Did you adopt a kid? I swea-" She's cut short by a snort of laughter coming from Amrakk, who immediately creases over at the hilarity of her and Nakhara adopting a child. "A KID?! Could you imagine me and Nak with a kid? Oh my god, that poor child."

Axilya's scowling, and Amrakk's laughing are interrupted by a deep, loud rumble. Nlaea looks down at her motorcycle in shock, but relaxes when she realises it hasn't magically started out of nowhere. A figure in full black leathers appears around the corner, atop a motorbike, they ride towards the trio, stopping not far from them. The black motorcycle helmet is covered in tribal patterns, framing leaping tigers, Chinese dragons, ox's and tall cranes, the figure flips their visor up to show  a pair of smiling, excited eyes. "I got a bike! I was bored of borrowing Nlaea's, so I got one for us, Am!" Amrakk's eyes quickly grow to match Nakhara's excitement, running towards her and looking down at the bike. "What?! This is so cool!!"

Nlaea woke up with the sun. She didn’t usually wake up so early, but she still hadn’t bought a new alarm clock after the last one was dismantled for Nyliri’s constructions and her curtains weren’t drawn all the way closed. The result was a beam of morning sunlight shining directly on her eyelids and Nlaea waking up at a time she described as ‘the asscrack of dawn’. Next to her she could hear Nyliri’s soft breathing. If Nyliri wasn’t facing Nlaea she’d be awake too and Nlaea would have been able to will herself out of bed. Instead, she buried her face in Nyliri’s hair and squeezed her eyes shut, hoping to let sleep take her again.

It didn’t.

Specifically, Nlaea realised, it didn’t because she could hear something in her living room. This didn’t alarm her as much as it should - she’d made the awful mistake of telling Nakhara and Amrakk where her spare key was hidden a few days prior. She peeled herself out of her bed, grabbed her phone, and left her bedroom as quietly as she could, an effort that she dropped as soon as the door closed behind her as if she didn’t know that sound could travel through solid surfaces.

Those goddamn kids were on her sofa. In all honestly, Nakhara and Amrakk weren’t that much younger than Nlaea herself, but she struggled to think of them as anything other than ‘those kids’. She eyed the pair. That was the other strange thing. Even though she knew each one of them separately before they’d met each other she had begun to think of them as the same person. One entity with two bodies. They’d intertwined their limbs into an impossible pretzel of bare skin and tattoos to keep warm, or possibly just because that’s how they slept. Nlaea gave the back of the sofa a firm kick, sending Amrakk tumbling off and almost dragging Nakhara with her. They both looked up at her blearily.

“When I told you where the key was,” Nlaea started, leaning over the back of the sofa to make sure the pair could see her stern expression, “I didn’t mean you could crash here when your house was too far away.” Nakhara rolled onto her stomach and whined. Amrakk groaned from her new bed on the floor.

“Shhh…”

Nlaea wasn’t sure which one of them had shushed her, and since they’d both closed their eyes again neither of them saw her sudden change in expression. She walked around the sofa and ripped open the curtains.

“Say hello to the fucking sun, assholes. Get out.” Nlaea turned and folded her arms. There was a chorus of pained moans.

“Mmh.. time is it?” That was Nakhara, she was sure, but it was hard to tell when she was talking into a pillow and Amrakk was talking into the arm cradling her head.

“Time you got out of my house.” Nlaea responded tersely. After a moment of silence she turned her phone screen on and peered at the clock on the lock screen. “It’s 6:43.” Amrakk sat up first, stretching a toned arm over her head and yawning louder than she needed to. She gave Nakhara’s bare leg a gentle tug. Nakhara kicked out weakly and then sat up too, rubbing her eyes and creasing her mouth in that way that meant it was that special kind of cottony dry you got from a long night of drinking. They were making a glacial attempt at getting dressed.

“Y’should come with us some time, Lightstrider.” Amrakk said, giving Nlaea a sloppy grin and reaching for her shorts.

“Nnno, we should go party with her.” Nakhara snickered. The pity Nlaea had started to feel at their sorry, hungover states quickly evaporated.

“Maybe when you can handle your cocktails.” Nlaea paused to yawn, then continued. “I’m going for a ride. If you think you can both get on the back of my bike I’ll drop you off somewhere.” She eyed them expectantly.

Amrakk tapped her head. “No helmets.”

Amrakk stumbles, grabs the sink for stability. She rips the tourniquet from her arm with a sigh. How the fuck did she end up here? No, really, she doesn't remember. She does remember being a fair bit of booze, and way too much dope down though, which probably wasn't a good sign. Standing up was pretty damn hard, she thinks, as she slides down onto the tile floor, back to the wall. Music pulses through the room, vibrating in her pleasantly warm body. Dying wasn't that bad, if that's what was happening. She thought it probably was.

"Hey, yo, you alright?" Amrakk looks up, her head rolling on her neck slightly. Standing over her is a girl, in her current state she can only pick out certain fixtures; a long braid, leather jacket, sweet arm muscles. "What did you take, mate? You don't look so good. Grey isn't a good skin color". A nonsensical "pfft" noise is all Amrakk can make, as if it didn't really matter what she took. Regardless, she gestures to the needle next to her with one, limp wrist. "Fuck" the word is spoken by the figure standing over her, she shrugs, not that bothered by the apparent lack of hope for her life being saved.