The day slides by without teeth.
McDonald's lets her go an hour early—register drawer balanced without a fight, coffee machine behaving like it remembered its job.
The new girl—Marina? Maria?—is quieter, orbiting the prep station with her questions swallowed, eyes on the timer lights like they're telling a secret she can earn.
The manager's tie isn't strangling him for once.
The bell above the door keeps its little temper.
Janitor hours are oatmeal: warm, bland, no surprises.
Mop-water lemon ghosts in the hallways; trash bags tie without tearing; the copier doesn't cough a paper lung. She changes her dressings in the staff restroom at lunch—quick, clean, sleeves rolled in a cubicle that smells like decades of disinfectant and adolescent panic.
The tricep groove has skinned over in a satiny pink; butterfly closures do their small, stubborn work. The thigh ladder itches under Tegaderm; she tolerates it the way she tolerates everything that pays: jaw set, breath even. The rib constellation is yellowing at the edges, turning from night to bruise-weather, less galaxy, more map.
She adds water like penance. Teeth remember the bruxism but stay in their lanes.
All day the city pretends last week didn't happen.
A TV above the teacher's lounge whispers about "an incident in Sunny Isles" with footage of blue tape and a black door that could be any black door; she doesn't look at it long enough to be recognized by herself.
She has new soles on the boots—paid cash; no paper trail; tread scrubbed once for the idea of it.
She keeps her routes rotating.
She remembers which cameras blink and which are dummies.
She pretends it's habit, not attention.
Now: the school parking lot at its laziest hour.
Heat bleeding out of asphalt in wavy breaths. Palms doing their mild applause in the evening draft.
A line of buses belly-up against the curb like sleeping whales, diesel cooled to a tarry lull. The low, brick shoulder of the gym holding up a strip of sky that can't decide between blue and evening.
The air tastes like chlorine from the swim team and dry grass from the field and a little like hot brake pads.
She leans on the bike the way you lean on a wall you trust. Rear wheel cocked into the slot where shade falls, plate angled so the lot camera gets glare and not numbers.
The helmet crack has widened a hair—just enough to catch sun and write a white thread across her peripheral; a quiet barometer of days.
She's bought a second helmet cheap from a skate shop that didn't need to know anything.
It hangs from the handlebar by its strap, scuffed but honest, chin pad still clean.
Two helmets.
The promise turned solid.
Sofia's group is "fifteen minutes" that has already become forty.
Nico's name came attached like a burr: groupwork today, library, then final edits somewhere between the vending machines and a bench.
Lucia decided not to check how much of that was true because today was easy and she wants to stay inside that word a little longer.
Cars bleed away in clumps.
A teacher in a floral dress walks by with a tote and a radiated fatigue; she nods and gets a nod back that says you're the quiet one who cleans up my coffee.
The security guard in the booth thumbs his phone and pretends to look official; his radio hisses once, bored, then closes its mouth.
A pair of JV boys bounce a flattened ball into an argument.
A PTA dad cinches a roof rack with a strap that slaps his knuckles and makes him say something he'd correct in front of children.
Text thread sits at the top of her screen, last bubble an hour ago:
— [ten more, promise] with a heart that meant it then.
She doesn't ping the dots.
She lets the screen go dark and uses the reflection to check the tape corner at her collarbone; still flush, still holding.
Breath in, ribs counting to four without flinching.
Breath out, longer.
The chest heaviness from a week ago visits sometimes at night; tonight it leaves her alone.
She shucks a Le Rainard from the old box in her pocket, touches it to her lip, decides against lighting it—two left.
She savors the cardboard smell, tucks it back like a coin.
The lot smells like baked rubber and late sunshine.
A gull argues with a light pole and loses. The wind plays with a paper flier until it forgets it was ever an announcement. Somewhere, a whistle—soccer practice calling time. The sky eases toward copper at the edges.
She balances her phone on the tank for the weight of it and—without meaning to—thinks of shoes.
Two possibilities in two boxes, paper whispering over leather.
The tiny grunt Sofia will make when she unlids the right one.
The way she'll pretend it's no big deal and then check her reflection in every dark window between home and everywhere.
A group of kids spills from the double doors, volume set to We Exist.
She scans faces like a habit and then tells herself to stop. The lot goes back to its patient hush.
She lets her head tip against the helmet dangling from the bar and watches heat-flutter make the chain-link shimmer.
The phone buzzes once, a phantom—her brain, not the device.
She smiles at herself for a second, rueful, and palms the screen awake anyway. It gives her nothing but time: 6:30.
She sighs, a small collapse that barely stirs the heat between her and the tank.
New herd at the doors—laughter, sneaker squeak, backpacks knocked into hips. Sofia in the middle of it, but not with it; Nico a half-step glued to her side. Four other kids spill ahead, their chatter shedding names and due dates.
Sofia and Nico lag, orbiting each other like they forgot how to walk in straight lines.
Lucia straightens off the bike without meaning to.
Nico's arm snakes around Sofia's waist, casual and practiced. He leans in; Sofia tilts—quick cheek kiss, a flicker that nonetheless lands like a stamp. He says something low; Sofia smiles in that half-secret way that means later.
The four peel off toward the lot; Nico backs away, hand sliding from her hoodie to the air, then he pivots and trots toward a scuffed scooter parked under a jacaranda. Sofia heads for the bike, expression already reassembling into the version she uses on Lucia.
A thought in the back of Lucia's skull scratches once: Is she fucking dating?
Sofia arrives with a light, guilty brightness. — "Hey."
Lucia watches Nico kick-start the scooter, watches the boy look over once more, grin, then buzz off in a line that isn't straight.
She keeps her voice even enough to pass inspection.
— "Who's Nico to you."
Sofia shrugs like a cat shaking off water.
— "Group partner."
— "Group partners don't kiss you."
— "He didn't kiss me."
— "I saw it."
— "On the cheek. Chill."
She lifts her chin toward the second helmet dangling from the bar, as if to say nice.
— "You brought it."
Lucia hands it over but doesn't let the subject go with the strap.
— "You're not dating him."
— "We're doing bio together."
— "That's not an answer."
— "It is my answer."
Lucia holds out her palm for Sofia's backpack without asking; Sofia passes it, a reflex years deep. — "He drink? Drive? You get on that scooter?"
— "Lucia."
— "Did he drink?"
— "We were in the library."
Helmet halfway on, Sofia's voice muffles, then pops clear when she lifts it back.
— "God."
— "You let him put hands on you in front of a door I can see from here."
— "He touched my hoodie, not my soul."
Lucia's jaw tightens a click. She tips the extra helmet toward Sofia's head.
— "Put it on."
— "I am."
She slides it down, the strap rough under her jaw.
— "You're doing the thing."
— "What thing."
— "The cop thing."
— "I'm not a cop."
— "Then stop interrogating me."
Lucia doesn't blink.
— "If he's your boyfriend, say it so I can remember his name before I forget it."
— "He's Nico."
Sofia plants a foot on the peg and swings up behind, helmet skewed, hands finding Lucia's jacket without enthusiasm.
— "And it's not your business."
— "You live with me."
— "And?"
— "And that makes it my business to keep you breathing."
— "I'm not a goldfish, Lucia."
— "You're my sister."
— "That doesn't mean you own my life."
The last words sharpen; she yanks the chin strap snug like she's punishing it.
— "It's not your business."
The sentence lands with a clean, hard edge, echoing the way tile does.
Lucia lets the words sit a heartbeat, catches them, folds them, and puts them somewhere she'll sort later.
She thumbs the ignition.
The bike wakes with a tempered growl, neutral light blinking like a patient pulse.
She tows the backpack's strap under the bungee, checks the knot, then slides her own cracked visor down until the world cuts in half.
— "Hold on."
Sofia's palms press to her ribs—reluctant, then secure.
Lucia heels the stand, noses them out of the slot, and threads the bike between a teacher's Corolla and a minivan stenciled with honor roll stickers.
They roll past the guard booth—two helmets, one machine, a shared silence that isn't peace—and break from the lot to the street, evening laying copper along the road as they merge with its slow river.
Evening peels open as they take the on-ramp, lanes unwinding like tape.
The bike settles into its stride—engine a low thread under them—wind tugging at jackets, helmets turning the world into a smaller, faster place.
Traffic is light; they thread past a dawdling SUV, slide back in ahead of a delivery van that smells like cardboard and coffee.
Sofia leans closer, helmet to Lucia's shoulder, and drops a sentence that lands like a coin in a quiet fountain.
— "Can I shop with Nico?"
Lucia checks her mirror, checks herself. — "What."
— "For the shoes. With him. Not you."
A streetlight flashes across the visor crack, a white seam that looks wider at 60.
— "Why."
— "Because it's fun?"
— "That's not a reason."
— "It is to me."
Lucia feathers the throttle to slip past a pair of sedans pacing each other like a boring race. — "I promised you. I'm paying."
— "You can still pay. I'll send pics."
— "No."
— "Why not."
— "Because I'm not handing you a card and praying."
— "Then come after. I just— I want to go with him."
The highway opens, three clean lanes and a sky going copper-to-ink. Lucia keeps it steady. — "He pick your size wrong, you wear blisters for a month."
— "He knows my size."
— "How."
— "Feet are not encrypted, Lucia."
— "Not an answer."
Sofia huffs against the helmet foam.
— "He's got taste. He skates. He knows the store guys. They have stuff you don't know to ask for."
— "So do I."
— "You have work."
— "I can move work."
— "You shouldn't. You're always moving everything for me."
A beat. White dashes tick under the tires; a green sign promises an exit she doesn't take. — "That's the job."
— "I didn't hire you."
— "I hired me."
— "You don't have to be annoying about it."
— "You don't have to make it harder."
They swing around a bus shouldering to the right; Lucia signals because she refuses to be a cliché in traffic, even angry. Sofia's arms tighten, then loosen.
— "Please," Sofia says, smaller.
— "Just this once. I want to do something normal. With someone my age. Without you hovering like a drone."
— "It's not hovering. It's escort."
— "Text me the pin. I'll send you the total. I'm not stupid."
— "No one said you were."
— "But you treat me like I am."
The rest of the way is a slow sparring match—her — "He's a boy with a scooter" vs. Sofia's — "He's also a person"; Lucia's — "He drinks?" met by — "He doesn't, today"; — "I don't like him touching you" met with — "Then don't look."
It goes in loops that don't resolve.
The mall's glow arrives like a low, commercial sunrise—white letters floating over a lot pocked with SUVs and impatience.
Lucia noses into the drop-off lane by the main lobby, hazards flicking. She puts a boot down, kills the engine; the sudden quiet is fat and public.
She turns enough for Sofia to see her eyes through the visor slit. — "You text me when you go in. You text me when you pick. You text me when you leave with a receipt."
— "Yes, ma'am." It's snark but softer than it could be.
— "If he even breathes dumb, you walk."
— "He breathes oxygen. It's dumb." Sofia's grin is quick and peace-seeking.
Lucia exhales through her nose, loses the last of the argument because the clock eats minutes and the site won't pour itself. — "Go."
Sofia hops off, flips the strap, lifts the helmet.
She pauses, palm on Lucia's shoulder for a half second—gratitude, truce, something nameless—then steps back. — "I'll text."
Lucia lifts her hand in a two-finger wave that pretends to be casual.
Sofia rolls her eyes in the way that means I love you, shut up and jogs toward the sliding glass, hoodie bouncing, phone already in her grip.
Lucia idles forward into the parking structure, cool air rolling over hot engine. Concrete pillars strobe past; cameras wink red up in the corners.
She picks a slot in the shadow where the plate won't be a souvenir, pops the stand, and swings off.
The second helmet's weight pulls at her hand—Sofia's shape still in the foam.
She kneels by the bike, presses the key into the tail lock, and twists.
The seat lifts with a rubbery sigh, revealing the shallow compartment stuffed with bungee, a rain shell, a rag that used to be a T-shirt.
She settles Sofia's helmet inside, visor up, strap tucked so it won't catch, then lowers the seat until the latch bites and the click says safe.
The seat clicks shut; she wipes her palm down her thigh to clear the phantom of Sofia's weight from the foam and reaches for the bars.
Two vibrations cut across the moment.
First: foreman text, all-caps politeness—SITE CLOSED 1 WK. PERMIT HOLD/LEGAL. NO PAY TIL RESUME. WILL UPDATE. She flicks it away with a thumb; construction lives for delays and the poetry of bureaucracy.
Second: the banking app hisses its little confetti. Thirteen deposits blossom in a column—$1,127.34, $793.10, $2,204.00, $950.50… all the way down to a neat total of $14,000. No names that mean anything. Islands, then a continent. Last week's ledger, settled.
She feels it like calories.
The phone vibrates again without asking for permission. No caller ID. Just a geometry of digits that never repeats.
She answers. She doesn't breathe differently.
The voice is that same smooth hallway where no doors ever open.
— "Task."
Silence on her end; the voice continues, sanded flat.
— "Information extraction. Subject supplies small arms to the Sunny Isles Bratva. Identify the upstream warehouse and name of the handler. Confirm routing schedule. Deliver details. Anyone obstructing extraction is to be dealt with."
Her eyes track a spider vein of oil on the concrete while the details stack.
— "Location."
— "Doral. 8340 NW 25th Street. Front: Prestige Auto Glass. After hours through Bay C. Office on mezzanine."
— "Name."
— "Arkady Novikov. Goes by 'Ark.' Ukrainian passport. Six foot even. Thin scar on left cheek, two centimeters. Saint Nicholas medallion on a nickel chain."
— "Timeline."
— "Tonight."
— "Deliverable."
— "Write the intel by hand on lined paper. No electronics. Place in a yellow envelope. Seal. Drop at the green newspaper box on NE 79th Street and Biscayne Boulevard. Second slot from the top. Label reads 'PETS & LOST ITEMS.' Window between 03:00 and 03:15."
Her thumb rests on the kill switch without meaning to.
— "Payment."
— "Fifteen thousand in forty-eight hours. Five thousand bonus for supplier coordinates within twenty-four. Standard routing. Same trees."
"Same trees." Multiple trunks, same forest. She doesn't nod; the voice doesn't need it.
— "Acknowledged." (Not a question.)
She ends the call by not saying goodbye. Accepting the connection is the signature; it always has been.
She checks the lot once—camera red-lights blinking sleepy up in the corners, a couple arguing three aisles over about a stroller that won't fold, an idling Civic coughing tuneless bass.
She slides the phone into the inner pocket where the revolver's squared weight is a quiet certainty, taps the pocket twice to make the habit feel like control.
Key into the tail lock clicks to seated; key into the ignition turns the bike alive. Fuel pump primes with that polite whine; neutral light winks. She rolls the throttle just enough to feel the cable answer.
Visor down.
The cracked line writes a thin comet across the world; she files it in the same place she keeps all the other slow fractures.
Boot up.
Stand in.
She backs out with a low growl echoing off concrete ribs, angles toward the exit, and takes the spiral down. The structure spits her into evening; sodium lamps salt the air.
She lanes between a pair of SUVs like a thought choosing a language, noses onto 836 where the signage tilts toward the airport and the city's working guts.
Throttle. The engine threads up into its confident register.
She leans into the merge, past a panel van with ladder racks, past a sedan drifted into its phone, out into the right-lane river where Doral waits with roll-up doors and men who call themselves by short names.