Fireside Room

       Kate stared silently out the window of the green Honda element. She could hear the tires making a steady sloshing kind of sound as they ran through the water flowing over the road. It was raining outside, and she hated the rain. Something about it just put her in a bad mood. She turned and looked at the young woman driving the car. She was tall for a girl, about five foot eleven, with medium length blonde hair and a very attractive face. Too attractive.
       Kate had always been jealous of her sister's beauty. Ever since they were kids in high school and all the boys used hit on Denise, and not her, she had wanted to look like her sister. She used to dye her hair blonde from its original brown, paint her toenails, and wear a whole bunch of makeup. There used to be bags and bags full of the stuff in front of her bedroom mirror, not to mention a whole mess of belly button rings and lipstick. But no matter how much she wore, the boys kept hitting on Denise, and not her. In the years since high school Kate had long since stopped wearing the silly children's playthings, and limited herself to a more mature beautifying arrangement.
       One of the passing tree branches caught her attention, and Kate looked back out the window. The underbrush along the road was all very green, probably because of the massive amount of rain that seemed to always be falling on this part of town. It was kind of pretty in a way. The underbrush that is, not the rain.
       "There's nothing more depressing than rain." Kate said to no one in particular. "These stupid grey clouds dump water all over everything until the only stuff that isn't wet is inside."
       Denise looked over at her sister. "Or waterproof." She said with a grin.
       "Whatever."
       Denise laughed and looked back towards the road. "So when you see him, what are you gonna say? Have you even thought about it yet?"
       "Oh, I've thought about it. Believe me." Kate put her head on her hand and rested her elbow on the door's armrest. "I just haven't come up with anything good."
       "Oh come on," Denise rolled her eyes and her head followed. She was melodramatic that way. "there are a million things you could say. 'Hi, My name's Katie, and I can do this'"
       As she said 'this', Denise snapped her fingers and held out her hand in a cupping motion.
       "Yeah, that's a great idea." Kate said. "Why don't I just scare off the only person that can help us. Because we don't need him anyways. Now I know why I brought you."
       "Oh don't be such a sourpuss!" Denise rubbed Kate's shoulder, and Kate shrugged away. "Hey, look, you asked me to bring you along, remember? You said you didn't trust yourself to commit and actually go through with it, remember? I'm your emotional support, and your emotional support just wants to give you a big hug!"
       "Well, don't."
       "Why not?"
       "Cuz if you take your hands off the wheel, we'll probably crash. And then it's for sure that I'll never actually do this."
       Denise laughed again. "Don't worry about it Katie, you're my little sister. I won't let anything bad happen to you."
       Kate looked over at her sister, who had a big toothy smile plastered all over her attractive face. Kate suddenly remembered the cheerleading pictures that filled their yearbooks, with Denise's toothy grin right in the front of each one of them. She shook her head and looked down at her feet, at her size seven running shoes which she wore all the time now.
       The rain was pounding harder on the car now, and Denise flicked on the radio to cover up the noise. George Straight's loud, obnoxious country voice hit Kate like a wall of awful. She hated country.
       "Change it." She quickly snapped. "You know country gives me headaches."
       "Only from rapid memory reflex." Denise said, her hand not moving to change the station. "I know you remember all the bonfires and tailgate parties I used to drag you to. You used to love those."
       "I loved the party, not the music."
       "Liar!" Denise said with a grin firmly planted on her face. "I remember you with dancing your tiny little ass off to this music, a coors light in your hand and a guy right on your bootay." She said laughing.
       "The guys were always on your 'bootay'," Kate said with emphasis on Denise's vocabulary choice, "now can we please change it? I don't want to listen to this right now."
       "Alright, princess. What would your royal highness prefer?"
Kate looked out the window and muttered, "This to make sense."
       "Huh?"
       Kate turned back to her sister. "What?"
       "What did you say?"
       "Oh nothing. Just change it please."
       "Alright, alright..." Denise turned through the stations, without much success. "The darn rain must be cramping the reception...maybe we can get the news?"
       "Whatever. Just not country."
       Denise finally settled on a station that came in clear. The radio announcer man's voice was high pitched and fast. It had a strange calming effect on Kate's tired mind. Whatever, she thought, as long as I don't have to hear Garth Brooks I'm fine.
Whether it was the sound of the radio guy's voice, the droll of the rain outside the car, or maybe she was just more tired than she thought, Kate began to fall fast asleep. The sound of the car tires sloshing began to fade away, and just as her eyelids were starting to close fast, she was jarred awake by a nudge from her sister.
       "What?" Kate said sleepily.
       Denise was no longer grinning. She looked solemn and horrified, like a person looks when someone drops a baby.
       "Katie, listen."
       Kate sat up quickly and listened hard to the radio. "Turn it up."
The high pitched fast voice of the radio guy became louder and clearer as Denise rotated the volume knob.
       "...connected with the attack. Police are on the lookout for a woman that they say is 'armed and dangerous'. The suspect was last seen in a Shell gas station nearly ten miles north of Portland, Oregon, travelling westbound on highway twenty-six..."
       "Oh God, that's us!" Denise's voice was high pitched, with fear.
       "...people should be on the lookout for a woman in her early twenties, with dark brown hair, height approximately five foot five to five foot eight, last seen wearing a blue hooded sweater and jean pants with a large tear in the leg and a possible wound. Again, this woman is assumed to be armed and dangerous, and police encourage anyone with information to call their local emergency hotline, and not to engage the suspect in any way. Again, the suspect was last seen..." the radio announcer went on with the same speech, but Denise turned the volume down.
       Neither one said anything. The rain took the place of the radio, and the sound of raindrops beating down on the car filled the silence between the two sisters. Both were digesting what they had just heard, when Denise suddenly broke the quiet.
       "You don't really thank that was talking about us do you?"
       "Who the hell else?" Kate snapped.
       "It was probably some crack dealer who held up a convenience store, right? I mean, that couldn't have been for us, could it?" Denise waved her hands as she spoke.
       Kate held the hole in her pants where not long ago a large gash in her leg had been. "What do you think?" she said, pulling on her torn pants.
       "Oh God, oh God what are we gonna do? We're wanted women!"
       "No, I'm a wanted woman. The guy didn't say anything about you."
       Denise looked like she was on the verge of tears. "But I'm the getaway driver, you know? I'm the one they get for whatever it is, aiding and hiding or something like that. I'm an accomplice! I could lose my job in the firm for this, if I haven't already! I've been gone for so long. Oh God, Katie, why did I ever agree to this?"
       Kate scoffed, "Some moral support you are." And ignored her sister's frantic worrying. If only she hadn't have been so careless. Then none of this would have happened. She never intended for it to go this way, but you know what they say: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
       Slowly she flexed her fingers and turned her hand over. She stared at for a good minute, contemplating everything that had brought them this far.
       Then she snapped her fingers.
       A faint pop came from where her hand was, and immediately out of thin air a bright spark appeared just above Kate fingers. It slowly floated down towards her hand, like a snowflake gently falling to the ground. Then the light suddenly grew very bright, almost too bright to look at, and the weight of a tiny creature filled Kate's outstretched palm.
       The creature was a dark reddish black color, and closely resembled a slug, or maybe a leech. It was about the size of a flash drive, and as soon as it appeared it began hissing and screeching loudly, trying angrily to wriggle away. Kate quickly grabbed in and squeezed hard, and the loud screeching subsided. No juices leaked from between Kate's fingers however, and when she opened her hand, the little beast was gone, and in its place lay a tiny, sparkling diamond about the size of the one on Denise's engagement ring. Kate didn't know why it sparkled, there was no sunlight after all. But for some reason they always did. The picked up the diamond with her other hand, turning it over and over. It was completely flawless, as though it were crafted from glass.
       Kate looked over at her sister. Denise was running one hand through her hair, and looking out at the road. Her eyes were open wide with fear, and she seemed to be breathing heavily.
       "God damnit Kate," she said, "do you really have to do that in the car? You know what would have happened if you dropped it."
       "I know," Kate said, twirling the glimmering diamond between her fingers.
       "Trust me, I know."