Disclaimer: I don't own TFP or any lyrics used.

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Five days a week, it was the same thing, save for the mode of transport. For three years prior, it had been some red car from the nineties, until the damn thing up and decided to die. It had been at the shop for over a week, before the woman decided to forget the damn thing and go back to her old scooter.

She was starting to remember why she hated the dinky, yellow thing. It had a back wheel that squealed the whole time it ran, and it made noise like a sick sheep when stopped at a light. Still, it beat walking, and yield sign yellow was better than nothing.

Briar had lived in Sunbury for at least five years, but no one was counting. She'd moved in with her elderly grandmother, half expecting to be turned away for doing so. The only neighbors were the grandmother's niece and her husband. Quite the awkward birthday, showing up at ten at night, with no more than a bag of clothes and some junk heap bought from Craigslist. Anything to get out of West Virginia.

Her grandmother lived in a house that had the basement converted into a dorm for Bucknell students, looking for a good place to live off campus. Even after the woman passed just two years earlier, Briar kept the tradition alive. The basement was for students, the upstairs was for family. They had cheap rent and all they needed down there. No parties, no drugs, no beer- well, they could have beer. That was Briar's idea, but the other rules stayed firm.

A bug zipped by her ear, making her swerve a bit before growling. Briar's navy eyes squinted in the morning sun. She had a good job in Lewisburg, working at the street of shops. She used to have lunch in the restaurant there, but things sort of changed. Some of her coworkers noticed it, but they didn't say anything. They didn't know what to say, truthfully. They thought the girl was just missing her grandma.

The truth was something else. Something the rail of a woman didn't feel like discussing. The great thing about the area was that most times, people minded their own damn business. It was a lot like her old home, save that there was no cruel gossip behind her back. Just concern, nothing more.

Briar drove on, the little scooter doing its damnedest to get her to work. She gave it a bit of gas, and it went like a screechy little hornet down the road. Her little black iPod thrummed Rammstein in her ears.

The woman drove past the dairy every day to get to work, and every day, she had noticed the car. She wasn't dumb, and she didn't live under a rock. She heard the four men who lived in her basement talk about the car. Briar didn't understand why everyone was so hellbent on getting inside. Maybe they figured they could hotwire the vehicle if they could just get inside. Didn't they understand the concept of a car bomb?

Then again, who would want to blow up a dairy?

She must have passed that stupid car a hundred times by now. Always having another car or truck nearby, always with someone trying to get inside... until recently. Maybe people had given up on it? Briar told herself, time and time again, that she'd check the car out when she had the chance to, but she was so busy. Busy, of course, meaning a six hour shift, broken by a lunch break, then a weekend with Marley if there wasn't a lacrosse game out of town... or state, even.

Briar whizzed past the odd vehicle, and promised, then and there, over the dying threads of a German metal song, that she would stop by that car after work. She hadn't a clue what she'd actually DO if she opened the damn thing. Then again... her car was in the shop for god knew what.

Well, if she blew up, so be it.

That day, after work, the woman squealed down the road and checked for cars. She was on the wrong side of the road, and cutting across opposing lanes of traffic was stupid, at best. Suicidal, at worst, considering the semi's that went in and out of their area to move milk, corn, what have you. The woman considered this to, and decided that getting hit by a semi was better than getting pulled over by a cop on her stinky, yellow scooter.

The grassy median had a good four foot width before one went sailing into the electric, barbed wire fence that controlled the cows.

Briar took a breath, focused her eyes, and tried the door.

Nothing happened.

"Eh, knew it." A semi barreled down the road, sending her short hair every direction. Sighing, Briar fixed her hair sloppily, and posted a bony hand to each hip. She squinted at the vehicle in scrutiny, feeling an old bruise ache on her cheek. Maybe she was just tired, or hungry, but the woman tried the opposite door. Nothing again.

"M'kay." Might as well try the trunk. Why the hell not? She didn't have anything else to do. Briar walked around the back of the vehicle, looking in the rear window. Cool sound system, but it was obvious the doors were locked. No keys sat in the ignition, or cup holder, or in the ashtray. The woman blinked her eyes to clear dust from the day, hearing the distant moos of cattle. She gave the trunk lid a light push, the a hard tug, and again, she got nothing. "Stupid me, thought I'd win a car." The woman gave the left rear tire a kick, hands stuffed into her pockets.

There was a clunking sound. Suddenly, just a bit, the trunk lid lifted. It was open. Briar stared, utterly confused. All she had to do was lift the lid... but then what did she do? She gripped the top of the trunk, and lifted it. She was met with the empty, charcoal-gray insides of a typical car trunk. Briar was just glad she didn't find a body, but looking into the trunk, now she had an idea.

There was a seam, off center, on the left. That meant the seat collapsed flat if a lever was pulled. Briar climbed into the trunk, deciding that she had best try it out, after having more luck than anyone else. The woman bent her gaunt body over and half crawled into the small space. The woman flipped onto her back, shoulders to the seat. Bracing her feet on the edge, she gave the seat a push- and yelped when her neck stung in protest.

At this rate, she wanted to get on her screechy scooter and go home, but she had come farther than anyone else, to her knowledge at least. Wriggling about to get a better angle, Briar folded her right arm, and pressed it, along with her shoulder and left hand, to the seat. It didn't budge. She braced her right foot on the inner lip of the trunk, and tried to straighten her knee. Nothing. Giving a frustrated grunt, the woman took both feet into the trunk, and pushed with all her lithe strength. Nothing.

For all of five seconds.

The trunk slammed shut, and Briar was plunged into total darkness. "Shit!" she spat before fumbling around in the tight space. The woman braced herself as hard as ever against the seat but didn't care about getting into the stupid car. She kicked at the trunk lid for a minute, trying to hit the lights inside. Even if she couldn't reach the handle, she could open the trunk lid and get the hell away from-

The world flipped backwards, and came to a solid stop. The woman lay, sprawled and befuddled, on her back, looking up at a black ceiling. To her left, she saw the sunset through tinted glass. It took a few moments to set in, but when it did, Briar sat straight up in the new, quiet space.

She was in... and her neck hurt.

Briar crawled forward to sit in the passenger's seat. She wriggled a little before cracking her neck to relive the cramp within. It didn't help much, and the eat was as far back and straight up as could be. The woman leaned forward, and popped open the glove compartment, hoping to find keys. Inside sat papers, glowing ice blue under the LED. When unfolded under the light, it was shown to be everything one needed to take ownership of the vehicle. A blank registration form, the factory it came from, even carfax, for god's sake!

A post-it note sat stuck on the back of the carfax sheet, written in the same all caps handwriting as what had been scrawled on the windsheild. She read it, or tried, but the dying sunlight made it hard, and the handwriting sure as hell wasn't helping matters. Reaching up, Briar clicked on an overhead light, flooding the car's interior with more ice blue light. She held up the purple post-it.

"LOOK HARDER."

"Lucky me, more looking..." Briar stuffed the papers back into the glove box and reached up to the sunglass holder. She found a pair of rainbow lens, wrap around sunglasses, but no keys. She checked the armrest. Empty. Under the seat, same thing, and behind the seats, same thing. So, the woman followed the instructions, and looked harder.

Sighing at coming up empty, Briar ran her hands through her auburn hair, and slumped to rest in the driver's seat.

She adjusted the mirror before giving the brown, 'leather scent' car tree a flick. The woman adjusted the seat, and met her own eyes. Briar wrinkled her large nose, and glared at her bruised cheek. Checking the mirror one final time, before continuing her search, she felt something. There as a small bump on one side of the rear view mirror. The woman pressed it, and it ejected with a slight click. Pinching it with her thumb and index finger, she pulled the tiny rectangle free of the mirror.

In her palm sat a car key, with a blue, winking smiley face sticker on the grip.

Briar had the key. Inside there she felt this sudden... rush. Giddy when she didn't think she would be, and with car bombs far from her mind, she plunged the key into the ignition, and turned it, eyes wide, free hand grasping the steering wheel like a lifeline.

The Challenger didn't purr, it growled, louder than a caged jaguar.

"Hah!" the woman grinned to herself, and pressed on the gas. The car roared, exhaust pluming from the tailpipes. Full tank. Briar fiddled with the buttons of the sound system. No CD, cassette, but an iPod line was ready to take her little nano. She looked out the windshield, clicking on the wipers to get the paint off. She stepped out of the vehicle, still smiling faintly. One last thing to do.

With her dinky scooter folded up in the trunk, and the crescent-shaped moon glowing rosy above her, Briar drove her new car home. Rammstein blasted from the speakers the whole ride.

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R&R