bleached bones and pinned butterflies

blood boils the same time as sparks fly

The races ended around 5PM, and while Noah is miffed that they have hours to kill before the appointed time, she just shrugged, and followed Samuel out to bike into the city, as the guy had surprisingly brought his own bike. It was a lazy cruise, just getting used to the roads and turns of the city, and for dinner they ate at a fast food, because it's off-season. Owen doesn't have to know they had a cheat day, after all. He might be the Light Cavalry leader, but he's not their master. 

If Noah wasn't so focused in watching her phone for the time, the lazy cruise and subsequent dinner would've been any other evenings back in England, when it's off-season. And clearly, Samuel really knows her enough to at least take note of her nervous energy. Enough to make a comment. Not that Noah really went out of her way to hide it. 

"So," Samuel points his half-eaten drumstick at her which is, ew. "Who are you really meeting? Why the..." He makes a vague gesture to indicate her entire self. 

Noah looks at her phone - again - and says, "It's 9:32PM now." She replies with instead, gracelessly avoiding the question, and judging by Samuel's dark expression, he noticed it too. "We should go over the meeting place now, we'd be there on time." 

"You really need to stop this shite your doing, missy," He growls, but nonetheless, he follows Noah out and into the night, putting their helmets on as they walk over to their bikes. "You're lucky I don't feel like grilling your right now." 

Noah hums in agreement. "Yep. Lucky me." She says absently, frowning when she feels her phone vibrate in her back pocket. 

"Alright, where's this-" Samuel brings up his hands to make quotation marks in the air, expression betraying just how done he is with the whole thing  "'Rendezvous' you're going to?" 

Noah brings a finger up as she opens the message she received, because it was from Mr. Dickhead. Also known as Smug Fucking Asshole; what did Yellow Glasses call him... Hyeok? Yeah, the Hyeok guy. He can actually text first??? He's actually got initiative? Color Noah surprised. 

> [See you soon, princess.] 

> [Don't be late now, or I'll be upset.] 

Noah contemplates throwing her phone at the curb, thinks replacing the thing is too much trouble than it's worth, and so decides not to. Not her phone's fault, if she thinks about it. 

Noah thinks her reply is short and sweet. 'Sweet'. 

< [🖕] 

> [Heh.] 

Noah squints at the reply, bringing her screen closer to her face. What the hell does that 'heh' even mean? Is that amusement? Is that asshole making fun of her???? 

Noah growls, violently turns her phone off and shoves it back into her pocket with equal ferocity. Clipping her cleats into the pedals of her bike, Noah kicks off. "Back to the race track, Sam." She mutters to her bewildered friend. "I've an ass to kick seven ways to Sunday." 

Samuel squints at her then, staring at her hard even as he easily keeps up with her pedaling. "You didn't call out that annoying punk that keeps Owen's knickers in a twist, yeah?" Noah shakes her head, and over the sound of wind rushing by, he hears her friend groan in exasperation. "Fucking- do you go around pissing off every guy you see???" 

Noah wisely doesn't answer that, and just pedals harder. They have a race to get to, after all. 

Just as Noah predicted, they did get to the meeting point - the track used for today's race - on time, and upon arrival, Noah immediately noticed the amount of Sabbath Crew members, marked easily by the jackets emblazoned with the twisting snake of their logo. Admittedly, Noah thinks, these Sabbath guys have one of the coolest logos, and that's saying something, considering Noah has seen a lot of cycling teams in her history as a professional cyclist.