Hounds of Vengeance

The rumble of the Harley between her legs as she rolled down the highway should have been as soothing as a lullabye.  Tonight however, with the wind roaring off the ocean and rolling over her in waves and the burn of hate boiling in her belly it brought none of its usual relaxation.  A beep in her ear made her shoulders tense, the alert from her phone letting her know one of the many tracers on the websites she was monitoring had a hit. Jesse pulled off onto one of the scenic overlooks that gave the tourists the opportunity to stare out over the rocky Pacific Northwest Coast and settled back on her bike dropping the kickstand.  Taking a deep breath she looked out over the stars, listening to the thudding pound of the surf directed by the bright white moon overhead.

"You can't avoid it forever you know, they aren't far behind."

Jesse jerked as the sweet melodious voice from her past echoed in her brain.  Not looking away from the ocean she avoided the gaze of the ghost of the girl she knew would be hovering behind her shoulder.  Still, it was never a good idea to be rude to the dead so she answered without turning.

"I know Nats, I'll check it and we will be moving along here soon."

Jesse felt the cold brush of air run down her spine as the seat behind her dipped.  The ghost of a girl long dead mounted up behind her as she had so many times before when she had walked among the living.  Apparently Natalie was not content to merely prod her and run, tonight she would ride along and provide some unwanted companionship.  Not that Jess minded spending time with the beloved sister of her heart, but let's be real, hanging out with a ghost was uncomfortable at best if not downright creepy.

Feeling a cold jab to her ribs Jess yanked herself from her mental meanderings and pulled out her phone from her leather jacket.  Not only was Natalie feeling sociable, she apparently was feeling impatient as well. Still she was right, best to look into this quickly and get moving on before the beasts at her back had a chance to catch up.  Scanning through the alerts on her phone she knew she would need to find a quiet place soon with some free wifi to hook into so she could break out her laptop.

"I can't do this on my phone Nats, we'll have to find a place up ahead with an open wifi so I can see what's going on.  It's all dark net stuff and I'll need to bounce the IP through a bunch of proxy servers before I can look better at it."

Cold air that sounded like an exasperated sigh blew by her as the ghost responded.

"Out of all that I understood wifi, you know me and this computer crap Jess, I barely had a Facebook page when I was alive.  Being dead hasn't expanded my technical skills all that much."

Jesse giggled at dead girl's snark and turned her attention towards moving the Harley back onto the road, feeling the slight pressure as the ghost held onto her waist.  Not turning her gaze from the dark road she asked

"Why ride with me Nats, you know you can just show up when I get where I'm going."

The pressure at her waist tightened a bit before the bright voice of the dead piped into her mind, her tone sad and longing.

"Because I miss the feel of riding, and holding you makes me feel alive again."

There was nothing Jess could say that would ease the young girl who had been ripped violently from the world much too early and with far too much still to give.  Instead she went silent and sped a bit faster down the twisting curves of the coastal highway allowing her best friend's ghost to enjoy the ride.