Chapter Text
One year ago today, Elyza Lex stepped out of the sliding glass doors at LAX. Finally, she was where she had been working so hard to get to. She had just spent the last 17 and a half hours flying from Sydney, Australia with a short 3 hour layover in Fiji and when the California air filled her lungs, the exhaustion she had felt melted away, quickly being replaced with absolute happiness and pride in all that she had accomplished to make it here. Her unspoken promise to her mother was finally becoming a reality. She would make it. She would live the very best life she could and she wouldn’t give up on her dreams. Elyza would do it for her, and for herself as well. She hailed a taxi, loaded her single piece of luggage into the trunk, and gave the driver the address of the hotel she had booked for the week. Her life was finally going to start.
Luckily, she had saved everything she could before the move. Finding an apartment was the easy part. Only three days into her stay she was able to find a small but oddly reasonably priced studio apartment off of La Brea Avenue, but a job...that was another story. Aside from being a great musician and a sketch artist, her only real hobbies weren’t exactly employable, or so she thought. She loved anything she could fix. She’d always be the one folks in her close knit town of Undullah, Queensland would turn to when they couldn’t afford a real mechanic. She was always very handy so it came naturally to her. Figuring out how things worked, taking them apart and putting them back together always seemed to relax her mind. She also loved the outdoors, spending most of her free time exploring and camping on Kangaroo Island along the Gold Coast. Elyza always felt at home in those moments. Nothing but her small tent, a few supplies, a good book and the canopy of stars above her at night. She felt so free and self sustaining.
After about a week’s worth of searching, she finally landed a job at a nearby auto repair shop. The manager was doubtful of her skills when she asked about the help wanted sign she had noticed in the window, but he decided to give her an on the spot test to see if it was worth his time. “Okay Ms. Lex...you say you know what you’re doing? We’ve got this bucket of rust collecting dust in the garage, no one’s touched it in about 3 years. The guy that used to own the shop left it. Just more shit I have to haul away unless I fix it and sell it, but I don’t do bikes.” he said, sounding very bored and uncaring. With the word ‘bike’, Elyza’s face lit up. “Show me.” She said, already itching to get her hands on it. Ever since she can remember, she’s wanted a bike of her own. She used to love watching them fly down the highway or just cruising around town. It wasn’t until one summer when she was 14 that she took her friend’s brother up on his offer to teach her to ride. She was instantly hooked. That’s what got her into working on anything automotive in the first place. “Okay...here it is. I think it’s a…” the manager started, cut off by Elyza’s voice. “A 2012 Harley-Davidson Sportster XL1200C Custom! Are you kidding me, mate? You call THIS a bucket of rust? Holy smokes! You’ve got the keys, yeah?” she asked with a fire in her stormy blue eyes. Pulling the key out of his shirt pocket just under the patch where his name, Ron, was embroidered. She snatched it enthusiastically, threw her leg over the seat and brought the bike to life. Revving the throttle she closed her eyes and let her head fall back, golden tresses falling loosely behind her. Then she heard it, the muffled pops coming from the pipes. With the final pop and a puff of smoke rising from the intake, she turned the key and handed it back to him. “Well, I’m pretty sure I can hire you from your enthusiasm alone, but do you actually know how to fix this piece of junk or what?” Ron asked with eyebrows raised. “Too right! All she needs is a new intake manifold, few new seals...I can clean her up real nice.” Elyza said, smiling like it was something so simple a child could complete the task. “Alright, Ms. Lex...I guess you’re hired….Come back Monday morning at 6. Shop opens at 7am sharp so get started on the bike before our appointments start arriving. The sooner you get this thing running the faster I can sell it and get it out of my sight.” He said while turning back toward the office. She had the place, she had the job….now to work on getting some wheels. Her mind kept replaying how Ron said he couldn’t wait to sell the bike and get rid of it. Can’t a girl dream?
That first blissful week starting her new life seems so much farther away than just year. Elyza didn’t know then that she’d never get to live that life she so desperately longed for and worked so hard to reach. The world had taken everything from her, but she never broke. She only became stronger. A force to be reckoned with. She watched the sun setting in the distance while sitting on the roof of the broken down Ford Mustang she had adopted as her own after it all went down. A final sundown together after noticing she was running on fumes when the Chevron station 35 minutes back up the Pacific Coast Highway turned out to be bone dry. She knew this was their last stop together so she purposefully got stuck in the surf on Zuma Beach...a final goodbye to those she had lost, her trusty stolen car included. She wasn’t lucky enough to enjoy the beaches of Malibu before the world ended, but it just happened to be the final resting place of her beloved Mustang. Not wanting anyone to be able to sabotage what a beautiful bond she created with the metal beast, she did only what Elyza Lex would do in an emotional situation like this. She grabbed a t-shirt out of her bag, ripped off a long piece of the fabric, stuffed it into the gas tank and lit it using her old Zippo lighter with Elvis’ face plastered to the side. With one final double pat on the hood and a kiss, she said “Farewell, old friend.” And walked away carrying nothing but her duffle bag and the long machete she had slung across her back with a makeshift scabbard, ever since she came across it in an abandoned Home Depot. ‘Where do I go from here?’, Elyza thought to herself in the most lonely moment of her life, as the silver sports car burst into flames in her wake with an explosion that could have, and most surely did wake the dead.
With the almost seven hour walk south toward her apartment underway, Elyza decided it best to use the last of her iPhone’s battery and listen to some tunes while walking to what could possibly be her final resting place as well. ‘If it keeps on raining, Levee’s going to break….if it keeps on raining, Levee’s going to break. When the levee breaks, I’ll have no place to stay. Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan ohhh….mean old levee taught me to weep and moan. It's got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home….Oh, well, oh, well, oh, well…’