When first approaching One Night in Daytona Beach, I wanted an exciting backdrop. A friend suggested setting it during the NASCAR racing, but in all the years I’ve lived here, I’ve never been to the races. However, one cannot go anywhere during Daytona Bike Week or Biketoberfest without encountering thousands of bikers. Since The Ninja Tattoo is set during Biketoberfest I decided to use Bike Week as my setting.

In the spirit of complete honesty, I don’t know that much about Bike Week either, though when I worked for the paper, I helped print quite a few pictures from the events. (I printed a lot of NASCAR pictures, too, but one race car looks like another to me.) I may not have been, but the thrum of all the motors does tend to set my pulse racing.

With that decided, the characters popped into my head. Jamie emerged first and I knew she had to be a redhead. My daughter gave me my favorite line from the opening: Draven couldn’t draw his eyes from the gorgeous redhead, whose hair reminded him of the flames on the side of his bike.

Draven was a bit slower in appearing, but I finally found his face and voice when he races to Jamie’s rescue: Startled by the noise, the girl lost her balance as she rolled out of the shoulder stand. Toppling, she fell. Draven leaped toward her, covering the ten feet to the cycles, in a superhuman rush. He steadied her, helping her sit up slowly. He became my hero, as well as Jamie’s, at that moment.

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© 2015 Dellani Oakes

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