The "V" Word

Gerard leans against the concrete block outside the abandoned school, he shoves his hands into his pocket as he looks out at the darkening sky. The bus stops at the corner and he takes a few moments before looking over to see his friends.

"Happy Birthday." Violet squeals as she andSonnie run over to him. She hugs him but quickly let's go.
"Wow, I got a hug." Gerard says laughing, "How rare coming from you."
"Oh well, you're eighteen, I mean, you can buy booze in Canada now, or join the army not that you'd wanna." she laughs.
"Violet decided to drink about five hundred litres of soda before coming." Sonnie murmurs to him.
"You stupid straight edge people and your sugar highs." Gerard teases.
"Hey, I'm not straight edge." she says crossing her arms, "Just because I don't do drugs, doesn't mean I'm straight edge."
"But you're vegetarian. Two points." Sonnie comments.
"You're dickwads you know that?" she pouts crossing her arms.

A car pulls up and parks before two people get out of it.
"Gerard baby!" his friend Tom calls across the street as he and this other girl walk towards them.
"Hey." everyone chants back to him and they all sort of sit themselves on the concrete box.
"Oh, uhh this is Alyssa." he says motioning to the girl, "She's from work."
"Hi." Violet says waving.
"You have to be Violet." Alyssa concludes.
"Yeah, kinda easy there." she replies in a friendly manor.
"Tom warned me you were overly-hyper," Alyssa says with a grin, then turns to face the group, "Sonnie right?"
"Yeah," he grins, "I'm the guy who eats all the food."

"And last but not least, Gerard." she says smiling. He couldn't help but smile back. "Happy Birthday."
A birthday kiss would be nice.
"Thanks."
"You're the artist right?"
"You should see this guy draw, its fucking amazing." Tom says clapping his hands together.
"I'd love to see some of your drawings sometime, if they're as good as Tom says they are."
"Sure." Gerard manages to squeak.

"Anyway." Tom says, "I brought her along to break in."
"Again?" Sonnie sighs, "We do that like every week."
"C'mon, she hasn't seen it yet." Violet says shoving Sonnie, "Its like initiation."
"We'll need a flashlight." Gerard says raising his eyebrows.
"One step ahead of you." Tom says pulling a flashlight out of his pocket and shining it in Gerard's face.

"Is this the sorta thing where its all good fun or is it the sorta thing where if the cops come we're fucked?" Alyssa asks as the group of them start walking around the side of the school.
"It would be the second one." Sonnie says with a grin, "Don't worry we haven't gotten caught yet."
"Yeah, I mean, the cops pass by here a lot but I don't think they'd waste their time actually checking in on an abandoned school, they have better things to do." Violet rambles, "Most days."
"Way to scare her out of coming in." Tom says shaking his head, making his short dreads fly in every direction.
"No, no, I'm game," Alyssa reassures, "I just wanna know if I should be expecting to run like hell if the unfortunate oppurtunity arises."
"Too many big words there." Sonnie teases as they arrive at a door with the bottom partially torn out for a big enough hole for somone to fit through.

"D'you guys do that?" Alyssa asks after Sonnie crawls through and its now her turn.
"What? Tear apart the door?" Violet asks as she grabs the flashlight from Tom and passes through the hole, "It was like that when we got here."

Alyssa takes a slight uneasy breath as she crawls in through the hole.
"Chill out," Gerard says kindly, "Its only scary cause its dark."
"I love bringing newbies here." Violet grins as Tom climbs in, "Adds some adventure to our pointless shenanigans."
"I guess." Gerard chuckles as he motions for her to go in first.. He's the last to climb in and finds everyone standing around reading the latest graffitti on the walls.

"Science lab?" Sonnie suggests.
"Okay." Alyssa says following close behind him, since he was the one holding the flashlight, "Why'd the school close anyway?"
"Mold." Gerard says absent-mindedly.
"But don't worry, it'll only make you sick if you're exposed to a lot of it, for a long time." Sonnie adds on.

Violet steps on a board causing it to whip against the wall making a loud echoing boom sound.
"Holy shit!" Alyssa exclaims.
"Calm down. This place is just full of garbage." Violet says stepping on the board again sending another unnerving boom through the building.

"Something stinks." Violet mumbles, "Never mind, its just Tom's hair."
"Oh, you are funny." Tom retorts sarcastically.
"Seriously man, how often do you wash those things?" Sonnie says poking at a dread.
"Lay off my hair!"

"Hey what's happening?" the here a deep voice says from the other side of the boarded up window.
"Run fuck!" Voilet exclaims and the herd of them run down the dark, glass and spray paint can littered hallway to the door they came in through crawling out one by one in a mad rush.

"Cops?" Alyssa asks nervously.
"Probably." Gerard says pulling her arm and leading her to the back of the school, everyone else following close behind.

They stop when they reach the fence and catch their breath.
"I'm gonna go see if they're actually cops there." Tom breaths heavily as he slinks along the brick wall of the school.
"You dip shit." Gerard grumbles as he follows close behind to make sure his friend doesn't do anything stupid.

They peer around the corner of the building to see at least fifteen gangster like people huddled together. Gerard turns around and heads back to the others as Tom continues to spy.
"No cops." he announces quietly to the others, "gangster like people though."
"Gangsta pose." Sonnie jokes as he crosses his arms and stands to one side like all the lame rappers do.
"Dickwad." Violet says shoving him.

"C'mon you guys." Tom calls to them a little louder than a quiet voice.
"What?" Sonnie asks in disbelief, "I don't want to get my ass kicked."
"Well that's the only way out of the school yard," he replies motioning in the direction of the gangsters, "Unless you want to hop and eight foot fence." With that he turns around and starts walking towards the gate.

Everyone else sort of glances at each other before chasing after Tom. They immediatly grab the attention of the huddled group but they continue towards the gate in a nervously quick walk.
"Hey, hey, hey." one of the gang guys says as the others surround them, "Whatchya up to?"
"Uhh nothing," Tom says somewhat smoothly, but he too is somewhat nervous as he realizes they're surrounded, "We were just wandering around the school."
"Ahaha!" he laughs aloud, he says something in spanish to another guy and a bunch of them laugh, "You walk round the school?" his accent thick, "You have fun."
"Yeah." Tom says clearing his throat.

Red and blue lights fill the area.
"You call the cops?" the gangster guys accuses.
"Nu uh." Alyssa says nervously as the gang guys start to run off, hopping the fence.
"Come on!" Gerard says as they dash for the gate.

"My car!" Tom says as they start running down the street.
"Fuck your car!" Gerard says seeing as the cops are right by it. They dash through an alley way onto a neighboring street.
"Guys, my place is right down the street." Alyssa calls as she sways the group to the right instead of their set left direction, "here."

They head up the front steps and she unlocks the door before everyone piles inside in a mad dash before shutting and locking the door.
"Alyssa?" a woman's voice calls.
"Hey Mom, I uhh brought some friends over."
"At this time?"
"Uhh we'll only be here a few minutes, uhh came to get some CDs." she lies, "We'll be quiet."
"Okay." the voice calls back.

"C'mon." she says leading them to the basement, "Try to be quiet."

The basement floor is cold concrete with a worn out area rug underneath the beat up sofas.
"Make yourself comfortable I guess." she says turning on the TV, "We can hang here as long as you want as long as we're quiet."
"Didn't you say only a few minutes?" Gerard asks.
"She'll fall asleep in like two seconds." Alyssa mumbles.

She pulls off her sweater and her shirt rives up a bit causing Gerard to stare like an opened mouth fool.
"Wanna watch a movie?" she asks bending over to grab the remote, this simple move sending a flurry of perverted thoughts into Gerard's mind. He clears his throat and tries to look away.
"Yeah." he mumbles with the rest of them.