Bulletproof

The day drew to a close, and I found myself feeling sad. I didn’t want to leave all the fun behind. I’d be a rainbow of colors for days, probably, but that didn’t matter. My muscles ached and my injured body was starting to grumble in protest, but that didn’t matter, either. The only thing that did matter was that I didn’t want to leave.

“Why the long face?” Ray asked from my side where we both sat by the fire. I gave a half-hearted shrug.

“I just had a lot of fun today. I kinda don’t wanna go just yet,” I admitted sheepishly. It sounded childish when I said it out loud.

Ray, though, just laughed. “Good thing we’re not leaving then, huh?”

“What?” I questioned, my eyes widening. “We’re not? Isn’t it over?”

“I forgot that this is your first time here,” he chuckled, smiling before he ruffled my hair fondly. I let it pass and waited for him to continue. “This rally goes on for two or three days, never just one. One day isn’t enough for as few and far between as the celebrations are.”

“Why so few?” I asked, curious.

“Well, it’s operated on a very random schedule. Even though BLI wouldn’t dare take on this many Killjoys at once, it’s still nice if they don’t know when we’re out and where we are. If they did, and they happened to know the location of someone’s hideout, they could raid it while everyone’s here. So, the rallies happen randomly. Sometimes there’ll be two in a month, sometimes two in a year. Not every Killjoy shows up to every rally, though, since the news goes mostly by word of mouth. Not everyone hears about every rally.”

I nodded, leaning back on my elbows with my legs extended towards the fire. I didn’t really have anything to say back to that, so I didn’t. We fell into companionable silence, watching the fire cracking away merrily in the pit and listening to the dimmed chatter of other Killjoys around us. I hadn’t seen Gerard, Mikey, or Frank since Gerard’s speech; Gerard had been stolen away by a large group who all talked at once, and I assumed Mikey was with his brother. Frank… well, he’d show up eventually. He was someone else’s problem as long as he wasn’t around me.

I heard two bodies hit the ground to my right, so I turned to see what was up. Kindred glared at Frank, who smiled sheepishly. So he was Kin’s problem.

“What happened?” I asked in a long-suffering tone. The two of them bickered a lot. Kindred kept her glare on Frank, who lost his interest in looking apologetic and chose to instead stare at the fire.

“He scared the hell out of me,” Kindred huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. Something told me that wasn’t the whole of the story.

“That it?” I sighed, letting my elbows sprawl to the sides so that my back hit the ground with a thud, sending up a small puff of reddish dust. Ray glanced over, saw that I was alright, and turned back to watching the fire.

“Yeah,” she grumbled, pouting. “When are we heading back?”

Way to change the topic.

“Not until at least tomorrow,” I replied off-handedly, linking my hands behind my head to provide some sort of comfort. I saw her glance at me curiously out of the corner of my eye. “Jet told me. The rallies go on for two or three days, since everything’s really random and not really planned out.”

She nodded, looking around. “Hey, uh, you seen Grace?”

I sat up then, looking around. I hadn’t even thought of Grace. “Oh, shit.”

“She’s probably with Poison,” Frank commented noncommittally. “I don’t think he’d let her out of his sight in a crowd like this.”

“Where’s he, then? I want to make sure.” I stood, brushing the dust off my pants and back as best I could. Frank stood too, and I gave him a look. “You can just tell me, you know. I’m sure I could find my way.”

“You could,” he agreed, nodding, “but that’s not the point. Some of the Killjoys get pretty rowdy after dark, y’know?”

“How do you mean?” I pushed stubbornly, furrowing my eyebrows in confusion.

“Er… well, you know…” he gave an awkward little shrug. “They get a little… uh… handsy, maybe?”

“I think what he’s trying to say is that it’s usually just a lot of dudes running around in the desert together, so when the rally comes and they happen to find some pretty girls, they don’t think twice about… you know,” Ray interjected. I felt my eyebrows rocket upwards in sudden understanding.

“Oh, uh, yeah. Okay,” I tripped over my words, trying not to laugh. It was nice that they were concerned about me, at least. “Uh, lead on, I guess.”

I gestured awkwardly, but Frank shook his head and wrapped an arm around my waist. I’m pretty sure he knew that my first reaction would be to hit him, but he shook his head again. “Relax, Freak. It’s just so that no one gives you any trouble- sometimes people manage to find some alcohol, so…”

I nodded, lowering my hand and allowing myself to be led away. I noticed that as we weaved our way through the throngs of people that he was right; you could catch occasional whiffs of alcohol. It made my nostrils sting.

“What about Kindred?” I mused after a minute of walking. Frank glanced sideways at me, eyebrows quirked with curiosity. “I mean, she was walking around earlier-”

“If you’ll notice, she said that I scared the hell out of her. Partly true, I guess. I found her when some guy was moving in on her. I don’t doubt that she could’ve taken him out, but it’s better not to make enemies out of your only allies. I grabbed her from behind and walked with her the rest of the way.”

“Oh,” I said, surprised. “What about now?”

“She’ll be okay with Jet.”

We walked a little ways further, stopping eventually outside of a group a little bigger than the rest. In the middle of it, though, I could see the top of Mikey’s head, colored an acid green from the day’s earlier events. I slapped a wandering hand away from my bottom easily, glancing at Frank. He turned at the sound of skin slapping skin, glaring behind me at the apparent offender.

“C’mon,” he sighed, pushing his way through the crowd with a call of, “move it! Fabulous Killjoy coming through!”

I was surprised by how well it worked.

We made our way through easily after that, and no one else even got close enough to touch either one of us. I laughed silently, wondering in the back of my mind how anyone could actually be intimidated by Frank. We stopped in front of Gerard, Mikey, and Grace. Grace latched herself to my side as soon as she noticed us.

“When are we gonna sleep?” she asked through a yawn, making me smile.

“We can go to sleep whenever you want, kiddo. I’m pretty tired, too,” I replied, giving Frank a meaningful look. He nodded, turning to the brothers.

“We should set up camp for the night somewhere. Kin and Jet are back by the fire, and I think they’re both about ready to pass out. The girls are tired, too.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, towards Gracie and me. “We should set the girls up to sleep in the car or something, though.”

“Why, they catching trouble?” Gerard asked, raising his eyebrows. Frank nodded the affirmative. His eyebrows lowered into a somewhat menacing look after that. Gerard looked at his brother and nodded his head in the direction of the fire. Mikey nodded, and the five of us started heading out of the group. A few people begged Gerard to stay, but he politely declined. I noticed that Gracie and I ended up being herded, Gerard leading the way with Mikey and Frank walking closely behind us. I felt ridiculous.

“Is this really necessary?” I hissed at Mikey over my shoulder. His face remained impressively impassive.

“Yeah,” he nodded along casually to his simple reply. I didn’t even hope that he’d elaborate, since I knew that he wouldn’t.

“Why?” I pressed. I knew I sounded too curious, too eager, but he didn’t seem to care a whole lot.

“We’ll talk about it later,” he replied evasively. I frowned at him, but he just put a protective hand on my shoulder as a Killjoy who wreaked of alcohol stumbled a little too close. I actually found myself torn between cringing away from the stranger and hitting Mikey. I got that they wanted us safe, but it was getting old fast. It felt like they didn’t trust me to take care of myself.

Oh, wait.

We arrived back at the fire fairly shortly. The walk there had been silent, as Grace was too tired and I was too confused and angry to talk. The guys occasionally exchanged snippets of cryptic conversation that I had no hope of following, so I gave up trying to figure it out and resigned myself to a slightly sulky silence. Ray glanced over as he heard our approach, and then he too stood up without a word, dragging Kin with him. She looked at me, clearly questioning just what the hell was going on. I gave a shrug to indicate that I was just as lost as she was.

I would say that the walk back to the car was silent, but that seemed to happen a lot. My body decided to change that. It was quiet right up until the point where my stomach let out a long, loud, low rumble that I felt up in my ribcage. I halted my pace, nearly making Mikey run into my back, and stared at my middle. When had I gotten so hungry? I couldn’t remember feeling that before.

Either it was the slightly embarrassing noise or the sheer bewilderment on my face, but the tension seemed to lift slightly. Frank giggled a little, Kindred let out a hearty guffaw, and the other three guys seemed to crack a simultaneous smile. Gracie smiled sleepily.

“Er,” I looked around, and then gestured vaguely to my stomach. “I didn’t do that on purpose.”

“Clearly,” Gerard laughed, rolling his eyes. “We’ve got stuff for you to eat back at the car, don’t worry.”

“By ‘stuff’, I can only assume you mean Power Pup,” I sighed. He nodded, laughing at my pouting face. I gave it up after a second. “Oh well, better than nothing.”

We resumed our walk, though the air was considerably less tense now. The guys even chatted quietly to each other while Kin and I exchanged glances. My stomach growled audibly twice more by the time we reached the car. Once we got there, Poison rummaged around inside for a few seconds before producing a dirty, patched bag that clanked when moved. He produced Power Pup and spoons, dealing them out to all of us. I saw Mikey grimace and patted his shoulder comfortingly.

***

After we’d eaten, the guys had gone about trying to make the car comfortable for us. Kindred lounged in the front seat with Grace and I took up the back seat. When I asked where they’d be sleeping, they told me that they’d be sleeping outside. I’d fought with them, but it was four against one- Kindred had fallen asleep almost immediately after we got in. I gave in with poor grace, but they didn’t seem to mind. They were insistent about us being safely tucked away in the car.

However, I found myself still awake and staring at the roof of the car an hour later. I didn’t even feel all that tired after a while, so I sat up and got out of the car as quietly as possible. I almost stepped on Frank on my way out, since he was sleeping right by the door. I threw myself forward, hoping the momentum would keep me from landing on him. It did, but I hurled myself to the ground a little ways away. That would’ve been fine in itself, but I heard someone laughing- presumably at me.

I pushed myself up quickly, turning to face the sound. I saw a little orange glow and smelled the smoke.

“Oh, hey Gerard,” I greeted casually, as if I hadn’t just done something really stupid. I could hear him snickering still. His frame was silhouetted by moonlight, making his pale skin glow eerily as smoke streamed from the end of his cigarette. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“Nah,” he shook his head, patting the hood beside his legs. I joined him, sitting lightly on the hood of the car. “What about you? You should be getting some rest.”

“Can’t,” I replied easily, whispering so that I wouldn’t wake up the three sleeping men situated around the car. “Though, I can tell that you’re more concerned about me staying in the car than actually sleeping. What’s up with that, anyway? We’re among friends, aren’t we?”

Gerard sighed, blowing out a long trail of smoke. I could see his posture slump just a little. “Well, yeah, for the most part. You have to know by now that we’re not necessarily the good guys, though. We’re all criminals in the eyes of BLI, but some Killjoys will commit crimes against other Killjoys. It’s not like we’re all automatically friends, Harley.”

“That’s news to me,” I replied, nonplussed.

“Well, look at it this way: Killjoys are a group of people who more or less want to create chaos in a utopia. We’re rebels and we sure as hell have a cause, but sometimes it’ll make you crazy. I’ve seen a couple of Killjoys go bad in my time, but you never really figure out why.”

“You sure they weren’t Exterminators?” I asked. I didn’t want to be hearing what he was telling me- I didn’t want to hear that there were villains amongst the heroes I’d imagined the Killjoys to be.

“They weren’t,” he replied, the certainty making his words more forceful. “The Killjoys aren’t superhuman. They can go bad just like anyone else. Just… you can’t blame us for worrying about the three of you. There can be things out there scarier than BLI.”

I nodded, chewing my lip thoughtfully. I hadn’t really thought about it like that before- I’d always thought of the Killjoys as some sort of untouchable, incorruptible group. A group where the people cared about their allies. That was probably still true in most cases, but there was bound to be a bad egg or two thrown in. Still, the realization shook me; it was like living in a gated community and then finding out that your next-door-neighbor was a serial killer.

We both sat quietly for a little while, lost in our own trains of thought. I thought about everything that had happened since I’d met the guys, all the good and bad times that we’d shared in such a short amount of time. I was lucky that they’d been the ones to find me. I was lucky that they cared enough to want to protect me.

“I feel like I don’t thank you guys enough,” I admitted eventually, murmuring. Gerard turned, giving me a curious look.

“You don’t need to thank us for anything,” he argued gently. I shook my head.

“I have everything to thank you guys for,” I disagreed, and he laughed softly. He put a gentle hand on my shoulder.

“Seriously, you don’t have to. It goes without saying.”

I got the feeling he was a little embarrassed, so I let it drop.

Almost.

“Thanks anyway, though,” I whispered, almost hoping that he wouldn’t hear it. By the tiny smile that pulled on the corner of his mouth, though, I could tell that he had.

“No problem, Harley.”