Bulletproof

I woke up that morning feeling terrible. My body was sore from all the shaking I’d done, my knees were bruised and cut from when I’d collapsed, and my eyes felt puffy. I was the last one up (even later than Kindred, which rarely happened), and it appeared as if all the others went back to the rally without me. I didn’t mind, though; I could hear the music from inside the car, and I knew they didn’t want to miss a single minute of the fun. Besides, it gave me time to try to make myself a little more presentable and to wake up slowly. I’d never liked mornings much, anyway. I used the seat to pull myself into a sitting position, stretching as far as the confines of the car allowed. A piece of paper stuck to the window caught my attention, though, so I pulled it off and read it.

Not as sneaky as you think.
xo Ghoul

I swallowed loudly. He’d looked just like he had when I’d left-- unless he had actually been awake the whole time. Frowning for a second, I went about trying to arrange my hair into something that didn’t resemble a tumbleweed. I guessed that he’d told the guys, which meant I was probably going to be in trouble. Again.

“When am I not in trouble?” I sighed to myself, rolling my eyes. I’d would’ve liked to be able to say that it’s not my fault, but we all knew that wasn’t true. Trouble always managed to find me; sometimes I’d go chasing after it. “Ah, well.”

Climbing out of the car, I ambled my way toward the music to rejoin my fellow human beings, even though I felt it was way too damn early to even consider being alive yet. I got there after about twenty minutes, since I’d walked slowly and tripped a few times. I immediately noticed that there were no colors flying around yet, but shrugged it off because it would make my little group easier to find. It turned out they were easy to find regardless, since they were huddled off further away from the rest of the groups. I plopped down next to Ray, who shot me a questioning glance. I ignored it and rested my head against his shoulder, listening to the guys and Kindred talking. Grace was in much the same position as I was, though her head rested against Gerard’s leg and she looked to be sleeping.

“-never happened before, so why now?” Ray questioned, and I could picture him raising a brow like he always did when he was trying to figure something out.

“It’d be suicide!” Frank agreed, his face incredulous as he surveyed Gerard.

“Guys, he’s just saying that we should be on the lookout. Even if it is highly unlikely, it doesn’t mean we can get careless. It’s not just the four of us anymore. We’ve got all of these other Killjoys here and three new additions of our own,” Mikey reminded, always the peace keeper.

“We’re not made of glass. Jesus,” Scarlet grumbled, sounding like she was ready to fight about it. Something told me that she didn’t get up of her own volition so early.

All of the guys ignored her comment and continued murmuring tensely at one another until Gerard raised a hand and silenced them.

“Look, if that’s what Show Pony said he saw, then I believe him. We’ve got to consider that it could be different this time around. BLI’s always had more dudes than we do, y’know?”

“It’s not that I don’t trust Show Pony,” Ray protested, frowning, “it’s that I can’t figure out why. Why would they just be sitting out there? They have to know that we still have messengers running in and out of the place, and that someone was bound to see them. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Nothing they do ever makes any sense to us,” Mikey pointed out reasonably. Gerard nodded in agreement. Frank still looked skeptical, but he gave a hesitant nod.

“Even if I still think it’s total bullshit, we should at least make an effort to keep up some security,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I mean, it couldn’t hurt, right?”

“I suppose not,” Ray concedes finally, and I felt him shake his head. His curly hair brushed against my nose, and I scrunched up my face to avoid sneezing.

“Well, that’s settled,” Frank shrugged and turned to face me, “morning, Sleeping Beauty. You still look tired. Hard night?”

I eyed him carefully. I was half thankful that he hadn’t told the guys and half pissed off because I knew the game he was playing.

“I don’t feel good,” I chose to answer instead. Maybe pity would work. Ray put an arm around my shoulders.

“What’s up?” he asked, a tone of fatherly concern in his voice that touched my heart.

“I’m just tired,” I grumbled. “Tired and sore.”

“Well, you’re still kinda banged up and you haven’t exactly been taking it easy,” Gerard reasoned. I stuck my tongue out at him.

“You know that if I had my way I’d never sit still longer than a minute or two,” I replied easily. Frank snorted.

“I dunno, you look pretty comfortable,” he mentioned, chuckling. I gave a one-shoulder shrug and didn’t move beyond that. We lapsed into silence for a time after that, just listening to the buzz of quiet chatter coming from the other Killjoys. It was nice to take it easy for a while, the seven of us just basking in the silence. Of course it couldn’t last, though. The Zones are not a forgiving place.

Show Pony came rolling over to us, dirt and dust spraying up from behind his wheels. Everyone’s on their feet before any of us realized that we moved at all. Show Pony pointed over to where we could see a blonde woman helping Dr. D into his van. Others were starting to notice, too, and they started scattering in the direction of their vehicles.

“What’s wrong?” Gerard questioned sharply, his voice cutting through all of the panic and hysteria that’d suddenly erupted from the crowd. Show Pony grabbed the ray gun from his hip and waved it around a little. I could almost see the expectant look on his face behind the visor. “Damn it, I told you guys! Come on, get to the car. We need to get out of here!”

“What the hell is going on?” I yelled at his back as he wheeled around to start heading off. Gerard turned, grabbed my arm, and made me run with him. Ray and Mikey had a head start, Grace running between them, and I could hear Kindred and Frank behind us. Our feet pounding on the ground were beating out a rhythm that sounded as unsteady as the rhythm of my pulse felt. “Poison!”

“BLI’s crashing the party,” Gerard huffed, not easing his pace up at all. In fact, we were all but sprinting back towards the car. “We need to get out of here, fast.”

“What about the others?” I demanded. It didn’t seem right that we get out while others could be mowed down easily by BLI.

“It’s every man for himself, Freak. Trust me, they’ll be fine!” he hollered back, tugging my arm impatiently. “Come on, move it!”

“Jesus Christ!” Kindred yelled from behind us, and even in the current situation, I could hear Frank laughing. I saw Grace stumble and fall in front of us, but Gerard just ducked down and picked her up without breaking stride. She looked scared, I noticed. Her knees were exposed through the worn fabric of her ratty jeans, and I could see blood squeezing out of the scrapes she’d gotten after falling. He shifted her so that she was on his back, looking barely bothered. Mikey and Ray dove out of the way up ahead, drawing their guns from their holsters even before either one of them hit the ground. They were up and shooting faster than I would’ve believed possible if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Two Dracs fell to the ground, out of the cover of the brushes they’d been hiding in. After a quick scan, the guys started running again and hurdled over the bodies like it was no big deal. Out here, it wasn’t.

Air huffed in and out of my lungs harshly, each breath coming out sharp and coming back in like I could never get enough. By my guess, it was nearing somewhere like eleven in the morning, and the sun was getting high in the sky. It glared down on us without mercy, leaving us terribly hot and exposed. I could finally see the car after less than ten minutes of running, and all of us just threw ourselves into it. Ray had it started up and roaring through the desert before I even had the chance to get the door closed behind me. Mikey had gotten the front seat, and there was a tangle of bodies in the back seat that was Frank, Gerard, Scarlet, Grace, and me. We all stuck to each others’ sweating bodies, making it a little painful to pull ourselves apart and try to sort out the seating chart.

“Whose fucking elbow is in my eye?” demanded Frank, and I felt something wiggling near the small of my back. I shifted a little so that both of my arms were in the air. “That’s better.”

“Whose leg is this?” Scarlet asked, her voice muffled as she pushed a leg off of her chest.

“Sorry,” Gerard replied from very close to my head. I turned a little and came face to face with him, so close that our noses touched. I realized that I was actually laying on top of him, chest to chest. When I dove in, I didn’t give much thought to how awkward this could get.

“Hi,” I greeted sheepishly, trying to figure out why it felt like I had three legs.

“Hi,” he returned, shifting suddenly. Grace wiggled her way up from the bottom of the pile. “Oh, Grace! You okay?”

“You guys are heavy!” she complained, glaring. Everyone made apologetic noises.

“You were the first one in, so…” Frank commented, near the top of the pile. Kindred pushed his arm away from her face, taking a dramatically deep breath.

“Dude, you should have jumped in first. But no, you had to push me in so you could be the top of this little dog pile!” she griped, and Frank gave a sheepish shrug.

“Nothing but a happy accident,” he replied, grinning. She bit his arm, making him yelp and shift. The shift made him kick me in the back of the head and forced my face into Gerard’s shoulder. I called out the worst curse words I could think of, but they were muffled and distorted. I heard a sharp smack, and I heard Frank yelp again. I felt the weight of his foot leave my head, so I lifted it quickly, taking in a breath.

“Why the fuck did you hit me!” he demanded of Gerard, who pointed at me.

“You just kicked her in the back of the head!”

“Fuck this shit, man,” Kindred sighed, pushing Ghoul off of her unceremoniously before climbing up front and planting herself in Mikey’s lap. Ghoul muttered foul words from the floor of the car while I sat up and rolled to join him. Gerard sat up and helped Grace up, pulling her into his lap. When I climbed back into the seat, I pulled Frank up with me. He stopped pouting then, settling back into the seat.

“Are you kids done?” Ray chided from the driver’s seat, looking comfy with all the room he had up there. Five disgruntled glares at various points of his head went flippantly ignored.

“Five people is too many for a single back seat that’s really only meant for two,” Scarlet remarked, crossing her arms. Mikey looked like he thought she might hit him.

“Especially when you’ve got Ghoul kicking you in the head,” I added.

“I didn’t mean to!” Frank threw his arms up for emphasis, and I patted his shoulder.

“I know. Thanks to you, though, I almost ended up eating Poison’s jacket. None of the parties involved would’ve been happy with that.”

“I don’t think all of this sweat is mine,” Grace commented forlornly, looking at her damp clothing.

“Probably not,” Frank agreed.

“Get down!” Mikey shouted suddenly. I threw myself to the floor of the car once again. Frank and Gerard both pulled their guns from their hips, pointing them carefully out of the open windows. Five Dracs on motorcycles were coming up fast behind us. Kindred wormed her way back to join me on the floor, freeing up Mikey so that he could shoot as well. Her purple gun gleamed dangerously in the sunlight. All of the sudden, everyone was leaning out of their windows, firing at the Dracs. Considering how fast we were going, their aim wasn’t exactly spot on. Not that I had any room to make smart comments, of course. I pulled Grace down to sit in my lap, trying to calm her down. The gunfire was always a bit too much for her, even if she was a hell of a shot.

Scarlet and Frank leaned out of one window, Gerard and Mikey each got their own, and Ray focused on driving. I held Grace close to my chest, petting her hair. She clung to me as we listened to our friends swearing up a storm when a shot missed or an enemy shot came a little too close for comfort. Everything quieted down within a few minutes, though, and Grace cautiously climbed back into Gerard’s lap while I stayed on the floor.

“See any more of ‘em?” Frank asked, turning to stare out the back window. After a few seconds, it was confirmed that we were alone, at least for the moment.

“Everyone okay?” I asked, glancing at every one of my friends. They all nodded, uttering varying phrases of assurance. “What about Show Pony?”

“He always goes with Dr. D in the van, don’t worry,” Ray soothed from the front. I nodded, breathing a sigh of relief.

“I thought that Dracs didn’t bother attacking the rallies…?” Kindred’s statement ended up being a question, and a heavy silence filled the car. Nobody could think of a way to answer that, since we’d all been thinking the same thing. The guys had all said that BLI stayed out of the rallies. They let them be because of the huge number of Killjoys that were there.

“So did we,” Mikey commented gravely from the front. It didn’t even feel like the silence was broken, as it settled right back in just as comfortably as before. We rode like that all the way back to the diner, everyone keeping a sharp eye out for any signs of trouble. The Zones were eerily quiet. Ray parked us behind the diner, and we all clambered out, tripping over ourselves to get inside and make sure everything and everyone was alright. I’d just about thrown myself out of the door, so I got in first.

“Dr. D! Show Pony!” I called, pacing through the Junk Room. I heard no response, which made me frown. I went back to Dr. D’s studio, but it was empty. I moved more quickly towards the front, looking in all the usual places. “Guys!”

“What’s wrong, Freak?” Kindred called from the Junk Room.

“They’re not here. They had a head start,” I called back, frowning. “Do you think they ran into trouble?”

“Hard to say,” Gerard said, walking into the room. I hadn’t heard him approaching, so I nearly jumped out of my skin. “We should send somebody out on patrol, though.”

“I’ll go with if you wanna go,” Frank added, walking in behind Gerard. Gerard nodded, but I could hear a protest in the form of Mikey from somewhere I couldn’t see.

“You guys went last time! Save some fun for the rest of us, yeah?” he complained jokingly. Gerard gave his brother a disapproving look. “Seriously, me and Ray will go. You guys take a break from patrol and stay with the girls. We’ll be back soon.”

“I have a bad feeling about this,” I voiced, noting the way that my stomach did flips any time any of them mentioned leaving my sight. Kindred walked in, nodding.

“So do I, actually. Something’s gonna go down, and I don’t think it’s gonna be good.”

“You guys aren’t gonna get hurt, are you? I’ve got this bad feeling in my belly…” Grace frowned, touching Mikey’s hand. He smiled and kneeled to hug her.

“We’ll be fine,” he replied, sounding breezily confident.

“I think this is a clear case of female intuition at work,” I objected, crossing my arms and standing next to Kindred. She mimicked my position, and we both stared steadily at the guys. Ray offered us his winning smile.

“We’ve done this before,” he reminded patiently. He seemed grateful that we cared, but also like he felt that we were being silly.

“If I had a dollar…” I muttered to Scarlet, who snorted shortly with amusement.

“The first time I met you guys, you were all nearly dead. You don’t have a record for being safe,” she reminded. They all cringed visibly, but they recovered quickly.

“You three don’t need to worry,” Mikey dismissed again, waving his hand as if to brush the matter away. “Despite the fact that your spidey senses are going haywire, we really will be fine. Chances are Dr. D and Show Pony ran into a couple of stray Dracs and stayed around to dust ‘em.”

“Promise,” I demanded.

“What?” he looked confused.

“Promise that you’ll be okay,” I demanded, uncrossing my arms from across my chest and putting them on my hips instead.

“Harley, that’s ridi-”

“No, it’s not. You promise, or we’re going with you,” Scarlet interrupted. Gerard and Frank both let out noises of protest, stepping forward.

“Jeeze, okay. We promise we’ll be fine. We’ll come back just the way we left, okay?” Ray offered, and I nodded my satisfaction. Scarlet took a little longer, eyeing them both closely. She finally nodded, too.

“Fine. Make sure that you do, otherwise I’m going to spit on your graves.”

“Noted,” Mikey returned, patting himself down to make sure that he had everything he needed. He looked to Ray, who nodded. They distributed quick hugs to everyone, and I noticed that Gerard was more than a little reluctant to let go of his brother.

“I’ll be fine, Gee,” Mikey murmured into his brother’s shoulder. Gerard finally surrendered, patting Mikey’s head fondly.

“We’ll be back soon, guys.” The two men excused themselves and walked out of the diner, leaving the rest of us to our own devices. That nagging feeling wouldn’t leave my stomach, and one look at Kindred told me that she was feeling the same.