They'll Never Take My Heart

“How come Adrenaline always get stuck cleaning the Trans Am?” I asked, scrubbing away a layer of dust.

“Because you’re the one who likes to see it shiny.” Fun, or as Silver Electric and I recently learned, ‘Frank’ said, not looking up from whatever he was working on. At least it was helping my upper body strength…

“Fun… Adrenaline wants to know something.” I said, scuffing the ground with my boot.

“Shoot.” On instinct, I pulled out my ray gun, prepared to fire.

“Not what I meant, kid. Uh, ask away, then.” He replied, putting down the magazine he was looking at.

“Sometimes at night… when Adrenaline can’t sleep, she hears music. Who makes the music?” I asked

“Usually it’s Poison. He sings a lot. Sometimes Jet pulls out his guitar too.” Fun answered, going back to reading.

“What are you reading?” I questioned. He’d been staring at it for a while…

“Uh, nothing! Nothing important, just… go back to cleaning the car, and don’t tell Jet Star anything.” He replied hurriedly, shoving the magazine into his jacket.

“Adrenaline’s… going to go now.” I said, backing slowly up to the diner door before bolting inside.

“You okay?” Silver Electric asked. By the looks of it, she’d been sharpening her katana again.

“Adrenaline’s kinda confused, Fun Ghoul has a magazine that he doesn’t want Adrenaline to see.” I
said.

"Well, uh, guys are weird. Leave it at that.” She said, turning back to sharpening. Shrugging, I pulled out my welding goggles, rolled out the canister of nitroglycerin, and dug out my handy dandy guide book, then got to work. Explosives don’t just make themselves, you know. I had picked up the basics pretty quickly. Anything soaked in nitroglycerin would be highly flammable, and explosive. Now, timing it so that it wouldn’t blow up in my face? That was a different story. And why I needed the welding goggles.
But I was getting there.

“Damn, I have to find that before Poison does…” Jet Star mumbled, pacing around the diner. “He’d never let me live that down…”

“Jet Star! Adrenaline knows a secret!” I said, pushing my goggles up to the top of my head.

“Not now, Jet Star’s really busy…”

“Fun Ghoul has it.”

“Wha-?”

“The secret magazine.” I replied.

“Secret- oh! Thanks Adrenaline, I’ll make it up to you later!” He called over his shoulder as he ran after Fun Ghoul who was off like a rocket when he saw Jet coming through the door.

“Oh! And Adrenaline learned who’s been making the pretty music late at night.’ I added.

“Poison, right?” Silver replied.

“Yeah, how’d you know?” I asked, putting away the nitroglycerin for the day.

“I heard him singing around the diner one day. Then Fun burned the Power Pup, though, so the singing turned into yelling…” She explained. My hair had also finally been cut. It was now above my shoulder blades, and much less annoying to do anything with. My scissors had gone unused, though. A stray bullet from a fight with the Dracs had singed most of it…. But I wasn’t complaining, I got my haircut and a chance to kill some bad guys all at the same time. After a while, Jet came back in, Fun Ghoul following. Both looked a bit… worse for wear.

“Alright, who ratted me out?” Fun demanded. Immediately I turned back to my book.

“Maybe Jet just guessed?” Silver asked.

“Or he figured you’d be the only one to have it.” I added.

“Uh, yeah. What they said.” Jet said. How nice, he was protecting the fact that I may’ve kind of ratted Fun out…

“Fine, I’ll believe that. For now. When’s dinner?” He asked, crashing in one of the booths.

“Whenever Poison and Kobra get back from wherever the hell they went, and we prepare enough to eat your burned cooking.” Jet replied. They’d taken the car right after I was done cleaning it. Which meant I’d be cleaning it again, most likely tomorrow.

“Can… Adrenaline cook tonight?” I asked.

“Well it’s not like it can get much worse,” Jet mused

“Hey!”

“You burn it every time, man.”

“I do no- oh…” Fun replied, finally realizing that he did in fact manage to burn it every time he cooked.

“So I say why not. Just don’t hurt yourself.”

“Then Adrenaline’s going to start now. “ I said, walking into the kitchen armed with several cans of Power Pup. Most of the food from Wal-Mart had been long gone by now… Shrugging to myself, I took out a pan and poured in a can, turning on the heat. Then I went on an adventure.

‘There’s bound to be some sort of spice-stuff around here somewhere…’ I thought, going on tiptoe to reach some of the higher cabinets. So far, I’d found a few bottles, none of which I could identify, but they didn’t smell toxic. Shrugging, I dumped some of each into the pan, and stirred it with my ray gun. This was not a high class restaurant, so we used what we could.

‘Well, it smells decent…’ I thought as I poured it into a bowl before carrying it out to the counter.

“You’re never going to guess what we found.” Kobra said as he came through the door.

“She can cook!” Fun exclaimed, crushing me in a hug.

“Adrenaline likes to be appreciated… but she can’t breathe.” I managed to get out.

“We found a toaster!” Kobra exclaimed.

“We’re not keeping it as a toaster, Kobra. You said you could turn it into something else, remember?” Poison said as he walked in, carrying the toaster Kobra was so happy with.

“Huh, dinner smells good. Jet, you cook?” Poison asked.

“No! Adrenaline did! She’s a child prodigy!” Fun exclaimed, swinging me around.

“Adrenaline’s gonna be sick!” I groaned as everything started to swirl together.

“Fun! What did we tell you about keeping your hands to yourself?” Kobra demanded.

“Well, more for us, then.” Silver said, seeing as she and Jet were the only people not doing something. Fun and I were spinning, Kobra was yelling at Fun, and Poison was trying to hide the toaster from Kobra.

“Fly away, my child prodigy! Fly away from the evil Kobra!” What did he mean by that...? Oh no… I felt myself being launched into the air. Fun was high off sharpie fumes again… great.

“Adrenaline?!” Silver asked as she watched me go up into the air, before hurtling back down. But I didn’t crash, surprisingly. I fell into the arms of one Party Poison.

“Can’t we have dinner like a normal killjoy family for once?” He asked, setting me upright and sitting at the counter.

“Aww, Poison! There’s no fun in that!” Fun argued. So we were a bit… odd. Okay, a lot odd.