They'll Never Take My Heart

“Chem! We got another order for 20 more of those.” Blood yelled across the store room, pointing to my pile of finished grenades. There were about 6 as of right now.
“How fast do they expect my fingers to move?” I yelled back, starting another. This was the third order I’d had within the week. We had people coming in for Blood to patch up every other hour, and Trigger spent most of them time building up relationships with other packs of killjoys.
“Uh, Chem, you’re not going to like this.”
“Don’t tell me someone bled all over my boots.” I had a bad habit of leaving them right by Blood’s operating table.
“Worse. That order was called in by-” I already knew what he was going to say.
“Shit.” It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see them. I missed everyone horribly. But this was the better way. I was one less person to look out for. And in the desert, it was hard enough looking out for yourself.
“Don’t worry, we’ve still got the safe room.” Trigger reminded me. It was a hidden room that we could use if we were outnumbered. The door was a metal shelving unit. It was a decent size, and we’d started stocking up any extra food we’d manage to get in it.
“When are they coming?” I asked.
“Tomorrow. Trigger and I already have disguises ready for if Candy and Angel came looking for us, so we’ll use those, and you can stay in the safe room.” Sighing, I got back to work. Normally, I could finish up while the killjoys talked to Trigger, or had an old wound checked out by Blood, but I couldn’t risk them seeing me at all.
‘This is gonna be a loooooonnnnnnnnnggg night.’ I thought, blowing my bangs out of my eyes.
And I was right. I spent all night and most of the early a.m. finishing up. I couldn’t leave any trace, any clues, and you might think I’m paranoid and completely insane for playing this ridiculous game of hide and seek, but they’d forget about me soon enough. Even if they didn’t, they’d have to move on at some point. Then I finally got to crash into the pile of quilts in between Blood and Trigger. Poison would flip if he saw me this close to them. It wasn’t like they’d do anything, Blood told me that he was gay the first day I was here, and Trigger… well, Trigger passed out as soon as he hit the quilts, no matter what. Man, that boy could sleep for a long time. When I finally woke up, I was met with the gray walls of the safe room, with a note taped to my forehead.
You looked tired, so we didn’t want to wake you up. They said they’d come early though, so we brought you in here.
-Who do you THINK wrote this?
Careful not to make any noise, I cracked open one of the vents in the room and looked through the slots. Yup, there they were. Silver talking animatedly, completely ignoring one arm. Killer talking back, but more low key. Jet making sure Fun didn’t touch anything fragile. Kobra looking around, and Poison discussing something with Trigger.
“These look like Adrenaline’s grenades..” Silver muttered.
“We have an explosives specialist who goes by Chemical Lantern. Found her wandering the desert alone, so we took her in.” Blood said, one of those Black Plague bird masks covering his eyes, and bandages covering the rest of his face.
“And where is she now?” Killer asked. He always was suspicious of everyone.
“Special mission. Needed rush delivery and the customer couldn’t come to pick it up himself.” Trigger lied smoothly. Oh, they were good.
“Oh, before we forget. We’re looking for this girl.” I heard a piece of paper moving, but it was just out of my line of sight. “Give us a shout out if you get any leads?” Jet said. I saw Blood cringe. Oh no. No no no, not now Blood, be a tough man damn it!
“I… think I might know where she is.”
“Really?” Trigger spat out from behind grit teeth.