Holding Out for the Wishing Well

Kel sighed, not wanting to open her eyes. She was relieved to feel the flattened mattress beneath her, the way it buckled by her hips and shoulders because of the splits in the bed frame. The breeze trickled through the gaps she’d ripped when she’d gotten drunk and tried to rip the boards off the window to jump, not thinking to just walk outside- she lived in the small, skinny, shed-like building on top of the tallest skyscraper.
I guess it was all a dream. All of it. Kel thought, with mixed emotions. There was no traitor in Hell, Gerard didn’t exist. He hadn’t sold her out to the Killjoys and gotten her shot, and he hadn’t kidnapped her from where she lay, broken and beaten in an alley. Kel sighed again, relaxing, before she shifted to stretch and she froze in pain, gritting her teeth.
The dizziness hit her first, then the pain shot up her side. She broke out in a sweat, which felt icy enough on her skin to force her to realize she had a fever. Grimacing, Kel sat up and forced her eyes open to survey the damage. To her surprise, a fresh bandage had replaced the dirty, saturated one she’d cobbled together. Her hands, face, and around the bandage were cleaner than they’d been last night, and she knew she certainly hadn’t been home. Glancing to the side revealed Gerard, studying her from where he sat in her broken chair, his back to the three-legged table that was propped haphazardly against the wall.
“Why do you live like this?” Gerard asked, his eyes somber as he studied Kel. He didn’t understand why she lived here, of all places, this crumbling, lonely building, as far from every other soul as she could get.
“Because, with the people who belong here, we can see. We know who we were, what we did to end up here. Even here, people base their opinions on what you did. When you lived like me, even in Hell, nobody wants you around.” Kel admitted, looking away to glare at the partially-revealed window. Her scowl deepened as she shifted to pull her knees up to her chest, hugging them.
“What did you do?” Gerard asked softly. He studied Kel intently, telling himself it wouldn’t matter what she had done, all the while a small, traitorous part of him begged for it to be nothing too terrible.
“You have to understand, first.” Kel sighed, as if this were the last thing she wanted to explain. “Hell isn’t just for the awful people, not just the damned. Everyone winds up down here, everyone who was ever lost, or broken, or beaten. I don’t… I don’t even think there is a Heaven, or whatever the other option is.” She didn’t look at Gerard, so she didn’t see the look of horror on his face as he realized what life after death was really like. “I was forced to do some pretty awful things, and… by the time I could get out, I didn’t know what else to do. I just… I couldn’t find my way back to where I had to be.”
“But what were you doing?” Gerard asked, wanting her to just get to the point. He had to know; he didn’t know why it mattered so much, he just felt like he would understand everything better, see more clearly, if he had all the facts in front of him, relevant or not.
“I was killing people.” Kel admitted, resting her forehead against her knees and stealing a quick glance at the astonished Killjoy. Her crooked smile was bitter and mocking. “When I was five, my brother and I were taken from our parents by some very bad men. I was supposed to look out for him, do anything I had to in order to protect that kid. He was only two, he was useless. I had to beg and plead to keep him alive.” Kel sighed, her eyes unfocusing as she remembered. “I stole, I scammed, I cheated, and I lied until I could move on to bigger things- selling drugs, turning in competition to the cops, even killing, at that point. I couldn’t get us away, and I couldn’t leave Brian.” Shaking her head slowly, Kel continued. “The men were awful to the two of us, and by the time they died, I didn’t know how to get help without getting taken away from Brain. He needed me; he was afraid of everyone else after everything we’d been through. And nobody would hire me because they knew what I was. There was no way out, and even now there’s no fucking way out…” Kel slammed her fist into the wall, frustrated.
Gerard blinked slowly at Kel, wondering how this was fair, how it had happened, how he had ended up here. The Killjoys were supposed to save the broken and the beaten, not put them at the top of the ‘kill on sight’ list. “Well, what happened to Brian?”
Kel glanced at Gerard, her eyes blank and empty. “Oh, I knew I was going to die. I knew I had to make… plans. I took him to a homeless shelter, and then I took off while he was cleaning himself up. I made one of the women there promise to take care of him; they knew each other.” The girl shrugged, looking away again. “Then I jumped off the docks, into the Sound.”
Gerard watched Kel as she stared blankly at the faded paint peeling off the cracked wall, the building creaking slightly in the breeze. He noticed when Kel winced with every move she made, and the way she was struggling to keep her breathing even and ignore the pain. A cold sweat was shining on her face, sticking some of her black hair to her pale skin. The scarlet feather she wore was dangerously close to falling out, but Kel made no move to fix it.
“You should come back with me.” Gerard finally broke the silence, and Kel just stared at him in shock for a moment before laughing bitterly.
“You want me to die, but you don’t have the guts. Skip, you really are something, if you’re bringing me home for your friends to do the dirty work.” Kel shook her head in amused disbelief, her grey eyes cold as she stared Gerard down.
“That’s not why I’m taking you back.” Gerard argued quietly. “You need help, Kel.”
“So does everyone else in Hell.” Kel spat, rolling her eyes. “Besides, I’m not getting help anytime soon. Your psycho friends will splatter me all over the walls as soon as look at me, not that I don’t deserve it.”
“They won’t, Kel, I promise.” Gerard said, reaching out to her, but Kel jerked away, glaring. “Kel, c’mon.”
“You’re an idiot, Gerard, did you know that?” Kel asked harshly, her eyes steely. “You take this whole ‘shit, I’m a Killjoy’ crap too seriously. You got put in a shooting gallery, and that’s it. There’s no mission, no job, no rules. I don’t know who’s crusade you think you’re on, but this is fucking Hell. Get used to it.”
Gerard just studied Kel for a moment, biting his tongue to keep from yelling back. Arguing would only make things worse with her, and that was the last thing he wanted. The infection she had came from a Killjoy’s bullet in her side, and it could kill her if he didn’t stop it.
“Kel, it doesn’t matter where we are. I’m going to help you, whether you like it or not.” Gerard said softly, standing up. He ignored the way Kel’s eyes narrowed in suspicion as he crossed the room towards her. “Besides, you’re in no shape to stop me.”
Kel struggled as best as she could when Gerard picked her up, but she was too weak sick and hurt to get free. Gerard was acting as if she weighed nothing as he carried her easily out the door and down the stairs, all the way to the street. By the time Gerard was walking down the sidewalk with her, Kel had tired herself out and couldn’t do much more than glare at him and call him the nastiest names she knew.
As Gerard stalked through the streets, trying to stay unseen, another shadow in an alley spotted the two. He knew the face, vaguely; he’d seen him several times when Kel took him around to her favorite places. The other man, however, saw Kel laying limply in the arms of a Killjoy.
The man whistled, and Gerard stopped, wondering what the man was trying to do. Start a fight? Summon help? Mock Kel? Gerard was confused for an instant that stretched just long enough for Kel to steal his gun and twist out of his arms. Though she collapsed when she hit the sidewalk, Kel managed to remain upright on her knees, the gun trained on Gerard as the other man darted forward to snatch her up. Kel went willingly with the other man, keeping the gun trained on the Killjoy as she was carried away.
Gerard waited for an instant, then bolted off after the pair, knowing that Kel wouldn’t last on the streets, no matter who was looking after her. He kept up for quite some time, following the pair as closely as he could. The winding alleys and sudden dead-ends caught up with Gerard, however, when he took a wrong turn and found himself facing a brick wall at the end of an alley. He could either take the narrow space between two buildings to his left, or he could backtrack. With a curse, he began to retreat, only to find his escape blocked by several hulking shadows. Gerard reached for his gun, remembering that it had been stolen only when he touched the empty holster.
“Hey, this Killjoy looks pretty fun.” Guffawed one man, shifting forward. His companion, too, stepped forward, revealing herself as a stocky, solidly-built woman. “Without his gun, and all.”
“Well, Killjoys can’t die, but I hear they can come pretty close.” The woman sneered, and Gerard began to inch backwards as the pair advanced. He kept shifting backwards until he hit the brick wall, glancing around to find the narrow pass he’d seen before was blocked by yet another shadowy figure. Fuck my life. Gerard thought, an insane sensation of nostalgia sweeping through him for an instant.
“You two, back off.” The shadow had made it to the end of the narrow passage, lounging confidently against the side of one crumbling building, a yellow gun in her hand. “I thought I told you that the Killjoys are mine.” Kel’s grey eyes were feverish, which seemed to work in her favor as she slumped against the wall. She’d managed to prop herself up in a way that made her seem bored and confident as she aimed the gun at Gerard’s head.
The man backed down first. “You’re your own kind of killjoy.” He grumbled, fading out of sight, his companion close behind with a grumbled string of curses.
Gerard and Kel stayed as they were, watching the other two retreat, then he looked at Kel. The woman still had the gun pointing at Gerard’s head, and she took more time to look away from the end of the alley where the pair had disappeared. When she met Gerard’s eyes, he wondered for a moment if she really was going to shoot him.
Kel held his gaze for a moment, her hand steady, then dropped the gun to the cracked concrete and kicked it towards Gerard, immediately turning on her heel and heading back down the narrow passageway she’d taken, bracing herself on either wall to stay upright, limping slightly.
Gerard scooped up his gun, then darted after Kel, wondering vaguely where her friend had run off to. He made it around the corner at the end of the alley just in time to see Kel sway where she stood, catching her before she could fall.
Well, at least this is a bit easier. Gerard thought with a sigh as he shifted his hold on Kel, then trudged off to the house to face the other Killjoys.