Be What Tomorrow Needs

Ghoul held up his hands, his bare palms facing me. “Don’t shoot. Please. I’m unarmed.”

I didn’t lower the weapon. “Who are you?” I demanded. My voice seemed to lash out at him, and he winced.

“Flash, it’s me. I swear.” His eyes were heavy and tired, and he sounded desperate. He looked just like he had the last time that I’d seen him. Maybe he was a bit thinner, and maybe he had lost a bit of the light in his gaze. Other than that, nothing had changed.

“I saw you die,” I whispered. My eyelids were suddenly weighted with the tears that wanted to flow. Instead of crumpling the way that I wanted to, I kept my arm steady. My aim never wavered from my intended target. “This can’t be real. It’s a trick. Korse must have… I don’t know, stolen your memories and somehow reanimated your corpse. This isn’t really you.”

I knew how insane I sounded, but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t allow myself to believe him. It would only bring me harm. I could never forget the moment when I had witnessed his murder. Ghoul was dead. Whatever was standing in front of me now couldn't have been him.

To my surprise, a small smile lifted Ghoul’s lips. The look made my insides quiver. I missed being the one that made him smile.

“That’s my girl,” he said. “If you weren’t suspicious of me, I’d be scared for you. Your survival still comes first, and you still need people to earn your trust. I’m proud of you.”

“I swear to God, I’ll kill you. Don’t talk to me like you know me. Don’t act like you’re really him. He was a good person, and trying to use him against other Killjoys is like spitting on his grave,” my voice broke. I knew damn well that Ghoul didn’t have a proper grave. He never would. “Maybe his memory is just a tool to you, but it means something to me.”

The smile vanished. He appeared to be torn. It was an expression that would normally make me try and help him, but I knew that I had to stay strong. If I let this impostor in, it would put everyone in danger.

“I’ll go,” he said suddenly. “But I need you to promise me one thing. I need you to swear that you won’t remember me like this. When you think of me, think of how I was before. Don’t focus on what you think I am now. And please, don’t tell the others about this. I don’t want anyone to get hurt. I don’t want anyone to remember me as a spy for the other side. I want to be thought of fondly. I want you to know that I was always on your side. I want you to smile when you reminisce about our time together.”

He began to back away. There was something about his pleading stare, and the words that he had just spoken, that dissolved all of my worries. My arm fell, and immediately afterward my gun slipped from my now-limp grasp. The tears that had been lining my eyelids sprang forth and fell in a rush down my cheeks. I choked on my breath.

“Ghoul? It’s really you, isn’t it?”

He stopped moving. “What convinced you?”

“Even if they had stolen your memories, they never would have been able to come up with a speech like that. That came from the heart of a Killjoy.”

Ghoul eyed my fallen ray gun for a split second, as though debating whether or not to trust my newfound faith in him. When he looked back up and his piercing hazel eyes met mine, I knew that I had him back. I choked back a sob as he carefully approached me. His footsteps were quick and purposeful, and in an instant he was right in front of me. I reached out slowly, testing the waters and trying to prove to myself that he was real and I had not yet lost my mind. I let my fingers graze his yellow and black shirt sleeve; his arm was solid. When he leaned in, I could feel his hot breath on my lips. It felt just the same as it had on our last night together, crammed into the backseat of my car.

He reached up and swiped at a stray tear on my cheek. “My God, I missed you,” he whispered.

And then something inside of me snapped. My resolve withered and died, and I needed to let him know that I hadn’t truly lived since I had lost him. But my words had vanished along with the tears that he had cleared from my complexion. Instead of speaking, I wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my face in his shoulder. Ghoul held me tight, and as my tears began again I could feel him break down.

The two of us stood in the blazing sunlight as one, crying our hearts out into one another’s shirt. I had Ghoul back. I had a new reason to hope. I could be okay again.

He pulled back and stared at me, but held onto my hands. It seemed that he needed to touch me as badly as I needed to do the same to him. The wondrous look in his eyes made me think that he was trying to convince himself that I was real. I was having the same inner turmoil as I gazed back at him. This was all that I had wanted for so long; how could it actually have happened?

“Are you alone?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No. The others are inside. I was about to go on a supply run.”

“Did you find her mother?”

“No. I haven’t found a single clue.”

“Is she…?” he couldn’t finish his question, and it hung in the air between us.

“She’s fine,” I assured him. “She’s inside, if you want to go and see her.”

“I will go and see her, but not right now. I can’t leave you. Do you want some company on your trip to Battery City?”

I smiled. “Of course I do. There’s nobody that I’d rather have along for the ride.”

In the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of vibrant red near the edge of the shack. I had seen it enough times by now to know what it was, and I gasped. Ghoul grinned in a knowing way. He leaned down and retrieved my discarded gun, then pulled me toward the back of the building.

“They sent me out first. They figured that I would be the only one that could make you believe that I was real,” he told me. I followed him closely. I was in awe of what I was about to find. Could it possibly be true that all four of them had miraculously survived at the hands of Korse and the Dracs?

I clutched onto his hand tightly, as if he would disappear if I let him go. We rounded the side of the building, and I fought back the urge to cry again. They were all there. Poison smiled from ear to ear when he saw me. His hair was still such a bright shade that it was impossible to miss. It had clearly been him that I had glimpsed a moment before. He grabbed me by the shoulders and yanked me roughly from Ghoul’s grip. I was crushed against Poison’s chest as he embraced me, and I held him back just as tightly. Poison was practically my best friend; seeing him was like seeing a ray of sunshine after a month of nothing but thunderstorms.

“Thank you so much for believing him,” Poison whispered.

“How could I not?”

As soon as Poison released me, I was bombarded with another body. This one was scrawny and wiry; I could tell right away that it was the Kobra Kid. He was Party Poison’s little brother, and he had been one of the first to accept me with open arms. He was a warm soul. He let me go and smiled at me, then he was replaced with the only person left. Jet Star simply held his arms out and waited for me to envelop myself in them. When I did, he rested his head atop my own.

“Good to see you’ve held up alright,” he said.

I stepped back and looked between the four of them incredulously. Finally, my eyes settled on Ghoul. “How?” I asked simply.

He paused and glanced at the others. “That’s going to take some time. Why don’t we go on that supply run? I can explain it all on the way to Battery City.”

I nodded my agreement. “Okay. Does Dr. D know that you’re here?”

“No,” Poison replied. “He doesn’t know that we’re alive, either. We just got here when you walked out of the shack. Would it be okay if we all came along with you guys? That way we can all break the news to him together.”

“Of course you can come,” I said. “I feel like the more opinions that I get on how you came to be here, the easier it will be for me to digest.”

We all headed over to my car, and Kobra gave me a funny look when he walked past the hood. “It’s still warm,” he commented. “You haven’t been staying here, have you?”

“We just got here a little while ago. I couldn’t bear to stay here after… well, you know.”

It went quiet as we all climbed into the vehicle. Ghoul sat up front beside me, and the other three squished themselves into the back seat. I felt bad that they were going to be so uncomfortable for so long, but I had no other options. It was then that I noticed that the Trans Am hadn’t been parked outside of the shack. I opened my mouth to voice my question, but Ghoul cut me off.

“We had to get out in a hurry. We stole a car from some Dracs, but we ditched it a few days ago and came here on foot. It was too dangerous to do anything else.”

I looked over at him as I started the engine. His hair was covered in a thin film of dust. The way that he appeared so worn and haggard suddenly made sense. After I had been driving for a few minutes, I couldn’t take the suspense any more.

“I’m dying to know what happened. Please tell me,” I begged.

Ghoul let out a huff of air. “Okay, here it goes. What you saw was real. Well, it was convincing. We all thought we were dead, too. What really happened was… wait, I need you to promise me something before I tell you everything. Will you promise that you’ll keep a level head? You need to swear that you’ll continue on as a Killjoy. We need you on our side, Flash. I need to know that you won’t go running back to Battery City.”

“That’s the stupidest thing that you’ve ever said, Ghoul. They want my head on a stick. I’ll never go back to Battery City unless it’s to rob them blind,” I said, brushing off his request.

Poison and Ghoul exchanged a look, but neither argued with me. Instead, Ghoul pressed on with his tale.

“Korse thought that we were dead, too. We woke up a few hours later in body bags. Let me tell you, that is not a pleasant surprise. Once we fought our way out of them, we were faced with another shock. Your ex-boyfriend was standing there, waiting for us to wake up. He thought that you were going to be in there with us, Flash. And you were supposed to be, but I wouldn’t let you, remember? Anyways, he didn’t want to know that he had failed to prevent your death. The guy is still bonkers over you. He rigged the enemy’s ray guns so that they were more like tasers than anything else. They knocked us out and slowed our heart rates. It was easy for the Dracs to believe that we were dead. When Bryce found out that you weren’t with us, he helped us anyways. He wasn’t happy about it, but he told me that he wouldn’t feel right taking us away from you.”

“Liar,” Kobra piped up from behind me. “He said that he didn’t want to take you from her, Ghoul. He saw the two of you when he gave you the map. He knew how you were with her.”

“Either way,” Ghoul persisted. “He did it for you. He helped us find some dead Dracs to fill our body bags, then he let us stay in a storage room for a few days so that we could recover and get back on our feet. When we were strong enough, he moved us from there into a run-down old warehouse on the edge of the city. From that point on, we were on our own. It took us a lot longer than we expected to get a car and get out of there. We all figured that you guys would still be here, so we headed here as soon as we could. Bryce saved us. We haven’t had contact with him since, so I don’t even know if they caught him. I hope he’s okay. He’s a good guy.”

I stayed silent for a long moment. I wanted to speak, but I was at a loss for words. The story seemed so far-fetched and unbelievable, yet I knew that Ghoul wasn’t lying. The only person in the world that would do something that stupid for me was Bryce. Now I understood Ghoul’s bizarre request earlier. He was afraid that I would try and go back to Bryce, since he had put his life on the line for me. After what felt like an eternity, I cleared my throat.

“I guess I owe him everything. He helped us rescue Sparrow, and now he’s saved the people that mean the most to me. But I promise you, I’ll die in his debt. I’m not going back there. He’ll only keep doing those idiotic things if I’m around. If I stay away, it’s like I’m saving his life. Maybe that’s how I’ll repay him.”

I could have sworn that everyone else in the vehicle breathed a sigh of relief at my words. My eyes flickered back at them in the rear view mirror.

“Do you really think that I’m dumb enough to go back to him? Give me some credit, boys.”

“We know you aren’t an imbecile,” Poison said hurriedly. “It’s just that, well… it’s like he gave us all a huge gift, and we can’t return the favour. We knew it would bother you.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Not if I choose to view it as a goodbye present.”

There was a weighted silence in the car for a few moments. Everyone seemed to be thrown off-guard by my simple acceptance of their story. The truth was, it didn’t really surprise me. If anyone could help them, it would have been Bryce. And I had already known that he still loved me. If Ghoul hadn’t been by my side the last time that I had seen him, Bryce probably would have tried to convince me to come back. I felt guilty that I couldn’t offer him anything now. Even my gratitude couldn’t ever be properly communicated. If everything went well, I would never see him again. I could never tell him how much he meant to me, and how he had saved me when he had saved my friends. It was quite likely that he already knew; if he hadn’t, he never would have risked his life to help them. Even so, I did wish that I could tell him face-to-face.

“You seem a lot happier about this than we expected,” Ghoul said slowly.

“You guys are alive; how could I not be in a good mood?”

Jet Star had been watching out the window in solemn silence. He looked over at me. “Who’s Sparrow?”

Everyone’s attention zeroed in one the one detail that I had mentioned that hadn’t made sense to them. None of them seemed to have noticed it before, but now that it had been pointed out, they wanted information. I smiled sheepishly.

“The girl needed a name, okay? We all call her different things. I call her Sparrow.”

“It fits,” Poison sounded almost impressed.

“It’s better than no name at all,” Jet smirked at me.

I ignored his pointed comment and focused on the road in front of me. When nobody spoke for a long moment, Ghoul reached out and touched my arm gently.

“Are you okay?” he asked in a soft tone.

“Yes,” I said. For the first time in far too long, I meant it. “I’m fine, Ghoul.”

“So tell us what you’ve been up to, now that you’re all caught up on us,” Poison prodded.

I bit the inside of my cheek. I knew that they would all be disappointed if they found out how lost I had been. The whole reason that they had stopped me from marching into BLI beside them was so that I could be strong for Sparrow.

“Well,” I began, inhaling deeply. “The night that you went down was the night that we left Dr. D’s. We just kind of picked up where we left off. I tried, unsuccessfully I might add, to get some information on Sparrow’s mother. Other than that, we’re still running. Because we’ll always be running. That’s all we’ll ever do.”

“We’ll find her mom, Flash,” Kobra said. “Now that all of us are back together, there’s nothing stopping us.”

“And running isn’t always a bad thing,” Jet added. “Maybe one day we’ll get out of California and find some other civilization that’s survived as long as we have.”

“Or maybe we won’t,” Poison sounded as though he were trying to be level-headed. “Either way, it will be okay. We’ll take care of each other.”

I couldn’t hide the way that their words had actually left me somewhat reassured. Maybe it was easier to believe them now that they had come back to me from the dead. Despite the fact that they had thoroughly convinced me that every word they had spoken was true, something still felt oddly hollow inside. It was like they were just a figment of my imagination. I had held each one of them, but it was like I couldn’t believe my own senses. I couldn’t be entirely certain that this whole thing was real. A small part of me was still intent on my theory that I was dead. Either heaven was really the post-apocalyptic California desert, or we had all wound up in hell together. It was the latter that was probably the easiest to swallow.

The light of the day was dying as the sun was overtaken by the horizon. Buildings began to take shape in the distance as we approached Battery City. I shuddered as they grew taller, looming over us like shadows. I could feel the tension of everyone else building all around me.

“Are you guys sure that you want to go back there?”

“We’re fine,” Ghoul said. “It won’t be a long stay. We just didn’t really plan on coming back this soon. We’ve spent too much time here lately. It’s okay, don’t worry.”

I nodded as I reduced my speed and manoeuvred down the side streets. Old traffic lights hung useless above our heads, swaying ever so slightly in the still evening air. I pulled up to the same gas station that Poison and I had once robbed in order to save the attendant’s life. We all pulled on our masks, though it was probably a futile defense at this point. Everyone at BLI knew who we were, disguises or not.

Jet filled the gas tank, as well as all of my jerry cans, while the rest of us raided the tiny store. The cashier was hiding behind the counter, not bothering to try and stop us in any way. After the trunk was overflowing with food rations and water, we all climbed back inside and I peeled out of the parking lot. I fled the city as fast as I could. Once we were out in the darkness, I could feel my fatigue attacking my senses. I couldn’t possibly drive the whole way back tonight, but I didn’t want to stop either. The others would worry if I didn’t come back by sunrise. They would positively lose their minds if they noticed all of the strange footprints outside of the shack that led to my car.

Ghoul looked at his comrades, noticing that the rest of them had already fallen asleep. “Do you want to stop for the night?” he asked.

“No.”

“Do you want me to drive?”

I paused, considering his offer. I had never let anyone else drive my car before. I loved it more than I loved anything else. But if I were ever going to let someone else take her for a spin, it would be Ghoul. He would take care of me.

“Are you sure that you’re up to it?” I wondered aloud. “You must be exhausted.”

“And you aren’t? Come on, Peyton,” his voice lowered as he used my real name. I felt a small thrill run up my spine at his casual use of my secret. The others were all asleep, but it still seemed strange. Nobody had called me by my real name in years. I was happy that the first person to do so was Ghoul. “I know that you’re ready to fall asleep. I couldn’t sleep if I tried.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I’m scared that if I do, I’ll wake up and this will all have been a dream. I can’t lose you again.”

I slowed to a stop, my heart hammering wildly in my chest. Ghoul’s words mirrored my thoughts perfectly. The two of us switched seats, and he began to drive in the same direction that I had been heading. I pulled my feet up beside me on the seat and leaned my head on his shoulder.

In that one brief moment before I drifted off, I felt something strange and foreign. I felt happy.