Blind Photographs

To be honest, it would have been much easier to just stay with Harley and the Joker. Steady feed of supplies, sturdy defense, and actual human contact. But once they started messing with the thought of teaming up with Korse in exchange for almost complete freedom, I knew it was time to jet. It didn't help that they named themselves after villains either.Eventually there would be no more bodies to find and then he’d just turn on them (and me, if I’d stayed) and wipe out the complete resistance. After that, he'd have won. I pushed my glasses up the bridge of my nose for the millionth time. They were old as sin and too big, but they kept the world clear to me. Shaking out my boots, I settled behind a pathetic excuse of a bush for the night, not caring what risks sleeping would bring to me, enemies or not. The rapidly cooling sand made it difficult to fall asleep, but somehow I managed.

“You think it’s dead?”

“Maybe, Jet, poke it.”

“You poke it! If that thing’s alive, enemy or not it’s going to be pissed.”

“Shut up,” I moaned, dragging my jacket over my head.

“Holy- what’s wrong with you? Are you hurt? We’ve got a doctor.”

“Do I look hurt to you?” I demanded, blinking wearily at the blurry figures in front of me. For a minute they almost looked like angels. Almost.

My left hand was busy rubbing sand out of my eyes as my right groped blindly for my glasses and I coughed a bit as I became aware of the amount of sand that had also found its way into my mouth.

“Only an idiot would camp out this close to the Tower, you’re lucky no one found you,” One of them said, pulling me up to my feet before I could find the familiar bent plastic arms. He held my arms with gloved hands. Rough leather scraped against my skin.

Angel my ass.

I’d heard about the tower, but only briefly. So of course, after regaining possession of my arm and continuing to search, I asked.

“The Tower?”

“Lookout point for the city. Number one hot spot for bounty hunters and dracs alike. Everyone knows that if they’ve ever been out in the zones.” I frowned and stopped searching for a moment as he paused. “Don’t tell me you’ve never been out here.” He stared incredulously, but I knew what he really meant. He thought he was better than me.

I scoffed and made a triumphant noise as I finally managed to grab the glasses. Slipping them back on, I finally got to take a look at who was bothering me. Red hair, brown hair, black hair, blonde hair. Medium, tall, short, tall. Blue, black, green, red. Their faces meant nothing to me. It's not like I'd be seeing a lot of them.

“Of course I’ve been out here.” Lie.
“I’m so tough, I could take on anything that stupid tower could throw at me.” Lie.
“I even got three dracs before I set up here.” Total utter and complete lies.

I hadn’t been outside for more than half a mile away from the hideout since they brought me there in the first place, never held a gun or even SEEN a draculoid. The closest I'd gotten to killing anything was throwing my boot at cockroaches. Even then, I missed and they scuttled away, totally fine. Back to their stupid little cockroach families. I almost let myself get visibly angry, but that would've been stupid. No one should ever be jealous of the cockroaches.

“Really? Corpses get washed away by the desert, then? You don’t even have a gun on you. We raided your stuff when we thought you were dead,” The one with the red hair said, holding up my pack.
He almost looked proud to have figured it out.

Angrily, I snatched it back and scanned for anything missing with my fingers, never taking my eyes off the four men. It wasn’t hard, I didn’t have much. Traveling so often had dictated what I could and couldn't carry with me. Some food, water, a change of clothes, sometimes a salvaged trinket or two, but I always ended up having to leave those behind.

“Buzz off, Road Kill,” I said and stalked off in the other direction, only to be stopped by a hand on my shoulder.

“What’s your story, kid?” It was the one with the brown hair.

It would’ve been curlier, I think, if the toxic humidity wasn’t weighing it down. I knew from experience. Sunglasses with large frames kept me from seeing his eyes. I was used to that. Killjoys wore masks, it was just how things went. I didn't have one now, though. Not for a while.

“I said buzz off. I’ve got places to go.”

“Where’s your team?”

“None of your freaking business, now if you’d please excuse me,”

“We’re friends, we can help you.”

It took all I had not to laugh in his face. Just who did he think he was?

“There are two groups of people out here,” I said, stopping and turning around, my arms folded behind my back,
“Ones who want to kill me outright, and ones, like you, who say you’re friends and then shoot a beam into my back.”