Such a Beautiful Lie to Believe In

After practically leaping off the bus, we ran two more blocks before reaching me and Kathy’s place. Brittney was sitting in the living room, eating ice cream out of the container and watching her nightly soap operas. She was startled as we all busted through the door collapsing on the floor, out of breath. “Whoa what the hell’s going on here?! I almost had a heart attack,” Brittney gasped, pausing the presumably TIVOed episode.

“Um, so did we,” Alex replied getting up off the floor.

“Look, Brit, we don’t have much time to explain. Joie got caught up with the wrong crowd and we need to grab some of her things and go back to Alex’s. They’re chasing after her,” Kathy quickly explained while pushing us all into my room to begin throwing things into my suitcase.

“And why am I just now finding out?” she whined.

“I’m sorry Brittney I didn’t want to endanger you. But this just isn’t the time to be discussing this,” I said.

Within nearly 3 minutes we had all my essentials crammed into the case. “Ready when you are,” Alex said, walking toward the car in the back. I took one last look around before following them out the door.

Once we were all out there, we were taken aback by Alex’s strange stance. He was staring down the street, mesmerized. “What are you looking at?” Kathy whispered.

“S-since when does the bus come down this far? Wasn’t the last stop 2 blocks from here?” Alex mumbled, trying to cover up the fear in his voice.

All of us glanced down the street to see that the bus was in fact coming straight toward our condo. A sinking feeling arose in my stomach because I knew exactly why that bus was here. They were coming for me. “Guys, you have to leave NOW! They’re on that bus and I’m not letting you three get involved in this.”

“Are you insane? We didn’t come this far with you just to abandon you, Joie,” Kathy said.

The bus halted to a stop right in front of our place now, practically in the driveway.

“You don’t have a choice. I’m so grateful for helping me get this far, but I’ll be fine. I’ll go hide in the house, wait for them to leave, then sneak over to Alex’s. If they don’t know who you are, then they won’t know where to look. Please, just trust me and GO!” I shouted, forcing them and my luggage into the car.

Luckily, we had a two-way driveway, so they were able to pull out without being seen by the assholes getting off the bus. Now it’s my time to hide.

I bolted back inside and made sure that all the windows and doors were locked. Then, I pushed the large dresser aside revealing a secret door leading up to the attic. Quietly, I climbed the creaky steps to the very top. The room I found myself in was mostly just a wooden, open space covered in white and gray dust. I got down on my arms and legs and crawled across the narrow boards looking down below into Brittney’s room. No wonder she always claimed to have nightmares – I would too if I had holes looking up into the attic in my ceiling.

Finally, I reached the end of the board and leaned up against the wall. There was a small, circular window near my head that allowed me to look out below and see what they were up to. I heard light traces of a conversation, so I focused my hearing to the best of my ability. I was not thrilled with what I was hearing.

*Synyster’s POV*

We were riding on Huntington’s metro bus, the shuttle after the one that had just taken Joie and her little friends back to their house, presumably. The speed limit from here until the stop closest to her house was a measly 45 mph. I glanced over at Shadows and saw the impatience in his eyes. I’m pretty sure that a handful of people on this bus recognize us from the slightly skilled police sketches of us, but it’s hard to say whether they fear us because of that or because of our ‘look.’

“Is there even a bus stop near her house?” Zacky asked.

I thought back for a minute before answering, “Yeah there is one…but it’s still a couple blocks away from her actual house.”

Matt stood up suddenly and clicked his gun into place. “Don’t worry, boys, there will a stop there now,” he grinned walking toward the front of the bus.

The driver glanced up slightly while still keeping his eyes on the road. “Uh, sir you’re to remain seated until we have reached a stop,” he said, nervously.

“You know, that rule might apply to most people, but see, I’m not most people. I’ve gotta be somewhere now so would you mind kicking up the speed a little bit?”

“You’ll just have to be patient. Everyone on the bus has somewhere they need to be. And plus as a bus driver I must obey all traffic laws without –.”

“Maybe you didn’t hear me,” Matt growled, pulling the gun out from behind his back and shoving it up against the driver’s skull, earning tons of frightened gasps from the passengers who had witnessed the scene.

“Ahh, please don’t shoot! Alright, alright I’ll take you immediately to where you want to go. Name your location and speed,” he mumbled, clutching the large steering wheel tightly.

Matt grinned, “That’s what I like to hear. Ok, take us to 140A Palm Springs Dr. I believe that’s right near the next designated stop anyway, so it shouldn’t be too much of a challenge for ya. And do oh…let’s go with 65 down the road.”

The driver didn’t hesitate before picking up a great amount of speed and heading toward our dear friend Joie’s house.

The sun was almost completely set by now, and Joie’s street was illuminated by dimly lit lanterns. The bus pulled to a halt in front of her house and the driver wasted no time opening the doors and letting us out before speeding away himself. In all honesty, I’m surprised Matt and Jimmy didn’t just decide to have a mini massacre in there, because hell I would’ve gladly joined in. But, I guess we have more important matters at hand.

“This place looks deserted. Are you sure she’d be here?” Johnny asked, scanning the dark condo over.

“Where the fuck else would she be? She wouldn’t have had time to go anywhere else,” Matt said, annoyed at the disappointing sight of an empty house.

“They could just be hiding inside…” Zacky suggested.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” Jimmy grinned with that sadistic look in his eyes, “burn the place down and listen for their screams.”

We all laughed in agreement and grabbed some fire guns out from under our jackets. Now, a fire gun isn’t like a typical shooting gun that you may be familiar with. It’s about as long as your arm and uses containers of oxygen or gasoline to ignite flames. Our gang invented it ourselves, so that’s why it’s one of our favorite and most useful weapons.

Before we proceeded to burn the place down, Matt pulled me aside for a minute. “What’s up, dude?” I asked, confused as to why he was stalling the best part of it all.

“I’ve got this feeling that Joie is still going to be alive and well by the time we find her, wherever the hell she may be. And when we do find her, feel free to do whatever you want with her. But you’ve gotta keep up this love act of yours because it’s just too entertaining. Plus, she’ll just make things difficult if she doesn’t have something, or someone to cling to.”

I was a little surprised but what he said, seeing as I didn’t really expect him to say that. But I had no problem whatsoever with it. Using Joie for all she’s worth sounded like a good plan to me. I nodded in response and we returned to our positioning, aiming the fire guns at the one and a half story condo.

*Normal POV*

The fact that I was stuck up in a room with no sturdy floorboards and that was covered in white clouds of dust did not concern me as much as you would think it would. I was a bit distracted by the fact that they have finally arrived here and were aiming some sort of weird blaster gun at my condo. What could they expect to do with those? Well, I got my answer not too long after the question had popped in my head.

They shot fire out like flamethrowers! With only a few short firings from the guns, my condo had started to catch on fire. Smoke flew up through the open areas in Brittney’s ceiling up into where I was hiding. Obviously, there was no way I could just sit here and expect to be safe, but what else could I do? Eventually the foundation of the house will give out and then I’ll just go crashing down with everything else. Chances of surviving that are very slim.

Panicked, I looked out the steamed glass window and saw, to my relief, that they were no longer there. They had probably gone to the back to make sure the whole place caught fire. This was my only change to escape. The fall down from here wouldn’t be too bad, and plus there’s a strip of roofing below this window to help lighten the fall.

The window wasn’t meant to be used as a window in the sense that it wouldn’t open in any way – it was technically just a decoration. Obviously, I would have to break through it. But everything around me was nearly on fire, so I couldn’t use anything except myself. I pulled my charred apron off of my waist and wrapped a corner of it around my right fist before sending it flying through the window. Little glass shards fell all over the place, and luckily only a couple of them found their way into my skin.

The window itself, a tiny, circular decorative window big enough for me to stick my head through, was not meant to fit a 5’ 4,’’ 115 lb girl through it. There was no way I’d be able to fit through it, especially with the sharp pieces of broken glass that lined the border. Some of the flooring a few feet behind me was starting to heave and cave in. I was running out of time.

Smoke totally clouded my vision and filled my lungs, making me cough uncontrollably. I’d have to make more room for me to get out – and quick! I felt around on the ground below me and found a sledge hammer, oddly enough. Well, it is an attic after all, so I’m sure there were tons of odd things around here, but I wasn’t complaining.

I lifted up the heavy hammer and began swinging it into the unfinished wooden foundation below the window. Slowly, but surely I was beginning to make a bigger hole; but I wasn’t moving quite fast enough. The temperature in the room was getting increasingly hot and I swear it felt like I was in hell right about now.

I hacked away faster than ever before until a large enough hole was made. The hammer slipped out of my sweaty palms and onto the roofing below me. I didn’t hesitate any longer before crawling out of the hole and onto the roof. I’m almost there!

From my positioning, it appeared that no one was anywhere near the front of the house, which was perfect for me. But just to be sure, I leaned forward slightly to look over the edge of the roofing I was resting on. It wasn’t too bad of a fall down and no one was there. Damn, I’ve never had to deal with jumping off so many different roofs all in one day before. I’m practically fearless now.

As I was going to reposition myself at a higher altitude to land in a running jump, the shingles below me had given out and gotten weak due to the continuously growing intensity of the flames. A small scream of surprise came from my throat as I slid down the tilted roof with sharp corners of broken off shingles scraping me on my way down. I was so unprepared to go down onto the ground just yet. Fearing the worst, I began to panic.

However, before I could reach the ground, my sleeve got caught on the edge of the gutter, leaving me suspended midair, halfway between up and down. I tugged at the sleeve as best as I could, but it wouldn’t budge. Clearly the only way to get out of this would be to single handedly take off my chef uniform shirt and get away from here wearing only the tank top underneath and my scorched pants.

Using my free left hand, I quickly unbuttoned my shirt and got all of it off except for the sleeve of my right arm, which I just ripped off. But, in all the time I was wasting to work on this, I didn’t see the large flames eating away at the roof and coming straight toward me – well until I felt a burning sensation on my hand.

My squirming was enough to get me out of my caught shirt and sprawled out on the ground. I groaned as my back had direct contact with the stiff ground below me. Somehow I found myself in more pain than I had anticipated…my back was sore, my hand was burned, and my entire right arm had fallen asleep. But I’m pretty sure that those should be the last of my concerns right now.

Forcing myself to stand back up, I brushed some dirt off my pants and took one last quick look at my former house, almost feeling the urge to cry at the sight. What kind of monsters are they anyway? I mean, this was more Brittney and Kathy’s house than mine. I just happened to move in with them. And now because of me their home is gone…and so are all their possessions.

I held back whatever tears that wanted to fall, and turned around to start running away. Only, there was someone standing there in my way. I screamed out from pure shock and fell back down onto my ass. Matt had been standing behind me the whole time, and now was the one blocking my exit. He had a creepy smile on his face, which kind of freaked me out more than his usual demeanor.

“Well, well, well look who fell from the sky. Our little angel Joie,” he sneered.

I wanted so badly to continue to back away from him as he slowly walked toward me, but where could I go? If he was still here than obviously the others would be too. And the house behind me was on fire, so it wouldn’t be too smart to go back in there.

“So, how was it?” he asked.

“How was what?” I growled, feeling incredibly angry at myself for allowing myself to get caught.

He looked at me like I was stupid, “How was dying and then coming back to life?”

“It was great,” I smirked, “and the best part was…I got to go on a vacation from having to see your ugly face.”

His smile dropped and I could tell that he was about to lunge forward. And I was right. As soon as he did, I crawled under his legs and began running away, but was brought to a sudden stop when someone tugged on my hair and pulled me up against their rock hard chest while wrapping their tattooed arms around me.

“How could you do that to me, baby?” Brian asked from behind me. “You knew that I loved you.”

“You never…said it,” I said, struggling to free myself.

“I love you, Joie,” he whispered in my ear.

From the moment I met him, those were the words I imagined him saying to me at some point. “R-really?” I asked hopefully.

He laughed outright at me before saying, “In your dreams.”