Runaway Scars and The Getaway Mile

After some time of hanging out with the Killjoys I'd grown to expect one of two things when waking up. Either most of the guys would be wide awake and making the loudest possible racket in an attempt to wake the entire desert or with Party Poison lying next to me so I was rather surprised when I got neither and was instead woken by the stifling heat that was a result of falling asleep fully dressed in a place that only had the settings of, please make this stop hot and my toes are breaking off cold.

Not feeling bothered enough to really do anything to fix the heat problem I settled with sleepily reaching out to the zip on the bag I was lying in and pulling it down enough to flip the covers back, I wasn't ready to wake up yet and would more than enjoy getting another hours sleep in.

"Good morning." I was greeted my a strange, hollow voice that I didn't recognise and I slowly lifted my head from my arm to look up before shielding my eyes against the bright sun glaring sun that I had yet to adapt to.

Despite there being a very good chance I was still slightly tripping from the button thing I took from Psycho Mama I knew my eyes weren't bullshitting me when I registered a tall blue monstrosity leaning over me.

I had absolutely no idea what it was, some blue shaggy creature was the most I took in before screaming loud enough to wake up the entire camp and scrabbling attempt to grab my gun before the desert thing got me.

By the time it was reaching out I had my beamer in hand and was trying to get away from the sleeping bag which wasn't easy since every part of my body had woken up except for my legs which were full of pins and needles.

"Ghoul, Jet, Kobra!" I was calling out for the guys help, knowing I might not even bother with Party, I couldn't see him anywhere and he'd probably gone for a walk and one of those disgusting cigarette things.

I was struggling to click the safety off on my gun while squinting and adjusting to the morning when I felt arms close around my waist, holding me tightly and making me scream again, the group now waking up and almost fighting their sleeping bags to get out when they realised there was a threat in the campsite.

My eyes went wide and I froze when I heard a loud guffawing laugh, did the thing eat Party?

"Guys, run! It eats people!" I heard the same laughter again and the blue creature took an arm off me and reached up to it's head before pulling on the fur.

Is it shedding or something? Why did nobody ever mention the kind of things there are out here? I wouldn't be surprised to have a run in with a coyote or maybe even a wild dog but a mutant person thing? No, I wanted nothing to do with it.

It pulled harder on the fur, the head slowly slipping up and giving the impression it was going to come off. I honestly didn't know what to expect, a skull maybe or some semi mutinous face that would make me want to throw up, instead I got something better than that and slumped against the 'creature' in relief.

"You okay, doll?" Party asked, dropping the head beside him and wrapping his other arm around my waist to hold me up since I was recovering after a major freakout.

I'd thought I would have to fight for my life and the lives of the guys, including Girl but instead the monster I'd seen was just Party in a stupid helmet or whatever you want to call that thing. It wasn't a very nice trick for him to play but it was pretty obvious it was him at a closer glance, for example I'd been able to see some of his neck that still had paint staining the slightly tanned skin.

Then there was the all too familiar scar on his shoulder that could be seen from under his torn up shirt that was half sliding down his shoulder from how loosely it fitted. This is what happens when I react before thinking but when you live in a place like this that sort of mentality keeps you safe and alive.

"Party, don't ever do that to me again." I whispered, trying to calm down my heart that was going at a million miles and hour and feeling grateful I hadn't managed to get the safety on my blaster off, I could have ghosted him by accident.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, affectionately nuzzling his face on into my neck which made me push him away, I hadn't forgiven him yet and it was way too hot for him to be getting cuddly with me, I felt like I was suffocating, "Electric, I didn't scare you on purpose. I just found this old thing while walking around and I wanted to show it to you." Party picked the head up and held it out while the guys who had finished their inanimate object wrestling match walked over.

"Whoa, that is wicked." Jet said, talking the blue thing from Poison and turning it over, studying the object that nearly got Party ghosted.

"You know what that is, right?" Kobra asked me, gesturing to the helmetish thing and causing me to shake my head, if I knew what it was I wouldn't have freaked out when I woke up to it leaning over me.

"In the earlier days when BLI just started to get a real influence they came out with this thing called Mousekat. It's supposed to be some mixture between a cat and a mouse obviously but anyway it was a cartoon and it'd talk about the pills that'd make everything better. This must have belonged to that poor bastard who got lumped with the job of dressing up as the mascot." Jet explained, looking rather fascinated by the mascot head with the tube coming out its mouth, it only took a glance for me to know I wanted nothing to do with it, it creeped me the hell out and knowing it was made by BLI didn't help.

"What I find funniest is that Party would have stuck his head in without checking for desert rats or spiders first." Ghoul giggled and pulled his vest on before adding the holster near his ribs.

"Fun, you're the only one out of us who's scared of spiders and no, I didn't stick my head in without checking. Besides, it was sealed up in a box." Party took the head back and put it in the trunk of the car before the guys could get silly with it and undoubtedly break the thing that I assume he'd like to keep.

"Oh, I was thinking that since it's really hot...why don't we head down to Wolfblood Beach?" The group that'd been drifting off into their own thoughts immediately payed attention when they heard 'Wolfblood Beach', I'd never heard of it before but immediately made the more than reasonable decision that it was in fact, a beach.

"There's a beach out here?" I asked, I'd always thought the only pool-like collection of water I'd see would be a possible mirage.

"Yeah, this is the Cali area. There used to be beaches everywhere and a shitload of people who liked to be obnoxious bastards and take up more space than they needed." Kobra answered, he must have liked to visit the beaches before BLI took over.

I don't know if I ever went to the beach when I was younger and whether or not I'd be able to swim but it seemed like a good day to spend a morning and afternoon in cool water, it's not like we had much of an option with doing anything else anyway.

"So is it yea or nae?" Party checked and there was murmurs of agreement through the camp before the guys started moving around and packing everything away since it wouldn't be good to leave something we might need later.

It didn't take long for us (with everyone putting in effort) to pack up camp and be in car, traveling across The Zones to wherever the hell Wolfblood Beach was. The most I knew was that it couldn't be that far away because according to previous conversations some leaders of other Zones could get a bit territorial and Party had a habit of getting into 'intense negotiations' that would usually end with another couple of scars.

The most predicable thing to come from a more or less two hour long car trip with not much space was the awkward silence between the redheaded Killjoy and I that was caused by me having to sit on his lap. Of course the awkwardness may have been one sided since he didn't seem to have much of a problem but the fact I wasn't talking wouldn't have helped.

Jet Star and Bluejay did a good job of holding a steady conversation for the duration of the drive, mainly focusing on the comic they were reading together so I didn't have much of an idea with what was going on but by the time the car pulled to a stop near a crop of rocks near the edge of a cliff, I doubted I'd ever need to read the comic.

Once the car was Trans Am war parked we collected the basic essentials from the trunk, blankets, food and that was pretty much it, except for the tarp Kobra held in his arms for some reason unknown to me. I was handed a completely sealed plastic crate of food before I followed the guys to the side of the cliff, wondering why we were walking over there and not taking something like stairs instead. They're sorta crazy, you'd think they would build a secret way to get down but nope, there were no secrets in sight or in mention.

"So, how do we get down there?" I asked, stepping a little closer to the cliff and looking down, it was a sheer drop from where we were standing to the slightly red sand below and green and blue sea that sprawled out for miles like a giant blue blanket.

"It's actually a lot simpler than it looks," Poison muttered, leaning down and pulling his boots off along with his jacket and putting them on a blanket he'd laid out on the slightly brown tinged grass, "just do what I do." His jeans and shirt were added to the pile, along with his beamer and holster, leaving him in plain black underwear.

"What are you doing?" I said cautiously, wanting to know why he was half naked and slowly walking to the water side of the cliff.

Party turned around and grinned easily, a white smile with his small teeth, the slight points of his canines showing, "taking the easy way down."

Before I could ask what that meant he spun around and dived off the edge of the cliff that to me looked way too far from the water.

"Poison!" I yelled, running over to the edge and expecting to see him possibly dead from how hard he would have hit the sea, for a minute it seemed like that was what had happened before I saw his bright red head pop up from under the waves, his grin somehow wider.

"The water's fucking great!" He called up before dipping his head for a second time and swimming arm over arm to the shore while I stood on the cliff, trying to recover from the brief shock my brain had gone into.

As I stood there Ghoul and Jet jumped off, landing in the water with a huge splash that I wasn't sure came from one of them or the two jumping at the same time but once they surfaced they were laughing loudly. I took a couple of steps back and felt my mouth further fall open when Girl giggled and joined the guys in the water in her singlet and shorts, she's a kid and she's not freaked out by how high up she is, are you kidding me?

I turned to Kobra who was the last one up here and was undressing so he wouldn't get his clothes ruined or at the very least, soaked, "h-how am I supposed to get down there?" I stuttered, terrified that I would be expected to do the same as the group.

"Take your clothes off, add 'em to the pile, go back to the edge and jump in the water." He replied, crudely animating the whole sequence with his fingers before gesturing for me to ditch my jacket that was too hot to wear but I didn't want to allow it to join the clothes heap since I was afraid they'd assume I was going to jump.

"I can't swim." I crossed my arms nervously and scuffed the ground.

"You can't swim or is it that you don't want to try taking a dive?" He raised an eyebrow, having no trouble seeing how little I wanted to fling myself off a freaking cliff and into water when there was a good chance I can't swim and will drown.

"Both but the second one is mainly inspired by the first."

"Don't be a sissy. You haven't even been around here for that long and I saw you take out an Exterminator without a second thought." Kobra took the brief moment of me uncrossing my arms in my uncertainty and tugged my jacket off, throwing it onto the heap then looking at me expectantly as if I were now supposed to get undressed by myself.

"Fine," I growled, making the quick choice that if I died I'd come back and haunt Kobra specifically as I took my shoes, shorts, tights and top layer shirt off, "happy?" I was given a satisfied nod as he tied the corners of the blanket together and pushed it over the side of the cliff so it landed on the sand, the tarp and crate of food followed before I was grabbed by the wrist and pulled over to the ledge overlooking the water.

"I know you're not going to jump so..." The younger of the Killjoy brothers wrapped his arms around my shoulders and leant forward enough to unbalance us and make me reluctantly leave the safety of solid ground.

Of course I screamed at the top of my lungs, what else was I supposed to do?
There was a likely chance of me drowning or at the very least splatting like a bug on the hard looking surface of the water. In seconds I was fully submerged, Kobra had completely disappeared and I'd made the rather stupid mistake of thinking I was special enough to get away with taking a breath while my head was under.

I continued to paw at the water, hoping I'd see the sun again and is if by some miracle I felt an arm close around my waist, pulling me away from the dark murkiness that seemed to stretch on for miles.

"KOBRA! What the fuck man?! She could have fucking drowned!" Party yelled, sounding more pissed off than I'd ever heard him before which isn't saying much since the last time I heard him truly angry was at the night club with Revolver Kill.

"But you see, there's a lesson in that. She got pulled out of the water when she was drowning and you saved her, now she doesn't have to be afraid of going back in." Was Kobra's fucking stupid response that in no way gave him an exit from the trouble he should be in after pulling me off the cliff with him.

"Don't. Fucking. Care. Don't ever do that again!" Party noticed that I was struggling to prop myself on my elbows and put a hand on my back, sitting me up fully so I could cough out any of the water that'd made its way into my lungs although I think I drank more.

It'd taken me a good five minutes to feel like I'd gotten all the H20 out and by then my ribs were hurting from all the coughing that'd been done and I simply wanted nothing more than to lie down and go to sleep. I was too hot, I was soaking wet with gross reddish sand all over me and my hair felt like a tangled mess. I knew Sunshine had definitely thrown a brush into the trunk of the car but I was too bothered to look for it and use it.

Besides I was probably never gonna see the car again judging by how high up the cliff looks.

"Are you okay?" Party asked, looking at me from under his wet hair and keeping his hand on my back as I took my time to enjoy the luxury of air.

I took my time to respond, thinking mainly of the fact that I could have drowned because Kobra was too much of an asshole to stay in the water and make sure that I wasn't going to drown or injure myself out of panic.

"No, your brother's a jerk and I don't want to talk." I told him, sounding like a complete bitch before standing up and walking away, I'd almost died and was in a bad mood because of it, I should have probably told Party thank you for saving me but I could always do that later.

I didn't know my way around Wolfblood Beach, obviously considering the fact I've never been here before and on top of it all I was two bothered to look where I was going so there was just a lot of angry pacing down the red sanded beach. I wanted to kick things and shoot things and do a lot of violent stuff but unless I wanted to either kick/shoot a rock or the water there was nothing for me to take my temper out on.

I'm not sure how long I walked for but I finally reached what appeared to be the end off the beach. A high cliff that went into the surf signalled I wouldn't be going any further and I sighed loudly, then dropped down on a large rock that was part of a big crop of even more rocks.

After having nowhere left to go I didn't know what I was supposed to do next, I suppose I could walk back to where the Killjoys are but I really don't want to see Kobra's face right now because if I have to then he might very likely get punched in the face and I know Party wouldn't do a thing to stop me.

I sat forward and rested my elbows on my knees. Looking out at the ocean and finding it hard to believe that something so peaceful could kill me that easily. I wish I could remember whether or not I'm able to swim because currently, I'm not getting back in the water and no one could pay me to inflict myself with the deadly water ever again.

"Electric." I looked down the beach see Party jogging across the sand towards me, didn't he hear me when he said that I didn't want to talk and that his brother is a jerk?

"What do you want?" I sighed, knowing there would be no chance of getting left alone until I told him what he wanted to hear, I know that Party doesn't spend much time around human female Killjoys but he should get the idea that girls don't like talking to guys when they're in a bad mood.

"I just want to talk to you." He said, coming to a stop in front of me and sitting on his knees in the sand, I lowered my eyes to look at him and he smiled.

"You want to talk to me? Alright then. Your brother is an absolute idiot who almost got me packed up for the place in the sky and then believed I'd taken a lesson from it and then there's you. You scared the living fuck out of me this morning, I thought there was some fucking mutant thing that was going to ghost everyone at camp and I thought it'd eaten you! I've spent an entire day on edge and you're acting as if I should be fine!" I sounded on the verge of falling into a rant but managed to control myself as Party sat still and listened, occasionally nodding and successfully avoiding giving me the bored look I know I'd get from Ghoul if I tried to explain things to him.

"I know Kobra's an idiot, I've always thought he's an idiot. He was stupid when he was a little kid as well and I know this might sound like tough love but you're gonna have to get used to it because as long as you want to you'll be around as for a while and he can only get stupider. Then the mousekat thing, I've apologised. I didn't mean to scare you, I forget occasionally that you don't know everything about this time. You saw the guys reaction to it, I thought you'd act the same. It's not my fault you freaked the fuck out." I scowled at him, he'd gone straight from being nice and comforting to making himself sound like just as much of an asshole as his little brother.

"I freaked the fuck out? You were fucking laughing at me!" Without putting any thought into it I raised my hand to slap him since I'd learnt that I preferred direct violence when I was angry at someone and Party happened to be right here.

I was swinging my arm towards him when I felt his hand close around my wrist, stopping me from giving him the hard slap I thought he deserved at the time. I glared at the redhead when he stopped me from slapping him and tried to pull my hand away with no success, he was stronger than me and it was obvious.

"You don't want to hit me and you know it. You're angry at Kobra and you want to hit him but I'm closest and you were upset about earlier so why don't you put your hand down." Party spoke in a calm and level voice as he slowly loosed his grip on my wrist enough for me to take back control of my arm.

I stared at Poison for a couple of moments, I couldn't tell if I wanted to talk to him or make another attempt at a slap. He'd been right about the fact I was mainly angry at Kobra and was only trying to hit him because he's in front of me with his golden hazel eyes and wet hair...

"Party, if I were to do something, you wouldn't take it the wrong way would you?" I asked, looking at him as seriously as possible.

"Depends on what it is." Was his response and I looked at him for a little longer before moving forward off the rock I was sitting on and pressing my lips against his, my arms automatically slipping around his neck.

We fell to the ground, me on top and still kissing him which he didn't seem to object to since I felt his hands on my hips as I leant down and felt his tongue automatically press against mine the second our lips came back in contact.

"No, I don't see how I could take this the wrong way." He said rather sarcastically when I pulled away and took a couple of breaths so I wouldn't accidentally pass out.

"Don't think I've forgiven you." I told him before silencing anything he might say with my lips which instead of getting annoyed he responded to by sliding his hand up my back and grabbing a handful of my hair.

In my position of half straddling him I could feel my knees sink into the sand, this was much more comfortable than kissing on the hard desert ground that was hardly padded by the sleeping bags we lugged around.

Party tugged gently on my hair and I moaned loudly, surprising myself by how obscene the simple sound was. Kissing him felt a lot different this time, like we'd just been rehearsing the other times on this was the big show we'd been putting on, is this because I haven't kissed him for a while? Is this what happens?

Not knowing if what I was doing was right or not I put a hand on my small black shirt and grabbed the edge, attempting to pull it up and off when Poison interrupted me by grabbing my arm before I could do anything.

"Stop, you don't need to do that." He said in a serious voice that was incredibly uncharacteristic of his usual 'might as well do it, what's the worst thing that could happen' attitude that I'd grown so used to.

"Why not? I want you, you want me. This could work?" I was almost shocked by the words coming out of my mouth but now that I realised it they related perfectly to what I was doing and what I was feeling.

"Because it wasn't that long ago when you were telling me off for wanting to take advantage of you. You're suffering the aftereffects of what Psycho gave you. Meaning everything you're feeling right now is blown up, instead of being slightly lusty you're over the top horny and if I slept slept with you I'd be taking advantage so no, I'm not doing gonna do anything." Party had stopped touching me and was holding his hands up in an almost form of surrender, he wasn't planning to kiss me anymore while I was like this.

"Why? Don't you want me?"

"Oh I want you a lot, sugar. I want nothing more than to throw you down in the sound and make you scream my name for the next three hours," I'd started biting my lip while he was talking from the words, "but that's not gonna happen and you'll realise that you've almost made a mistake once you've cooled off so lets go back to the gang." Party pushed me off him and quickly stood up, retreating down the beach before I could do anything and I had to run to catch up with him.

"You'll regret not taking the opportunity I gave you." I singsonged, imagining it wouldn't be long before he was mentally cursing himself for not taking the chance he had to get in my pants that I'd probably never give him again.

"Considering the ass kicking you would have given me, that's unlikely."

Notes