"Our only choice is to search her," the guy who went by Party Poison said.

son's bright red hair whipped across his face in the wind. He wore a jacket as blue as the desert sky. Old, handmade bracelets adorned his tanned arms. The way him and his other gang members stared at me made me uncomfortable. Their eyes were as black as they were in the Battery City newspapers.

"But I'd feel weird searching a girl." Jet Star complained and crossed his arms. Despite the windy day, his crazy fro seemed to stay in one place.

Fun Ghoul laughed. "Fucking pansy."

I looked down at my ripped jeans and sun burnt forearms while they argued amongst themselves. I looked like an absolute savage. No wonder why they didn't feel comfortable giving me a ride. I licked my chapped lips, tasting new blood from a small wound I had opened with my teeth. I sucked on the sore spot and stared up cautiously at the Killjoys.

Jet Star caught my eye and asked, "Where you from, kid?"

I wasn't exactly sure how to respond, but in a hoarse voice I replied. "If I say I'm from the city, you'll kill me. I guess it doesn't matter now anyway. I'm kind of already dead."

Fun Ghoul took off his sunglasses, revealing vibrant green eyes irises rimmed by a forest green. They were eyes you could get lost in. Despite the desert, I could almost smell evergreen and hear the soft sounds of a deep woods. For a small millisecond, I felt like home.

"You're from the city. What part?" He asked, those green eyes full of curiosity.

"Uhh," I tried to find words. "I, uh, I'm from the outskirts."

His lips twitched up into a smile. "Something we have in common, pretty girl."

I could feel my cheeks turning ruby red, not noticeable from my burnt face. Why would he call me pretty? Was he being sarcastic? I ran over the two words pretty girl in my head over and over until they weren't even words anymore. They became merely letters strung together to make some form of compliment that had never been associated with me.

"So are we taking her with us or not? Obviously she's an escapee." Jet Star said, looking at Party Poison. He seemed to be the decision maker of the gang.

"I don't know if I trust her." Kobra Kid spoke up for the first time. "We don't have room for her anyway."

"Of course we have room for her." Ghoul argued. "We can't just leave her here to die. Then we'd be just as bad as the Dracs say we are. Even if it's just for a day or two, we need to take her in and help her out."

Poison sighed, "Fine. It's not permanent and if she pulls any shit, it will be Ghoul's fault. Ghoul is fully responsible for anything that happens to her."

Most of them began walking towards the car. Kobra, who obviously had an attitude problem, kept his arms crossed and trudged most of the way back. However, Ghoul stayed. He reached out a tattooed hand towards me. He smirked. I raised a shaking hand to grasp his and he pulled me up. I noticed how rough and calloused his hands were from the grit of the desert.

I expected him to walk ahead of me, but he kept the same pace as me. He made small talk and tried to figure out what part of the outskirts I was from. I just breathed out one-word answers like smoke. My voice began strong, but faded into a whisper. Standing next to Ghoul was making me do this, I realized. There was something about him that made me feel almost nervous.

Fun Ghoul opened the colorful car door for me, and I slid into an extremely hot Trans Am with cracked vinyl seats. Even worse, I was situated right in the middle. My anxiety flared as I got claustrophobic. The t-tops of the Trans Am were opened, but the sun still filled the car with never ending heat. It had to be over 100 degrees.

Poison took pedal to the medal way too seriously. My head hit the back of the red seat before I could get comfortable. I stared absent-mindedly out the windshield at the road reaching into forever. I had heard that this main road was nicknamed Route Guano. I had no idea why, because Guano was the remains and excrement of bats and other birds. And then it hit me. Draculoids. Vampire design on the masks. Vampires turn into bats. If I wasn't paranoid as fuck, I would have laughed my ass off.

After fifteen minutes, I could feel my eyelids growing heavy. Time after time again I tried to concentrate on the radio blasting, to keep them open, but they eventually shut. I fell asleep from exhaustion.

I awoke after we came to a stop in front of an abandoned inn. I had always thought the Fabulous Killjoys lived their lives in a gas station. I was about to bring it up, but Ghoul answered my question for me.

"Welcome to our home. Shitty on the outside, paradise on the inside. We have them all convinced that we live in a gas station because if we really told them where we lived, we'd be dead." Ghoul grinned at me and opened the door to the Trans Am.

The inn looked like a literal trash heap. The sign out front was missing a few letters, but it looked like at one point it had said, Michelle's Family Inn. It was covered in boards and graffiti. Poison pushed one of the boards aside to reveal a faded, retro looking door. He fumbled with a keychain containing more toys and bottle cap openers than keys. When he finally found the key he was looking for, he slid it in the rusty lock and turned it to the left. The door made a satisfying click, and we all stepped inside.

Poison ran his hand along a dark wall until he found a light switch. The lights flickered on revealing a large kitchen. The inn was obviously a very small one, but the Killjoys had restored it to the best of their abilities. It even had electricity! Despite the musty smell, the place was just as Ghoul said. Paradise.

Poison, Kobra, and Jet walked into a dining area leaving Ghoul and I alone.

"So. This is where we live. Uhm…it's small. It has an entertainment space with a bar which is the closest thing to a living room and we usually eat in the family dining area over there," Ghoul pointed to an old, wood table on the other side of the counter. "We never use the huge dining room for guests. There's a ballroom but it's not much of one. The freezer down the hall is used for other things. We don't have a room ready so you'll have to sleep in my bed for now. I hope you don't mind. If you do mind, you can take the couch but it's not recommended. Any questions?"

"This probably seems rude and I hate to ask but can I take a shower?" I asked, hoping they had some form of running water.

Ghoul shrugged. "I don't see why not. Don't use the hot water. We are trying to conserve. Oh wait I should probably show you my room now."

Ghoul led me down a long hallway outside of the guest dining room. He stopped at the end of the hall near a staircase that led to the second floor and opened a door with the room number 13.

"I wasn't expecting guests so it's a bit of a mess." He said as we stepped into the room.

It was the size of an average motel room with the bed against the back wall and a desk in the right corner. The desk was filled with tools and trinkets of all sorts. The wall above it was covered in plans and messy handwriting on stained paper. To the left were a closet door and a door to the tiny bathroom.

Ghoul went through his stuff and handed me a Grateful Dead t-shirt and jeans. I would have to figure out how to get my belt to keep the baggy pants on, but other than that I knew I could make do with what I had.

I took a cold shower, washing the dirt from every crevice in my body before stepping out and putting on my only bra and pair of underwear along with the clothes Ghoul had given me. I was beating myself up mentally for not bringing a change of clothes with me. It might have saved me trouble in the long run.

Sure enough, Ghoul was sitting on the bed outside waiting for me. He chuckled when I stepped out of the bathroom.

"What?" I asked and narrowed my eyes at him.

"The pants are huge on you. Oh well."

I walked barefoot with Ghoul into the kitchen where he offered me a variety of canned food that frightened me. He laughed at my reactions to them all.

"I'm not going to make you eat this. We don't really digest this. It's all lies." He said, still laughing. "I'll make you a peanut butter sandwich. The bread isn't real bread and the peanut butter isn't really peanut butter but it has the same amount of protein, I guess."

I sat at the small table in the corner, staring at the knots in the wood and thought about how they looked like faces. Ghoul made me jump when he slid a vintage plate in front of me with a sad 'peanut butter sandwich' on it. I was so hungry that it didn't matter if none of it was real. It tasted exactly the same.

"Slow down kid, you'll make yourself sick." Ghoul warned me as he watched me down a glass of water.

"It's been so long." I whispered.

"I'm sure it has." He replied and offered me another glass of water, which I accepted.

I took sips from the ice cold glass and watched the condensation build up on the outside. It reminded me of hot days outside my house from before the war where I sat with my grandmother and watched cars pass by. Before I could linger anymore, Ghoul interrupted my thoughts.

"So, tell me your story." He said.

I sighed and put the glass down on the table. "There isn't much of a story to tell."

"Hm. Well. If you tell me I'll convince Poison to let you stay." Ghoul smiled at me hopefully.

"Why is Poison in charge of everything?" I asked.

Ghoul pried farther. "Don't you have a story to tell?"

I shook my head. "Not really. It's just like everyone else's. Ran away."

"I don't believe that. But I guess you wouldn't want to tell your story to a complete stranger." He said and got up from the table, taking my empty plate. "What's your name, by the way?"

"Ad-"

"I don't want to know your real name." Ghoul interrupted.

"I don't have another name." I said.

He thought for a second before saying, "You flew away from everything you knew to start over. Phoenix. Rising from the ashes."

"Phoenix." I tested the new name to see how it sounded.

"Welcome aboard, Phoenix."


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