Chapter 4

Mickey knew as soon as she woke up the next morning that the bruise around her eye was worse than she had imagined. The skin was still sensitive to the touch and it throbbed along with her pulse. Resting it on her scratchy, porous pillow probably didn't help matters. Whenever she blinked tears appeared in her eyes which had to trail down her face. Rubbing it away was not an option. Not if she wanted to risk getting sand or dirt or grit into the wound to make it worse.

So now she had to get up before the sun with an aching face, stiff, tense muscles, and a cloud looming over her head. She was in X-Ray's and Magnet's debt. Who knew what they would get her to do? They treated each other like friends but would look for any sort of benefit from friendships if they could get it. It was a dog-eat-dog world out there in the desert; she wasn't stupid enough not to believe that. Every man for himself and if she was going to survive however long she was going to be there she had to play by their rules.

Which was how she managed to get herself up before the others, put on her clothes (under her covers, she wasn't stupid enough to risk changing thinking that the boys were asleep), and begrudgingly head out to the Mess Hall to prepare breakfast for the rest of the camp.

She trudged up the stairs and flung open the door, rubbing the sleep out of the corner of her good eye. Her left eye had swollen to the point that half of her vision had been taken away but if she lifted her head she could see out of it. That's what she had to do while she tried to prepare breakfast that morning: toast and celery sticks with peanut butter. Not that great of a breakfast choice but it was better than tortillas and honey.

"Good morning," Eagle chirped as he walked into the kitchen, carrying many loaves of bread in his arms. "Ooh, maybe not so good," he mumbled when Mickey threw a glare his way. Well, as good of a glare as she could muster with her bum eye. He set the bread down and peered at her. "What happened to your eye?"

"I fought a rattlesnake, what do you think happened to it?" Mickey snapped, brandishing the knife that was in her hand to spread peanut butter on the celery.

"Whoa, okay, no need to wave that around," Eagle said, holding up his hands. Mickey grunted and spread another slab of peanut butter onto the piece of celery in her hand. "What happened?"

"Oh, nothing, I just got attacked by a psycho," Mickey replied. She blinked in surprise at how easy and willing her words came out of her mouth. Like she was talking to an old friend…

"Psycho in C-Tent attacked you?"

Mickey looked up at him and then slowly shook his head. "I don't know why I'm surprised that there's someone here named Psycho," she muttered, picking up another piece of celery. She paused to yawn, her left eye stinging from the added tears. She let it trail down her cheek and clear the darkened skin before wiping it away. "But no."

"Someone in your tent?" Eagle pressed. "Zigzag, right? He's crazy, you know. Always staring at that TV when there's nothing on it. Talks to his shovel sometimes. Don't cross him."

"Good to know," she grumbled. And it was. She didn't know those boys from Adam. For all she knew she was stuck in a tent with a bunch of serial killers. And Pendanski and Mr. Sir were fine with that. A lump formed in her throat, as if she had eaten a glob of peanut butter herself.

She was stuck in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of juvenile delinquent boys who were there for god knows what reason. Some of them could have killed people. Some of them could have seriously y injured others. Some could be drug pushers, for all she knew! They could easily kill her and hide her body and no one would be of the wiser. No one would even care, aside from her family.

Not even Alan.

She froze at the intruding thought. After getting beaten up by him she had drawn a line. She would be on one side and he would be on the other and their paths wouldn't cross and they wouldn't meet. He didn't want her in his life anymore, why would she? If he could throw their years of history out the door, she could too.

Who cares that they had twelve years of history between them?

She remembered the day they first met like it had happened yesterday. Her mother had taken her to day care while she went to her job as a cashier at the local grocery store. Her father had already left early for his job as a truck driver. He was going to be gone for about a week. She couldn't wait for him to take her to the park.

She toddled over to a bucket of blocks in the classroom and dumped them out. She sorted them by color and then began to create a castle. She had the outline of her base constructed when a four-year-old boy walked over and looked at her structure.

"What are you doing?" he asked, his head tilting in curiosity.

"Making a castle," she replied, picking up another block and stacking it atop of the steadily growing structure.

"Can I play?"

"No, you'll do it wrong."

He huffed. "No I won't. I can help. See?" Stubbornly, he picked up a block and set it on the stack that Mickey had constructed. It wobbled and swayed until gravity took ahold of it and knocked it over. "Oops," he muttered.

"See!" Mickey huffed. "I told you. You ruined it."

"I can fix it," he grumbled, reaching down to pick up another block.

"No!" she stomped her foot. "You ruined it!" Picking up a block hear her she drew back her arm and hit him over the head with it. "You ruined it!"

"Ow! Stop it!" the boy yelled, covering his head with his hands. He grabbed a block and started hitting her back. She then abandoned her block and reached up, grabbing onto his hair. He then started biting her arm.

The two screaming toddlers were quickly pulled apart and brought to the front room to sit on chairs to wait as their mothers were called. They were told, under no circumstances, could they leave their seats. The only exception was if it was an emergency. Mickey sat with her arms crossed ad her lower lip sticking out in a pout while the boy sat back, tapping the front of his shoes together.

"You ruined my castle," Mickey grumbled.

"It was an ax-see-dent," the boy replied. "You built it wrong."

"No! You messed it up!"

"You messed it up! It was stupid, anyway."

Mickey gasped. "It wasn't stupid! You're stupid!"

"You're stupid!"

"Mickey! Alan! That is not how we talk to each other around here," one daycare worker, Ms. Nelson, scolded them. She approached with a tray in each hand, both containing a box of juice, a sandwich cut into triangle halves and a fruit cup. "Now I want you two to sit here and eat your lunch while we wait to get in contacts with your moms."

The two kids balanced the trays on their laps and bit into their cheese sandwiches. They were quiet for a while as they ate until Alan finally spoke up. "Your name is Mickey?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied.

"That's a dumb name."

"No it's not. Alan's a dumb name!'

"My mommy named me after my daddy!"

"Well my mommy named me after the mouse! My name is better! Ha ha!"

Alan stuck his tongue out at her. "Nobody likes that dumb mouse," he said. "Power Rangers are better."

Mickey sat up straighter in her seat. "You like Power Rangers?" she asked.

"Yeah. I like the red one."

"Me too."

Their feud was quickly forgotten as they ranted and raved over their favorite power ranger and the monsters they fought. In fact the rest of their time at daycare consisted of them playing Power Rangers, Alan was the Red Ranger and Mickey was the Blue Ranger. Any time the two were in daycare they would immediately play but it was not always harmonious, they always had something to fight about be it someone not liking a rule or not liking the other's shirt or thinking that their idea for the game was dumb.

That evolved as the two grew up and began attending the same school. The more they argued the closer they became until there was no question about them being best friends. He was always over at her house after school to do homework and to play and he sought refuge there whenever he got into a fight with his mom.

Then their teen years came along and she found his arguments with his mother increasing as well as his bad behavior. He was rude and short-tempered and took to making fun of her shortcomings much more than she did before but she overlooked it because they were friends. She saw a side of Alan that no one else saw, one that made her want to hold him tight and help him along his way. He knew all her secrets and she his and nothing would ever change that. She was always there for him, getting him out of trouble and covering for him when the need arose. She was always there to help him out.

But the one time she needed the favor returned, the one time she needed him, he abandoned her.

And he was going on like she was in the wrong? It made her snort. It made her scoff. He had no reason to act like the victim, she did. But because she was new to the camp, because she was the one out of her element and stuck in his realm, she had to live in their mixed up reality that the camp provided.

It wasn't fair.

"It, ah, it wasn't Zigzag," Mickey spoke up after a long stretch of silence. "It was Squid."

"Hmm, can't say I don't believe that. The guy's a bit high strung if you ask me."

No kidding. Mickey hid the smirk that started to appear on her face. If he knew all the shit that Alan had gotten himself into over the years, the reason behind his trigger-happy way of dealing with things around the camp it'd all make sense.

"What'd you do?" Eagle continued.

"Stand up for myself," Mickey replied, pausing to lick peanut butter off her thumb.

"Wow. That was risky."

"He should have seen it coming. He knows he can't just walk all over me and not expect a fight."

Eagle stopped what he was doing. "Are we talking about the same Squid."

"Unfortunately," Mickey replied. She sighed and brushed her hair out of her face. "We're friends. Well…used to be. We stopped being friends before he came here so…"

"Ah. That must have been weird. Seeing him again."

"No," Mickey said, her voice hardening. "it's exactly what I expcted."