Helloooo, faithful readers. Here's the final chapter of Neon! Yes, I know it's short, but I don't care; I'm a bit too jazzed about actually finishing a story for once. Thanks to all of you, and I must apologize for not responding to most of your reviews. I've been a tad busy, as you may have inferred from my irregular update schedule.

Day Four

(or)

Opaque

I wake up on the floor between the beds. Raven's sitting on the bed above me, her legs crossed professionally and her back straight, as usual. She manages to acknowledge my newly gained consciousness with a haughty glance down the slope of her nose and a discreetly snooty sniff. I groan, feeling worse than I should after having spent the night on a tacky hotelroom floor. Or maybe…maybe this feeling of being ran over by a steamroller stems from the fact that the last thing I ate were those fries. That was two days ago. Maybe that's why my head hurts so badly when I sit up.

Raven slides off the bed and helps lift me up. I stagger, wincing at the pain in my head and the tightness in my stomach. She, of course, notices. "There's a continental breakfast here; I'll get you down there, and you had better eat something." She says, walking me to the door. I nod clumsily. At the last moment before she opens the door, she snaps the cuffs on my ankles, my hands, my neck. I groan and slump, but she elbows me in the side to keep me upright. It's a warning for me.

We go down the halls, past the place where the lady was last night. There aren't any stains left, no sign that she was ever there. Stuff like that makes me think, you know? Like, how many horrible things happen around us, and the authorities get it cleaned up before we see, so we don't see it, and we never know? It makes me feel really strange, makes me get pretty weird sometimes. I open my mouth to tell this to Raven as we pass the lady's scene, but she shakes her head before I can talk. She knows that I was about to spew something out; she doesn't want to talk. After that little crazy-time romp last night, I can imagine why, I guess. She doesn't strike me as the kind of person who does that sort of stuff. Comforts people, I mean.

In the lobby, true to her words, there is a continental breakfast. Raisin bread, yogurt, bagels, almost untouched. It must be pretty early. I glance out the window and see the sky is gray. I shiver and sit down.

Raven plops a bagel and a cup of orange juice in front of me and clicks my handcuffs off. "Eat." She instructs, then gets up to find something for herself.

I stare at the bagel and orange juice tiredly. It's my last day. We'll be at the prison before it gets dark, I bet. I should skip this, and try really hard to pass out so they have to take me to a hospital. But the thing is, I've gone longer than this before without food, in harsher environments. My brain might want to give up, but my body won't let it happen. I've trained myself too well. If I had skipped the fries, maybe, and if I had kept myself awake the entire trip. I could pass out with that.

I choke down a groan along with the bagel and juice, slowly letting myself realize how utterly screwed I am. I'm really being sent to prison. Not a police station holding cell, not a juvenile detention facility, not a hospital, but a serious prison. If I let them get me past the gates, the guards, the guns, then I won't come out. People like me…huh. We don't come out.

Not a half hour later and we're all bungled back into that stinking van. Buzz Cut's at the wheel, Mullet's grumbling profanity, Rib is chewing on a hangnail, the tattooed guard looks at the ceiling, and the wholly unremarkable guard taps his fingers against his cheek. Raven in her seat, ramrod straight, looking at me. I just feel miserable, or perhaps beyond miserable. I think I've gotten all the way to depressed by now. I mean…I just…God. You know what? I'm done; I've given up. They're broken me and I can't deal with this. Maybe later I'll get back up, but not now.

Nothing happens. Nobody talks. After a while, Mullet switches to the driver's seat. We take a gas and bathroom break. Raven and I stay in the van, and after a couple of minutes of her just staring at me, I curl up with my back against the wall and my head between my knees and give a desperate, dry sob. No tears now, though. Then the others get back, smelling like bland coffee and air freshener.

Soon enough, Mullet starts complaining of the snow. I look out the window: everything is white. The snow is coming down faster and faster, and Mullet's cursing speeds up with it. The guards back here shrug and roll their eyes, mildly annoyed with his foul mouth.

"Fuck's sake, man, for fuck's sake! God or something must fucking hate us or something, man. Fucking snow's everything, can't see a fucking thing. For fu—"

"Shut up! Just shut up." Buzz Cut sits up and shouts. His voice is high and tried, his hand curled on his armrest. "Jesus, would you just shut you mouth? Or at least say something intelligent?"

Mullet grumbles, huffing. "Whatever." He stares adamantly out the window, hands gripping the steering wheel with more force than is necessary. There's nothing to see out there, though. Just a bunch of white.

And that white doesn't matter to me until people start yelling and the van starts jumping all over the road. Things swirl around in front of me until Raven grabs me by the shoulders and falls off of her seat and on top of me, her hand on the back of my head. A moment, something smashes into my head, or, actually the back of her hand, and I can feel her slender little bones splintering. I still feel the impact on my head; it makes my ears ring. Then gravity goes all weird, or maybe it's the van rolling. Raven curls around me like a soft little shield, and I guess that's what makes it weird; that she's soft, I mean. I never expected her to feel this soft, or this vulnerable. I never expected her to whimper either when her hand is slammed again. Maybe she isn't all demon, and maybe she can feel. I cling to her and, I think, once or twice I say that I'm sorry.

We eventually stop moving, even though it's all done in under a minute. Nothing moves, and the passenger side window's broken so Buzz Cut's thin body is being covered in snow. I think I'm the only one conscious until Raven gives a wavering cough. I turn and look at her, her eyes barely open.

"Please," I start, "can you please get these off?" I hold up my cuffs. She doesn't move for a moment, then reaches her good hand forward, sending little pokers of her magic into almost invisible seams in the metal. They clank off, followed shortly by the ones around my neck and ankles.

I take the hand that cushioned my head and hold it. She just lets it dangle at the end of her wrist loosely, doesn't look at it. I slowly start tugging her short leather glove off, the kind that I'd like to steal. She squirms and tries not to groan but fails.

"I know it hurts," I whisper, holding her good hand tightly. Finally, I get the glove off and look at her hand without flinching. It's going to take a long time to heal, and if she doesn't get it looked at soon, it'll totally heal wrong. There're little shards of bone poking at her skin, and one even breaks it, on her palm. Enough for a little red trickle of blood. "Jeez." I say quietly. She says something very quietly, but I don't hear it. I lean in closer and kiss the back of her hand, hoping that it doesn't hurt too much. She doesn't move, so I guess its okay.

I hug her, curl up on her lap, my head on her chest. I can tell she's fading quickly; in a few moments she'll be unconscious. Her eyes are fluttering, her mouth the slightest bit open so I can see the tips of her rounded white teeth. Not fangs, though. I don't know why, but I always imagined she'd have sharp teeth.

"Listen: I'm really sorry about going kinda weird on you last night," I tell her. "That was kinda stupid of me, yeah? Then again, I've always been a little screwloose. I'm still sorry, though, even if I am crazy,"

"It's okay," she breathes. "I shouldn't have done what I did either. We're even,"

I mentally note that she doesn't apologize for what she did. I guess I won't raise that issue now; she'll be incoherent here in a few moments, I bet. Her head's dropping down, her body's relaxing. Before she goes, though, I need her to know something.

"I'll get us all home, okay?" I turn around a little and hold her face in my hands, making sure she looks at me. Her eyes are half-lidded and have trouble focusing on me.

"That's good. In case it actually works, I've gotta say thank you. So thank you, if it does work. And if it doesn't…well…"

Then a funny thing happens. And I'm not sure if it's ha-ha-funny or creepy-funny, but it's definitely funny. With her good hand, she tips my chin up and slurs a kiss across my mouth. The funny thing is that she kissed me, get it? I mean, I've thought about kissing her before, but it was mostly when we were fighting, either to distract her or to make her angrier. I never thought she'd do it first. Or at all.

"Huh. You must've hit your head pretty hard." I acknowledge. She nods blearily, and a few moments later slumps over, breathing steadily and deeply. I stay on her lap for a few moments more, sort of confused about her, sort of liking the warmth of somebody else, sort of wondering what I should do now.

I'm ashamed to say this, but my first reaction is to use the logic I picked up at my house with blue floors: leave them. I can't look out for number one any more, though. They could all die here if I left them. They all probably would, actually. I rock back from Raven, then straighten up and crack my back. Okay. Time to try anything.

I take the boots off of the unremarkable guard and shove my feet in them. They're too big, but they're better than the flimsy little slipper-esque prison shoes I have. I also take Raven's brass-buttoned peacoat and sling it on, feeling like a sailor. But I leave those gloves, even if every thieving instinct tells me to take them. There'll be plenty of time to swipe them later.

Reluctantly, I look to the back door. I'll have to go out there if I have any hope of not dying of hypothermia in a prison transport van. For compensation for not taking the gloves now, and luck (since I definitely need that), I give Raven a brief kiss before pushing out into the snow.

"Now we're even now, hun." I call over my shoulder before closing the doors. Then I trudge up the slight hill to the highway. I can't see any headlights through the snow, and it's even colder than I anticipated out here. I stand out there for a minute or so, hugging myself, the wind playing tug-of-war with my hair. Finally, off in the distance, two pinpricks of light bob into view. When they get closer, I let the hexes fly in an attempt to draw some attention. I haven't worked with them in a long time, over a week, I'd guess. And since those cuffs nullified my powers, there is a lot of excess energy pent up inside me. They turn out a bit more explosive than I had originally planned, but…well, the headlights slow a little, the driver probably curious about the pink lights. I wait until the car rolls up to me, then start waving my hands and yelling at the driver, praying that they'll be my Good Samaritan.

The car stops, and the driver's side window rolls down. "What the hell are you doing out here?" The driver, a man who looks to be in his late twenties, yells.

"I need help. I was in a car and then we flipped. There's six other people over there; please help me get them somewhere safe." I beg. The man hesitates a moment, then rolls up his window and opens his door.

I love it when people don't ask questions. He walks down the slope with me, helps me pry open the back doors. I immediately scoop Raven up into the peacoat, careful of her injured hand. She's shivering.

We get all the guards crammed into the man's car; it's a pretty small car. Mullet takes a while to get up the slope. He's like a baby whale. While lugging Buzz Cut up into the car, I make a discovery: he is actually just a very masculine she. This stops me for a minute, then I shrug. Rib reeks of cigarettes, even with the wind and snow all around us.

It doesn't take long to get everybody into the car. Finally, the man and I get in the front seats. I keep Raven on my lap, away from the five guards smashed into the back, not wanting anything more to happen to her hand.

We drive in silence for a while. "You're taking us to a hospital, or a clinic, or something, right?" I ask the man. He nods slightly. Not much of a talker. He's pale, and seems stressed. Maybe I should be pale and stressed too. That doesn't appeal to me much, though. I curl up in the seat instead, hold Raven a little tighter.

It takes a while, but we do get into a shadowy town. Nobody's out because of the snow. Soon enough, a small building comes into view with a glowing red cross on it. The hospital.

"Stop the car!" I yell.

"What? Why?" The man jumps at my voice.

"I said stop the car!" I yell at him again. He slams on the breaks, terrified. His eyes are wide and he won't stop chewing on his lip.

"What? What's going on?"

I slip out from under Raven, grab the back of the guy's head, and say "hey man, I'm really sorry about this," before smashing his forehead into the steering wheel. That takes him out pretty quick. Just unconscious, though. That's all I need to seem innocent.

I tumble him into the back seat along with the guards, prop Raven up the best I can on the passenger seat, and continue to the hospital, acting like nothing happened. I get to the roundabout in front of the main doors and hop out, rushing into the lobby.

When I get in, the clock on the walls says it's almost one in the morning. Damn. The van tipped around eleven o'clock. That's a lot of time.

"Hey, nurse lady!" I snag a passing woman in white uniform by her wrist. "I got a car full of people who need help. Come on, come one, hurry up."

The nurse, bless her, doesn't ask any questions either. Just calls for backup and hurries out into the snow. She's almost invisible against the white background. The questions come much later, after everybody's on a bed, hooked up to a heart monitor. They're all fine, with Raven's hand being the worst injury. A doctor pulls me aside and asks what exactly happened.

I tell him a tale of how I was driving along when I say the car ahead of me veer off the road. I got out, being a good person, and hauled them all out. The doctor says that I was very brave to do this. I shrug, looking over at Raven all wrapped up in her peacoat, her hand bandaged. I start edging towards the door.

"Hey, I'm not hero." I say, almost bitterly, still looking at Raven. The doctor looks a little puzzled at my tone. "Uh, sir? When she wakes up," I point to Raven, "tell her that I'm really sorry, okay? Tell her I can't help it."

Before he can get too suspicious, I slip out of the room, down the starched white hall, and back to the car. I close the door, turn the engine on, and look through the man's wallet—confiscated by yours truly—while the car warms up.

Well. What now? I got my wish; this whole shitstorm ended in a hospital, but I'm on the outside. I'm free. I can drive all the way back toCalifornianow, and nothing can stop me. I'll drive all day and night, I won't sleep until I cross the border intoJumpCity, until I'm home again.

But before that, I think I'll stop somewhere and get a snack.

Sitting in yet another McDonald's, picking over a stale bun and gray hamburger patty that I bought with the man's wallet, I start to orchestrate my next move. What now? I just got out of certain doom. I feel like I could track down the house with blue floors and burn that crypt to the ground. I could walk up to Titan's Tower and make myself a nice dinner from their fridge, waving at the surveillance cameras while I cook. Man, I could do anything. I mean, I could—actually, yeah, I can do anything.

Behind the wheel once more, I tap my fingers on the wheel, whistling about Cyrus Jones living forever. I make it sound happy. I could make a dirge sound happy right now, in fact. So what do I actually do?

Well, I'd best start with figuring out where my brothers have been shut away. Yeah. I think I'll start there.

Hope you all enjoyed!