Ah! Another chapter! I promise I'll get the Killjoys in soon. But not yet. We still have a plot to develop. I'm torn about whether I'm going to include the little girl in this. I mean, on one hand, she's adorable and awesome, but I don't know if she'll add to the plot, or if she'll just be too much, you know? Let me know your opinion.
BTW- this is how Bunny looks as I imagine her, I tried to fix the links:
.com/cgi/profile?id=2073875
Enjoy, my lovelies…
She winced as she tried to pick up her right arm and put it on her lap. Show Pony rolled his eyes. Bunny was pretty sure Show Pony was no more competent at fixing blast wounds then she was, but she hadn't been conscious enough to argue with him at the time. She had been sitting cross-legged on a grimy cot in the corner of the room ever since she had woken up. Show Pony had apparently found her unconscious on the ground near the smoking bodies of Doll Face and A-Bomb, and dragged her back to Dr. D's shack. For Bunny, it had just been a hazy cloud of panic. She woke up to find sunlight filtering through the cracks in the boards that made up the walls. Her arm burned, and she had briefly wondered why, and then it all hit her.
Doll Face.
A-Bomb.
And him…
Panic again. Crying was rare for Bunny, but something inside her had broken, and tears fell thick and fast onto her dirty jeans. Dr. Death Defying had never been one to deal with crap like that, so he left sensitive Show Pony to fix her up.
But all that was hours ago.
"How much left on the song?" Dr. Death Defying called out from the other room.
"'Bout twenty-five seconds," Show Pony said, checking the clock on the outdated computer sitting on the dusty desk. "You know, I gotta bounce, Dr. D. Something's brewing in Zone 2, and you know how it is after dark." Bunny kind of felt bad that Show Pony had been here for the past couple of hours paying attention to her instead of checking out the Zones like he should have been, but there was only so much she could take of the gossipy, flamboyant man in tights, and she was reaching her limit.
Dr. D rolled into the room on and tapped a few keys on the keyboard. The song was almost over. He pulled his microphone close and started to speak after the guitars faded out.
"This is Dr. Death Defying, broadcasting loud and proud to the gunslingers and rebel rockers of the Zones. I've got some bad news to tell, another Killjoy reported missing, the name's Neon Avenger, Zone 2. Usually BL/ind likes to leave the bodies for us to find, so we don't know what this means. Keep an eye on the horizon, because it looks like a storm, and keep kicking, tumbleweeds, the pigs are coming for us. Up next is The Black Spacesuits with 'Simultaneous Combustion'."
Dr. D had broadcasted the notice of Doll Face and A-Bomb's deaths a couple of hours ago. She had tried not to listen, but it was unavoidable, seeing as she was lying three feet away. His words only enforced what had been beating down on her mind since it happened. Bunny knew some people that couldn't accept the deaths of friends and family; somehow it didn't seem real to them or they couldn't believe it. They said they kept thinking that the person who died was maybe just going to walk into the room one day, like they had only been out for a drive or something. That wasn't a problem for Bunny. Doll Face's dying scream was ingrained in her memory, playing over and over when she closed her eyes. It was the realest thing in the world right now. And she knew it was all her fault.
Dr. D set down the mic once the song started. He turned to Show Pony, who was lacing up his skates.
"If you're going that far in, keep your eyes peeled for any news on her." He jerked his thumb towards Bunny. She hated when people talked about her like she wasn't sitting three feet away. She scowled and picked at her nails.
"Like what?" Show Pony asked, raising his eyebrows.
"I've been hackin' the BL/ind transmissions… they're not coming in too clear, but they've mentioned the attack a lot. They really seemed to need confirmation that she was dead."
Show Pony looked at her. Bunny stared back.
"Did something happen?"
"I don't want to talk about it." Her throat was getting tight. That drac… no, she was wrong; she didn't see him correctly, how would she know what he still looks like? It had been a while since they had last… that wasn't him. Bunny kept telling herself that.
"Something we should know?" Dr. D asked gruffly.
"Stop talking to me like a child," she snapped. "My sister and my brother-in-law just got slaughtered right in front of me. That's what happened."
"You're not right in the head. PTSD or something. Dr. D, keep her down. She's not going anywhere, she'll probably freeze up or bolt if she runs into anything right now," said Show Pony. He ducked between the boards of the wall and skated away. Not right in the head, keep her down, she'll freeze up or bolt, Show Pony had said. Bunny scowled again. They thought that she was some sort of unstable coward.
Coward. The word tasted like battery acid in her mouth.
She had always been the strong one. The rock. For Doll Face, when their parents were killed. For A-Bomb, when his sister went missing. Why was she breaking down like this? It scared her to think that she was changing so quickly into someone she never wanted to be.
"I'm fine," she said. She didn't know if she was assuring Dr. D or herself. That was one thing she knew she was good at- believing lies she told herself. Bunny lie down on the cot.
She was fine.
She was fine.
She was fine.
She kept repeating it until she forced herself to fall asleep.
Bunny woke up sweaty and shaken from a nightmare. She looked around. It was darker than when she had fallen asleep, and the few lonely light bulbs in the shack glowed dimly. The clock on the computer read 5:30 A.M. It was morning, then? Where was Dr. D?
Soft voices were having grave discussion outside. Bunny got up, moving her arm gingerly, and stepped outside. Show Pony had a rolled up piece of paper under his arm. He glanced up from Dr. D, and noticed Bunny standing there. Dr. D grunted and turned his rusty wheelchair to face her.
"What? Is this about me?"
Show Pony unrolled the poster. Her own face in black and white, slashed with a red X. The eyes were covered by black bar with neat white lettering.
"Exterminate," Bunny whispered, reading the words. "How? I thought they think I'm dead?"
"Apparently, they had someone go back and check, sweetheart," Show Pony said. "But you're not, and they really want you to be."
"They want all of us dead. Why do I get my own poster?" Bunny knew only the most dangerous killjoys' faces were plastered onto BL/ind posters and warnings. The ones who'd been caught before. She looked closer at her picture. It was certainly not recent- in fact, Bunny remembered it as her last school photo. Senior year of high school. She realized BL/ind must be serious if they would go to the trouble to dig this up. Did it have something to do with… him? Bunny forced that thought out of her head.
Show Pony turned around and squinted at the horizon. The sunrise had just started to peek above the rocky terrain, making an ironically beautiful bloody-looking sky. He swore loudly. Bunny turned to look too.
Headlights.
An exterminator car.
"Oh, God…" she whispered, not able to form words.
Not. Good.
