Guess what, guys? Sing broke 200 handwritten pages this week! \o/ Jesus, I never imagined it would get this long! But as long as you keep reading and reviewing, I'll keep writing and posting ;D

Enjoy the chapter! Credit for all song lyrics go to the fabulous Linkin Park, although I wished I could write lyrics like them. Don't forget to R&R on your way out!

CHAPTER 15: SING TO ME ABOUT THE END OF THE WORLD

July 27, 2013

The Outskirts of Battery City, California

6:39 PM

"Terry, how far away did you say the city was?"

"I didn't say."

"Well then, how far away is it?"

"About five miles…"

Lacey stopped walking, aghast. "That does not qualify as 'walking distance'!"

Terry frowned. "I've walked it before…"

"Are you superhuman, then?" the girl asked.

"Nah, I'm just not a spoiled, sheltered rich girl," he smirked.

Lacey groaned. "Touché."

"Hey, it is your concert we're going to see," Terry reminded her. "And for the record, I don't really think that you're a spoiled, sheltered rich girl."

"Well, at least not anymore," she amended.

"Not anymore."

Lacey knew her old, pre-apocalyptic self never would have walked five miles to go see a concert in a run-down club, but living such a simple life with Terry had made her begin to appreciate the smaller things in life. It also made her miss rock music a whole fucking lot. She and a couple of her more, er, city friends used to go to gigs at Spaceland Rock Club every Friday night, and she'd seen many a good band there over the couple years she had gone. Her favorite was the ever-popular house band Xero, who, with a bit of luck, she and Terry would be going to see again that very night. The alt music station was good for something, after all. They'd not only continued blasting loud rock far after BL/ind had taken over the airwaves, but had also interviewed the members of Xero, played their demo tracks, and kept their listeners informed of the fact that the band was still alive after a long, fire-induced hiatus and would be playing at the old Spaceland Rock Club. The DJ had warned that the entire sound system had been destroyed, there were no seats or drinks, and the venue was 'sort of open air and not exactly all there.'

But frankly, Lacey didn't give a damn. It was live music for the first time in seven months. She was going to take whatever she could get, and she sure as hell wasn't going to complain about it.

"I look like I'm dressed to go to a Nirvana concert, not a Xero one," she giggled. As she usually did, the young girl wore the pair of jeans she had found (she couldn't consider it stealing, the store was technically empty) a few days after the apocalypse and one of Terry's oversized, button-up flannel shirts. In fact, all of her possessions besides the jeans and the saltwater-stained white nightgown and Doc Marten boots she had nearly drowned in had once belonged to Terry. She wore the jeans and Doc Martens every day. In contrast, the nightgown was usually tucked away in a far corner of the dresser drawer her guardian had allotted her. She didn't touch it in an effort to erase all her memories of that terrible night. It still occasionally gave her nightmares—gray, choking waves encompassing her world, cutting off the view of the ship as it burned and drowning the screams of dying people. Those same screams would ring in her ears long after she woke up, sometimes shrieking herself. Poor Terry had to put up with the constant screams in the night. He really was too good to her. If the situation was reversed, Lacey wasn't sure she could have dealt with it for that long without kicking herself out.

"Nobody's going to care what either of us looks like," Terry reminded her wisely. "I'm pretty sure everyone in the fucking city looks like a homeless person right now."

"That's cause most of them are," she answered, skipping ahead slightly. She flung her arms out to either side of her, raising them until they were parallel to the sky, and skipping in a small circle. The girl was too full of energy and excitement for the concert—she felt the need to release it somehow.

"Slow down, Lace," laughed Terry, who continued a few feet behind her at his plodding pace. "Didn't you say Xero wasn't going to be on until eight?"

The young girl nodded seriously. "But Terrrryyy, I'm excited!" she called out.

"I know you are," he chuckled. "That's all you've been saying all day."

Lacey grinned widely at her father figure, still skipping but backwards now. "Thanks for taking me, Ter."

"Anytime," he smiled.

To the young girl's relief, five miles wasn't nearly as long as it sounded. They walked the distance in under two hours, arriving at the club almost exactly at eight. It certainly didn't look on the outside as if there was a rock concert being hosted there that night, but then, there was nothing in the city that looked normal these days. With an excited grin, Lacey pushed open the door to the club.

Well, she could see what they meant on the radio by 'open-air venue.'

There was no roof or any kind of furniture left. The area in front of what had been the stage—now a roped-off pile of charred sticks that had been hastily patched into a makeshift performance area—was filled with maybe two hundred of Battery City's finest: every single one of the punks, Goths, emos, ravers, stoners, skaters, and any other type of general misfit left in the region was gathered there.

Lacey was finally back where she belonged.

"Terry!" she squealed. "Look, look!"

"Do you always get this hyper at concerts?" he laughed. "Look, Lace, I'll be back here. You go have fun."

"Are you sure?" she asked, suddenly uneasy.

"Mosh pits aren't really my thing," the older, dreadlocked man explained. "But you go on."

She nodded seriously. "I'll find you when it's over."

"I'll be right here waiting," he promised. He watched, amused, as the young girl practically bounced off and was soon enveloped by the crowd. She looked perfectly at home. He inherently understood that this was her environment, the loud music and tight-packed crowd. The club didn't look completely club-ish at the time—he suspected that the lack of a ceiling and the light pouring in had something to do with it—but all the same, she was finally back in her element. Whatever made her happy would make him happy, too.

Lacey, meanwhile, was fitting straight in with the crowd. She even recognized a couple of the regulars from the nights she'd spent there so long ago. The roar of the crowd and the crushing atmosphere was something she had desperately missed, even if she didn't realize it till now. She knew the crazy amped-up feeling would increase tenfold once the band actually took to the stage, and she positively could not wait.

The club went dark suddenly, each light completely extinguished so that the only light was the fading rays pouring in through the place where the ceiling should have been. Lacey let out a loud cheer as the crowd's excitement ramped off the scale.

"Ladies and gentlemen," a disembodied voice echoed through the ceiling-less club. The crowd roared. "For the first time in six months, finally returning to Spaceland Rock Club…please put your hands together for XERO!"

A loud guitar chord pierced the air as a curly-haired man stepped on stage, followed by a redhead and a brunette. Two Asian men brought up the rear, one stopping behind a pair of turntables and the other going all the way up to the front of the stage and grabbing the microphone. He swung his red guitar around to hold it in both hands and smirked at the ravenous crowd.

"Hello, Battery City!" he screamed into the dead mic. But it didn't matter that the amplifier didn't work properly, because his voice rang out over the shouts as clear as day.

The band launched straight into a familiar hit of theirs as the Asian man yelled "Forfeit the game before somebody else takes you out of the game and puts your name to shame!"

The crowd shouted back "Cover up your face, you can't run the race, the pace is too fast, you just won't last!" Lacey screamed the words along with them, pleasantly surprised to realize she had managed to remember them from so long ago.

"That's right!" the man roared into the microphone. The crowd's energy went off the charts as they jumped and fist-pumped to the drummer's heavy-handed beat. The young girl felt herself buffeted on all sides by the throng of moving people, but she loved every second of it. Pain and discomfort was nothing compared to the sensation of being back in a room filled with good music, and moshing was all part of the experience.

Xero finished up their first song quickly and launched straight into the next without a break, the drummer a flailing mass of arms and the guitarist's and bassist's fingers flying over the fret boards so fast that they blurred and the DJ's expression of fierce concentration as he spun and mixed discs nearly painful-looking. The attractive singer threw his heart into every word, snarling and shouting and melodizing as the song called for. But as they played, each band member wore an impossibly huge smile on their face, as if they were enjoying their performance every bit as much as the crowd did.

"You feeling alright out there?" the singer roared after their second song. Judging by the crowd's reactions—a mix of cheers, whistles, hoots and a yell of 'Marry me, Mike!'—they agreed with this statement.

"Cause I'm feeling fucking great!" he continued. "You don't know how good it feels to finally be back!" The drummer backed up his words with a cymbal crash.

"This next one's called With You," Mike informed the crowd as the Asian DJ began to scratch a funky beat on the turntable. Lacey recognized this one instantly, too—another old favorite.

The songs began to meld together into one frenetic blur of music and movement interspersed with Mike's short banter with the crowd in between. He introduced the rest of the band, too, and even briefly explained how they'd come back to Battery City before continuing, "And let me tell you, we're not very fucking impressed with Better Living Industries!"

Lacey screamed her approval at the statement. Maybe the world wasn't as blind as she'd initially thought!

"I don't know about you, but I sure as hell don't trust them!" Mike yelled. "And I wrote this song for our lovely new government and, well, the guys think it's pretty good. This is No More Sorrow!"

The guitarist launched into an echoing, haunting riff, and the drummer pounded a beat a few seconds later. Mike held his hands over his head, clapping in time to the beat and signaling to the crowd to do so too.

"Let me see those hands!" he screamed as the entire band came in with a heavy sounding riff. After nearly a minute of angry introduction, he growled into the microphone, "Are you lost in your lies? Do you tell yourself I don't realize your crusade's a disguise?"

These lyrics! Lacey thought. They were vivid and angry and purely anti-BL/ind—and the crowd loved it. Xero must really, really despise the government to write something like that, she mused as Mike spit out "No, no more sorrow!"

The crowd shrieked in approval of the message as a catchy, furious chorus blasted through the air. It repeated, and Mike began to chant "Thieves and hypocrites!" over and over. The fans soon caught on, echoing him. They began to clap again at his command.

"If you hate BL/ind, sing this with me!" he screamed, before launching into "No, no more sorrow, I've paid for your mistakes!"

Lacey screamed the lyrics as best she could at the top of her lungs, jumping up and down on the beat with the crowd. The powerful lyrics blasted through the club, nearly knocking her off her feet with the strong, angry reverberations.

And then, as the song ended with one prolonged, heavy scream on behalf of the Asian rapper, she really did feel the ground fall out from under her feet.

"Shit!" she gasped, feeling herself tumble to her right side as the person on her left crashed into her, knocking her aside. She waited for the impact of the hard floor or at least falling into another angry fan, but instead, a hand reached out and steadied her before she could topple completely.

"You okay?" she heard someone ask and she found herself looking into a pair of concerned hazel-brown eyes. He watched her, concerned and confused, to see why she didn't answer. "Are you hurt?"

But Lacey had clammed up out of shock and excitement, because she recognized that face.

"I know you," she said slowly.

"Er—really?" he asked, still confused. "Did we go to school together? You're not Laura, are you? Cause fuck, have you changed…" He glanced behind him at what she guessed was a friend, but the other was half-hidden by the crowd.

She shook her head. "I just recognize—Hawthorne Towers—protest—you were on TV…"

"Oh, right!" He smirked. "You remembered me?"

"It's not every day you see someone in this city with the same views as you in terms of the shitty government."

The boy behind the one she recognized suddenly glanced around to look at her when she mentioned that. He assessed her curiously. "You don't like BL/ind?"

"I hate them," she clarified. "Never trusted them before, but now it's just out of hand…"

He grinned deviously. Damn, but he's attractive, Lacey thought, unable to control her mental impulses as she smiled back.

"Gerard Way," he said, sticking out his hand. "Killjoy."

"Lacey Mosley," she answered. She took his hand. It was warm and calloused, and his grip was comfortable but strong. It sent shivers flying up her arm. "What's a Killjoy?"

"We're rebels," he smirked.

Lacey was intrigued, and she knew he knew it. "Continue," she said, looking up at him.

He shook his head. "I can't, not too much and not here. It's dangerous for us. But—"

But Gerard's words were cut off by Mike yelling, "All right guys, we're gonna slow it down a bit. Feel free to dance."

The Asian made his way over to a keyboard, playing a quiet, beautiful riff as discs scratched. Around Lacey and Gerard (the shorter boy, the one from the TV, had wandered off) couples began to dance, swaying to the beat.

"Is that really what he meant by 'dance?'" Lacey muttered as he began to sing: "This is my December, this is my time of the year…"

"I'm betting no," Gerard laughed. Lacey found herself giggling along with him. There was something about his personality…he was charismatic, exciting, electrifying. A born leader.

"Dance with me, Lacey," he offered spontaneously.

"If I do, will you tell me more about these Killjoys?" she teased.

He threw his head back and laughed, a full, beautiful sound. "Maybe I will."

She rolled her eyes at the ambiguous statement. "Are you always this obnoxious?" she asked.

"I've heard it's attractive," he winked.

"Well, Gerard," she stated, slipping her arms around his shoulders. "It's really not."

"But you're still dancing with me," he smirked. His strong hands landed on either side of her waist.

"Don't push it," Lacey warned. "Now tell me about these Killjoys."

Gerard's face lit up in genuine excitement at the mention. "I can't give too many details here for security purposes—technically, I'm supposed to check if you're a BL/ind agent first…"

"Do I look like a BL/ind agent?" she asked rhetorically as they began to sway.

"Which is why I think it'll be fine to tell you some of it," he explained. In the background, the band continued with the somber song.

Gerard threw a cautionary glance around the club before leaning closer so that his forehead almost touched Lacey's. He lowered his voice to a murmur before beginning.

"The Killjoys are a band of anti-Better Living Industries rebels who live in the Mojave Desert. Frank and I—" he jerked his thumb towards the other boy Lacey had met, who was standing against a side wall, watching them—"joined up a month ago with a couple of our other friends. There are seven of us, and we go by code names—I can't tell you mine, but it doesn't really matter. We run a radio station, frequency 104.1 FM, and we broadcast reports every eight hours during the day. And we're recruiting. That's why I'm here."

Lacey shook her head, trying to digest all the new information. "Rebels. In the desert."

"Yeah, it was hard for me to take in at first, too," he laughed. "But that's basically it."

"And you're recruiting."

"Hopefully, yes."

"And that's why you're telling me all this? You want me to join up?"

Gerard smiled down at her, warm brown eyes sparkling. "Well, if you don't like BL/ind…"

She let out a breath of air heavily. He was persuasive, sure, and she hated the government with all of her heart. But she wasn't going to give up her safety for something she knew nothing about.

"Not yet," she told Gerard, and waited to gauge his reaction. He didn't look disappointed or disturbed at all. In fact, it seemed like he'd been hoping for that answer.

"I didn't expect you to join up straight away," he told her. "That would've been stupid of you. But do you have a radio?"

She nodded her assent, even as she realized the song was ending. Gerard still didn't remove his hands from her waist.

"Good. Then do me a favor when you get home, Lacey. Check station 104.1 tomorrow at twelve. Just listen. See if you agree. And even if I never see you again, even if you never hear another word about the Killjoys…" His grip tightened on her waist, but not uncomfortably so. The smile dropped off his face and he stared at her seriously.

"Never forget BL/ind is evil," he told her. "Never stop protesting. Don't fall under their spell. Promise?"

"Promise," she breathed.

He released her abruptly, leaving two warm, tingling spots on either side of her torso. "It was great meeting ya," he said.

"You too, Gerard," she smiled. "Maybe I'll see you around."

"Maybe you will," he answered cryptically. "Take care of yourself, Lacey."

As Xero launched into what they announced would be their last song of the night, Lacey watched Gerard's figure recede into the crowd, where it was slowly enveloped by moving bodies. He turned to look back at her once before he disappeared from sight.

Killjoys.

"Station 104.1," she whispered to herself, determined to remember the number. Twelve o'clock tomorrow, and she'd check on Gerard and his friends—and hopefully find out more about their secretive organization.

Yet somehow, she could shake the suspicion that it was something stronger than curiosity driving her to think of the black-haired Killjoy.