Chapter Text
Ghoul didn't like working with others.
Desert rats were a pain. They always needed convincing stealth wasn't cowardly, that running straight at a pack of Dracs didn't count as a plan, that death didn't mean shit for any revolution and, yeah, they should be kicking dust whenever things went South. Worse still were the ones who'd tried to talk tales, nab a story from one of the last killjoys with those prying fucking questions, sitting there all fresh faced and shiny as if Ghoul'd stay by a campfire for anything more than to stave off frostbite.
And then there were the ones that didn't make it. Always some luckless bastard and, sure, sometimes they deserved it, but it didn't make much difference. They all fell the same. All limp and wide-eyed, and so much fucking red.
So Ghoul didn't work with others. Not unless there was good reason.
It wasn’t like he was losing it. He knew how zone runners talked on a good day, let alone the ones who’d barely made it back from a firefight. He didn’t put much stock in their claims of new gen Dracs, faster, stronger and near blast-proof too; he figured it was all about image, kids trying to seem tough after getting their arses handed to them. The story always changed and Dr D couldn’t find anyone trustworthy spouting that bullshit – neither Jet from last he’d heard – but when the radio came in that some crew was in a clap, barely got out and demanded anyone listening to take this seriously, that they got the proof if anyone wanted, well, Ghoul happened to be having a slow day. The decades old fertiliser Cola’d found him, it wasn’t playing ball and he’d tried just about all he could think of to get any of it demolition worthy, but the damn junk wouldn’t spark.
So, he didn’t switch frequencies straight off. And when the kids said they were recovering in Zone 3, well, that was barely a supply from him, and he’d only be gnawing at the walls and his nails as it was. He figured he’d take the break.
But that was before they’d taken him 5 miles out the way, to some dried up gas station of a hideout, to whatever they swore was worth his time. He could only hope they were right; they seemed to too, so clearly his name still held a bit of weight, what with them all skittish and giving him space, nervous of causing some imagined slight to Fun Ghoul. Or at least all of them except Ellice. Their leader – still a contentious topic apparently, but how he certainly fancied himself – tried his hardest to seem indifferent to the killjoy, as if Ghoul was nothing more than an inconvenience, and definitely not someone he was trying so desperately to emulate.
That was fine. Refreshing actually. It was nice to not be revered for what was pretty much just someone else’s sacrifice.
"Ain’t got the masks no more." One of them said, a girl sporting a black eye and a limp. "Sneaky bastards too, quiet and come on out of nowhere.”
“Still, get them in the head enough and they go down like any old Drac." The other piped up. She grinned with a mouth full of gums and messed up teeth; either she'd gotten out to the zones pretty young or she'd been in a good too many brawls down at Dr D's.
There weren’t that many of them; their crew – the Wire Rats, as Ellice pointed out – the ones that were still vertical were resting, keeping burns out the sun, sealing wounds with bandages. It was a sorry looking camp: no fires, no music and far too many masks, but Ellice didn’t stick around, hastily guiding him around the back to some garages a little ways away, along with those two mostly-mobile kids.
"So… this all just what, word of mouth?” Ghoul asked, rubbing the sand out his eyes and trying to get them to widen.
"Wouldn't bring you out here for nothing, old man." Ellice said.
Ghoul didn't even fight him on that; maybe he really was getting old. He hadn’t any rage left in him, least not ‘til Ellice swung up the garage door and a white shirt flashed in the shadow of the sun.
It tremored and twitched and rolled its head up to stare. From the mouth down it was filthy, all brown and dried rust. Eyes open, a glassy reflection of fluorescent lights, the singe of laser burn, blood dripping down white panelled walls, spray on the glass, spray and that awful warmth and the twitching of red hair as Korse crushed in their throat as if there was any chance, any hope that they hadn’t yet–
The blood was dry. Ghoul was in the desert and this blood was already dry.
Ellice, beside him, gave him a playful slap on the back. The scowl Ghoul was brewing, it fell under Ellice’s gaze, under that concern hidden deep within it. Still he hovered until Ghoul gave the briefest flicker of a nod; then he was back to his twattish self, diving under the garage door and near dancing about the Drac. Ghoul’s cheeks burned, would’ve preferred another dig or jab to whatever that was; desert rats could be such nosy bastards, always thought they’d got people all figured out.
And as Ghoul stepped through the threshold, loosening his fists as much as they seemed to be able to, the stale heat and iron caught in his throat. Focus on the facts. White suit. Buzzed black hair. Not a ‘Crow. But no mask, they were right about that.
A sharp clang, the Drac-thing lurched half to its feet. It wrenched on its cuffs, against that loop bolted to the floor that the chain ran between. And as it swung and strained and cursed and spat, Ghoul noticed the spray painted circle it never quite reached and was reminded of the stations in Batt City – for your own safety, please stand behind the yellow line.
It split a grin. Hissed and spat. And on a voice rusted and weak, somehow, it spoke.
“Dead. You’re all dead.”
And as it threw back its head, with some kind of joy no Drac should've been capable of, it screamed.
Like a siren. Like a steel trap shut.
Dead radio, the half cry of a lover. Like murder and madness, laughter and bleach.
Ghoul’s palms were pressed against his ears. It took him a moment to notice the Drac had stopped, and longer still to ease his hands back down. The walls were still ringing. Like a blast set too early, too close. He counted out his breath silently, the way Party had done, and forced his lungs to fall back to rhythm.
"Yeah, yeah, you get used to it.” Ellice said, waved it off.
The other kids seemed to disagree, but they each gathered around once the Drac-thing for sure had shut up.
"The hell is that?" Ghoul asked.
"Fuck if I know, but we caught one.” Ellice scraped bleach-frizzed hair out his face and swung a steel toe at the thing’s ribs.
"Got a couple tricks, don’t ya?" The kid with the fewest teeth said and yanked up the Drac's chin.
It was badly wounded, breathing staggered with what must’ve been several broken ribs, but it still thrashed away from her. It drew in another breath and knocked back its head to scream.
The knife was down its throat before it could buck Ellice off. A struggle and a flash, and out came most of a tongue and a tooth. The thing started to make choking noises, but Ellice dragged its head and let that bright red spill out instead of down.
Because it was always red, wasn’t it? And BL could have swapped it out for blue or black, hell, grey was even in their colour palette but, no, always that fucking red. And as with anything that bled or fell or grew cold by his side, it was always Party. Even the hollow eyes of the Drac, caked in blood and old rust, it still hurt like a human.
"Check this out." Ellice pried open the thing's mouth. "Rumour, the torch."
And as the black-eyed girl shone a light across the Drac's face, as the kid pointed out the bubbles of flesh that were knitting themselves back together, how the bleeding was slowed and how the tongue would probably grow back fully in a couple hours, Ghoul couldn’t give a shit. He wasn't watching. Wasn't listening. Because the light shone past the cuts and the bruises and the blood and the dirt; it shone past the buzzed black hair and the dull grey of its eyes, past the months and the pain and the pills and that big gaping nothing BL left behind, and it sparked at just the faintest slip of what it used to be. A killjoy.
His killjoy.
He ran eyes over and over that face, tried to find something, anything wrong that he could point at and call it out as a fake, some fucked up forgery from BLind or just a trick of the light and a sleep-addled mind, but those faint frown lines across their forehead traced the ghost of a scar, the one Party insisted was from a knife fight in the city and Kobra equally from them headbutting a radiator; there was that twitch of their lip as they glared and glowered, and that self-immolating righteousness in their eyes, and how fiercely it hid the bags beneath them. And even with their skin so dulled and greyish, the faintest impression of tattoos remained, not quite bleached clean. And each detail, each imperfection, it only goaded that rattle in Ghoul’s chest, that pure overwhelming truth: he had left them.
He should have stayed with the body. Should’ve blown that place to ash, burned bright and melted with Party in gasoline and shrapnel, shouldn’t have let Jet talk him out of it. Because what good was he now? What was he doing that was so worthwhile, so fucking important it could make up for everything that Party couldn't?
And, sure, he could hide away; he could focus on detonators and explosives as if he were one of a kind, as if no one else could do the same, like it made up for the power pup wasted and air he breathed. He could act like Jet didn’t regret dragging him out, like he wouldn’t have left Fun Ghoul on the pyre if he’d known what he was bothering to save. Sure, he could pretend he had some right to keep living when he couldn’t even aim no more, like he wasn’t fucking neutered by BL and he hadn’t let it break him. But, if for all this time, during all that self-pity and all those days too wasted to stick to deadlines for Dr D, too pathetic for even Jet to put up with any longer, if he was moping about in his own filth, praying Dracs would find his hideout, give him his last chance at pure annihilation... if for all of it BL had Party, had Party and Ghoul hadn’t gone back for them, just left them to hurt and bleed and suffer, all while he wallowed in that self-indulgent misery–
Then Ghoul really was unforgiveable.
“You… did…” Ghoul cleared his throat, “did you check for trackers?”
“On a Drac?” Ellice laughed. “You think BL cares about one of these?”
They would for this one.
“How much for them?”
“It's not for sale, man, fucker killed half our crew. Course, if ya wanting to work off some steam on the pig–”
“I got grenades, mines, whatever. Can cook you up something big enough to blow through city limits.”
Ellice came up close to him then, really seemed to think being a head taller made him in any way intimidating. “Not. For. Sale. Thought you’d at least understand.”
“Fine,” Ghoul said with a whistle, “then, how much for half an hour?”
“Really?” Ellice seemed for the first time a little taken aback.
“You said it yourself, besides,” Ghoul spoke firmly; it was easier when there was a bit of truth in there, “don’t ya get sick of being on the back-foot to these bastards?”
Ellice’s hair was already smeared up and out his eyes, but he ran a hand through it again.
“Sure,” he said, grinned, “then, how’s about that gun of yours?”
Ghoul laughed. Ellice did not.
“Yeah, that ain’t gonna happen.” The words were out before Ghoul’d properly thought them through. It was just a hunk of plastic, probably meant more to these kids than it did to Ghoul. It was a relic to them, after all, and what right did he have to keep it?
Ellice smirked, “ain’t like you get much use outta it.”
That cued a nervous laugh from the rest of the kids.
Ghoul dropped his smile. "Not happening.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Rumour, Flea, show this guy out. Think we’re done here."
The two kids behind him grew a shade paler, but didn’t yet move. Even beat up as they were, Ghoul hadn’t been in an actual fight since way back when, and running off of yesterday’s half of a half-can of power pup, well, he didn’t like his chances. Still, he didn’t plan on giving them time enough to realise that. He forced out a well-practiced laugh.
“Witch, ain’t you got the fire for a good haggle?” He pulled out his pistol slow, concentrated on keeping his movements smooth. “The youth today, man.”
Ellice rolled his eyes but still reached his bloody fingers out to it. And as he grabbed hold the barrel, Ghoul couldn’t quite let go. Ghoul felt the weight of it, the warmth from it, that half melted edge from a clap far too close, the scratches from sand or concrete whenever he tried to impress Jet with an under-practiced trick, and the half-peeled sticker that always caught on his nail.
‘So we match.’ Kobra had said.
The stickers were tacky, some bubbly pink mascot they’d never figured out what for, but they found the pack with four in good enough nick. And, well, while Kobra wasn’t the most well-spoken kid, his puppy eyes were undefeated.
But with the twitch in Ellice’s smile and the clank of chains behind him, Ghoul let his gun slide from his hand.
"Done.” Ellice said with a crude handshake. “Just don't take these out."
“What?”
Ellice pulled up the Drac's shirt. It peeled slowly, dried blood keeping the polyester stuck down. The Drac winced – Party winced, and Ghoul did too. For once he was glad his jacket never fit him right, he could hide a tremor well under all that leather.
Ellice yanked them half up-right and Party was hacking up something similar to a growl. They smashed their head at Ellice and spat a thick glob of blood on Ghoul’s jeans. Even with Witch knew what BL had done to them, you couldn’t take the bitch out of Party Poison; Ghoul couldn’t help but grin. The other kids took it as some kind of malice and gave him a wide berth. Except Ellice, nah, he couldn’t be seen to be intimidated, not big tough Ellice.
Instead, he whipped Party with the back of his pistol, across the eye. With Ghoul’s pistol.
Party snarled loud enough for the both of them, but they were bleeding again, and dazed enough to let Ellice to pull up their shirt.
And there it was, that smell. Cracklin’ and burnt plastic. Scars crossing over like a mudflat post derby. Layers on layers of them, like they’d long since run out of space. Skin all taunt and twisted at odd angles and seams, like it didn’t fit right, like they hadn’t left enough to cover the bones.
But there was something new. Ghoul steadied his gaze and bit his tongue at the kids’ handiwork. Twisted nails struck through their chest. Rusted, thicker than a pinky, pressed deep enough to pucker the skin. Red, swollen and weeping with each slow breath in. Ghoul counted six as he steeled his jaw.
“Bit of an experiment. Heals real good, see, but when the stuff’s still in there.” Ellice pressed a dirty finger down on a nail head and smiled as the Drac shuddered beneath him. “Well, how long’s it been?”
"Coming up on two hours." Rumour said, quiet like.
"Ray guns don't work too great, so you gotta get creative.” Ellice said, tapping his head.
“Good to know.” Ghoul spoke slowly.
“Well," he clapped his hands, "we'll leave you two freaks to it. There’s a couple knives about if you fancy, plus whatever’s in here.” Ellice kicked at a pile of crowbars and what looked like some old golf clubs.
“You got water?” Ghoul asked, adding, “something sealed?”
“Fucking hell, this ain’t no diner.”
“You’re getting a pretty sweet deal, if you ask me.”
Ellice stared in his eyes then, made a point of looking down at him. Ghoul gave him a tangentially polite smile.
“Fine.” Ellice said with a wave of his hand. “Flea, go get prissy boy here a can.”
The kid with the messed up teeth slunk out the cell, cursing under her breath and not making much of an attempt to hide it.
Ellice came in closer then, wrapped his arm about Ghoul’s shoulder. Leaned in, close enough Ghoul could feel that thick film of saliva off his words.
“Course, you’d never think about killing it, stealing that from us, would you, Killjoy? You’re smarter than that.”
“I’m plenty smart.” Ghoul lied. “Don’t worry.”
Ellice smiled at that, backed down a little.
"Doubt you even could. Still,” he said with a sigh, “Rumour, get Flea to keep an eye with you.”
And with that Ellice let him be.
With a tepid can of MouseCat Soda in one hand and a newly gifted boxcutter in the other, Ghoul turned to the girls. He was expecting an argument, so when Rumour pulled down the door for him, he was more than a little surprised. She mumbled something over the rumble of the shutters, something about not wanting to hear that crap, that she’d knock in thirty, and then it was dark. Dark and stagnant.
It was only a small garage, barely would’ve fit more than a car, but even with the torch spluttering out as much light as it could, the gouged and crumbling concrete and rat chewed walls were all festering in shadow. And as he stared into it, waiting and waiting for his eyes to adjust and his hands to steady, it became pretty clear that this was the best he was going to get.
“So,” he said, turning to the centre, keeping his gaze near enough but never quite on Party, “been up to anything nice?”
They hissed.
“Yeah, I figured.”
He ran a hand through his hair, scraped it out his eyes and tried not to think about how it stayed slick where he left it, or back to the last time he’d bathed.
“You were dead, you know?” He said, his voice low and sharp. “I don’t know what they did or… but I swear, you really were.”
The Drac stared blankly. Party stared blankly.
“I didn’t know they could… I should’ve…”
He checked the door behind him; it rattled as securely as it could manage and, by the daylight it snuffed out, it must’ve been at least a little thick. He slumped down on the ground, kicked up dust as he sat and breathed. Took a moment. The Drac lunged at him, but Ghoul was just out of range. He couldn’t even bring himself to flinch.
“I saw how… I saw it. And we went after them, dusted squads on squads of Dracs like nothing mattered cus’ nothing fucking mattered but then he…”
Ghoul took a deep breath in and reached for a cigarette.
“Sorry,” he said, “can you even talk?”
The Drac’s eyes were alight, burning at him. This time, spit landed straight on Ghoul’s cheek.
“Great.”
Ghoul forced out something not dissimilar to a laugh and stuck a cigarette between his lips. And when he pulled out the pink lighter, he tried not to look at it, at the worn snake Party’d painted on with nail polish and a toothpick, and just flicked on the flame.
A crash.
Party’s eyes were wide, dead set on the lighter, legs kicking and wrenching their shoulders near enough to pop.
“Woah!” Ghoul stood up now, took a moment too long to make the connection and a moment longer to flick it out.
“Shit, sorry. Sorry.” He whispered, slipping the lighter back in his pocket and holding out empty hands. “It’s gone, it’s gone. No fire.”
In the darkness, Party stopped pulling quite so hard.
“Alright, it’s alright.” Ghoul said, eyes glossing over the only exit. “Uh, you thirsty?”
He held out the drink, unopened, hopefully trustworthy enough. Party didn’t move. Just stared. A half-formed growl from a blood-flooded throat.
“Come on, Party, you gotta work with me here.”
They snapped at that, shot forward and thrashed their teeth. The movement must’ve twisted their ribs since soon they were spluttering, all bloodied coughs and breathlessness.
“Look, just take it. Please?”
Ghoul rolled the can towards them. It hit their leg. Party didn’t move, didn’t break eye contact.
Maybe some space would help, so Ghoul raised his hands and stepped back a little. They seemed to relax at that and shuffled forward to pick up the can. Ghoul couldn’t hide his smile.
A flash. Something smacked at his head, just above the eye.
“Fucking hell!”
He wiped the drip of blood from his brow and picked up the now dented can.
Party hissed proudly.
They put on a good show, but no matter what fucked up shit BL had done, they were way too pale. No doubt hadn’t any food or water either, let alone whatever Ellice’d been up to. And with the stains on the floor, Ghoul wasn’t sure how much blood they’d have left in them, freaky healing or no.
“Just take the fucking drink, Party.”
A soft rasp came up their throat. Quiet, a whisper on a half formed tongue. A chant more like, steadily getting louder. And as Ghoul moved as close as he dared, he started to make some sense of it.
“You’re dead, rat. You’re all dead.”
It wasn’t dissimilar to a prayer.
“Cool, that’s great. That’s just... fucking great.”
Party didn’t seem to be listening, only breaking their threats for a gargled cough. Their eyes were alight, manic, and near to popping out their skull.
“I don’t want to hurt ya, but you got to work with me here.” Ghoul’s eyes caught on the glimmer of a golf club by the wall.
They started trembling at that. Ghoul stepped forward, hopeful, only to hear breathless laughter.
“Your words mean nothing, Killjoy.” They rasped and flashed something close to a smile. “You don’t know fear. You don’t know pain.”
Ghoul was silent. He simply stood up and turned to the wall. He could hear the chains rattle behind him. He picked up the club, one of the sturdier looking ones. Heavier than he thought it would be. Party was still now, no rattling, didn’t even flinch as Ghoul turned round, caught their eyes one more time. Nothing. Vacant and stained.
Then he swung.
Over and over. Yelling. Cursing. He cursed BLind. He cursed The Witch. He cursed Korse and demolition and love and nothing and Fun Ghoul and no one at all.
Like the wall had personally wronged him. And even as the club finally snapped against the concrete, his fists worked just fine.
Hands stained red.
Bare knuckles. Panting.
Without a sound.
He took a deep breath in, two, three, four. Tried to hear that voice in his head as anyone other than Party. Tried to pretend he made a mistake, that he’d finally lost it completely.
“That was,” the Drac shook their head, trying to find the words, “insufficient.”
A knuckle rapped on the door. “You good in there?”
“Peachy!” He yelled in the moment. Still, whichever kid it was, they settled enough on hearing a reply.
Ghoul ran a hand through his hair; blood smoothed the matts. He turned to the Drac.
“Crap,” he caught his breath, lowered his voice to a whisper, “how about we make a deal?”
Silence was better than the immediate dismissal he’d been expecting, so Ghoul kept going.
“So, you want to kill all of us? Then, scamper on back to your Draculoid buddies?”
They shifted in their chains but said nothing.
“Surely, it’d be easier if you ain’t locked up in here?”
Ghoul left his question to hang in the air. He kept an eye on that door. It didn't matter what happened; he wasn’t going to leave them here, but Ghoul doubted either of them would get out alive if he had to fight Party off too. So, he waited. Listened to the silence, not even the shifting of a chain link, and prayed to The Witch to give him just one break.
Party gave a long drawn out sigh.
Ghoul still did not turn.
“Well?” Party spat.
Ghoul split in a grin. He spun on his heels and started pacing round the yellow circle.
“Easier to have one bodyguard, right, than this whole crew?”
Party looked blank again, but they weren’t fooling anyone. They were listening. They were alive, even if only in the most basic sense, and they were actually listening to Ghoul.
“You help me get you away from here, away from these kids and I’ll even take the nails out.” He said. “Got more chance of escaping here with me than by yourself.”
The Drac was quiet again. Silent. But their eyes lowered to their chains, then back to Ghoul.
That was all Ghoul needed. He kicked through the pile of tools Ellice’d left, and pulled out the world’s bluntest handsaw. Party scoffed at him, and when he looked down to the thick rivet they were chained to Ghoul couldn’t entirely blame them. But what were they expecting? It’s not like he brought a lock pick wherever he went-
Ghoul slipped a hand in his pocket. A pair of tweezers, wire cutters and a few spare pieces of copper coil. That would work. He could make this work.
And without thinking too hard, he pulled up the garage door an inch or two and swung his head down to the gap. Two pairs of beat up trainers turned to face him.
“Ain’t got a power pup on ya or somethin’?” Ghoul asked up through the gap. “Really working up a sweat here.”
After some whispers, shuffling and the fastest resolution to an argument Ghoul’d ever witness, a crumpled Nutribar poked out from underneath.
“Ah, got anything else? Blue raspberry makes me hurl.”
Cue cursing, no longer hidden.
“…Ellice said…”
“Fine, you go get it. I’m staying.” A louder voice, sharper. Probably Rumour. Her voice was a little rougher, but not forcibly so.
Not ideal but certainly better than the both of them. He pulled down the door with a whistle and a thanks.
Most the rats were staying nearby, in vans or under crude tents of motorbike tarps, ready to run at moment’s notice; a close call would make anyone jumpy. But they were all close enough that Ghoul only had a few minutes if he was lucky. Witch, give him two.
The cuffs were fairly simple. Some stolen BLI thing, something Kobra’d mess around with whenever Poison went into speech mode. The kid didn’t even need to look down to pop something like that open, could maintain that unwavering eye contact to convince his sibling he really was paying attention, that he was just as inspired as the ex-city kids that came to listen, or just as in awe as Ghoul whenever their eyes lit up with love and demolition. But Ghoul was no Kobra, even without his newly skinned knuckles, and beside that he was rusty. Usually his hands were stock still, one of the few things he could focus on was the click of metal and sliding pieces into place, but that was in his warehouse with no time limits or audience to make his fingers tremble. That was without the half-life of Poison hanging in the balance.
Still, Party was calm and eerily quiet, and didn’t immediately bite Ghoul’s fingers off when he came close. In fact, Party didn’t once move. Like some sort of statue, Ghoul hadn’t ever seen them like it; they’d always be playing with their pistol or their hair or some stray thread, but now they acted as if Ghoul was the one to be wary of, as if Party had just as much to lose. Still, it let him focus enough on mechanics, or at least that was the idea.
But the wire was jammed. Stuck on in. He tried to twist it and click.
For a second he’d thought he’d snapped it, thought he fucked it completely. And then the first cuff fell away.
It hit the concrete. Loud.
Ghoul had grabbed it too late. He stayed still, kept his eyes on the door, breathing heavy, and could only hope it sounded more like a breach of the Geneva convention than of confinement. But at first, nothing happened. And then nothing continued to happen. He sighed and turned to the other cuff, squinting in the dark.
The chains rattled. Fast.
Concrete smacked Ghoul’s head. Split his lip and messed with gravity a little. Something around his neck. Hot metal. Sharp. Crushing. A hand.
He tried to roll on his back. Neck choking, crushing, body screaming out for air, fingers fumbling for his pocket. Tried to breathe, to plead, to stop the blood pounding in his head, his eyes, his chest and, tried at least to meet the eyes of the Drac, to meet Party before everything.
Something in his pocket. It grazed the tip of his fingers. The lighter.
He reached it out blind, flicked it and swayed it wherever he hoped the Drac would see.
Then the scream. Ghoul barely heard it.
It was far off. Distant. The ringing was louder. Buzzing about and only then there was air. He drank it down. It felt thick, loud. Didn’t go down right. He coughed, it seemed, and might have coughed some more. And with enough wheezing, the cloud across his eyes cleared enough to see something trembling.
A beast in the corner. Glint of metal and black and red and it reeled against a chain. Spat and hissed and Ghoul started to get off the floor. One hand on the lighter, thumb squeezed down and white to the knuckle. Ghoul’s other arm wasn’t working quite so good, nor his legs but he was getting to his knees.
Something poked against his head.
“Drop it.”
It was bright now, inside. Sunlight made it harder to see.
The barrel pressed firmer.
“Drop it.”
A blaster. He didn’t dare turn his head, knew he’d only end up with bile down himself with the way the floor and ceiling were looking.
“You couldn’t wait for the other cuff, bastard?”
That was, at least, what Ghoul intended to say. What actually came out was likely mostly vowels, since neither the zone runner behind him nor the Drac seemed to make much sense of it.
Still he let the lighter drop. No good in the both of them dying.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” She asked, moving past Ghoul. “Easier ways to kill yourself. Why’d you need to fuck with our shit too?”
Rumour stepped closer, made sure to stay out the circle. She fired a blast at what definitely sounded like Party. It hissed in pain, alive for now, but she kept trained on her target.
“It bit my partner’s throat out. It jammed its thumbs in Sylvia’s eyes and I fucking heard it when she... And it was singing. It was fucking singing and laughing and it was eating and when it’d got me, it didn’t even use its gun. It never even touched that thing!
“And it would of, it would of… I knew we should’ve killed it but it after everything it did, what I saw, we wanted…”
She aimed her ray gun at their head. “It doesn’t matter.”
Ghoul tried to speak. He screamed wait in his skull; he begged and pleaded but nothing came out his throat. He semi-leapt, mostly-fell forward. He just needed a nudge, the slightest push to get her to miss, but Ghoul lost balance and she fell easier than he thought.
And the Drac was fast.
The chain was wrapped about her neck before Ghoul was on his feet. And the teeth that sunk in her shoulder clamped with a breathless scream. And the Drac – Party – wrenched back their jaw and there was so much fucking red. And her nails peeled and snapped against concrete and she was choking and her eyes were streaming and there was a half-formed hum on the Drac’s lips, and a smile so wide the skin thinned, ready to split and tear and it flashed pointed teeth before they buried again in her shoulder.
And she screamed. Like the kid she tried so hard to hide. A fucking kid.
Ghoul flicked the lighter. It didn’t catch. He struck it again.
Nothing.
Just the wet sound of chewing. Like coyotes after a firefight.
Her eyes weren’t moving fast no more. They’d settled somewhere behind the Drac and behind Ghoul. They were dark like Kobra’s, and bloodshot and far too tired.
Ghoul didn’t think. He just picked a golf club and swung.
Something definitely cracked.
And the Drac slunk to the floor.
When Ghoul could make sense of the world again, blood was welling around his fingers. He was pushing down on something soft. His eyes were closed but the pump of an artery and the heat was obvious. There was still a pump though, faint but still a pump. So Ghoul didn’t dare move. He pressed down hard, shifted as much body weight and waning strength as he could manage.
He could do this. It wasn’t red. It didn’t stain like the sands by Route Guano; it didn’t spill across white tiles far too fast; it didn’t thump to the boom of exterminators and the squealing of tyres and burnt rubber, and there definitely wasn’t anyone screaming his name or Ghoul screaming anyone else’s.
And with that familiar feeling of a barrel against his head, just something more than his blood soaked hands, he started to smile.
“It’s slowing,” he rasped, air stinging his throat, “not dead yet.”
“What happened?” It was a softer voice.
A girl. Not a Killjoy. Not Korse. But a girl.
Ghoul took a breath, kept his eyes closed.
“Flea, right?” He asked.
His voice wasn’t his own; it creaked like plywood. His hands weren’t his own either – heavy, numb, and pressed so desperately against the kid’s wound.
“Yeah…” The gun jabbed less harshly.
“You got to press here. Hard.”
“But she’s–”
“Gonna be shiny.” He lied. “Just push here, I’m… needs more pressure. I’m no good.”
He keeled on his side at that. Took a few deep breaths in. It took a moment to realise he wasn’t at gunpoint anymore, and a moment longer to open his eyes. Party was crumpled by the wall. He didn’t bring himself to check a pulse, didn’t bring himself to look down at his hands. They’d only be shaking, and then they’d only start shaking more.
Ghoul felt his way to the cuffs, hands working faster than his thoughts, and the second cuff unlocked itself. He swung Party across his shoulders, and hauled them towards the door.
“Sorry, it’s… I know them.” He told Flea. “They’re… important.”
“Yeah.” She said, kneeling, her hands pressed on that girl’s shoulder and not once turning back.
“I, uh, good luck.”
“Yeah.” She said, softly.
And with that, Ghoul dragged himself and Party round the back to the Trans Am, and tried to convince himself the weak rise and fall of their chest was solely a good thing.