golden wings melt like blue slushies // JJ Maybank

-They get so offended when I say dead men don't rape-

No one said anything for a long time. More police cars with loud sirens and flashing lights drove past. No one said anything, but JJ's arms grew tighter around Icarus until he was hugging her.

"Iggy," Kiara croaked. She was crying, her hand stiff on the radio button.

Cold prickles swept over Icarus's skin. Her gut heaved. They knew. Okay. This was fine. It was bound to happen, inevitable really, of course someone would make the connection. At least it wasn't a nosy teen from school, she told herself. She pushed her hair back out of her face, but it was heavy and stuck together with blood.

There was still blood on her hands.

"Door," she blurted, and then scrambled up and to the door JJ opened in a robot-like fashion, his eyes wide. 

She leant out and vomited onto the patio of the abandoned house they were hiding beside. It was hidden by the dying scrub, slightly, but it couldn't hide the fact that everyone knew.

Her hair was pulled away from her face. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks and she tried not to sob out loud. Icarus wiped her mouth. They were going to see her. They weren't going to see the Iggy with her shitty mum that managed to get a job doing henna and came over to sit around while they fished off boats she could jump out of into the cool water because she had a prosthetic leg she never spoke about.

They weren't going to see her green clothes and headphones and messy hair and blue slushies and new life.

Everyone could see her now.

"You didn't say anything about..." Pope trailed off, the black metallic stick he'd been holding somewhere by his feet. He blinked, and then his eyes were tearing up too.

"Iggy," Kiara repeated.

They were both broken records, except Kiara's was with words and Icarus's was with police and dead bodies and blood and bloody hands and screams and ambulances and secrets.

Icarus wiped at her mouth again, but there was no point. She could taste vomit and smell blood and she knew, just like everyone else knew about her, that it would stay for a long time. She slumped against the back of Kiara's seat.

When she blinked away the prickling behind her eyes, she could see JJ sitting opposite her, his red cap on backwards. 

He really liked that red cap.

"Well," she whispered. "Peterkin's alive. That's good."

What was she supposed to do now? Everyone knew, there was nothing she could say now to make it better. She couldn't leave the country with her mother because a kind Sherriff said she'd do the paperwork and run the checks and give her a fresh start. She couldn't do that again.

It was a bit of a relief, in a twisted awful way. There was nothing to hide now, no questions or conversations to avoid. Her friends knew, now. JJ knew.

She glanced up at him, and then down at his shaky hand when it reached out and held hers. Too tight. She just squeezed his hand back. The pressure was nice. She watched his muscles spasm, like he was restraining himself from hugging her or punching something. Or both.

She wiped away more tears with one hand, "as I was saying, we should probably get to the ferry... Before the islands on lockdown."

Kiara turned in her seat. Her eyes were red and puffy and she'd yanked on her hair too much and made it frizzy and what right did she have to be upset and how awful was it of Icarus to think that? She gulped. "Iggy, you..."

"If it helps," Icarus said tiredly. "...He deserved it."

Kiara snorted.

"Oh my god," she said, shaking her head. A smile crept across her face and Icarus couldn't hide her own as she looked up at her friend, who's shoulders were starting to shake. "Oh my god."

Icarus couldn't conceal her own laugh, and she ran a hand through her hair. It wasn't funny. It wasn't funny in any fucking way, but that was why the two girls were laughing in the first place.

"What the fuck?" Pope shrieked at them. His eyes were blown out a little. He'd had too much of whatever it was JJ had given him, but that wasn't his biggest problem right now. "Why are you guys laughing?"

Kiara shut up. She made eye contact with Icarus, and then the two bursts into peals of laughter once again, hot tears on their faces.

"I don't get it," John B muttered, looking between them. His lips moved into a small smile at their laughs, but he had worry lines on his forehead. "Is it... is it a prank?"

Icarus shook her head, rolling her lips in. JJ hadn't let go of her hand, and he stared at her with pinched eyebrows. His jaw twitched and he was crying a bit too. "Three years ago... Iggy you were thirteen."

"I'm seventeen, dude." She narrowed her eyes at him. "I feel like you should know that by now-"

Kiara blinked. "Are you on-"

"Yup, I'm on about... all of them." Icarus said. Her smile was a little more real this time, only by a fraction. She nodded at Pope with raised eyebrows. "I dunno how you didn't hear about me sooner, to be honest."

"What?"

"True crime podcasts," Icarus explained with a shrug. "I'm sorta famous. You guys are lucky I even hang out with-"

"Okay what the fuck?" John B yelped. "What the fuck? Is that why cops always came to check the boat? What the fuck? Iggy are you okay? Your leg? Is that what? What the fuck?"

Icarus stared at her brother. "...Should we get him a paper bag?"

"What the fu-"

She dragged him by his red hoodie still stained with blood into the bottom of the car where she and JJ were, squashed between the front seats and the back seats. "Okay, we need to go to the ferry now, John B won't last a second in jail."

"How do you..."

"Jeez, you guys ask a lot of questions," Icarus muttered as Kiara slid the keys into whatever the part you slide the keys into is called. She passed John B the paper bag their chips came in and picked off some of the dried blood on her palms. "Are there still baby wipes in the compartment?"

After a minute of shuffling around, Pope through back the packet.

"So... uh... the ferry, right."