Bulletproof Heart

Chapter 7

Fun takes me upstairs after that, showing me around. The landing of the stairs creeks underneath my feet when we reach the top, and the light up here in the hallway is spare and flickering. Fun points down to the left of the hall, where there are two closed doors.

"Those are the bedrooms," he explains. "I'd show you to them now, but it looks like Jet and Party have already turned in. They're nice, though. Big four-poster beds with sheets and a mattress." He sighs. "Heaven."

"Anyway," he continues, pointing to an open door directly in front of us. "This is the bathroom."

My mouth practically salivates. "What day is it today?"

"Thursday," Fun says. When he sees my dejected expression, he laughs. "It's alright! Tomorrow's Friday; you can take your shower then. At the end of the day on Tuesdays and Fridays we fill up the sink and the bathtub to use for the rest of the week. Bathtub's for drinking; sink's for washing."

I'm already halfway through the door. "Can I...?"

He laughs again, a weird giggle that makes the corners of my mouth turn up. "Yeah, yeah. I'll be in the next room when you're done."

I wave my hand at him, a vague acknowledgement, as he walks away. Once in the bathroom, I pat around on the walls for light switch. When I find it and flip in on, I see that I'm standing in a room about the size of a broom closet. The single light above is dim with the amount of bugs that have crawled in it and died, and the floral wallpaper is yellowed with age and what looks like smoke. But the tiled floor, porcelain bathtub and matching sink seem clean.

Peering into it, I can see that the bathtub is have filled with clear water. I'm about to cup my hands to take a drink, and then I realize how gross my hands are. Caked in sand, dirt, and what's probably dried blood, my hands don't look like something the guys would appreciate being dipped into their drinking water.

Turning to the sink, I look into the basin. The water in here is slightly browned and silty, but still passably clean. I dunk my hands in, watching the filth float off. When my hands are clean, I turn to scrubbing at my face, careful to mind my perpetual sunburn as I remove the dirt and dried sweat. When my face is clean, I root around in my duffel bag until I turn up my toothbrush and single, flattened BL/IND issue tube of toothpaste. Next to the other four toothbrushes on the rim of the sink, there's an almost full tube, but I feel weird about using the guys' toothpaste. I feel like we'll have to work up to that, maybe starting with sharing a water bottle.

Pushing toothpaste-sharing etiquette aside, I decide to just dry-brush my teeth for now.

Next, I tackle my hair. I can't do much about the grease for now, but I can attempt to detangle it. I work steadily for about ten minutes with wet fingers, painstakingly working through the knots until I feel like it's somewhat passable.

I avoid the mirror the whole time.

When I'm as clean as I'm gonna get in a sink, I turn back the bathtub and kneel down. Using my hands as a scoop, I drink cupful after cupful of water. It's room-temperature and kind of metallic tasting from sitting in a tub for a couple days, but it's soothing to my throat.

Once I've drunk my fill, I stand back up and start to leave, flicking the light off behind me. Electricity, I think giddily to myself. Actual electricity.

There's company for me in the hallway.

"Here," Kobra says, holding a black t-shirt out to me as I emerge from the bathroom, clean-faced and hair combed. "You can sleep in this."

"I already have clothes," I say, looking at the shirt in his hand.

"No, you need to give them to me so I can wash them in the morning."

I blink. "Um, okay." I take the shirt.

Kobra still looks at me, expecting.

"I guess I'll go change right now," I say, ducking back into the bathroom to slip out of my dirty clothes. I tug on the shirt he gave me. Looking in the mirror, I can see why he left out shorts or pants: the hem of the t-shirt almost reaches my knees, making it into more of a shapeless nightgown than anything.

I step back out into the hall, where Kobra is waiting with arms crossed. I hand him the bundle of my dirty clothes, mumbling a thanks.

As I go to draw my arm back from the exchange, his other hand darts out and grabs my wrist.

"What--?" I begin, trying to yank my arm free as a reflex, but his grip tightens, making the bones in my wrist grind together.

"Listen here, Whitenoise," he says, his voice painfully even. "I don't know you, so I don't care about you, but I swear to god if you try to hurt my brother again, I'll kill you."

I look into his eyes, and I know he's telling the truth.

"Messaged fucking received," I say through gritted teeth. He let's go, and I take my arm back.

As he disappears down the stairs, my dirty laundry in hand, he calls out, "You get the floor tonight, Rookie."

When he's gone, I peer down the right wing of the hallway. The single door at the end of hallway is open, revealing a spare room. Stepping into it, I see that the room is small, but friendly: a well-worn, maroon couch slumps under a large window that opens up into the cool desert night, where full moon hangs picturesquely in the ink black sky, letting just enough silver light stream in to see by. Fun is sitting on the floor in a nest of blankets, trying in vain to fluff a flat pillow.

He looks up when he hears me. "Hey," he smiles.

"Um, where exactly am I supposed to sleep?" I ask, shifting my feet, making the warped floorboards creak.

He laughs. "I guess we should have clarified that a little more." He pats the floor next to his nest. "You can sleep here."

"Thanks." I plop down on the floor beside him.

"Here," he says, handing me a wad of his blankets. "Unfortunately, this floor is not made of feather pillows."

"That's fine." I say, arranging the blankets the best I can. "I've slept on worse."

Fun furrows his eyebrows. "I've slept with  worse."

I laugh, curling into a ball on the thin blankets. The rough fabric smells like the sun. Fun rolls onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. He's wearing a sleeveless t-shirt, letting the tattoos on his arms that I hadn't noticed before show. For a moment, I consider asking him what each of them mean, but then I remember that he probably doesn't know. It's likely he just woke up with them there, not able to recall any of his past. Designs inked permanently into is skin and he doesn't even remember why he got them.

I don't have any tattoos, but Static did. "Juliet" was tattooed on his wrist in a swirly, romantic font. He said it didn't bother him, but sometimes I would catch him staring intently at it, like he was trying to force a memory of its namesake from the depths of his mind.

Maybe they are finally reunited.

I don't realize Fun's asleep until he starts to snore quietly. I turn onto my side, facing the window. My eyelids are heavy, but I can't seem to close them. The floor is hard and uncomfortable, no matter how I arrange the blankets underneath me.

A few minutes later, somebody else comes into the room, almost stepping on me, and collapses on the couch. I can tell by the lanky frame that it's Kobra Kid. He drifts off quickly, his snores mingling with Fun's to create an obnoxious melody that makes me want to stuff my fingers in my ears. But it's nice to know I'm not alone.

The diner has cooled off since the sun set, becoming almost chilly. I burrow into the blankets, ignoring the smell, and soon slip off into a sleep filled with dreams of Dracs, desert roads, and dying friends.