Adrenaline Sisters: Raise the White Flag

Chapter 1: I Never Meant To Make You Bleed

||First Person||Revolution||

A fit of giggles erupts from the other side of the house, the joyous laughter filling the open space and reverberating off of the walls to reach my ears. I know immediately who it is— it's Joan, my niece and the daughter of my older sister. She's in the kitchen with Bomb, laughing her little head off at something once again. The sound is something so beautiful and delicate that I can't help the small smile that tugs the corners of my lips up, my ears perking up as well at the sound. I almost don't recognize the joy bubbling within in me. It's an unfamiliar feeling.

I don't smile much anymore— I haven't for the last two years, really, but Joan always manages to pull that sort of reaction out of me if anything. It's strange to think that I ever detested her existence, but then again, I was an angsty sixteen-year-old struggling to grasp the concept of relationships. Even now though, as an eighteen-year-old girl, I still have a weak comprehension of relationships considering the only person I'd ever been romantically involved with was Mikey Way, and we all know how terribly that ended. Or at least everyone else could only guess. Mikey was adamant on never uttering another word about what happened between us that day when I went into his room, and I was too heartbroken to even consider speaking about it again past what I told Bomb. Needless to say, it's been two years of tiptoeing around the subject and walking on broken egg shells whenever I had to be in the same room as Mikey.

It's sadly ironic that the same day my sister lost the father of her child, Patrick Stump, I unknowingly lost the boy that kept the demons out of my head. I haven't hallucinated since the day I nearly shot him, but the nightmares are still there, present as they always were whenever he isn't there to calm me down. I manage to take care of myself though— I haven't relied on anyone but my sister and myself to keep me going. I had to learn how to calm my own heart rate after another nightmare—another terrible memory— because nobody else was going to do it for me. Nobody else was going to hold me tightly in their arms and tell me that the world is okay because I don't have nor need those lies to keep me afloat any longer. I just need myself— I just need to keep my sanity in check so I can carry on like I always did before Mikey and I decided to become more than just friends. It's been two years, and though I've made good work of mostly burying all of the feelings that I harbour for him in the deepest parts of my subconscious, I can't help but miss the beautiful feeling of falling asleep to the steady beat of his heart and the soft breaths that would tickle the side of my head. Like I said, the bad dreams plague me more than ever now without the security that Mikey Way provided, but it's been two years since we broke up, so I'd like to think that I've grown accustomed to the endless dread that fills me. I had to relearn how to be independent, how to survive without the need for affection, but I managed to do it. I'm free in a sense, if I want to think about it that way. I don't have any attachments to him anymore, and he has none with me. It still makes me feel sick though when I remember that he isn't mine anymore and the chances of him ever being mine again are slimmer than us ever actually finding Grace Revolver, the key to stopping Better Living Industries and the Silence, but I manage. I always do.

"Get back here, Jo!" I hear my sister shout as the back door of the kitchen slams shut and an engine from outside shuts off. Bomb's voice sounds the slightest bit panicked, so I quickly push myself off of the couch in the living room and head for the now empty kitchen, finding Joan's bottle discarded on the table next to my sister's backpack. The back door is unlocked, the hinges creaking with the wind, signalling that it is not closed properly. I rush over to it, body checking the back door that leads to the side of the house in an attempt to chase after my niece and her mother. I skid out to a stop, my gaze locking on the devil I thought of getting off of his motorcycle with his Good Luck helmet held loosely in his hand. His hair, the blonde mostly gone at this point, is overgrowing. I can tell because when the wind blows his hair forward, the strands reach around his chin area. He lets out a breath of air and runs a gloved hand through his hair, pushing it back and out of his field of view. How he manages to look so effortlessly beautiful is beyond me, but I don't let myself stare for too long. My gaze shifts to the little girl running at him.